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Articles filed in: Strategy
Lessons In Brand Storytelling From The Airbnb Rebrand
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
I have to be honest, as an Airbnb evangelist and user I felt a little disappointed as I watched the company’s relaunch unfold. Of course I wasn’t viewing the whole thing through the eyes of an impartial observer. Anyone who is an early adopter of something that begins on the fringes wants that thing to remain at the edge. Even though Airbnb has listings in 33,000 cities, in 192 countries and books more than 15 million nights worldwide, it still felt to the people who loved it first like ‘our little secret’. Yesterday that little secret came of age, six years after it first launched in a tiny San Francisco apartment. Airbnb’s introduction of the Bélo as a symbol of belonging may have polarised people, but it’s something that the company had no choice but to do on its journey to becoming ubiquitous.
While Airbnb owns a huge chunk of both the sharing and travel economies, they have big plans to unlock more of the latent value that exists in trust, hospitality and data. Of course they are well positioned to do that in so many areas from peer-to-peer dining to ride sharing, equipment hire to underground attractions or undiscovered location tours and on and on. Until today most of this value (and the Airbnb brand story) was tied up in a digital platform. What Airbnb are attempting to do now is to unlock that intangible value from the sharing economy and bring it into the physical world AND to own it too—because let’s face it if they don’t some other company will.
Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky imagines the Bélo symbol being used in all kinds of places in the physical world not just in windows where Airbnb travellers are welcome to stay. We could also see businesses around the globe from surf schools to Internet cafes using it as a sign that Airbnb travellers are welcome and valued. I don’t know how Airbnb will regulate the sharing of their brand equity and the Bélo as a standard mark. What’s to stop a business using the Bélo as a way to attract more customers rather than to signal value, or more importantly shared values—which after all is what the Airbnb traveller cares about most? The Airbnb brand story has become about more than finding a place to stay, for many it’s about finding reflections of yourself in places and spaces, with people like you.
I think the one misstep they made was trying to inject all of that meaning into the symbol and make it stand for everything straight away (a move which felt like agency-speak rather than an authentic message from the heart and so a little off brand). It might have been better to introduce the Bélo as an ‘A’ and then to let both hosts and guests to attach their own meaning to it over time.
Airbnb are at a point where their brand story has to unfold from here. This story started by accident, it continues with intention as the company sets out to build the world’s most recognisable hospitality brand. Of course where Airbnb came from and what they mean to people matters, but it’s where they are going and what they could be that must be the priority now. When a brand evolves the story has to evolve with it.
Image by Airbnb.
A Brand Is More Than A Label
filed in Brand Naming, Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
We’ve been branding things from cattle, to jewellery and even people for thousands of years. We began by burning our mark into things to signal ownership. When technology and infrastructure gave us access to things beyond our villages branding began to signal a different type of belonging, one that said ‘you can trust this because it has my mark on it’.
When you think about a modern day brand like Dyson what words immediately spring to mind?
Innovative, reliable, trusted, cutting edge, best, leader and on and on.
Even if you don’t own a Dyson product or know the company’s backstory (5,000+ failed prototypes to multi-billion dollar business), you have a sense of the brand. The Dyson brand is more than just a label or an identifier of the products the company makes. It’s an emotional anchor to those products and while a label can be assigned or attached, an emotional anchor is earned.
A great brand is not a mark burned into a product, it’s something we want to belong to.
And so it goes for your brand too.
What words and emotions do you want people to associate with your brand? And what promises will you have to make and keep in order for that to happen?
Image by vanou.
Driving Sales, The Gates Effect And Flawed Marketing Vocabulary
Over the weekend a previously out of print business book, which was unknown to many and forgotten by most shot up the Amazon bestseller list. Why when we had previously ignored John Brooks’ Business Adventures were we suddenly snapping up enough copies to make it the #1 bestselling business book on Amazon and #3 amongst books in any category? What had driven these sales all at once?
It turns out that Business Adventures is Bill Gates’ favourite business book. He told the story of how Warren Buffet lent him a copy over two decades ago on his blog this weekend. It seems that this triggered a chain reaction of re-posting, enough to increase sales of the book. When the richest man in the world recommends his favourite business book, people pay attention.
The ‘Gates Effect’ reinforces the illusion of the quick win—the shortcut to mattering to customers. If only we could reproduce that kind of miracle in our businesses to drive sales and get results. This short term, tactical thinking is where we start to fall down as marketers. Not only is our thinking flawed but the old marketing vocabulary we have inherited to support it is too. In a world filled with infinite channels and so many choices the term ‘driving sales’ becomes less relevant with each passing day.
