Customers now judge a company on experiential interaction, not just the simple benefits of a product or service. It’s not just an extension of the brand. The experience is the brand.
Dell Computers has been thrashed many times for subpar customer service. If you promise one benefit and deliver another, your brand loses value. If you project one set of values, and act on another, your brand is lost.
The experience leaves the customer confused. Unable to align with a set of values promised, the customer feels betrayed. The customer loses faith in the brand.
On the other hand, fostering the faithful with positive brand interaction produces evangelists.
The “evangelizing moment” of a customer is when they touch the soul of the company. They become “branded” aligning with the meaning of the company’s true purpose. Think of Apple providing Seekers (those in search of new adventure or experience) the ability to “Think Different”. It connects to the Seekers core value – to be unique and nonconforming.
That connection between the core values – the soul of the company and the soul of the customer – is why they evangelize. They have found a temple of core value at which to worship. It’s mythic. It’s epic. The brand becomes icon because it connects to the subconscious yearnings of the customer, imprinting on the brain. The pictured emotional experience becomes a conduit through which the customer can again be touched by those core values.
Those pictures and emotions then become language in the brain of the customer. And it’s the language of evangelism.
It’s simple. No soul, no brand. So create your SoulBrand. Copyright 2008 Leili McKinley
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Leili,
Great post – consistently delivering a unique, valuable experience is key to long-term success.
The challenge is balancing the organic qualities you have outlined with the desire of the organization to control, direct or influence for personal gain. It’s great to capture an individual’s soul but when you are chasing quarterly performance goals, there is that strong desire for the organization to try to push for quantity of conversions rather than focus on the high quality conversions.
In other words, evangelists are expected to preach to the public, spread the word and attract throngs of fervent followers…and organizations want to see that level of traction ASAP.
Have you seen any examples of organizations mobilizing the evangelists in an effective manner so that [a] volume is generated quickly, and [b] the quality of the brand is sustained? If so, I would love to hear more and learn!
Pat,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. It’s funny that it seems as though quantity and quality are at odds with each other when it comes to conversion. But I know that it usually looks that way. I would ask the question – would I rather have 10 evangelists who consistently purchase and promote over time or 100 instant drive by consumers? Of course the dilemma points straight to a company’s strategy. I realize the “holy cow, gimme now” economy isn’t helping companies look long term. But, evangelists are created over time. The only instant relationships I know of that have “traction” ASAP are familial, as a mother of a newborn baby would attest.
The best and most current example of brand evangelist mobilization was Obama’s Campaign. Obama proved that when people are empowered and trusted, they will create and disseminate their own content and their own message. The overlapping nature of MyBarackObama.com, YouTube, Facebook and other social media outlets created a single broad, all encompassing network that spread across the United States. He asked his supporters to use the social media outlets. These tools enabled everyday people to become Community Organizers in their own neighborhoods. Ordinary Americans didn’t need professional campaign organizers—they could do it for themselves. Obama did not create a community; he enabled volunteers to create their own. This distinction gave his supporters the drive and resources to grow the community for him.
The campaign was not successful simply because it got a lot of people out to vote. It was successful because it supporters mobilized around his brand of change to influence other to get out and vote people out. The ripples of brand influence have continued. See other post (see other post)
gives thanks !! quite important post
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