First I need to explain the title of this post. ‘Steve it’ is a phrase that morphed from a phrase I coined and mentioned on this blog in November 2008 (It started as ‘Apple it’ but I changed it to ‘Steve it’ so the term would outlive Steve’s tenure at Apple). ‘Steve it’ is a metaphorical expression born out of my research of Steve Jobs and Apple®. It’s used to articulate an expectation of innovation, execution and performance at the highest level.

I began using this term around the office to clearly set parameters for tasks or projects, and have been recommending its use to clients ever since.

Now may be the time for you to ‘Steve it’ with the improvement of your brand. If you can relate to the content of my last 5 posts and you believe your brand’s characteristics have plenty of room for improvement, I’d recommend you get started. Lovable brands and the entities that create them, improve people’s lives. Lovable brands grow faster, they’re more enjoyable to work for and they’re more profitable. Why would we accept doing business any other way?

If you’d like assistance along the way, I’d welcome the opportunity.

Focus internally first.

All customers are important but some are more important than others.

Without doubt, your most important customers are your internal customers… your employees and suppliers… your internal friends. You already know that if you don’t attract and keep the best internal friends for a long time, there’s an extremely high intangible cost to your business and your brand. This cost normally manifests itself in the form of re-training, poor service, customer dissatisfaction, lost sales and unrealized potential. Sometimes we forget this critical maxim.

So we need to subordinate all external Love Capital efforts to our efforts within. Only when we’re treating our internal friends with the same consideration and compassion we’d normally extend to our dearest personal friends, will we be in a position to develop a brand with truly lovable characteristics for our external friends (customers, prospects and the community).

You’ve heard the saying… “To have a friend, first you have to be one”. This clarifies everything! To have any chance of developing long term, mutually beneficial relationships with our employees, suppliers, customers and prospects, we need to treat them in the same manner we would treat a dear friend.

All we need to do when considering an existing or new brand characteristic is to ‘Friend Frame’ it. We need to ask ourselves the question… “Is this a characteristic I would want my customer to experience if that customer was a dear friend?”

Would I over-promise or bend the truth in any way? Never. Would I insist on a ‘no cash refund’ policy and only offer a store credit if my dear friend was not satisfied? Definitely not. Would I want to know if my dear friend was happy with their purchase? Definitely.

Can you see and feel the power of this ‘friend framing’ paradigm? It’s an extremely potent, all encompassing ‘true north’ concept for shaping a lovable brand.

Remember your first love? You fell for his or her personality, their infectious laugh, their stunning good looks, their cheeky smile. You fell in love with their unique, lovable characteristics.

Finding love for your brand is no different. Lovable characteristics are everything in the battle for your brand to become number one.

So how’s your brand looking? Lovable?

The following 4 brand characteristic categories will help you determine the lovability of your brand.

1. Destructive characteristics.

This category is typified by characteristics that, put simply… piss people off. A brand with destructive characteristics is often associated with rude, unfriendly and inconsiderate people, policies and practices. Such a brand oozes indifference.

Picture your local restaurant displaying a sign at point of payment… “No separate billing” or “minimum $10 purchase for debit card use”. Or the website message that says… “Click here to chat with us now: Offline”. Or website forms that don’t retain data when you click the back button to edit your input.

Destructive characteristics are everywhere!

2. Non-descript characteristics.

This is the characteristic category you’ll find associated with most brands. These characteristics belong to the brand next door where the name, trademark, positioning and overall brand story are sub-standard, inconsistent and characterless.

Picture the building company called Superior Construction whose trademark looks like this [Superior Construction]. This brand came out of a Weeties® packet. The name is common, bland, average (unlike Google® and Yahoo®), the trademark is characterless, of home-made appearance and lacking professionalism. Superior? I don’t think so.

3. Misguided characteristics.

Brands distinguished by this type of characteristic often impress at first glance but only because they’re the best of a bad bunch. The brand name, trademark and positioning may tick all the boxes but it’s never enough to overcome a ‘misguided characteristic’ contamination.

These misguided characteristics are failed attempts at being lovable. Strategically sound, structurally floored. They often lack personality, warmth and empathy for the customer.

Picture the brand manager who knows she should communicate with you regularly but doesn’t understand how to do it properly. Her regular, impersonal, insensitive, uninteresting, self focused emails are treated with disdain, disinterest and disregard.

4. Lovable characteristics.

This characteristic is rarely found in close proximity to its own kind. A small percentage of brands can boast having one or two lovable characteristics but few brands are imbued with enough lovable characteristics to become truly lovable brands.

Thankfully we can be guided and encouraged in our quest for more Love Capital by learning from Apple, Disney, Obama, Ikea, Ben and Jerry’s, Harley Davidson and Dubai.

So what should you do with an incumbent brand that has little or no Love Capital?

Change the brand’s characteristics so they’re more lovable. In the world of branding, a leopard can definitely change its spots – but be careful – not all spots are easily changed. Your brand’s core identity spots (niche, target market, distribution method, etc.) may not be safely changed without changing the name and visual identity of your brand.