The dictionary defines ‘drive’ as causing to move by force or compulsion. While we may think a single event, promotion or offer has the power to drive a result, the truth is that results (especially sustainable ones), are not ‘driven’— they are fostered and nurtured. And we are free to choose both the actions and the language we use to support us in achieving those results.
Back to Bill…it’s easy to forget why the word of someone we admire and trust has such an impact. The sales triggered by Bill’s post are more than a tactic instigated over a weekend to make something happen—they are a direct result of a reputation built over decades. His recommendation is powerful not because of what was said, but because of who said it and why we believe him.
We each have the power to create our own version of the Gates Effect, to make something people want to talk about, to build trust and to in it for the long haul.
If we want people to listen to our marketing messages we have to stop looking for tactical shortcuts that we believe have the power to change what people think and do. Our best hope is to be good enough to change how they feel.
Image by Michael Holden.
What Gap Is Your Business Closing?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Business is all about closing gaps.
Closing the gap between aspirations and attainment, intention and achievement, between wants and experiences.
Products and services can also close gaps between needs and functionality, innovation and utility, feelings and facts.
But perhaps most importantly, what you do closes the gap between dreams and reality, loneliness and belonging and a myriad of other feelings besides.
And marketing is the story of how you close those gaps. So it pays to know which gaps you’re closing.
Image by Gino Carrier.
Are You Using Soft Data To Create Value?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It seems like a no brainer to suppose that local businesses like a cafes, dry cleaners or dental surgeries—the kinds of businesses that serve the same customers week in week out, where the staff have the opportunity to look their customers in the eye, would take advantage of the fact that they look their customers in the eye.
Bricks and mortar businesses have the advantage of intimacy, unlike online businesses, that must collect a ton of (often valuable) hard data to learn more about their customers and how to give them what they want. Digital businesses need to use hard data in an attempt to replicate that intimacy. But the waiter sees the wrinkled nose, the barista remembers the regular, the dentist hears the stories that inputs from the keyboard can never fully communicate.
There is a lot of talk about how responsive organisations are winning in today’s new economy, a world where people expect levels of service, personalisation and relevance that were devalued and lost to them in a top down industrial economy. We hear about the winners who are positioned to take all, the AirBnbs, the Ubers, the Amazons, digital behemoths who are leveraging hard data to create platforms that connect us to our wants and to each other. And yet, the opportunity to create value from the soft data we collect every day in the form of feedback, stories and gestures from loyal customers remains largely untapped in a world that’s focused on taking advantage of hard data.
The job of every single business on the planet is to do just one thing—to make people happy. When you find ways to do that then you win.
Once our basic needs are taken care of the thing that we want most as humans is to be seen, as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs illustrates.
As the structure and social fabrics of our towns and cities changes there is a huge opportunity for local businesses to fill some of that void. Velo Cult a bicycle shop cum community hub in Portland, is one example of how it can be done.
Instead of simply trying to get the order processed or the sale over the line, we could be looking for opportunities to connect with how people feel and to understand what matters to them. Making sense of the information our customers give us—the data, then doing something that creates value with what we make of it, is where the potential is, not in the raw data itself. What could be more valuable to our businesses than taking what we know about people and using it to improve how we serve them?
Image by David Wright.
3 Simple Ways To Tell A Better Brand Story
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Brand storytelling is complex. A brand story evolves over time and is a result of doing many things well. But there are still opportunities to start telling a better story in the short term.
Here are three things you can do today to improve your brand story.
1. Create an ideal customer profile
When was the last time you sat down and really thought about your customer’s wants and needs, the challenges they face day to day and the things they care about? We often get so caught up in our solutions that we forget to think about who we are creating them for.
You can’t tell a great story unless you know who you are telling it to.
2. Invest time in writing your about page
Your about page is one of the most visited (and often most neglected) pages on your website. It might the first chance you get to build trust with that prospective customer, so it’s important not to think of it as just another menu tab on your website. If you haven’t edited your about page for while it might be worth updating it with fresh testimonials, news, information and calls to action. Think about how you might improve your social media and professional profiles too.
Here are ten tips to get you started.
3. Let your customers do the talking
There’s nothing more powerful than a recommendation from someone else. The stories about how you’ve served or helped other people matter to the people who are coming to you for help. We want proof that you are who you say you are. The reason traveller reviews are now more valuable than official star ratings is because we trust people like us to help reinforce our decisions.
Add testimonials, case studies and product reviews to your website and your marketing materials. Don’t just tell people how you make a difference, show them.
