the human brand
DESCRIPTION
Lecture notes based on The Human Brand by Chris Malone and Susan Fiske for Digital Reputation Management course -- photos removed for copyright purposesTRANSCRIPT
The human brandBranding people, humanizing brands
Karen Russell, University of Georgia
The Human Brand
• The Human Brand: How We Relate to People, Products and Companies
• By Chris Malone and Susan T. Fiske
The Human Brand
Susan Fiske: Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton
Chris Malone: marketing consultant; worked with Coke, NBA, Procter & Gamble
How we judge others
Warmth
• Kind, friendly, good-natured
• Sincere, honest, moral, trustworthy
• Helpful, tolerant, fair, generous, understanding
• INTENTIONS
Competence
• Efficient, capable, skillful, clever, knowledgeable
• Confidence, appearance of ability to carry out their work
• ABILITY
Warmth & competence
Brands
BP
USPS Hershey’s
Rolex
Example: SWA
• After 9/11, the U.S. airline industry was in a dire situation
• No one wanted to fly
Southwest Airlines
• Three key decisions• No layoffs• No pay cuts• No-hassle refunds for any customer who wanted one
Other airlines
• Combined, shed 160,000 employees in the 10 years following 9/11• Laid employees off because people weren’t flying• Trying to balance supply and demand
• Took 10 years to return to year 2000 level of passengers travelling by air
Results
Southwest
• In 2003 earned more than all other airlines combined
• Best-performing stock• Fortune “Most Admired”
lists for years
“Big” airlines
• More planes• More routes• More revenue (less profit)• More passengers (if you
include overseas)
A question of loyalty
• “As anyone who has been frustrated with the service provided by their wireless carrier, cable company, or the dominant airline at their nearest airport can attest, our continued purchases are typically not a sign of our loyalty. Rather, they are more often a sign that we are essentially being held hostage…”
Repeat patronage does NOT equal loyalty
A comparison
Cheap grocery store
• You have a loyalty card • You are rewarded for
shopping there• You don’t enjoy shopping
there• You have “loyalty” cards
to multiple stores
Trader Joe’s
• They don’t offer loyalty cards
• You like shopping there, even if it costs more
• You are loyal without a loyalty program
The principle of worthy intentions
• A relationship-building strategy that involves attracting and keeping customers by consistently putting their best interests ahead of those of the company or brand
Loyalty formula
• “The best time to win customer loyalty is when you make a mistake.”
• IBM executive quoted by Arthur Fink
Mess up + fix it with good intentions = most loyal customer
Trust
We are much more predisposed to trust other people than we realize: our general expectation is to expect good things from someone until proven otherwise
Types of trust
Conditional
• If we believe the partner is self-interested (like a company) we behave with cautious trust, thinking harder about cost/benefit
• Not surprised if betrayed
Unconditional
• When we believe the partner has worthy intentions, our brains don’t have to think as hard
• But betrayal has a much higher price
Example: L.L. Bean
Lifetime guarantee on everything they sell
We think they deserve to be successful
Example: Chobani
Shared moral and cultural values = Choboniacs
Levels of loyalty
Compliance: we go along with a requirement
We buy Domino’s pizza because it’s cheap
Levels of loyalty
Identification: we feel inspired by the company
We buy Domino’s because the CEO admitted it used to be bad and we identify with his brave statement
http://youtu.be/AH5R56jILag
Levels of loyalty
• Internalization: we share the company’s values• We buy Domino’s because it exemplifies respect and
integrity
The Groupon effect
Based on what you know so far, how would a Groupon deal affect LOYAL CUSTOMERS, COUPON USERS, EMPLOYEES?
Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add
ENTER THE INTERNETHow do warmth and competence work online?
Store vs. online
• Study of retailers: Sears, Walmart, Best Buy, Macy’s• Pattern: customers ranked each brand as more competent
than warm, but their websites were rated even more competent than warm than their stores
• Online stores seem impersonal, even if efficient and convenient
• Retail stores have more opportunities to demonstrate warmth (people, conversations, worthy intentions)
And then there’s Zappos
• Research on Zappos proves that websites aren’t automatically lacking in warmth
• Zappos actually ranked HIGHER in warmth than in competence, even though it has no physical stores
• A company can demonstrate warmth through policies, practices, and website functionality
Zappos customer loyalty team
• Encourages customers to call, email or chat
• Highly trained to “Deliver the wow experience”
• Prices are the same as retail
Contrast: Amazon
• Earns high scores for competence• Wins loyalty through low prices, speed and ease• There is no human interaction
CEOs can *be* the warmth
“…the mobile, social, and digital age leaves no place for CEOs to hide.”
CEOs in advertising
• AceMetrix research shows that good ads featuring CEOs out-perform other ads in effectiveness
• The most effective CEO ads deliver messages that are “direct, trust inspiring, communicate a no-nonsense style” and show the CEO to be “genuine and authentic”
Example: John Schnatter
http://youtu.be/PprzM__4nlc
The problem
• Most CEOs are hired to make money, not to build loyal, long-term relationships with their customers
• People who lack warmth and worthy intentions are incompetent to lead in a new, transparent century
Humanizing brands
Brand stories – “creation myths” (how and why the organization formed in the first place)
Parasocial relationships
• When people start to think they “know” someone they’ve never met
• Horton & Wohl (1956) "Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance,” Psychiatry
• One-sided relationships
Brands the world likes
• http://www.apcoinsight.com/methodologies/tools/el-model.aspx#.UuPltP30BlA