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Integrating Branding Fundamentals With Technology.

In my last published blog entry, I pondered that in today’s marketing environment, do we brand digitally or digitally brand.  Starbucks provides a great example of when fundamental branding – when coupled with state-of-the-art digital brand message delivery –  solidified the brand’s leadership in its category.   But first, it had to revisit the fundamentals. At Starbucks, necessity became the mother of disruptive reinvention. 

Putting the Horse Before The Cart.   When a marque like Starbucks starts to stray from its core values and promise, even a most beloved brand can lose its patina.  In most cases, this can be attributed to one thing – strategic complacency.  A brand sitting on top of its category can start taking success for granted.  It stops innovating, fails to leverage the opportunities that technology affords.  It loses its soul by not focusing on cultural strengths, core values, and a vision for delivery of the expected ‘ultimate consumer experience.’  The results are predictable; earnings and share value start to plummet.

As Starbucks started losing its leadership position, former CEO Howard Schultz returned to the company to put Starbucks on a trajectory to regain category leadership. Putting the Horse Before The Cart, he essentially re-set the clock and got back to basics.  Schultz lamented that Starbucks had become a fat-and-happy company that lost sight of its core values and brand promise, and forgot how to innovate –  as he put it "… playing defense instead of trying to score.”  His main goal was to return the company to one that not only sold fresh brewed coffee, but also served as a ‘third point’ in the customer’s journey between home and work that was not simply transactional – rather The Ultimate Customer Experience.  What guided Starbucks back to leadership?  Schultz laid out a three-pronged approach.

Invest in the brand.  Starbucks listened to customers and employees for critically important feedback to identify and fix the problems, leverage strengths, and orchestrate renewed success.  Starbucks realized it had lost its way and needed to revisit its brand values, reinvigorate its employee assets, and regain the loyalty of lost customers by refocusing efforts on elevating the customer experience and making it better over time.

Invest in employees and community.  Starbucks provided renewed training – it actually closed all its stores for one afternoon to accomplish this.  It worked to re-motivate employees and to boost morale so that store managers and baristas – alike – provided a unique, consistent customer experience.  And, it continued to focus upon, and use the brand’s large scale to maintain its socio-corporate conscience for doing community good. Research has proven that visible, publicly-spirited efforts add value to a company's brand valuation and bottom line.

Invest in technology – ‘Brand Digitally’.   Starbucks expanded and introduced new product lines into both new markets and delivery systems.  And, in setting the the bar for utilization of digital technologies and social media, Starbucks leveraged emerging technology to reinforce the connection between the brand and the customer experience to generate more demand, deepen loyalty ties, and regain its leadership position. 

Starbucks Cards, which are part of the My Starbucks Rewards loyalty program, have become a marketing colossus with millions U.S. participants; globally, the cards are available in dozens of countries.  The clout of this technology feeds powerful CRM programs that further demand-gen objectives and brand loyalty, and elevate the CX.

The integration of mobile platforms, which includes a highly successful payment program gives Starbucks a direct, real-time, personalized, two-way digital relationship with its customers.  Its iPhone app allows customers to order before going to a store, to ‘shake to pay’ and to tip digitally, as well as earn free drinks and other perks.

Starbucks has returned to its position of supremacy.  By employing disruptive reinvention it is now running a shrewder operation.  Returning to its fundamental core values and brand promise to guide it – Starbucks has been able reinvigorate staff, regain the loyalty of lost customers, and leverage digital technology to create more demand as well as loyal, enduring one-on-one customer relationships. And in doing all this, this category leader has rightfully reclaimed the #1 position in its global market.

‘Digital Branding’ – Putting the Cart Before The Horse?

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of references to ‘Digital Branding’.  As a marketing fundamentalist who has remained relevant during the shifting of trends in communications, I ponder whether the juxtapositioning of those words would be more appropriately ‘Branding Digitally’.   The marketing world in which now we live is made up of multiple digital messaging platforms – web, mobile, search engine, CX, e-Commerce, SEO, PPC, social media, and each appeals to a particular side and lobe of our brain.  And all lead to one end game – to simultaneously create brand awareness, and to generate demand plus loyalty for products or services while maximizing the customer experience (CX).

Putting the Cart Before The Horse?  

I often question how we can communicate effectively in digital channels to maximize the impact of technology without having an overarching brand strategy that weaves all content and platforms together.  A strategy that tells a story of brand relevance and purpose and is driven by core values.  One that provides a clear articulation of how employees as brand ambassadors should live and deliver a brand promise every day – at every level in the organization from the front line to the C-Suite.  Where the consumer journey has been anticipated and mapped, and the brand experience consistent at every touch- and decision-point.   What technology affords us – and demands of us – is to leverage this huge opportunity to achieve consistency of underlying message in so many places at the same time.  And that opportunity can only be maximized by employing a well thought, overarching brand strategy that blankets the entire corporate marketing continuum – in particular digital communications.

Some fundamentals just don’t change, although we like to think they do.  They morph.  Twenty years ago, marketers had the tools to deliver the brand message on perhaps a dozen platforms or so.  Advertising, direct, public relations, sales, trade shows come to mind.  The majority of impressions were made mostly with public/passive forms of communication.  While these platforms are still important tools for demand-gen, we now have the ability to create brand awareness and create demand through hundreds of digital platforms – almost simultaneously – in a targeted and individualized way no one could have imagined.

Technology provides marketers with a VERY IMPORTANT new toolbox in their quest to swiftly create brand awareness and demand-gen at every turn in the customer journey.   And this is my point – digital technology is a TOOLBOX.   It cannot supplant a well-informed brand strategy.  Rather, it supports it by offering a broad array of highly personalized tactics that generate demand and deep loyalty while simultaneously creating better consumer journeys and experiences.

So what’s the bottom line here?  If digital demand-gen tactics are not driven by a solid brand strategy and the promise of an astonishing brand experience, that’s money down the drain.   If employees are not informed and motivated by clearly articulated values that help guide them in charting  great consumer journeys and resultant loyalty, that’s money down the drain.   

In my next blog entry, I’ll write about a famous brand that lost its way.  Before it could maximize its use of technology and reaffirm its commitment to the ultimate customer experience, this category leader had to return to its branding basics.  Stay tuned for – Starbucks – Where Necessity Became The Mother Of Disruptive Reinvention.