Can’t we all just get along?

More than 1,800 responses later (roughly 1,300 from U.S. marketers and 500 from business buyers of U.S. brands who work overseas) the results show that we can all agree on one thing.

The perception of American business brands has declined dramatically.

But the stunning thing about the results of this three-year study is that despite that decline in U.S. brand image 96 percent of U.S. marketers believe that their companies will continue to do business with their current customers across the pond.

Denial isn’t just a river

Unfortunately, on the other side, almost 20 percent of overseas buyers say that they will switch from American business brands to brands from other countries. One third of these changes were attributed directly to U.S. foreign policy prior to October 2008.

The full report and analysis is worth checking out.

Be sure to scroll down past the numbers to the verbatim quotes to get a sense for the depth of these feelings on both sides.

Four ways to keep your brand from falling off the planet

If you even remotely suspect that your brand might be in this situation there are a few things you might want to consider.

• Don’t think that just because you have a b2b brand with strong personal relationships with foreign buyers that you are immune from this decline in U.S. brand perceptions around the world.

• Check out the strength of those relationships through an objective third party. You may be surprised what foreign buyers say when someone else asks them about your brand relationship.

• Listen to what your overseas customers and prospects have to say. Take it to heart.

• And then initiate actions that connect with them on their cultural terms. Not on yours.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

The spine-tingling experience was brought to you by a creaky old elevator. One you’d expect to see in a vintage black and white French film. It was tiny. Two people could barely fit in it. Its padded walls were made of old brown leather which surrounded you on three sides with a cracked, pot-marked, dark and foreboding patina of gloom. Worst of all, it had one of those spindly sliding cage doors you had to push hard until it locked before the elevator would move.

Where fear will get you

But despite all the effort it took to make the trip, I’m convinced the main reason no one came to visit was a little sign in the elevator. Surrounded by scratch marks in the leather all around it, the sign read, “Fear and panic will get you nowhere.”

Good advice when it comes to dealing with the dramatic and sometimes-scary paradigm shifts that continue to take place in communications.

Lord, have mercy on the frozen man

Before plunging in with fear and panic its always a good idea to take a minute, take a deep breadth, get your bearings and then start the rollercoaster ride. This is especially true when trying to figure out what social media can do for your company.

Before you throw your marketing program into the vortex, get your feet wet first by personally experiencing what’s going on out there.

• Buy an iPhone. Download a bunch of apps. It will change your life.

• Set up a twitter account and experience the breadth of trivia and the depth of learning you can be exposed to quickly. You can follow my tweets @gordonhochhalte if you think it will help.

• Learn the rules of the community

• Get experience understanding that you cannot control the message.

• Learn first hand how to give to get.

• Experience what transparency and sincerity mean in this new space.

• See for yourself how participation and feedback lead to co-creation.

• Get help.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

It came with your PC

It plainly marques for your revue

Mistakes you cannot sea.

You strike a key and type a word

And weight for it two say

Weather your wrong or write

It shows you strait away.

As soon as a mistake is maid

It nose before two long

And you can put the error rite

Its never, ever wrong.

In fact, I have run this little ditty threw it

So I am shore you’re pleased to no

It’s letter perfect to the end

My spell cheque told me sew.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

No matter what situation you’re in during these difficult times there is one thing you should definitely consider doing. And that is to learn more about what your customers and prospects value when they make a buying decision these days.

Leave the we, we, we at home

Why should you be spending whatever you can afford to listen to your customers and prospects? Because they, not your internal constituencies, are the people with the money. The money to spend right now.

So whatever research technique you use to listen to them, it should answer eight basic value questions. Most importantly, it should answer them strictly from your customers’ and prospects’ points of view. Without any prompting from you.

Because only customers and prospects count now

• What is the buying process they go through to identify sources, evaluate them and approve purchase decisions? (This is not the same as your selling process.)
• Who is involved in this process and what role do they play in it? (This list will probably go beyond people your sales force calls on.)
• What problems, concerns or challenges do they face that your brand can help them solve?
• What specific functional and emotional criteria or attributes do they use to make a buying decision? (Easy, surface answers like price, quality or service don’t count. Dig deeper into their meanings and the emotions behind them.)
• How important is each criterion to them?
• What brands do they consider when making a buying decision? ( Not all of these will be on your list of competitors.)
• How do they rate each competitor’s performance on their buying criteria?
• How do they rate your brand’s performance on those criteria?

