By Brian H Meredith
From the NZBusiness Magazine "Marketing Maestro" Archive.
First published March 2010
Is it that we never learn? Or that we are slow learners? Or that we are engaged in a perpetual process of learning and unlearning?
We know what a brand is, don’t we? We know that it is where the relationship exists with the only people who give us money – customers?
We know that this relationship must be managed, nourished and nurtured if we are to optimise and sustain our business performance? Don’t we?
Why then, do so many of us end up either ignoring or screwing up the vast miscellany of behaviours in which our businesses engage every day and which go straight to the heart of our Brand’s relationship and reputation with customers.
Be more specific, Brian? OK then, here goes:
NZ Police – Still initiating pursuits of stolen cars, boy racers and others where the Death Penalty seems to me a tad excessive for the nature of the crime (if, indeed, there had even been a crime committed rather than just a traffic offence). Ever noticed how often the Police claim that the pursuit had been called off just seconds before the crash? Bad for the Brand.
Telcos – Still knowingly and cynically engaging in Confusion Marketing – a carefully developed strategy designed to make it difficult or impossible for consumers to make service and price comparisons. Bad for the Brand.
Auckland City Council – Deploying parking wardens to check and issue tickets for expired regos and similar. Cynical, revenue gathering without a doubt. Enforcement activities should be left to sworn officers of the NZ Police (unless they are screaming along at 160 kph in pursuit of a kid who had been doing wheelies in the pub car park). Bad for the Brand.
National Led Government – Promising no increase in GST during the election campaign and then using semantics to explain away the increase when the inevitable happens. Whether the increase is right or not is not the issue. Telling porkies is. Bad for the Brand.
American Express – Taking several months (so far, and still not resolved) to address a card functionality issue for Mrs. Meredith during which time lies, incompetence and broken promises have all come to the fore. Bad for the Brand.
The Warehouse – Being the winner of the Commerce Commission Fines League Table. Slow learners or just dishonest? Bad for the Brand.
Telecom – Where do I begin? XT Network failures? Abusive Filipino Call Centre staff? Ludicrous waiting times for Broadband Connections in what they call “Rural” areas and you and I might call “provincial towns”? I can think of a Scotsman who is probably deeply regretting his decision to come to the other side of the world to take over such a significant mess. Bad for the Brand.
Vodafone – Having once set the benchmark for customer centricity in Telcos, now scrubbing it out with high powered detergent. Bad for the Brand.
Tony Veitch – Yep, he’s a Brand (we all are) and our reputation is vital to us. So why fracture a very slowly repairing Brand by having a crack at Tiger Woods? People in Glass Houses not good for the Brand.
North Shore Hospital – Totally unacceptable waiting times in ED, Charge Nurse who struggles with English, ED Clerk who has perfected surly, insolent indifference. No sense at all that this is a place of caring. Bad for the Brand.
TVNZ – Apart from abysmal programming (which is, of course, an entirely personal opinion), do you ever get any sense at all that the state broadcaster gives a tinkers cuss about you? Sure, it’s the advertisers who spend the money with them but it’s the audience (you and I) that the advertisers want. So why are we completely and utterly ignored? What makes it even worse is that we own the damn business. Bad for the Brand.
It is so easy to spend significant sums of money on developing marketing communications strategies and materials that make a Brand look great. Remember the Telecom XT Launch just a couple of months ago?) But all too often (way too often) the reality of the Brand experience falls a very long way short of the promise.
The Point? Do drill into your own psyche and that of every last one of your team that every behaviour has a marketing effect on your Brand. Do sweat the small stuff. Do pay the same attention to all these behaviours that you would pay to your Annual Report, an IPO Prospectus or the launch of a new product. Do set objectives for every element of your businesses behaviour and do set strategies in place to ensure you accomplish those Objectives.
But before you do any of that, commit the coming weekend to reading “Business Stripped Bare” by Richard Branson.
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