In intense, MBA-level sessions, thirteen of the world’s leading thinkers and practitioners shared their insights, advice and best practices with senior marketers from around the world.

2006 BRANDWORKS UNIVERSITY SPEAKERS:

(click each name to view a summary of the remarks or scroll down)

HOW MARKETERS CAN STILL DIRECT THEIR FAME AND FORTUNE DESPITE A WORLD IN CHAOS ››

Marsha Lindsay, President and CEO of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs

WEB 2.0, SEARCH, BLOGS AND ALL THAT

John Battelle, cofounder of Wired magazine and The Industry Standard

HOW THE RULES OF BRAND STRATEGY HAVE CHANGED ››

Jean-Noel Kapferer, Professor of Marketing, HEC Paris Graduate School of Management

HOW TO USE “CONSUMER CENTRICITY” TO INSPIRE FANATICISM IN YOUR MOST VALUABLE CUSTOMERS ››

Larry Selden, Professor Emeritus of Finance and Economics at Columbia University Graduate School of Business

THE ULTIMATE QUESTION: MEASURING THE LINK BETWEEN LOYALTY AND TRUE (PROFITABLE) GROWTH ››

Fred Reichheld, founder of the “loyalty practice” of Management Consulting Firm Bain & Company

HOW TO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMER FROM EVER CONSIDERING A COMPETITOR ››

Mark Schar, Intuit’s SVP and CMO

HOW TO CREATE CUSTOMER EVANGELISTS ››

Jackie Huba, Coauthor of the book Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force

WHAT IT TAKES TO DO SUCCESSFUL MARKETING NOW THAT THE CONSUMER IS YOUR BOSS ››

Ted Woehrle, vice president, marketing, Procter & Gamble North America

WHY AND HOW TO BE ON EVERYONE’S COMPUTER SCREENS ››

Cammie Dunaway, chief marketing officer of YAHOO!

HOW TO CREATE BRAND FANATICS AGAINST HUGE CULTURAL ODDS ››

Martin Riley, Chivas Brothers’ International Marketing Director

HOW GREAT DESIGN CAN CREATE ALMOST INSTANTANEOUS ATTRACTION TO YOUR BRAND ››

Social scientist Virginia Postrel, Author of The Substance of Style

HOW TO CREATE A “BELIEF SYSTEM” FOR YOUR BRAND THAT CREATES COMMUNITIES OF PASSIONATE MEMBERS ››

Patrick Hanlon, Founder and CEO of Thinktopia

WHERE OPPORTUNITY LIES IN A WORLD OF FRAGMENTED CONSUMERS, FRAGMENTED MEDIA ››

Antonio Lucio, PepsiCo’s SVP, Chief Health & Wellness Innovation Officer

How to create brand fanatics now that the consumer is in control

Summary of keynote address presented at Brandworks University® 2006 by Marsha Lindsay

With a big bang triggered by technology, the universe we marketers used to command has exploded. Media fragmentation, search engines, personalized media and media software have decisively put control in the hands of the consumer.

What (if anything) can marketers do to affect today’s emboldened and empowered consumers? So dramatically different are the methods now needed to generate results, it’s as if we’re living in an alternate universe. The new best practices feel like the opposite of the old. The resulting paradox is this: To gain any control over the one thing we most want to command—profits—we must first give even more control to the consumer!

Marketers nervous about the degree to which they must give up more control in order to profit will find in these new best practices a reliable “how to.”

Marketers uneasy that customers are already commandeering their brand, product and communications will find that indulging them actually earns the marketer command over the one thing they most desire: Profitability. Obsessively serving the needs of profitable customer segments commands their respect, their loyalty, their brand passion. It prompts them to proselytize on a brand’s behalf with people similar to themselves (i.e. profitable)—all the while lowering marketing costs, furthering profitability even more.

And while it may sound decidedly untechnological, the summary of how to market in this new technologically based universe is this: Practice the “Golden Rule.” That’s because sincere customer centricity isn’t just proven to activate fanatical loyalty between people. It’s also proven to create fanatical loyalty between people and brands, people and their jobs.