This particular subject could fill a book of its own. Suffice to say that if you believe your brand may have core identity problems, you should definitely consult a branding expert.

So why should we measure and strive for lovability?

Well, we’ve known for a long time that people are mainly influenced by emotion when deciding whether to support a product, service or entity.  So, from a branding perspective, it makes sense for us to focus on this human trait and wrap our offerings in a thick layer of positive emotions.

Consider these 3 potential advantages…

1. Lovability leads to efficiency. Think about it. The more lovable your brand, the higher the percentage of prospects who’ll want what you have to offer. There will be less friction when trying to turn these prospects into customers. You’ll get more referrals, more free publicity. Your cost per lead and cost per conversion will fall. These real cost savings will transfer to your bottom line.
2. Love [the experience often caused by being lovable], is usually the basis for a lasting relationship. That’s because when love is in the air, breaking up is hard to do. So if we want long term, lasting relationships with our customers, it’s a no brainer. We must continually look for ways to make our brands more lovable.
3. When people are in love, they’re more likely to be loyal. Therefore, becoming more lovable in order to attract ‘loving’ supporters is definitely worth the effort. If people love your brand, they’re more likely to support your brand at a higher level.

Copyright © Brad Tonkin 2009

It took a bit longer than planned, however I’ve now finished the manifesto I alluded to in my last post. I’ll upload it in sections over the coming weeks. It’s called… Love Cap.

Love Cap [luv kap] – Shortened form of Love Capital

Noun. Informal.

Definition… A form of wealth. A measure of the total love felt for a brand by its customers, prospects, shareholders and other stakeholders. In this definition, the word love represents any of the 35 odd positive (primary, secondary and tertiary) emotions humans are capable of feeling about a product, service or entity.

Love Capital is a newly defined asset class, the value of which can predict the future potential of your brand. It‘s the measure of the love felt for your brand by all stakeholders.

Consider your brand or the brand you represent. If your brand was a person, would you be instantly drawn to them? Would they have characteristics that are more appealing and magnetic than all the other people you know? Would they be the type of person you’d like to have as a dear friend?

In the vast majority of cases, the answer to these three questions is no.

Most brands (possibly your brand), have few characteristics that are significantly more attractive, more magnetic or more lovable than competing brands. Most brands are just brands with inadequate Love Capital.

Copyright © Brad Tonkin 2009

I’m devoting all my spare time to writing a manifesto (mini book) on how you can win the hearts of your customers.

I look forward to giving you a copy as soon as it’s finished.

Cheers,

Brad

P.S. To ensure you get a copy as soon as it’s completed, subscribe to our email-feed in the top right hand corner of the bradlib.com website.

Notice how the marketing piece below ‘gets personal’ and ‘makes the invisbile visible’ by…

• introducing you to the owner.
• having the owner talk to you like she would if you were both face to face.
• answering 11 frequently asked questions up-front to overcome any fears you might have and to make it easy for you to fully evaluate the offer.

After reading this direct mail piece, you’ll feel like you know this dentist well and what she stands for. You’ll have a clear perspective of how she runs her business. You’ll feel confident (should you decide to use her services), you’d be in safe, experienced and well qualified hands. In short, your level of trust in this dentist and inclination to become one of her clients, will be significantly higher.

Whether you’re selling dentistry, insurance, new homes, whatever – this post applies to your business. Employing these techniques will help build more trust in your brand and could improve your bottom line significantly.

Using education to build trust

Here are two examples of how you might be able to use what I call ‘brag advertising’ to build trust in your brand.

In this case, SAP (the second largest software company in the World), is bragging about two large companies they have as clients.

If Asahi and Lenovo use SAP software, it must be great software… Right?

Trust-centric SAP advertising inside Singapore Airport

Another SAP advertisement inside Singapore Airport

Just a couple of days after praising Obama’s trust-centric savvy in my last post, he participated in his first formal interview as President of the United States. In the first one hundred seconds of this interview with Arab TV network Al-Arabiya, Obama unconsciously executed no less than four trust-building techniques.

As you read the four selected quotes below (with my notes attached), consider how you might use these same techniques to build trust in you or your organisation…

<When referring to Senator George Mitchell and his upcoming peace negotiations in the Middle East, Obama says…> What I’ve told him is, start by listening, <Trust building technique: Seek first to understand and then be understood>.

…because all too often the United States has started by dictating in the past on some of these issues <Trust building technique: Candor> … and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved <Candor again. It often helps to build trust if you can admit your shortcomings>.  

… Ultimately, we cannot tell either the Israeli’s or the Palestinian’s what’s best for them. They’re going to have to make some decisions. <Trust building technique: Catering to the stakeholder’s ‘in control need’>.

… I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that everyone thinks this is going to be resolved in a few months. <Trust building technique: Under-promise and over-deliver>.