Brands - My Proposed Word of the Year for 2008...
...Ownership
As a consumer of the brand - either a purchaser or even an employee - I want the brand to own their part of the brand experience. Sounds weird in an age of collaboration but collaboration does not mean ignoring your role in my experience. The opposite is true - own your part, then collaborate with me to improve the experience for both of us.
Product/Service
- Own the problem even if it is not truly yours. Don't blame 3rd parties, just help me if I have a customer service issue.
- Give your customer facing people the responsibility and accountability to remedy customer service issues rather than send me to another dept.
- Make it easy for me to contact you - own the idea of accessibility.
- Own the evolution and profitability of the brand. Brands need to evolve, brands need to hit financial targets. Evolution and profitability is achieved by each person in the company passionately developing the brand, not just the marketing dept.
Employment Brand
- Own the vision, own the responsibility of translating that vision to me and allowing me to understand how I can help achieve something we can all be proud of..
- Own your role in my development and cherish it. Own the delivery not the words!
- Own the values and protect the values as priceless assets. Own the delivery not the words!
- Own the right to be the company that people want to work for - because you truly believe that people make the company, the products, the profit. If you don't have the best (and indeed engaged) people, you won't have the best product or profits.