This is the other big paradox of the new universe we find ourselves in: Giving up more control gains us not just greater profits but greater job satisfaction. That’s because “doing unto others” is the only objective ever found to reliably activate intelligence and inspire creativity. It works to lighten our load by giving meaning to our work as marketers. So if you’re in need of extra motivation to embrace the best practices required in the new marketing universe we find ourselves in, realize this:

Giving up control is really the means to greater profit—in every sense of the word.

Marsha Lindsay is President and CEO of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs, a marketing communications and brand development firm that serves brands from the Fortune 100 to entrepreneurs. The agency’s creativity and thought leadership has made its MBA-level international conference, Brandworks University, a Mecca for over 350 marketers annually. For more information on the conference, visit www.lsb.com. For a transcript of the complete keynote address from which the above summary was taken, contact Marsha at mlindsay@lsb.com

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

WEB 2.0, SEARCH, BLOGS AND ALL THAT

John Battelle, cofounder of Wired magazine and The Industry Standard

The media world is no longer ruled by distributions but by attention. The new distributors of attention are search platforms. "Everyone knows what to do when a search box is in front of them. It is revolutionizing the Internet and we have barely begun to realize its impact,” according to John Battelle, Business 2.0 columnist and author of The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture.

“Search rules,” he said. So, you have to attach your marketing to the “intent” of the searcher’s search. One way to do this is to engage the searcher in “conversation”—such as a question, a chance to vote or blog on a certain topic, etc.

Battelle said the new Internet era known as Web 2.0 has been fueled by a "search economy" shaped by Google and its competitors. He estimates Internet use is currently only 5-10 percent of its potential.

“We’re fast moving to a marketplace—a culture—driven by “intent,” evidenced in that all searches are intentional, with key words/phrases in mind. Computer algorithms are fast predicting content, and as they get better and better at it, marketers without extensive research (or algorithms) on the intent of their customers will be disadvantaged, especially in a Web-based world where people can act on their intentions at the speed of light.

The key? Not just keywords but key sentences, phrases and more, each relevant to the “intent” of your target.

Battelle stressed: Search today is not just how content is found but also how an audience is found. Both are driven by content. What are you doing to have relevant, compelling content?

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

HOW THE RULES OF BRAND STRATEGY HAVE CHANGED

We have entered a battle not only of brands but of business models. In fact, new successful brands are often new business models such as Dell, IKEA, Amazon, Tesco and Costco, according to internationally respected brand strategist Jean Noel Kapferer.

The role of brands used to be to reduce the risk of purchases and to assure satisfaction—a strategy that for years drove innovations in price and value. But since most brands today compete in mature markets, a brand’s advantage now comes not from price or value advantage, but from how well it stimulates desire better than the competition. “This is often best done by surprise, promising a change of pace, something hedonistic or promises of a new experience,” Kapferer said.

Today, many retailer brands are just as trusted as regular brands. The challenge to regular brands is to stimulate desire over the store’s private label brand, which is lower priced.

Kapferer stressed the need to focus on recruiting new customers. “If you follow only your best customers, you become as old as they are,” he said.

He added, “Customization is key in the new world of branding.” With fragmented products, fragmented media and cultural diversity, it’s more important than ever to offer brands that link with the customer’s identity and customize options to keep your brand relevant to your ever evolving target. The goal is to get your target to see your brand as necessary: For instance, Starbucks is not coffee but “my coffee.”

This puts greater pressure on brands to have a positioning that covers a platform of products. Because as product lines grow dramatically and users customize them, you don’t dare lose the relevance and differentiation your brand stands for.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

HOW TO USE “CONSUMER CENTRICITY” TO INSPIRE FANATICISM IN YOUR MOST VALUABLE CUSTOMERS

Larry Selden, Professor Emeritus of Finance and Economics at Columbia University Graduate School of Business

If a company is going to be successful, it must organize not around profitable products, but around profitable customer segments, according to distinguished scholar and consultant, Larry Selden who co-authored the book Angel Customers and Demon Customers.

