Notes

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So in this last segment, we're really
defining what a brand is.
we, we've talked about what marketing is,
we've
talked about marketing strategies,
competitive analysis, customers values.
We talked about the idea of Segmentation
targeting and positioning, and the
core, core concept of a good strong brand,
which is brand positioning.
And brand positioning that's so sharp that
you
can define it in just three words, in 30
seconds as a brand mantra.
That's kind of where we've gone.
Right down to a sliver of a sharp
definition of what a brand is.
And in this last piece of this, I
want to talk about the notion of
experiential brand.
When we talked about what is marketing.
And we talked about things changing from
the sellers
market to a buyers market to the connected
community.
In the connected community, that's when
this notion of customer experience comes
in.
And brands like.
just general markets and customers
experiences also have become very
experiential.
So its not enough to just define a brand
in terms of a crisp,
clear brand mantra and a crisp, clear
brand positioning, but you also
have to define all of the experience that
exists around the brand.
What's the smell of the brand?
What's the feel of the brand?
All sorts of other things now
become part of what the brand is in this
new experiential world that we live in.
So, what's an experience?
an experience is a process that occurs as
a result of living through a situation.
Undergoing that situation.
So it's not just a moment in time, it's
a dynamic notion where you sense or feel
this experience.
as I'm
going to define it later, you'll see that
it involves all
the senses, it's social, it's behavioral,
it's cognitive, it's emotional.
It's stimulations that are triggered to
the
sense that you think about, that you feel.
they connect the company and the brand to
the customer, and they
place the the customer action and the, the
individual's actions and purchase
occasions in a broader social context.
So the experience includes all of these
kinds of things.
It's What I've been talking about, up to
this point really, is pretty cognitive,
pretty rational.
And here's where we bring in the emotions
and
all these other things, and I know those
of you
who know and love brands really understand
that brands are
emotional, they're experiential, they're
not just this hard and fast
cognitive point of view.
And so that's what I, I'm emphasizing here
on the point I want to end with in this
section, that a brand is an experience.
And so, the things on the left are
important.
I'm going to talk about those but they all
have to be augmented to be bigger than
that.
And to embody this experience or emotional
piece.
So we talked about differentiation.
That's a principle of marketing, to be
differentiated, the point of difference.
But now, and today's brand, these rich
brands, are not just differentiated,
they're experientially differentiated.
So the different, the differentiation is
also in the brand experience.
It's not just a single promise.
It's a relationship.
You, you feel towards your brand, the
brands that you just love.
If you're an Apple lover, or you're an
Abercrombie lover, or something,
you have a relationship with that brand;
it's over time, and it defines you.
It's not just brand attributes, these
cognitive at-,
or these performance attributes, or these
product attributes.
It's a personality, you think the brand
almost as a friend.
It's not static, it's dynamic.
It's not a mass brand, because you're
co-creating with the brand.
The brand becomes very individualized.
Becomes,
very relevant to you.
You're not just aware of this brand,
you're
aware of how this brand fits into your
life.
So you can see by the types of words I'm
saying
that Really, really strong brands embody
all of this emotional experience.
and so when you define these terms, these
things that
I've mentioned earlier, than you're not
just thinking about brand positioning.
You think about experiential brand
positioning.
So what does the brand
stand for?
And it should be a multi-sensory strategy.
When you think about brand positioning,
experiential brand
positioning, you not only want to think
about.
you know, what the DNA is.
What the brand mantra is.
You want to think what's the smell of the
brand.
What's the color of the brand.
What's the emotion you feel when you think
about the brand.
That's a brand positioning and
experiential brand positioning.
And, it, it, it needs
to be as any kind of differentiation is,
it needs to be distinct from everybody
elses.
So you don't want all hotels don't smell
the same.
All soaps don't smell the same.
They have different experiences.
And then the brand promise the
mantra again, it's not just three words,
you know, cognitive words.
It also needs To describe what that brand
promise is in experiential terms.
And here's where I'm going to be very
clear of what I mean by experiential.
it needs to have senses.
So, it need to be what's the vision of it?
What does it look like?
What does it smell like?
Maybe what does it taste like?
What does it sound like?
Is there music associated with it?
What does it feel like?
What are the senses?
And then, when I say feel here, what I
mean is emotions.
What, what, how do you feel about it?
Is it a happy brand?
Is it a sad brand?
Is it a.
you know, a tragic brand?
What, what, what are the emotions you feel
with this brand?
What do you think about it?
That's what we've been talking about.
How does it make you behave or act?
And relate, its refers to the social
environment, what people,
what social contexts, what culture do you
consider or do you
put this brand in and all this, this
experiential aspect of
the brand should be in all channels, all
channels should have
an experiential component to it.
So just to go over those again.
The, the sensuous is across the five
senses, you want to have a consistent
experience.
The feel part are the emotions.
You should appeal to the customer's inner
feelings and build strong emotions to it.
The cognitive is the intellect.
The thought process.
The intrigue.
The surprise.
Whatever is, but thoughts.
The behave is the way, how people
act around it.
It can be inspirational.
It can cause you to act in a certain way.
And social is the part of the
social system, the culture, that surrounds
the brand.
And you want to have these experiential
functions delivered through the four P's.
We're back to the four P's.
The product, the place, the promotion.
Only now, and the price, even.
And now we're going to define each one of
these four P's in experiential ways.
