By Jessica Wilkerson

People Are No Longer Buying Products or Services……they choose a company. With a plethora of product choices, it has become far too difficult and time-consuming to attempt to evaluate each offering. It is much easier now to determine if the company you’re buying from shares your values and is likely to provide a good experience. We’ve known for a long time that a brand is a heuristic for consumers – a short cut to limit the amount of thinking that is required to evaluate and compare products. But the American consumer has matured beyond using only brands as heuristics to using the company behind each brand as the heuristic.  Or perhaps the company brand is just taking a more prominent role, which would lead to the conclusion that the “brand” is not necessarily the brand, but an amalgam of what the brand stands for and what the company stands for.

This perspective on American consumption is evidenced in Millward Browns’ studies showing that brands with the greatest growth are those that are built on purpose and values, not product attributes.

Commonalities across purpose-driven organizations:

1.Have a charismatic leader who lives the purpose through symbolic action and positive reinforcement

2.Are surrounded by people who embody the purpose in their personal and professional lives

3.Have strong stakeholder advocacy by being a servant, protector, and inspiration

4.Use purpose as the prism for growth and decision-making

5.Earn profits in a way that is consistent with the purpose

At (r)evolution, we believe purpose is more fundamental than brand positioning. It is commonly seen and heard in communications, it guides decisions across the entire organization from operations to M&A to customer service to HR to communications. It is NOT the existing corporate strategy, vision or mission. It is NOT something new or the communications strategy du jour. It is an excavation and discovery of something that already exists. It has immediate credibility and power because it is an articulation of something everyone knows implicitly.

Importantly, the brand’s purpose is always a human truth – something that every person knows and understands. It articulates something unique and distinct about a company and brand’s role in the world and its reason for being. It is most evident in times when the organization must take a stand, like J&J did during the Tylenol crisis. Once the purpose is understood, it can be linked to the existing positioning to develop a comprehensive communications strategy/platform both internally and externally. Eventually, it can and should be used to guide the decisions of the entire organization. Understanding what your company’s purpose starts with a fundamental question, “If your company were gone tomorrow, what would the world lose?”

By Michael Hartley

Marketers have longed championed the cause of branding, especially in the B2C space, citing such benefits as product memorability, familiarity, brand loyalty, and lower product marketing costs. But beyond these quantifiable costs, brands are also a reflection of the company’s spirit, goals, and position in the marketplace. One useful tool in understanding a brand is to think of it in the context of a superhero.

The Importance of Origin

Origin stories explain three important elements of a superhero: mission, identity and powers. Consider the origin story of Batman. Eight-year-old Bruce Wayne, walking with his parents in an alley, runs away as muggers approach and subsequently witnesses the murder of his parents. His traumatic story serves as the backdrop for the creation of Batman. Bruce’s mission quickly becomes clear: to avenge his parents’ death. His identity—millionaire and owner of Wayne Enterprises—explains his ability keep his Batman alter-ego secret. And while Batman has no supernatural power, his Batsuit, Batmobile, and Batcave enable his fight against Gotham’s most evil villains.

In a brand, origin stories are just as important as they are for superheroes. They help the consumer understand how the brand came to be (its identity), what it stands for (its mission), and how it will change the world (its powers). Consider Facebook—a brand with an origin story so powerful it became a book and then a movie. Controversies and drama aside, most people know that college student Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook so that Harvard students could share photos. The Facebook identity was, and still is, one of fun, ease, and empowerment. While its mission has grown in scale, in principle it remains the same: to connect people and enable them to share personal information. Finally, Facebook’s power is that empowers users with the ability to expand their network. Users choose to join the network, choose what content they upload, and choose how they share that information. Facebook’s humble origin and simple mission resonate with consumers and have enabled its tremendous growth over the past 5 years.

Understanding your power and its emotional benefits

Superheroes rely on special powers or abilities to carry out their missions. For companies, identifying your power—at the highest level—can help pinpoint the emotional benefits you provide a customer that truly drive brand loyalty. Coca-Cola is one company that has embraced emotional branding and used it to drive preference. Advertisers love to tell the story of how Coca-Cola’s marketing department defined Santa Claus as we know him today: plump, jolly, and wearing a red suit. Thanks to magazine advertising beginning in 1931, Santa Claus became a de facto symbol of Coca-Cola. While not a superhero in the traditional sense, Santa Claus does have a power—a power that lies in his gift giving (a functional benefit) and the happiness that comes with it (emotional benefits). Coca-Cola has long known that their power isn’t making soda or acquiring sub-brands. Rather, Coca-Cola’s most recent marketing campaign has one simple message: open happiness. After 80 years of branding and marketing, the world’s number one came back to the power of its icon, Santa Claus, to drive differentiation.

