In his excellent book, Predictably Irrational, author Dan Ariely writes about how people interact in two different ways, socially and commercially. Social exchanges are freely given, without an expectation of repayment—helping a neighbor move a sofa, helping a coworker jump start a dead battery, or opening a door for someone. These are the every day kindnesses that make life civil. On the other hand, Market exchanges depend on money changing hands in return for a product or service—commerce.

Trouble sets in when these behavioral norms collide, introducing market conditions into a social situation. Placing an economic price on a social exchange affects how each party behaves, often negatively. Ariely uses the example of a man offering a few hundred dollars to “even up” on his mother-in-law’s love. It simply isn’t possible, so the idea is almost offensive. He also offers the example of a day care center that introduced fees for picking up a child late, hoping to discourage this behavior, only to see late pick-ups increase. Ariely writes:

“So we live in two worlds: one characterized by social exchanges and the other characterized by market exchanges. And we apply different norms to these two kinds of relationships. Moreover, introducing market norms into social exchanges… violates the social norms and hurts the relationships. Once this type of mistake has been committed, recovering a social relationship is difficult.”

Consumers aren’t the only ones that make this mistake. Brands do it too.

Think of a brand with a market position that says, “We’re your friend” or “We’re on your side.” A few examples that come to mind:

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Zion’s Bank. We haven’t forgotten who keeps us in business.
Verizon. We never stop working for you.

This is great brand positioning: brand as friend, helper, or care giver.

Until the brand introduces a market exchange into the story.

If Zion’s Bank charges a overdraft fee, or eliminates free checking for students because it isn’t profitable, the market exchange collides with the social norm and consumers question whether they really do remember who keeps them in business.

If State Farm cancels a 20-year-old policy because the home owner makes her first claim, or refuses to pay a claim that the customer feels entitles to, the consumer might feel that State Farm wasn’t there.

If Verizon’s network drops calls or customer service is less than helpful, the niceties of the social exchange run headlong into the market exchange reality.

The result? The positive social norm goes away. As Ariely writes, “Once the bloom is off the rose—once a social norm is trumped by a market norm—it will rarely return.” Then your brand story is worthless.

If your brand depends a market position characterized by social exchanges, it is important to manage the brand experience to ensure market exchanges don’t interfere and destroy the social relationship.

Click here to buy and read Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational and learn more about this phenomena.

BP has two big problems*.

The first problem is a well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that has spilled an estimated 50 million gallons of oil in the past 48 days.

Until they fix it, nothing they do for the second problem will matter.

BP’s second problem is the story.

For almost a decade, BP has told a brand story about being the environmental leader among petroleum companies. Click over to BP’s website and you’ll find an entire section devoted to the environment. This tab talks about BP’s approach to alternative energy sources like solar, wind, and bio-fuels—and walks through how they are making the world better. BP has been sharing a similar message in their advertising for the past five years:

It’s a great message for an oil company, especially because it is very likely true. BP does spend significant resources on alternative fuels and clean technology. They have acknowledged climate change is a real problem. They are probably doing as much or more than any other oil company to develop renewable resources.

But none of that matters.

Because everything changed on the micro-level. Daily news reports of oil-covered wildlife and millions of page views for the video footage from the bottom of the sea overwrite the macro-story about environmental awareness.

It doesn’t matter why this catastrophe happened, or how many safety awards BP has won, or whether they were properly permitted.

What matters is the story that people are hearing today.

And that story isn’t about BP’s concern for the environment, rather it’s about how BP is a villain and there’s a million gallons of oil spilling into the gulf every day.

So BP is rolling out new ads to tell their side of the story and to apologize for the disaster. This is the exact right thing to do. But it won’t change anyone’s feelings about BP. Because until the brand’s macro-story is matched by the stories told on the micro-level, consumers will not trust the company’s message.

First BP needs to cap the leak. Then they need to clean up the mess. And at that point, consumers may be willing to listen to BP talk about the environment.

