[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
< Press Play Arrow to view 60 second video introduction.<\/em>\u2028Back when I was SVP-Marketing and Branding at PetSmart, one of the keys to our strategy was identifying the \u201cTruth and The Heart\u201d of the brand. Our agency, Publicis USA, had developed \u201cTruth and The Heart\u201d and maintained\u2014and I agreed\u2014that you first develop the \u201cTruth\u201d or the hard facts of what the brand was (things like number of stores, categories, prices, displays, programs, etc) in order to define your points of differentiation. Once these facts were established, then it was critical to identify and develop \u201cThe Heart\u201d of the brand\u2014those emotional reasons for shopping the store, whether it was caring associates, programs like pet adoptions, easy refunds, personal communications, professional vets or trainers, in order to build a true relationship with our customer. And if you have no relationship with them, then you really don\u2019t have a brand that will succeed.<\/p>\n This all came back to me while attending the National Speakers Association Annual Convention in San Diego this week. Speaker after speaker zeroed in on this past year\u2019s theme by emphasizing that to be an effective communicator who has an impact on his\/her audience, you had to have differentiating substance to what your topics, your target audience, and your calls to action would be; what is it that separates you from the thousands of others on the platforms at the many meetings and conferences held each year? To that end, I have focused my presentations this year specifically on the importance of getting people on the floor and throughout the organization to live up to the brand in everything they do on the job. Unless we achieve totalbrandintegration\u00ae in making sure our culture reflects the brand strategy we are communicating to our customers, there is little chance for long-term success.<\/p>\n The most important ingredient for this brand culture is to develop a \u201csoul\u201d in our people that truly makes this a way of life as they service our customers. For years, Southwest Airlines has been known not only as the country\u2019s most successful airline but as the airline whose people personify its brand. As their COO said not long ago, \u201cWe are a company in the customer service business who happens to fly airplanes.\u201d No question where Herb Kelleher put the soul and substance in his company.<\/p>\n While I was in Juneau, Alaska, a couple weeks ago, we decided to take the city bus out to Mendenhall Glacier for the day. As I waited, a young man named William spotted that I was wearing a Cox Broadcasting fleece vest and struck up a conversation. He was thinking that I might have an opportunity for him in television. I quickly clarified that it was a free-bee, but he was really interested in marketing and the future of big companies in the US. While he was a musician, he asked some relevant questions about my thoughts on whether all of the consolidations, buyouts, and venture capital takeovers would reduce the competitive market so much that there would be no innovation and no excitement in consumer marketing. Thinking about it, I assured him that there was still plenty of competition and plenty of good marketing\u2014if we maintain branding as the soul and substance of our stores, products, or services. Having recently worked for some venture capital investors, I was made aware of the importance of cash flow and making the sales numbers. I\u2019m afraid sometimes we forget that it is the \u201csoul\u201d of the business and the way our people relate to the customer that really makes the difference. William asked the right questions, and as I watched the glacier \u201ccalve\u201d in many pieces, I thought how many chains are also falling apart because they miss the two most important ingredients that make a lasting contract with their customers.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] < Press Play Arrow to view 60 second video introduction.\u2028Back when I was SVP-Marketing and Branding at PetSmart, one of the keys to our strategy was identifying the \u201cTruth and The Heart\u201d of the brand. Our agency, Publicis USA, had developed \u201cTruth and The Heart\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}