Armed with this information, you can position your company and products in way that is most relevant and compelling to people when they are making buying decisions. Based on the things that they value most right now. And you can build brand messages and brand contacts in a way that will truly differentiate you in these turbulent times.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Then, all of sudden, it happened. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him. And so did everyone else. It was Joe Sixpack with three packs of Bud and seven cartons of Twinkies striding down the aisle right up to the cashier and out of the store.

No matter how you view it, but especially if you view it from a lifetime customer value perspective, there is something terribly wrong with this scene.

It made me think of my mother

My mother recently passed away. So I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship. We had a good one. Chiefly because she believed in me. Even when I didn’t believe in myself. And as a result, she treated me differently than she treated other people. She treated me special. And as a result of that, she talked to me differently.

I guess my mother understood one thing the great marketing minds of the food chains still don’t understand. You have to actually treat people differently before the act of talking to them differently will mean anything to them. After 20 minutes in a grocery store line watching snacker after snacker glide through the checkout counter I was not ready for a message about how valuable and appreciated my long term patronage is to Food Circus.

Earning the right to be heard

Once someone buys something from you they are no longer part of the market. They are your customer. And they deserve to be treated differently.

The root of relationship marketing, it seems to me, is not a fancy schmancy CRM system. Relationship marketing is treating customers differently — specially. Everything else, including brand communications, emanates from that. Being it comes before saying it.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong

The example was about the clubcard program introduced by Tesco, a UK-based grocer. Here is a link to a related case study I found online for your reference.

Tesco introduced their clubcard program in the mid 90’s, which keeps their customers’ data for up to two years. The company has insights people who look for patterns and segment its users into over a hundred different buyer profiles. The cool thing is Tesco provides each of these users with personalized benefits that he or she values. For example, expectant mothers have special parking close to the store and a personal assistant to do the bending and lifting they shouldn’t. If I remember correctly, Tesco also tracks the frequency an item is purchased. So, if you buy paper towels once a month, they can hit you up with a coupon the week before your planned purchase.

In my Dominick’s example, I just wanted them to tell me when products I’ve actually previously purchased are on sale. Tesco customers get valuable coupons on products they already actually prefer.

The thought of receiving information or coupons that are targeted to me directly makes me schoolgirl giddy. From what I understand, US-based grocers have messy, messy databases, preventing them from being able to use the data they are collecting on each of us in a meaningful way for several years.

But some of my friends and family members do not agree. To them it is scary to share that kind of personal information and/or receive that level of personal attention.

I think, though, that the benefits outweigh the risk. Think of how much simpler shopping would be! You probably already get a taste of it when you call your local pizzeria . . . your phone number is tied to your record, so when they answer the phone they greet you by name. They have your last order in front of them, so they ask if you’d like the same as last time and can remind you of what that was in case you forgot. They might even have your credit card on file, if you’ve granted them that permission, which cuts a five- to six-minute call down to one minute! Can you imagine the extra time in your day if all your transactions were that clean and simple?

“Treat customers like they are special,” that’s what Gordon always says. Well, okay, maybe I’ve heard him say that a handful of times, but it is still an important point.Because if you don’t, someone else will.

One was adamant that branding is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo concocted by agencies and brand consultants to get more money for doing what they’ve always done; advertising, direct mail, collateral, design and the like. The other guy insisted that in this day and age branding is essentially what you do with your logo and tagline on your Website, banners, sponsorships and the like.

Welcome to the end of the world as we know it

Three things occurred to me during our argument. The first was that there are still people out there performing the professional equivalent of making left hand turns from right hand lanes, trying to pay for drive-thru tacos with a check and calling 411 to get the number for information.

The second thing that occurred to me was that neither of these guys recognized that we are going through a massive and revolutionary shift in how business people get, evaluate and use brand information. And that paradigm shift changes not only how they will use brands to make decisions in the future but it also changes the very nature of what a brand is or will be. In this new paradigm brands will be much more holistic.

The third thing that occurred to me was that I’d never find my mother in a bar anyway. She’s in a nursing home.

But it also occurred to me that maybe I should do some research and take a stab at describing what these new, more holistic, more powerful new paradigm brands will be like.

Characteristics of new paradigm brands

I think that brands that will succeed in this new, connected market where customers and prospects control the flow of information, communications and the buying process will have 11 untraditional things in common.