Selden told Brandworks University attendees to tailor their brand’s value propositions to their most profitable customer segments.

“Customer centricity is focusing on the customers’ needs by understanding them emotionally. Operationalize not around profitable products, but around the needs and wants of profitable customer segments,” Selden said as he advised marketers to thrill these customers “with knockout value propositions your customers can’t match.”

Selden highlights Best Buy as an example of a company that closely examined where its profitable business was coming from. Discovering five segments of profitable customers, the company totally reorganized to “be everything to them.” They successfully tailored distribution, merchandising, Web site, ads, store layout, parking and more to meet the desires of each profitable customer segment. As a result, their financial performance has vastly improved and is outpacing competitors.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

THE ULTIMATE QUESTION: MEASURING THE LINK BETWEEN LOYALTY AND TRUE (PROFITABLE) GROWTH

Fred Reichheld, founder of the “loyalty practice” of Management Consulting Firm Bain & Company

Loyal customers:

How do loyal customers get that way? How can you track their degree of loyalty and its return?

Perhaps the most respected authority on what drives customer satisfaction and loyalty, Fred Reichheld told Brandworks University audiences that he got a lot wrong in his prior advice on how to measure and drive loyalty. “Satisfaction ratings are really not a diviner of loyalty or profitability after all,” he said. In fact, he found literally no correlation between satisfaction and loyalty.

He’s discovered what he believes is the only way to measure loyalty: It involves one question: Would you recommend our product or service to a friend?

So all companies should ask their customers what Fred Reichheld calls this “ultimate question.” It’s simple but powerful because if the answer is yes, profitable growth is certain. Reichheld says companies with the highest customer loyalty find they’ve lower marketing costs and almost double the profits versus their competitors.

Reichheld outlined the way to track and measure the degree to which your brand is recommended: The percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors is your “Net Promoter Score.” He argues it’s the best way to project growth. His speech detailed the formula and method of calculation, as well as the ways brands inadvertently turn off their best customers.

The key to creating loyalty and getting people to recommend you to others? It all boils down to following the golden rule, according to Reichheld.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

HOW TO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMER FROM EVER CONSIDERING A COMPETITOR

Mark Schar, Intuit’s SVP and CMO

In August, 2005, Intuit learned Microsoft was about to launch its own small business accounting package by giving away one million free copies. What’s more, the IRS was about to begin offering free tax filing to millions of households. Intuit’s dilemma was sobering: How to retain customers and profit against such a competitive onslaught. Intuit’s CMO noted their strategy applies to anyone who is faced with a big threat to their market share. Identify "key influencers" to be advocates for your products and develop an “ecosystem” where their loyalty can be fostered; where opportunities can be created for people to recommend the products to others.

Intuit’s ecosystem includes four million small businesses that use QuickBooks, plus accountants, retailers, and the media. Intuit’s ecosystem also includes employees, who use blogs to build connections with customers, and a Web forum for users.

Intuit’s competitive strategy prevented Microsoft and the IRS from stealing customers: Intuit now processes 60% more electronic tax returns. Microsoft got less than three percent market share at the release of its accounting software.

In addition to facilitating occasions for “word-of-mouth recommendations” and building a customer community that reinforced loyalty, Intuit’s winning strategy worked to partner with customers at every step of marketing. After listening to customers, Intuit customized the product and service more and more to their needs. This “culture of experimentation” drove yet more word of mouth satisfaction and a greater sense of loyalty because customers feel Intuit really cares about them.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

HOW TO CREATE CUSTOMER EVANGELISTS

Jackie Huba, coauthor of the book Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force

In a world of infinite choice and overwhelming information, traditional marketing practices are less and less effective. They are being usurped by customer-driven referrals (which come in all forms—from word of mouth to YouTube). Today’s consumers make brand and product decisions by relying more and more on trusted friends, colleagues and family members who are evangelists for your brand, said business advisor Jackie Huba.