How to differentiate your brand

Finally, thinking of your brand as a superhero can help you differentiate your company and understand it’s position in the marketplace. Is your company front-and-center, like Superman? Or does it remain behind the scenes until the customer puts up a Bat Symbol? Or maybe your company empowers the customer, like the ring gives power to the Green Lantern.  Understanding the personality of your brand can help you position your company in the marketplace to be differentiated from other brands.

By Danny Chapman

Coca-Cola, the world’s largest beverage company, began changing its Coca-Cola product cans and bottle tops from iconic red to snow white as they raise awareness for the habitats of the polar bears they’ve so long featured in their holiday advertising. The design will make its way on to over 1.4 billion cans and will allow consumers to donate $1 by texting the package code to357357. Coca-Cola plans to donate around $4 million dollars towards the WWF’s efforts to maintain a tundra habitat twice the size of Texas between Greenland and Canada.(1)

This isn’t the Coca-Cola Company’s first major can design change this year—the company gave its Diet Coke product a much needed makeover for the fall season. The new can, which features the Diet Coke logo scaled up is both interesting and different.

For a brand that, according to Interbrand’s Guide to the Most Valuable Brands(2), is the most well recognized brand globally, it can be a risky to change the identity of your product. Packaging is the final frontier before purchase for customers. However these two can changes reflect the power that great branding can have. In terms of the first-ever white can, Coca-Cola is able to not only draw attention to their product but also demonstrate corporate citizenship through support of the environment and its beloved polar bear mascots. Not all CSR programs work for companies, but in this case, Coca-Cola has found a perfect balance between strategy and charity.

Sources:

(1)http://www.forbes.com/sites/eco-nomics/2011/10/27/in-first-coca-cola-cans-go-white-for-polar-bears/
(2)http://issuu.com/interbrand/docs/bgb_report_us_version

Managing Principal Brad White is serving as a Conference Chair for the 2011 PDMA Annual Product Innovation Management Conference <http://conference.pdma.org/> . This year’s conference is being held in Phoenix, AZ from October 29-November 2. Clients and friends of (r)evolution can use the registration code “CM11GC” for a 20% discount to the registration fee. We hope to see you in Phoenix.

Only 20% of Americans can say they strongly enjoy their jobs. This creates nearly 40 hours or more per week of dislike, boredom, or just plain hate for a large majority of Americans. .

Career well-being is an essential part of a healthy and enjoyable life. People with high career well-being wake up with something to look forward to that day at work. These people are involved in something that fits their strengths, gives them a feeling of purpose, and allows them to attain their goals.

At (r)evolution, we believe an essential element to career well-being is developing trusted relationships. We believe that our business is founded on relationships, our relationships are founded on trust, and trust is founded on integrity. We strive to maintain open and honest relationships with each other and we seek the same with our clients. Developing these relationships entails committing to a common purpose, so that we can lead with flexibility and agility to uncover solutions. Below are some tips* on how focusing on relationship management can lead to better career well-being for employees and, in turn, better client results.

o Show signs of truly caring about your employees: Many managers care about their employees’ progression within the company, but it is also important to care about them as a whole person. This means not just seeing the employee as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. Employee respect can be gained beyond merely creating results and working hard; it can be created on personal connections that extend outside of the office.

o Be open about the challenges you face outside the work place: It is a common belief that personal issues and dilemmas should be kept outside the workplace. However, if you have heart and passion for what you do and it shows, then others will follow your lead. Being open and showing your emotions can lead to deeper understanding from all parties and can create a positive, low-stress environment, allowing employees to take full advantage of their intellectual capabilities.

o Require continual follow-up to help employees manage their well-being: This doesn’t mean project feedback, but general Q&A sessions based on how they’re doing physically and emotionally at work. This is a great way to gain an emotional, financial, and competitive advantage for your organization. Be open with your employees and they will be open with you.

At (r)evolution we love what we do. We pride ourselves on our people and our relationships with each other and our clients, which creates strong career well-being for all individuals involved. We believe strong well-being allows us to think differently and deliver unquestionable value.