This is a problem faced by thousands of companies every day (not just BP). The bank that promises they care about you but then charges horrendous fees and raises rates. Would they do that if they really cared? What about the cable company that answers the phone with an automated message promising that your call is very important to us and, oh by the way, the hold time right now is 23 minutes?

When the story you tell isn’t matched by the story your customers experience, you’ve got a problem. And until you fix it, nothing you say matters.

The oil logo in this entry was “borrowed” from David Airey’s very good Logo Design Love blog.

“I want you to make an advertisement that is, well… basically a lie, because that will get people calling our store. Then we can sell them stuff.”

—Recent post at Clientsfromhell.net.

Several years ago, I had an assignment to write about an environmentally friendly laundry detergent. The product was pretty good. It was concentrated so it used significantly less packaging than other brands. The formula was made with more natural ingredients than the typical brand. And it was cheaper, per use. Unfortunately, it had one major draw-back—it made whites look dingy. Sometimes it left blue spots on whites. Many customers who used it also kept a box of Tide in the laundry room to use when they had to wash their whites.

Shortly after I submitted my copy, which, if I remember right, focused on the environment, I found myself sitting in the CEO’s office. He was livid. I hadn’t told the right story, he said. His product matches Tide in performance. I replied that the research showed that it didn’t. His response was, “Sometimes you need to tell the shiny side of the truth. That’s what I want you to do.”

Ah, the shiny side of the truth.

That would be the part of the truth that isn’t true. It needs a little (sometimes a lot) of extra polishing to make it sound better than it is. The shiny side of the truth is a good story. It will attract new customers. And if it’s a really good story, it will attract lots of new customers.

But what happens the moment customers learn that the story isn’t exactly true? What happens when customers realize that the detergent you said was as good as Tide, leaves blue spots on your favorite shirt?

They stop being customers.

You’ve just sold your brand’s most precious asset—trust—for a single purchase. Plus, you’ve lost the purchases of anyone the customer tells about her experience. At some point you run out of potential new customers, then what?

Was it worth it?

The brand story you share has to be good enough to get the customer to try your product. And it has to be true. If the brand experience isn’t as good as the story you sold the customer on, you have wasted your only opportunity to turn a trial into a customer.

Once your customer tries your product, her experience is the brand story.

If you can’t tell the truth, fix the experience.

This is pretty cool: Google has introduced a new tool (or is it a toy?) called Search Stories. It takes your search requests (or someone else’s) and turns them into stories using search results, google maps, Street View, books, images, and more—complete with music and video. What sounds little lame at first (who wants to watch other people’s Google searches?) is actually quite compelling. Most importantly Search Stories is a very good way for Google to show the benefits of their search engine using an individual’s own experience—tying in stories to add meaning.

Check it out here. (Parisian Love is a pretty good place to start).

Try it to make your own Search Story.

Via AdFreak which put together their own Tiger Woods Search Story.

This entry was originally posted on May 9, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog.

Over the past few years, Word of Mouth or buzz marketing has had it’s share of promoters and detractors. The rise of WOM marketing has prompted the creation of buzz agencies, a professional trade organization, conferences, books (here, here, and here too), and much more.

So if you’re looking for advice on how to get people talking about your brand story, there are plenty of resources.

Or you can do what Stacy’s Pita Chips (part of Frito Lay) did, and just send a product sample to everyone in the United States. At least, that’s what they wanted to do. But mailing chips to nearly 300 million people, well that’s a little much for even this spunky little division of the snack company to bite off.

So instead, they mailed a sample pack to everyone in the country named Stacy. 133,000 people, most of whom hadn’t heard of the product before. The package included the Stacy brand story and on the back of the enclosed card, said:

“We hope you enjoyed getting your free box of Stacy’s Pita Chips as much as we enjoyed sending them to you. If you did, why not share the joy by sending a FREE gift box to a friend? Since we’ve already sent them to every Stacy, you’re free to send them to Bill or Mary or Cheryl or John—or whoever you think would enjoy Stacy’s chips the most.”