Customer evangelists:

Huba outlined six common strategies used by brands to drive remarkable levels of customer evangelism.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

WHAT IT TAKES TO DO SUCCESSFUL MARKETING NOW THAT THE CONSUMER IS YOUR BOSS

Ted Woehrle, vice president, marketing, Procter & Gamble North America

Now that the consumer is in control, it’s more critical than ever to connect with the target audience when and where they are most receptive to the brand’s message. This was the advice of Ted Woehrle, vice president, marketing of Procter & Gamble North America.

P&G builds successful brands by starting with a well defined consumer target and using consumer insight techniques like ethnography, finding out who this target really is and what emotions and values drive them. This allows P&G to connect with consumers in creative and non-traditional ways.

“The consumer activity drives everything we do,” Woehrle said. “It’s like detective work. We think of understanding them as an ongoing investigation.”

Despite a diverse range of brands, P&G spends time researching each target market to discover key motivations. For example, “Pampers World of Babies” allowed new moms to experience the world through the eyes of a toddler and connect with the Pampers brand. “World of Babies” included a room full of giant scale objects so adults can understand life from a baby’s point of view.

“Experiential learning is the insight on how to engage new moms,” Woehrle said, describing the Pampers strategy. “It’s more like event marketing and public relations.”

P&G’s insight into consumers’ disdain for long lines and messy toilets at big public events drove a campaign for Charmin. P&G’s Charmin Potty Palooza brought luxurious portable bathrooms to crowded events such as concerts and fairs as an alternative to port-a-potties, allowing consumers to interact with the brand when they needed it the most.

Deep consumer insights now inspire many of P&G's less traditional marketing communication strategies, engaging consumers when and where they will pay most attention to the message. According to Woehrle, these strategies also reduce their expenses and increase business results.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

WHY AND HOW TO BE ON EVERYONE’S COMPUTER SCREENS

Cammie Dunaway, chief marketing officer of YAHOO!

Technology has allowed us to go from mass to digital media to “my” media, according to Cammie Dunaway.

TiVo allows consumes to control their TV experience, Netflix allows control of the movie experience. iPod allows control over music and Sirius allows the consumer to control the radio experience.

Broadband has changed everything, she noted. “The computer is always on and information is instant.” Dunaway observed that in many world markets, mobile is becoming more common than the PC; people are doing as many as 10 things on their phones, including search. Another trend she sees is consumers creating online content. She reported that 57% of young people have created something online.

With fragmented media and consumers in control, Dunaway offered these tips to winning customers:

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

HOW TO CREATE BRAND FANATICS AGAINST HUGE CULTURAL ODDS

Martin Riley, Chivas Brothers’ International Marketing Director

Chivas is the world’s luxury whisky, and is always associated with good times and success. When Chivas established a global campaign, its positioning remained the same, but key aspects of the brand were adapted to fit each culture in which it was marketed, linking it to parties, music and prestigious associations.

The strategy has been highly effective. For example, in China, where wine and beer have been rising in consumption and Cognac has been the drink of choice for years, Chivas did the impossible: it shot up from non-existent to the #1 imported liquor brand.

Chivas’ international marketing director, Martin Riley shared their winning strategies with Brandworks University attendees: Having a clear and universally appealing aspirational brand positioning; staying true to it in all new products and in all forms of communications (ads, PR, promotions); consistently communicating the brand’s beliefs; engaging consumers every chance you get—events, iconic graphics, sampling and more; and customization for each culture. (For example, in China Chivas invented a mixed drink that included a Chinese green tea brand with huge cultural appeal.)

“Brand experience is what matters,” Riley said. “Surprise people! Offer more than expected and bring back luxury. Brand fanatics will result from great brand experiences. Give people something to talk about.”

“Strive for a positioning that is aspirational, optimistic; that is about emotional enjoyment of the brand,” Riley said.

