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01.11.2006

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more Hartman Group articles on BRANDING, click here...

04.07.2005 "Trader Joe's: Cracking the Code of Lifestyle Brands"

03.17.2005 "Grow Your Business Like a Weed: Branding By Example"

02.17.2005 "Telling Stories: The Brand Connection"

12.17.2004 "Soul Logic & the Art of Keeping It Real"

11.23.2004 "The New Brand Mindset: Organizing for Cultural Legitimacy"

07.09.2004 "5 Steps to Building a Cultural Brand"

07.25.2003 "The Magic of a Cultural Brand: An Interview with Harvey Hartman"

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Branding Work: Bottoms Up!

Our years incorporating innovative research from anthropologists, ethnographers and social scientiststied to our traditional methods has given us a robust perspective on today's consumer. The process ofdeveloping that perspective and the exercise of writing about it has proven to us that our "brandingwork" is a work in progress...as should be yours. A cultural brand is a powerful thing, but the powerlies with the consumer.

Brands built from the bottom up - beginning with the consumer - and remain focused on the bottom, have proven to be far more effective in the marketplace than brands with a top-down managerial direction.

Here are 3 key "bottoms up" tenets to remember to help keep your branding efforts aligned with the consumer:

Refocus Attention
There has simply been far, far too much emphasis on the study of - and attempts to modify ormanipulate - consumer relationships. To be certain, relationships are important and they domatter, but the vast majority of work to "understand, build and manipulate" such relationshipsis sorely misguided. Most specifically, many make the common mistake of assuming consumersdesire meaningful relationships structured around largely utilitarian goods and services.How many of us have experienced the frustration of dealing with customer servicerepresentatives over the phone wherein the bulk of the conversation is devoted not to ourspecific inquiries, problems or needs but, instead, to discussions of the customer service wewere - or were not - provided and whether it "exceeded my customer service expectations"?
Alas all is not lost, for relationships do matter, especially with regard to products, services orexperiences that are consumed in a more specific social setting. That is, as we move fromgoods consumed for basic, utilitarian purposes to consumption in a social context, it is worthtrying to get a better handle on the consumer, the good or service, and the assorted relationshipsgoverning all. The important point, then, is moderation - to be able to recognize theperhaps important, but also at times limited, role relationships play in successful marketstrategizing.
Reexamine Analysis
If we wish to take seriously these larger issues central to branding activities - lifestyle elements,relationships to social communities, symbols, iconography, etc. - we must frame ourinvestigations so as to include proper levels of analysis. Despite what the best scientists, MBAsor PhDs may believe, instructing consumers to answer questions on a survey will never allowus to properly understand the meaning of a given product or service in a social setting. If onedesires to really get a handle on where one's product or service fits in to a larger marketplace,one should be prepared to consider all manner of relevant factors (e.g., norms, values, communities,organizations, culture, etc.) each of which may operate at an altogether distinct level(individual, group, community, society) and may require unique tools for proper study.
Resist the Urge to Control
Regrettably, much of branding is implicitly concerned with how to modify, manipulate orotherwise control the consumer relationship. Such concern might be warranted, or even useful,if not for one very important caveat - the consumer is inherently irrational. Prone to fits ofunpredictable, spontaneous behavior (especially in the marketplace), the consumer makes apoor target for such energies.

The consumer/customer is your biggest asset and thedefinition of your brand - they use the brand, own the brand, live the brand. Because brands can besuch an integral part of a person's lifestyle and because we know lifestyles are ever evolving, we needto be agile and ready to move with the consumer.

Consumer-Centric Principles of Design
Successful design frequently has less to do with official designers per se and much more to do with ordinary consumers seeking to satisfy their desires. In fact, it is our belief that often the best design achievements occur among consumers or other non-interested parties striving for something better.

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Organizational Design: The Future of Effective Brand Strategies
The successful brand managers (and brands) of the next era will be those who are as skilled at crafting and aligning organizations with culture as they are the products and experiences that reside within; those who are able to pilot their organization thru a most tricky course bound by the collective conscience, cultural change, the brand experience and, most importantly, the creative capacity of the consumer.

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Retail Experience on the Front Lines
The leader's job is still to maintain the big picture, to understand how all the parts work together. It's to learn as much as he can about his customers from his front line workers, and then develop effective strategies that will empower those employees in their interactions with the customers in the stores. It means letting go of some of the control, but it also means having workers who themselves feel more engagement and ownership over what they do. The challenge is to be the kind of store who will attract these employees to want to work for you.

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Harnessing the Power of Organization
One frustration with commonplace attempts at staging experiences and fostering of community also continues. Branders and marketers often take much of the important work of community and experience building out of the hands of those to whom it matters most - the consumers - placing it instead under the auspices of architects and designers.

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