So let me just give
you examples.
all of you know about, I'm sure you've
seen this self designed, customized Nike.
It's not just a product attribute anymore.
It's a, a shoe that you could, can
co-design, co-create.
You're part of the process that makes it
very experiential.
You choose what you want in your shoes,
you choose what you want in your greeting
cards.
Like I said, millenials are very much
thinking like
this, they should be part of, they should
co-create
the product.
That's an experiential notion of a
product.
advertising that's experiential, I think,
one of the one's
who's a beginner to really understood this
was Apple, when
Apple would show their iPad or their iPod
when they
were first coming out, it was a very
experiential ad.
It was music, it was dance, it was.
You know, you felt it.
The little white ear buds that came
through was the color, the design.
Was very.
So you can see advertising.
This is traditional advertising.
Certainly online advertising.
Mobile advertising is very experiential,
very interactive now.
I think, that's what most people are
now just assuming most advertising is that
way.
You, when you're watching ads on the
Superbowl, you know, you,
you have your second screen there, and
you're interacting with it.
That's very experiential.
What does it mean to experience price?
Well, eBay certainly showed us that, you
know, with Auctions,
sometimes people will give you a bag and
say, anything you can put
in this bag you'll save 20%, it makes
price something that you're creating.
I'm not deciding what you're going to save
20% on, you decide what fits in the bag.
Or even the concept of priceline.com where
you kind of name
your own price, that's very much an
experiential notion around price.
Even something As, as cognitive as price
which is numbers
can be experiential.
And finally channels, you're seeing
stores,
you're seeing online become very
experiential.
These beautiful flagship stores.
If any of you seen Ralph Lauren's mansion
in New York City or in Paris or Milan.
these are stores where in, in Ralph
Lauren, for example,
they built an entire house, the entire,
the entire lifestyle.
People who wear Ralph Lauren clothes.
What kind of house would they live in?
What kind of furniture would they have?
and, and it's very very experiential, not
just,
it's not just a store with clothes on
a rack, it's stores in the experience, in
the context you're going to live and wear
them.
Sephora is another experiential store.
When you go into Sephora, there's lights,
there's colors
there's smells, people are touching you,
they're putting things on.
This is how cosmetics
should be, you know, it's not hidden
behind a counter and you can't
tell anything and you gotta get a sales
person to come and get you.
That is not experiential.
You want to go and feel the colors, put
them on and see them, smell them, that's
experiential.
And that's what a lot of retail is
happening.
And the very best retailers understand
that.
If you go to Times Square in New York
you'll
see, like, incredibly, incredible candy
stores that are very experiential.
There's a Pop-Tart store,
there's an M&M store, you go in to that
store and the candies
are everywhere, the colors are everywhere,
you can taste different kinds of things.
The, it's a lot of fun, it's almost like
an amusement park, that's what retailing
has come to be.
It's fun.
It's exciting.
Experiential.
And that's what we're ta, and all of
these,
by the way, are within the DNA of the
brand.
This is not random experience.
This is not things that are not extremely
well thought out.
Each one of these pieces is delivering to
the
brand mantra in an experiential way
through four p's.
This is what's happening in brands.
The very best brands are brands that you
understand, that you
live, that you experience, and that you
can tell your friends about.
They're, they're brands, some people think
about
these new kinds of experiential brands as
religion.
and it, it's like a religious experience,
and
we certainly saw that when Steve Jobs
passed away.
People went to the Apple store and put
flowers in front of the Apple stores.
That was his church.
That was a memorial.
The, these things, brands have taken on
very
new meanings, these global brands in, in
today's world.
And so, just as a conclusion to this whole
section
wrapping up everything I said, if you've
got
a strong brand, a strong brand makes clear
promises.
Clarity is very important and it has to be
dynamic, that these promises have to be
kept over time.
You have rich unique brand equity, strong
emotions, strong thoughts with it and
they're delivered dependably and
consistently and
strong brands have really loyal customers
who
help spread the brand message.
weak brands on the other hand are vague,
they change, you don't even
know what they're going to do, there's
no consistency there's no commitment,
there's no.
it's a very spotty reputation, there's
doubt about it.
You didn't, never know what it is, pricing
can change, you know, one time
it looks like this, another time it's
shoddy qual, those are not strong friends.
Consistent, clear promises are what make
very strong brands.
The other characteristic of great brands,
as I said, is consistency.
Every time you get a product experience
under this brand name it's the same.
You expect it.
It meets your expectations.
Very important.
Branded products tend to be superior
products.
You're not just delivering a lukewarm tea.
You're delivering something that meets
specific customer value.
It's distinctive.
A strong brand doesn't melt into another
brand.
There's a very big
difference between Disney and McDonald's.
You don't get them confused.
You don't get Coke and Pepsi confused.
They are very, very distinct brand
positioning, and distinct customer
experiences, even if the product itself
might be somewhat similar.
brands are aligned.
What you, what is, what is shown
externally is aligned internally in the
organization.
When you have a market leadership
strategy,
it not only indicates what your market
strategy should be going forward.
But it indicates what kind of organization
you're going to have, what the
priority of your resources are going to
be how you allocate those resources,
etcetera.
and it's very important, we'll talk about
this in
the last section, for your brand to stay
relevant.
Markets change, times change, customers
change.
A great brand is flexible and adaptable
and changes with
the customers.
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