He reminded attendees, if you are an international brand don’t rely on words because no copy is ever universal. Instead, have a signature aesthetic—color, logo, icon—that communicates your brand positioning.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

HOW GREAT DESIGN CAN CREATE ALMOST INSTANTANEOUS ATTRACTION TO YOUR BRAND

Social scientist Virginia Postrel, Author of The Substance of Style

Well-designed products today are both a social badge for consumers and known to trigger a positive biological reaction. “A taste for great design aesthetics is hard-wired into us all,” argues Virginia Postrel, author of The Substance of Style.

Today, more and more brands are using great design to attract customers, she said. Even everyday items like toilet brushes now are stylized, because design today has moved beyond functionality to delivering emotional value to customers.

“Good design engages customers to interact with a brand by drawing them in with aesthetics. Aesthetics allow a brand to communicate through the senses and create reactions and bonds without words,” Postrel told Brandworks University attendees. With customization, consumers are now able to design products and services to build their own personal identities.

In these ways, great design gives meaning to people’s lives. Postrel also noted that many companies are now using design to create “branded experiences” for their loyal users. She cited Starbucks as an example, saying that it was the first company to add aesthetics into its retail experience. A trip to Starbucks is no longer just about the coffee, but about what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel as a result.

With more great aesthetics in the world, the design standard is raised for all brands. Looking less than well-designed puts your brand at a disadvantage.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

HOW TO CREATE A “BELIEF SYSTEM” FOR YOUR BRAND THAT CREATES COMMUNITIES OF PASSIONATE MEMBERS

Patrick Hanlon, Founder and CEO of Thinktopia

A brand is a belief system, and in his book, Primal Branding, Patrick Hanlon notes all belief systems have seven key factors that make them credible.

Creation story: All belief systems come with a story attached. Two men building computers in a garage or a boy who started a bike messenger company.

Creed: Belief systems begin with core principals. A statement that declares all men are equal, a belief in life after death, a belief that organic products are healthier than other products.

Rituals: The vitality of a belief system comes from the repeated interactions between the brand and its believers. Voting every four years. Morning coffee. Logging on.

Icons: These concentrations of meaning capsulize your brand. They can be any of the senses, commonly sight, sound or smell.

Sacred words: Specialized words created for believers. iPod, “Iced grande decaf latte.” E Pluribus Unum.

Pagans: To have the yin of believers, there must also be the yang of nonbelievers. Coffee drinkers/tea drinkers. Mac/PC. Democrats/Republicans.

Leader: The risk taker, the innovator who proactively (usually against all odds) recreated the world to their point of view.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers

WHERE OPPORTUNITY LIES IN A WORLD OF FRAGMENTED CONSUMERS AND FRAGMENTED MEDIA

Antonio Lucio, PepsiCo’s SVP, Chief Health & Wellness Innovation Officer

The successful marketer today must be part historian, part ethnographer, and part storyteller, according to PepsiCo’s top innovation officer Antonio Lucio.

Lucio told Brandworks University attendees, “In a world where the consumer has more and more control, we need to be true keepers of our brand’s essence, ferocious defenders of the brand and the ultimate decision maker in all brand decisions.”

This starts with having a “lighthouse identity”—a strong point of view on life and that comes from understanding consumers’ deeper motivations and emotions. The most successful brands today are those that present life as the consumer would like it to be and express what the consumer wants to say.

Lucio’s examples of brands that really understand and manage their essence with lighthouse identities included Target, Starbucks, Whole Foods and Olay, along with Pepsi.

Lucio noted that historical consumer data is important, but marketers must not forget that a consumer is not the sum of his data’s past vector points. He argues: If you don’t do ethnography or psychological work with real consumers you’ll never really know them. Lucio stressed that insight work can’t be fully delegated either. The people making the brand decisions must participate first hand.

Brand leaders today also have an unapologetic, differentiated point of view of what their brand stands for, and the ability to tell a story of it in modern terms—be it a wellness story or an authenticity story or an experiential story.

In a world where the consumer is in control, keepers of brands today have to be both a curator of what a brand stands for and, as much as possible, an editor of the content consumers’ create for the brands they love.

  ‹‹  back to the list of speakers