Pulling Icons Back from the Brink
How Re-visioning Can Restore What Re-engineering Obliterated

By Pam Murtaugh

It's no coincidence that three of the most powerful consumer icons—Coke, Disney and McDonald's—face similar challenges here and around the world. What's the common bond in their collective reversal of fortunes? Look no further than the last 13 years of business development and its laser-focus on the supply side, moving brands away from their core values and into a netherworld of efficient systems. But these and other struggling consumer brands can be saved with a resurrection of the souls that made them valuable, even iconic, in the first place.

In the late '80s and early '90s, when slackening sales could no longer be covered up by progressive price increases, "faster, cheaper, more productive" became the management mandates, setting the stage for the runaway success of Michael Hammer and James Champy's manifesto on re-engineering. The resulting systemization of business allowed a generation of senior managers and consultants to build entire careers based on supply-side productivity.

In the short-run, re-engineering was the savior. Profits increased, costs dropped, volumes rose slightly and stock prices rode the tide. In the long run, re-engineering has given us a world of ultra-efficient supply-side machines cranking out once-great products that have been cost-improved into mediocrity or irrelevance.

Systems with Soul
So, what is it that the founding fathers of today's icons had that our best and brightest MBAs don't? Systems with soul.

Walt Disney believed so strongly in the importance of magic, that he built "lands" of it, then "worlds" of it. And systems? The Disney empire is operationalized down to every elephant's eye-blink, and every pre-scheduled light bulb change.

Ray Kroc delivered the "break" America deserved by caring as much about bun toasting, ketchup distribution and pickle placement as he did about order, cleanliness and unfailing uniformly good service.

Asa Candler found more than a wholly original taste in that Atlanta pharmacy; he found an experience that was a mysteriously compelling blend of sweet, sour, sharp, soft, wet and dry, then perfected a bottling system that protected it.

Not one of them was focused on optimizing supply chains or synergistic brand extensions. They were acting on instincts that let them dream, invent, deliver and protect experiences that made people want to experience—to use them—again and again.

User Relevance
User relevance is the soulful connection between an experience that can deliver a specific feeling, and a user who seeks that particular feeling at specific times because it means something to him or her then. More than enjoyment, more than refreshment, more than convenience, branded experiences become valuable and enduring when they hit a meaningful spot, time after time. Recognizing that delivering these feelings is a dimension of the brand's service and equity is what soul is all about.

A decade of re-engineering has obliterated the soul, steamrolling it into volume projections, productivity mandates and overwhelming corporate ambition. These ushered in a host of contagions that led to diminishing returns: ineffective advertising, shortened product life cycles, the notion that new products and strategic acquisition are the only ways to find "growth."

Everyone knows it has become harder to succeed, but few can explain why and fewer know what to do about it. So re-engineering reigns. Everyone has saved or cut their way to passable profitability, creating even bigger problems. A firm can't survive on savings forever. The decade of re-engineering has de-branded consumer goods, cutting those valued experiences to within an inch of their lives and souls. A decade of productivity has cost-reduced everything to the point of commodity. The question has become: how much do you like this cookie? not, "How much does this Oreo give you that 'Oreo feeling'"?

Re-visioning from the Demand Side
If enduring value and sustainability are to return, the demand side can change the game with a mother lode of efficiencies—pent-up ROI. Re-visioning the business from the demand side has the infinite power to profitably sustain the business with a constant focus on defining, owning and leveraging user relevance. It puts brands back in touch with their souls, and triggers a host of other good outcomes.

The first of these positive outcomes is brand power (sales together with velocity, loyalty, margin and sustainability), the momentum created by user relevance. When a brand's product experience connects with users by delivering a specific meaning, users' allegiance to that product overcomes other factors, including price. It's as true for luxury brands as popular brands. Think of Lexus and Toyota versus Detroit. Even Detroit's draconian incentives can't get people to buy cars that don't "feel good" to them. Wanna-be buyers are wanna-be users, who willingly pay more for a car that feels worth it.

Brand power, in turn, begets business power management, the process by which the company's priorities shift from managing solely for numbers to engaging and satisfying users. A company managing for business power is able to say honestly, "Profit is our measure, not our goal." The numbers of a company that thinks this way will far outstrip those of a company for whom the number alone is the end goal. Case in point: Jet Blue and American Airlines.

American, ten-plus years ago, started the wave of cost-cutting, first by trimming olives off salads, then by unwittingly commoditizing in-flight experiences in ways that required the "bondage" of frequent-flier programs to keep passengers loyal. Meanwhile, Jet Blue, while providing personal space and personalized entertainment, has earned a valuation that is now twice that of American's. Small things can be meaningful and yield market capitalization.