• They will reflect what the company and offering truly is, not what the company wants people to believe it is.

• They will be built around what is important to and most valued by customers and prospects when they are making a purchase or use decision.

• They will look for their value, vision and promise in their customers’ businesses, not their own.

• They will find a unique, engaging, human voice.

• They will enter the market conversation around the brand to listen, learn, react and respond, rather than simply to send out, cram and jam interruptive messages down a one-way communications channel.

• They will create meaningful dialogues with their customers and prospects, not self-serving monologues.

• They will connect employees directly to the market conversations that are going on about the brand.

• They will connect employees to customers by integrating and circulating the voice of the customer (their issues, buying criteria, perceptions, point of view) back into the organization at all levels.

• They will align their external market and brand position with the company’s internal culture around a unifying vision, mission and belief system.

• They will communicate a consistent corporate belief (a reason for being beyond making money) both internally and externally.

• They will use this shared belief system to secure trust and loyalty from within the organization and from their customers.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

It is the first line that sets me off – “Your favorite items on sale this week at your local Dominick’s.” I faithfully allow them to scan my club card on every visit, which means they have a database of all the items I’ve ever purchased at any Dominick’s within the last couple years, depending on how long they keep their data.  And 100% of the time I’ve been on their email list I have never – not even one time – purchased the majority of “my favorite items” featured each week.

Here’s an example.  I’ve crossed out all the items I’ve never purchased in red.  Let’s take a look, shall we?  Pinot Grigio is almost exclusively my white wine of choice, with an occasional Sauvignon Blanc thrown in for good measure.  Just ask my poor mother how I feel about pork chops and I don’t really buy steak for my house.  I am a loyal Pepsi drinker . . . I’d rather drink water than buy Coke for my home.  And I never liked orange juice – not as a kid and not in a screwdriver.

That leaves the peppers.

I actually have purchased red peppers at Dominick’s – though probably only five in my lifetime, as they are a newly acquired taste.  Hardly qualifies them as a “favorite,” though.

So when I open this email, instead of seeing it as a helpful piece of communication that would persuade me to shop at Dominick’s this weekend instead of next, I see a reminder of how the place where I spend hundreds of dollars over the course of a year doesn’t even know who I am. Even though they could.

Unsubscribe.

The woman’s toes looked like they’d been manicured at some time earlier in history and the bright red lacquer had begun to show signs of wear, tear and great neglect.  Luckily, the guy’s toes and feet, despite similarities to the legendary BigFoot, did not throw off an odor one would associate with such a wild beast.  However, the guy raised his feet one at a time and appeared to adjust the fit of each flip-flop by tapping the wall.  Perhaps he was trying to get us to notice the crew cut style of his toe hair.

There seems to be a kind of double standard when it comes to displaying feet in the office.  Women have long been allowed to show off their nicely manicured toes in the office space.  I suppose if you spend that much money on a fancy pedicure you certainly don’t want to keep this investment hidden.  Men, on the other hand, normally aren’t real big about toe grooming – metrosexuality aside.  Thus, should anyone – man or woman - have to put up with having male toes in their line of sight while trying to conduct business?  (And don’t get me started on mandals.)

While flip-flops may have become a kind of semi-sanctioned summer apparel for office environments over the last few years, there are plenty of us that don’t appreciate the beach boy attire.  I’m not the only one who feels flip-flops are meant for somewhere other than the office:  “ . . .as casual Fridays became casual Monday-through-Friday, some think they’re living in a Corona commercial and keep showing up to work with bacteria factories strapped to their feet . . .”—-from askmen.com
“ a foot in a flip-flop might as well be naked and naked feet don’t belong anywhere near an office . . . summer months bring the urge to go thwackety-thwack into the salt mines . . .” – Washington Post staff writer

Most agencies like Mobium are quite liberal in their office attire policies – after all how can you really develop strong creative ideas wearing leather shoes and socks?  My Mom, may she rest in peace, used to go crazy seeing women wearing tennis shoes with their nice office attire.  It took her a while for her to understand that they just wore them to and from the office and put on something more appropriate while they were at work.  I guess I get just as looney about these cheap flip-flops “thwacking” around the office. It ranks up there with annoying gum snapping.

However, if someone had a strong rationale for how flip-flops are appropriate for the office environment, I suppose I could be convinced to do a flip-flop of my position on this critical issue.