When you have employees with high career well-being, they’ll do great work, support each other, and go to great lengths and new heights to create unquestionable value. Essentially, a comfortable and thought-provoking atmosphere in which employees feel they are emotionally secure can lead to focused creativity and innovative thinking

Employees who agree with the statement “my manager cares about me as a person” are more likely to*:

- Are more likely to be top performers

- Produce higher quality work

- Are less likely to be sick

- Are less likely to change job

- Are less likely to get injured on the job

*Source: Tom Rath & Jim Harter, Well Being: The Five Essential Elements, Copyright 2010 Gallup, Inc.

Think back to when you were a young child, sitting in school and waiting anxiously for the teacher to announce “Storytime.”

What made this so special? It was probably your best chance to let your imagination run wild, for you to connect, if only for a short time, with a world not familiar to your own.

Now think back to the last business presentation that you either attended or delivered yourself.

Did it engage you and inspire your imagination to run wild? Did it motivate you or your audience to take quick action or get truly excited about the prospect of a new idea? Most likely, the presentation lacked these qualities, and it probably contained PowerPoint slides or spreadsheets to get the main points across. That’s because it was not a story.

So, what happened to Storytime?

Turning Presentations into Stories

While not formally a part of many companies’ cultures, storytelling is becoming more present than you might think and there is plenty of room for it to grow.

The fact is, business in general is teeming with powerful stories and engaging storytellers, and true business success heavily depends on the power to tell a good story. Yet mastering the art of storytelling is not an easy task, and understanding how to apply this mastery is even harder.  The stories are all around us already – tapping into their potential is what makes all the difference.

In his book, Tell to Win, Peter Guber talks about the revolutionary power of telling a good story as a fundamental to business success. The telling and listening of oral stories is deeply embedded in our DNA – and so too should it be part of your company’s DNA.

By highlighting tales of new business ventures, screenplay pitches, and other radical propositions that all relied on storytelling, Guber is able to paint a clear picture that Storytelling leads to Success. But how can it be applied in business and marketing settings? More importantly, how do you master this art?

What Makes a Good Story?

As a formula for storytelling, Guber breaks down the story into three equally important parts:

- The beginning should shine light on the challenge or problem
- The middle should present a struggle to meet that challenge
- The end should offer a resolution that ignites the listener

When it all comes together, your story should get your audience to say “ah ha!”

What Makes a Good Storyteller?

Remember that anyone can be a good storyteller, and practice is definitely the key. It is about tapping into your own experiences, seeing the world around you, and framing your story in a way that connects with your audience.  It is about introducing the characters, the hero, and the drama to get your story moving. Most importantly, it is about showing your passion and wholeheartedly believing in your story.

Telling Your Story to the Consumer

But storytelling isn’t only a good tool for presentations. Companies always look for more ways to engage their customers, and storytelling is the perfect way to do that.  It brings a human element into marketing that is hard to beat, and when used correctly, can lead to increased sales and brand affinity.

Of course, it is not always easy to figure exactly what kind of story you should tell, and how. Here are a few simple ideas to introduce storytelling elements into your marketing efforts:

- Every company has a story – from its founders, to its mission and purpose, to the breakthroughs and developments that helped grow the brand over time – and the authentic story can engage consumers
- The story can be told on the packaging itself, signaling to consumers that they are buying products from humans, not just corporations – Horizon Dairy does a great job of telling their own Farm Story
- The shopper experience can be a story in itself – Find out what the “drama” is in the consumer’s life, make that consumer the “hero”, and offer a “resolution” with a product that they can’t live without – Or better yet, make the product the “hero”

So, the next time you prepare for a presentation or even try to develop a new marketing strategy, think about how you can tell a better story. Know your audience and what they will connect with. Know your desired outcome and the action you hope to inspire. And figure out how to arrive at the “ah ha” moment.  The possibilities are endless.

Sources: Tell To Win – Connect, Persuade, and Win With the Hidden Power of  Story, Peter Guber, 2011, Image The U.S. Army

While we have worked with companies all over the world, (r)evolution is proud to announce our first expansion outside of Atlanta. In Summer 2011, we will officially open the doors to our New York City outpost, and we’re excited to soon call this new city home.

In recent years, we have experienced strong growth and great successes, helping us to establish close relationships with our clients and build a team of once-in-a-lifetime individuals.

Much of our growth has come from our clients in the Northeast, who have invested in our process, our people, and our culture throughout our first 7 years. This is precisely why we’re excited to invest in New York and the Northeast region. We are committed to growing our clients’ businesses, and we are excited to take this first step towards building a truly global presence for (r)evolution.