It sounds simple, yet most business-to-consumer companies haven't come close to thinking on this level because their business-school manuals focus on buyers (not users) and see "core competencies" as the structural systems to leverage for greater efficiency—better ROI. But the truest core competency is the ability to recognize, sustain and deliver the soul of the business. And it can only be found by answering the question: Why does our business exist?

Satisfaction-in-Use
In business-to-consumer markets, businesses exist because they satisfy users. When this happens in uniquely valuable ways, businesses have brandable entities that make a lasting impression-in-use. One problem: most of today's businesses think their brandable entity is whatever the business decides to say it is (with consumer approval)—and that self-promotion is the way to maintain viability.

But successful brands deliver a unique impression-in-use. These sync with users' own pre-conscious urges-to-use, the real source-of-demand: why they want to use it again is why they want to buy it again. The pre-conscious urge seeks satisfaction-in-use, not liking, preference or differentiation on a shelf, a table or in a concept. In-use is the user's personal, voluntary moments-of-use. (Relying on: Attitudes? Opinions? Focus groups? Taste tests? Concept tests? Conjoint/Preference data? Beware: Consumers' thinking is unreliable for management guidance. Thinking does not guide their behavior. Strategies that follow their thinking succeed serendipitously and fail regularly.)

Letting users feel what they seek—to feel excited, triumphant over bad feelings or ready to face the day—supercedes whether a product is "fresh," "hot," "clean," etc. Delivering the feeling consumers want to feel—the net effect of usage—governs efficiencies and success. But delivering targeted feelings (not targeted people) depends on the intricacies of product experiences.

Every aspect of the consumption experience registers—the colors, sounds, taste, speed, duration, the feel—everything. These interactive non-verbals "speak" to the pre-conscious urge-linking the tangible to the intangible—delivering satisfaction and cueing brand relevance when that urge hits again.

Positioning to own targeted user relevance maximizes the frequency of current users and encourages others to consider use by demonstrating when/why a particular brand's experience is meaningful. Satisfaction-in-use clinches repeat.

User Relevance as Corporate Culture
Following the patterns of user relevance further reveals that companies produce products which suit their unstated cultural characteristics (e.g., simple, solid, straightforward, or quirky, light-hearted and abstract). Think about burgers. McDonald's burgers have always been these gooey, even creamy, combinations - hot candy bars with both sweet and savory elements! Wendy's and Burger King have always been about the meat, whether it's a square burger peeking out of the bun or a flame-broiled burger that makes sure its meat taste registers even when whopper-ized by condiments.

The pattern of the company's product characteristics and feelings delivered points to the basis for its culture, its core competencies and SWOTs. But here, again, what a company knows how to do or to be must be user-diagnosed. Conducting dozens or even hundreds of internal interviews cannot render truth. It is only revealed through a systematic analysis of all modes of usage that comprise the total demand of a business, then, organizing these modes into a structure that illustrates and explains the architecture of demand. This will show a business its own source of demand, its own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities…and soul.

While systematizing the supply side has squeezed the soul out of nearly every business, systematizing the demand side can give the business its soul back.

Systemization of the Demand Side to Re-vision the Business
Systematizing the demand side means rigorously finding all the preconscious urges-to-use that explain consumption. When/why does consumption matter? What feelings do they seek to feel then? What products and which non-verbals, provide satisfaction-in-use? What urges-to-use are underserved? What do our brands mean in-use? What does that mean about who we are? What can we do more of easily and what shouldn't we try to do? What do our competitors do well? How do we grow continuously by delivering more of what we deliver well (versus trying to be what we're not)? How do we strengthen our returns and future by single-handedly branding against authentic user relevance and delivering satisfaction-in-use no one else can match?

The benefits to the business and shareholders will appear in brand power (sales + velocity + loyalty + margin + sustainability) and business power management (growing equity, demand-side efficiency, and a strong, optimistic culture) but only by putting users in the driver's seat and believing that each brand interaction has value beyond its ability to deliver shareholder value.

To learn more about successful branding and product management, consider these AMA seminars:

• Successful Product Management
  
• Market Research: How to Get the Right Data to Make the Right Decisions
  
• Competitive Strategy: How to Develop Winning Marketing Plans and Breakthrough Strategies
  

Author Bio: Pam Murtaugh is president of Pam Murtaugh & Co., a management consultancy located in Madison, Wisconsin.