So has it worked? It looks like it. Here are a few Stacys who are now spreading the word: here, here, here, here, and here. Think how many people have mentioned this to friends and coworkers. And how many Stacys have tried, liked, and now regularly buy Stacy’s chips.

That’s not all that Stacy’s does to promote great customer experiences/brand stories that are easy for customers to share with others. Check out what Art Steiber at The Diff has to say about Stacy’s when he wrote to complain about a half-empty bag of chips. Not content to leave him with a negative impression, they went well beyond and sent him a case of pita chips.

This is a brand I like, and I’ve yet to taste the chips.

This entry was originally posted on June 22, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

Several weeks ago (May 22, to be exact), BrandWeek published a very interesting article called Broken Promises that discussed the gulf between what customers want and what companies deliver. I thought a few excerpt were worth reprinting here:

“The average level of consumer expectation across 35 major brand categories rose by 4.5% from last year. Over the same period, the survey shows, the average ability of brands to keep up with those hopes decreased 9.2%. Put another way, while brands certainly try to meet the expectations of their loyal customers, those expectations are nonetheless growing two times faster that the brands’ ability to keep up with them.”

The article goes on to say that part of the problem is caused by brand stewards who have promised to “delight” their customers continually. Well, it worked. Customers now expect to be wowed at every turn. The problem is, most brands aren’t up to the task. Also from the article:

“Another dynamic is that consumers themselves are more demanding, perhaps unrealistically. Take the bottled water category, one of the most commodified and yet also one of the fiercest fought. The brands have different names and different bottles, but the product is largely indistinguishable. Most customers would likely agree with this logic were it put to them directly. Yet, their expectations for bottled water rose 8% in 2006, mainly because they felt the brands ought to be increasingly ‘refreshing’.”

Imagine the Dasani or Aquafina brand steward responsible for meeting these expectations. What do you do? Triple filter? Reverse osmosis? Vitamins? Flavors? It’s all been done. Now what? How do you make water 8% more refreshing this year. Then do it again next year. And the year after that. At some point, water will be 100% refreshing (if it isn’t already) and then what?

Setting expectations is a critical part of your brand story. It’s easy to make promises (100% money back guarantee, 99.9% uptime, deep cleans in cold water, etc.). It’s harder to accurately set expectations. Again, from the article:

“If there is one take away from the survey, it’s this: expectations need to be as carefully controlled as the promises. It’s all very well to assure your consumers they’ll feel sexy, cool and rich if they use your brand. But delivering on those feelings might mean toning down the guarantees.”

So what happens when your brand story doesn’t match expectations? When the genius at the Apple genius bar isn’t, what happens to Apple‘s brand story? When the service at Nordstrom isn’t over-the-top, what happens to Nordstrom’s brand story? When NetFlix slows down deliver to its heavy users, what happens to their brand story?

The short answer: when the experience doesn’t match the story, the experience becomes the story. And the brand story you spent so much time and effort to create? Well, that just goes away.

This entry was originally posted on January 5, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

Last week my local paper reprinted an article from the AP wire about Krispy Kreme’s new chief executive Stephen Cooper. (You can also read it here.) The article focuses on Cooper’s status as a turnaround specialist and shares some of his philosophy for fixing what’s wrong with Krispy Kreme. Here’s a sample of his thinking:

“You can’t rely on word of mouth to keep expanding the circuit of very loyal customers… You have to be able to make the transition from being a word-of-mouth, kind of myth-driven marketing company into one that has a much more structured, objective-driven sales marketing program.”

Setting aside arguments about whether or not a company can grow by word-of-mouth, Cooper may want to rethink his approach. The problem with Krispy Kreme (okay, there are many) isn’t that the company has relied too heavily on myth or story-driven marketing, it is that the company has removed the story (and experience) from its product as it expanded into new markets.