This means we can provide more value and work more collaboratively with our clients in and around New York City, without sacrificing the culture we have cultivated for so long in Atlanta. In time, we will build a permanent team for (r)evolution in New York, and we hope you are part of this growth.

We’re excited to spread the news and to make our presence known in New York.

Upon entering China, Shanghai in particular, you feel the hum of people working, hope growing and a nation moving forward at an incredible pace.  Upon entering New Delhi, you hear a different buzz.  You hear chaos- cars honking, people yelling, everyone in a bustle to get things done and keep up with and supervise the pace of India’s growth.  Both have inspiring tales of growth and both offer valuable lessons for fueling and maintaining growth.

Background on China’s Growth

China is the largest exporter, a top manufacturer, the second largest importer of goods and the world’s fasted growing economy. However, these are all recent successes as China’s influence in the world economy was minimal until the late 1980s. At that time, economic reforms initiated after 1978 began to generate significant and steady growth in investment, consumption and standards of living. Since the wide-ranging 1980s reforms to the communist system, China has managed its growth through a gradualist and controlled approach. China’s growth comes both from huge state investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare and heavy industry and from private sector expansion. China has emphasized raising the GDP per capita and shifts the society from a saving society to a consumption driven society. The government has also focused on foreign trade as a major vehicle for growth.

Background on India’s Economic Growth

The Indian economy has recently recording some of the highest growth rates in the world. But India’s economy has followed a completely new path to development. The economic liberalization in 1997 spawned a whole new breed of self-made entrepreneurs who have been the drivers of growth, unlike China’s top down approach. As Gurcharan Das, author and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India, put it:

“The Indian growth path is unique. That is really scary because we are not following a proven model.”

More than half of India’s GDP comes from the services sector but only employs about one-third of its labor force. The growth in services in India was a reaction to the opening up its economy when demand for services was growing.

“The emphasis on services was the result of serendipity,” says Dr. Sabir Gokarn, executive director and chief economist with CRISI. “There was no planned growth strategy to increase the share of services.” Agriculture still employs over half of the nation, as India veers from an export-led growth strategy, as most other nations in Asia have done. India’s effort at rapid economic growth with a coalition democratic government is without parallel anywhere in the world and highlights why India is still plagued by many inefficiencies and infrastructure issues.

Lessons For Growth

Both of these incredible growth stories highlight different ways of managing and sustaining rapid growth.  On the one hand, China uses its central plan to fuel its progress. India, on the other hand, has reacted to the opportunity of meeting the needs of its 1.2 billion-person population through organic growth via the service sector.  Both of these countries’ paths to prosperity offer three valuable lessons for business and growth.

1. Have a clearly articulated vision that all the key stakeholders buy into. This lesson may seem like a given, but it cannot be stressed enough, as it is the main driver of sustainable and consistent growth in China. Yes, it is a communist society with strict government control, but the government has an incredible marketing talent, which has contributed to the hundreds of millions of Chinese that share in the dream for a better, richer and more powerful China.  More importantly, this shared vision has allowed China to meet key milestones in record time, delivering on the promises they make each year about its growth.

2. Develop an easy to implement strategy and focus on executing one part of that strategy to reach sustainable growth. Again China offers a valuable lesson through its planned growth.  China does not try to address everything at once.  The government develops ten year plans focused on one or two key areas, whether it is infrastructure, healthcare, education, the banking system or growing the private sector.  Once the country has focused its attention and resources on the current plan, the Chinese mobilize, each knowing their role and how they are contributing, to execute on the plan until it is perfected. The Beijing Olympics were executed in exactly this way.

3. Keep your eyes open and be opportunistic. Although slightly contradictory to China’s lesson on vision and planning, India’s lesson is focused on not getting so bogged down by strategy and plans to miss the opportunities that exist at every turn.  India is the best place to experience this lesson because there is no plan there.  Its growth has been organic – fueled by the local entrepreneur and flexible corporations. At every street corner you see people leaping at the opportunity to sell you something, start a new business or get the chance to give you a ride in the Tuk Tuk (motorized rickshaw).  This opportunism and aggressive desire to their quality of life and tap the new sources of growth has contributed to the upward mobility of many Indians and the country in general.

Each country, incredible and unique in their growth stories, has interesting insights and lessons to share as they carve new paths and strategies to manage and sustain their growth.