Image by Amsterdamized.
Are You Ready To Tell People About You?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Have you ever come away from being asked the, ‘so, tell me about you’ question in a professional setting and felt like you nailed it—even just a little bit? How do you sum up the essence of who you are, what you stand for and what you’re capable of without sounding like an over-rehearsed egotist, or alternatively like someone just stuffed your mouth full of cotton wool? The first step is to know who you are and what you stand for and to be comfortable with that. This understanding of your personal story informs your work and it’s something most of us don’t take half enough time to explore. So, tell me about you….
Here’s a one-page about you PDF of these questions for you to scribble on so your answers are top of mind next time you need them.
There’s one more thing to consider when you are asked this question though. It turns out that part of the answer lies in understanding why the person is asking the question in the first place. Usually when someone asks ‘about you’ in a business or sales situation, what they really want is a reason to feel safe about the judgement call they are about to make next. Perhaps they are a human resources manager, someone who is accountable to a boss, or maybe a prospective client with a limited budget wondering if you can deliver what they need? What they believe about you and that subsequent decision may impact their future and not just yours.
There are two ways to approach the answer then—the first is to give them the answer they want. The second is to be true to who you are as you gain their trust. It’s tempting to try give the right answer, but it’s far better in the long run to show up as yourself and be hired, invited or validated for the real you, than to sell people on an illusion only to disappoint them later.
Image by Tom Ellefsen.
All Of The People, All Of The Time
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
All around us big vanilla businesses and corporations are struggling to understand how to connect with customers and give people what they want. Businesses like McDonalds are ‘resetting’ and trying to find new ways to improve speed and affordability of their core offerings. Their strategy is to become even faster and cheaper. Meanwhile Mexican food chain Chipotle’s revenue jumped by 24%, it turns out that some people (not everyone, but enough to matter), are willing to pay more for sustainable food that’s produced with integrity.
Just thirty years ago operating in a niche was risky—far better to make a product or design a service that appealed to most people. But the problem with the strategy of making something for all of the people is that you end up not being able to really matter to any of them. If you don’t become part of your customer’s story then you are just another replaceable, transactional brand.
Today niche businesses thrive by making values their compass, knowing the customers they want to be loved by and adopting a strategy of enough.
And they understand that you don’t need to matter to everyone to succeed.
Image by Bon Adrien.
Freedom Is Something You Make
filed in Strategy
When I was growing up (and maybe when you were too), there were two ways you could earn a living. You could have a job, or have a business. Two clear choices, work for a boss, or be the boss. Career guidance advice went something like this…
“Get good grades, to get a qualification, to get a job that enables you to ‘have a life’.”
The subtext was that whoever had the most security from Monday to Friday was the winner. While our teachers had good intentions they never once encouraged us to explore what our definition of ‘having a life’ was. Thirty years on I’m not even sure if asking us to think about work and life in that way would have been going far enough.
The truth is that you don’t have a career, or a business, or a life. You make it. You choose to be the kind of employee or boss that you want to be. You decide what sort of company you want to build, how you want to lead and what legacy you want to leave. And then you create it—actively and intentionally.
You bring it about. You make it happen.
You don’t wait for someone to give you permission to have it.
[Thanks James for inspiring the headline.]
Image by Christian Mayrhofer.
Intention Is A Competitive Advantage
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Having a competitive advantage is not just about being better in ways that can be measured, it’s about understanding your difference and about knowing how that difference will impact the lives of your customers. Great business leaders know what they want to do well and also importantly what they won’t do.
While other banks were competing on interest rates and bank charges Umpqua Bank aspired to become ‘The World’s Greatest Bank’—not the world’s most profitable, or biggest, or most competitive bank, just the greatest bank to the communities they served. And they did it by making a promise with intention that translated into what they call ‘a state of mind’.
Umpqua behaves and operates less like a bank and more like a trusted neighbour (in fact the bank was originally set up by a group of ‘neighbourhood folks’ 60 years ago to help support each others’ financial needs and aspirations). People who work for a bank that says it’s about “understanding customer’s financial needs and at the same time realising that there’s more to life than money”, which becomes not just a place to bank, but a community hub where knitting groups and yoga classes are held, understand their intention. When you answer the phone with “Umpqua, the world’s greatest bank”, (they do) you know what you’re shooting for in every interaction.
The truth is that the brands we love don’t just create products and services, they find ways to have a role in our lives. That truth applies as much to a phone that people fall in love with, or a thermostat that makes them feel both comfortable and smart as it does to a bank.
Image by Rick Obst.