No brand story = no reason to buy Krispy Kreme donuts. Let me explain:

Six or seven years ago, the nearest Krispy Kreme to my home was a seven-hour drive to Las Vegas. Whenever you were there, you made sure to stop by the Henderson store, waited in a long line watching the donuts fry, and enjoyed a hot original glazed right off the rack, while you selected your donuts. It was something worth bragging about. People begged you to bring them one. An underground of donut smugglers emerged, bringing these delicious delicacies home.

The company expanded. Two stores were opened just 15-30 minutes away. Lines were still long. The donuts were still hot and fun to watch. Going to a Krispy Kreme store was something my kids begged to do. And I was always happy to indulge that desire.

Then Krispy Kreme started selling dounts in grocery stores and gas stations even closer to home. Now there was no need to go all the way to the Krispy Kreme store, wait in line, watch the donuts fry, enjoy a hot, free sample, and place my order. They were available at Albertsons, less than five minutes away. So that’s where we went.

The only problem was, the new Krispy Kreme experience lacked the story and experience that we enjoyed at the donut store. The donuts at Albertson’s were a day old or more. We didn’t see them fry and pass through the froster. The kids didn’t get a free hat. There was no free sample. And frankly, the donuts weren’t that good cold. So why would I pay $1.40 more for six Krispy Kremes than I would for six Hostess donuts? Why not save even more buying the house brand? Customers caught on.

What’s worse, the experience at the Krispy Kreme store was still there, but no one has a reason to go because they know they can get the same donuts at the corner market. As a result, the store experience has changed from a line of donut in-crowders, to a trickle of customers who don’t shop at Albertsons. Visiting Krispy Kreme is no longer an event.

Rather than moving away from a story-driven marketing plan, the turn-around specialists should reconsider what made Krispy Kreme special, and worth talking about, in the first place (Hint: it’s not the donut, it’s the S-T-O-R-Y).

Note: Yes, I know there are other problems for Cooper to solve at Krispy Kreme as well (accounting, pricing, new product development). Great. Do it. Just don’t forget the brand story is a crucial part of the marketing mix.

This entry was originally posted on December 22, 2005 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about several ideas to consider when writing your brand story. Here’s another. Use your product’s weakness, make it a strength, and build your story around it.

That’s exactly what Buckley’s cough syrup has done. It tastes awful. In fact, it tastes so bad that it has to work or nobody would ever use it again. And the story has caught on. It’s featured prominently in advertising and on the web. Customers are encouraged to send in photos of their contorted faces after they have had their dose of nasty tasting cough syrup. Buckley’s website features a short note from Frank Buckley about a recurring “nightmare” that he has to take a taste.  It’s a terrific example of building a brand story around a product feature (one most brand managers would rather hide).

Compare Buckley’s story to Robitussin or Triaminic. You’ll search in vain for a brand story for the other two products. Does anyone remember the Dr. Mom campaign? These days Robitussin says they have a formula with my name on it. Not much of a story there—especially when the formula I need has Roz’s name on it. And this is what passes for a story on Triaminic’s site. I’d like to meet the child who asks to log on to Triaminic.com to play the games.

By contrast, here are a few of the headlines Buckley’s has used to tell it’s brand story:

Made with oil of Pine needles. What did you expect it to taste like?
People swear by it. And at it.
Our largest bottle is 200 ml. Anything larger would be cruel.
I’m dedicated to ensuring that every new batch of Buckley’s tastes as bad as the last.
Four of the most dreaded words in the English language: “Get out the Buckley’s!”

It’s a great story. Admitting their weakness upfront humanizes the brand and makes it more acceptable. Other cough syrups seem cold in comparison. Kudos to Buckley’s for creating a story consumers can actually relate to. You can read more about Buckley’s here. Thanks to Brand New Day for the links.