Sources: Historical GDP of the People’s Republic of China, Culture, Civilization and Leadership Blog 2011, “Why India’s Growth Strategy is Different?”

We recently had the chance to sit down with author and expert on courage, Bill Treasurer. Bill’s latest book, Courage Goes to Work, focuses on building workplace courage. Bill’s own expertise in courage comes from his background as a high diver:

“I learned at a young age that I had a debilitating fear of heights. When I was a kid, my dad took me and my younger brother to the top of the Empire State Building. As the two of them were looking down at the metropolis below, I was pressed up against the building, petrified that I was going to fall. I remember being upset because my younger brother could do something that I couldn’t. It was the first time that I realized what a paralyzing effect that fear can have over a person.

“A few years later I discovered the sport of springboard diving. The sport took hold and I became quite skilled on the 1 meter springboard (i.e., the “low board”). I won the Westchester County diving championships three times. However, when colleges started to make scholarship offers, they would always ask what dives I could do on the high board. Because of my fear of heights, I had avoided the high board altogether. I knew that there would be no way for me to get a scholarship without confronting my fear of heights. So, through the patience of a coach, I started attempting dives at incrementally higher heights. My coach helped me move outside my comfort zone, but in an absorbable way. Eventually I got a full scholarship to West Virginia University.

“After college, I continued attempting higher dives, eventually from heights that scaled to over 100 feet. I became a member of the U.S. High Diving Team and traveled around the world performing in high diving shows at entertainment parks. The genesis of that experience is my fear of heights. You can think of me as the high diver who is afraid of heights!

“The experience was so meaningful to me, that years later when I started my business, I decided that the focus of the business would be to help people take whatever “high dives” they are facing at work. My company, Giant Leap Consulting, is a courage-building company.”

We asked Bill to elaborate a little bit more on courage and how it relates to both organizations and leadership in those organizations.

How do you define courage for leaders and organizations?

“Acting on what is right, despite being afraid or uncomfortable, when facing situations involving pain, risk, uncertainty, opportunity, or intimidation. NOTE: Courage is NOT fearLESSness. It is the opposite. When you are being courageous you are fearFUL, but you carry on despite being afraid.”

How important is courage in organizations to create real, lasting innovation and growth?

“It’s supremely important. It’s courage that fuels a worker’s ability to pursue stretch goals, step up to challenges, and assert ideas. It’s courage that gives innovation the backbone that is needed when new ideas have to be fought for. It’s courage that allows you to withstand the turbulence and naysaying that inevitably accompany new ideas in the early stages. And it’s courage that allows you to ditch a product that’s on its last leg but sentimentality is causing people to hold on too tightly to the past.

“Given the chance, where would you rather work, in a company where everyone’s behavior is directed by fear and anxiety, or where people were confident and courageous?”

What are the best ways to encourage more worthwhile risk-taking when it comes to innovation and growth?

“The single most influential determinant of a culture is the leader of its behaviors. So if a company wants its workers to take some innovative high dives, metaphorically speaking, then the leaders have to be the first ones up and off the platform. Leaders have to Jump First.

“Bertrand Russell once said, “All great ideas start out first as blasphemy.” So, if you really want to create ground-breaking ideas, you have to be willing to defy tradition. You have to encourage pushback, a collision of ideas, and spirited disagreement. All, of course, directed toward an outcome of a fetching and marketable idea. That means leaders have to explicitly encourage back-talk. Especially back-talk that is directed at challenging conventions, cutting through bureaucracy, and neutralizing organizational politics that hinder the implementation, or at least piloting, of good ideas.”

What organizations are good examples of fostering courage and focusing it into innovation and growth?

“Organizationally, it is easier to share specific instances of decisions that were courageous, versus labeling an organization a fully “courageous company”. I think Patagonia displayed courage when it decided to use only pesticide-free cotton in the production of its cotton clothes. It cost them a bundle to do that, but ultimately resulted in more sales. Likewise, the decision of Domino’s Pizza to advertise that their internal research confirmed that their pizza’s tasted lousy, was courageous. In a sense, they were inviting the public into the process of reinventing Domino’s image (and pizza), and it’s working. Dove’s decision to use real women in its commercials, instead of waif-like fairy princesses, took courage. Gore-Tex, of course, is widely admired for fostering a client of smart risk-taking and mistake-making. In terms of consistent, sustainable innovation, they’re the gold-standard.”