Principles & Battlefields

Methodology

Organisations spend a huge budget on creating their brand, whether that’s a scale-up or enterprise business. For many, this results in a PowerPoint that no employee ever opens (or cares about) and a set of graphics, with most overly obsessing about their logo.

When it comes to brand strategy most organisations follow some type of onion or key with all manner of words in. How can you argue with the value of ‘simple’? These values matter and should be experienced.

Let us look at the process in more detail:

1. Interrogate each brand value – how it is actively used in the business today, and how does the competition attack you?
2. Map out how these values are experienced in a blended retail format – the bricks, the clicks, and the people
3. Analyse the customer journey following a comprehensive Heuristic Review and OTEC scoring session
4. Look for opportunities where the category average is low and the journey stage aligns with one or multiple of your brand values
5. Amplify the value of these opportunities when developing your roadmap as key focus areas

Outcome

Creating a simple flow chart of how your brand values ladder to specific experience principles helps the entire organisation get ‘brand’. For this is how we behave to deliver a memorable customer experience. For many employees who think brand means logo, this will be a transformation in their thinking.

Debating every potential journey moment through the lens of experience principles brings focus to the entire customer journey. There will be moments of unavoidable problems – so look at how they can be grouped – swallowed as a single bitter pill, and made as best as possible.

Recognising you cannot be famous for everything – but wanting to do less, and better can help all employees understand where they need to provide utility and where they need to do something in a very specific way.

When this is executed right, it’s extremely difficult for competitors to copy, as it isn’t their brand strategy…. they might attempt to copy, but it will fizzle out quickly due to not being in their culture. An image wrapper, some might say.

Timeline: 4 weeks

• 2 weeks – review brand values and develop experience principles
• 2 weeks – review customer journey opportunities for where the touchpoints and values align
• 1 week – create focus and momentum in roadmap planning for these specific items

How do we prioritise our requirements?

An organisation’s most significant transformation is involving stakeholders in the prioritisation process – often the most political and black box of activities. Change your methodology and tools to enable prioritisation all stakeholders can buy into truly.

How do we know where to differentiate?

You could feel like there are a million tasks on the to-do list, worrying if any of them will really make a difference in helping the organisation stand out and be famous. Put your brand values to work.

How can we plot a roadmap?

Sharing a plan can be the most important tool in enabling everyone in the organisation to understand what is being done, why, and importantly when. The work never stops – and that includes communicating.