Action influencer 1: they like you or like something you’re saying
“In 1945, our soldiers came home,” says actor Jon Bernthall playing 1962 Ford Vice President Lee Iacocca in the 2019 film Ford vs. Ferrari (also Le Mans ’66 in some regions). “What was the first thing they did? They had sex. Seventeen years later, those babies – they’ve grown up, they’ve got jobs and they’ve got licenses. But they do not want to drive the same dull fifties car their parents drove. Your kids today, they want glamour, they want sex appeal, they want to go fast. Gentleman, it’s time for the Ford Motor company to go racing.”
“Enzo Ferrari will go down in history as the greatest car manufacturer of all time,” Iacocca continues as he tries to convince Henry Ford II to agree to his plan. “Why? Is it because he built the most cars? It’s because of what his cars mean. Victory. Ferrari wins at Le Mans, people want some of that victory. What if the Ford badge meant victory to the first group of 17 year olds in history with money in their pockets?”
Lee Iacocca is credited with getting the Ford Motor company back into racing, with the intent to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in France. The Ferrari racing team had won Le Mans in 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963. After initially trying to buy Ferrari before being rebuffed late in negotiations by an Enzo Ferrari who was unwilling to give up control of his racing team, Ford committed to building its own car. Debuting in 1964, the Ford GT40 was that car. Unfortunately it was underbaked and unreliable in its first year, and would witness a fifth consecutive year of Ferrari victory. By 1966, however – conveniently only two years after the Ford Mustang had been released – the GT40 was the dominant racing marque. Ford would go on to win the 24hrs of Le Mans in 1966, the same year that Ford Mustang sales would go on to reach their all-time high. Ford would continue to win the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1967, 1968 and 1969. It would be 58 years before Ferrari would win another 24hrs of Le Mans again.
Have you ever wondered why organisations invest so much in their brand? The value of brand is notoriously difficult to measure both in its value and how its changing, let alone what effects marketing activity is having on it. But brand awareness and positive perception support all sorts of key measures through the buying process, like calculations of value, likelihood to believe information and propensity to buy. Why does brand affect these things? Quite simply, because making someone like you is a powerful way to influence them. Just consider:
If someone likes your ad they’re more likely to click on it
If someone likes your event they’re more likely to engage in a follow up
If someone likes your values they more likely to perceive your value
Brand strategy exists to create a positive connection with customers because liking a brand increases propensity to act in the desired way. People make emotional buying decisions for logical reasons. Countless research studies have shown that for many buyers brand is more important than price. Characteristics of being more future-proof, lower-risk or, simply a better reflection on the buyer’s own brand are rated more strongly in brands people like. Surveys have quantified this by asking customers to rate brands by whether or not they are Meaningfully Different (Meaningful – meeting some functional or emotional need; and Different – distinctive from others). Over a ten year period, the top third of brands rated for being Meaningfully Different saw their brand value grow by four times the amount of the bottom third of brands.
Meaningfully different brands exhibit five characteristics that make them stand apart.
They are purpose-driven. You can recognise what they stand for, what they are trying to do and that they care about getting there. Having purpose builds confidence in a brand because it provides a level of predictability. Purpose indicates direction, and direction can be used to create forward looking plans.
They are about making a profit, but how they make a profit is focussed. Profitability is a sign of success. Organisations that don’t care how they make a profit can be mercenary, in it for a quick buck and thus less honest. If a brand is clear how it makes a profit and takes pride in this achievement it also indicates a clear strategy, reinforcing the brand purpose.
They attempt to improve the consumer’s life by reducing friction. Customers are not wallets. Customers are people, groups and organisations with their own values, purpose and vision. The clear purpose of helping those customers reduce friction with passion and purpose drives brand equity.
They are technology-enabled. All organisations are technology-enabled, be it through emails to customer support, book-keeping software or an Excel sheet to capture sales. Technology-enabled organisations invest in solutions that allow them to operate more efficiently and more effectively. Technology is not a differentiator in itself but investing with focus on technology to automate low-value tasks allows organisations to concentrate on high-value, customer aligned activities.
They put customer experience first. Organisations only continue to operate as long as customers demand their services or products. Customers are the lifeblood of organisations, and brands that love their customers create experiences that drive loyalty, advocacy and positive sentiment.
For an illustration of this, consider the history of Microsoft from 2006 to 2020. For roughly the first half of this period (2006-2013) Steve Ballmer was CEO, while for the second half (2014-2020) Satya Nadella helmed the organisation. Between the first quarter of 2006 and the final quarter of 2013, Microsoft’s 12-month trailing revenue grew 196%, the company introduced the Azure cloud computing service, it launched Windows 7 – its most popular operating system in years – and its Surface device range. The company diversified it’s product portfolio, expanded its profitability and did all of this in the face of a collapse in world economy around 2008-2009. Yet, the company’s share price moved little through the entire time.
Microsoft’s public transformation started in 2013 under the new leadership of Satya Nadella with a Superbowl advert now recognised as a milestone for the company. The ad emphasised the new corporate direction by showcasing how Microsoft enables the world with its technology and services. An ad does not make a brand, but over the following years the company would lead by example in its new philosophy with Microsoft becoming one of the largest contributors to the open source community. Acts like adopting Android and Linux into its Windows heartland – acts that would have been seen as a sign of weakness in previous years – became an articulation of this new purpose. By 2017, the company’s stock traded at record highs and it became the world’s most valuable company. A BrandZ survey of the world’s most valuable brands placed Microsoft at #1. Microsoft under Steve Ballmer was a sales and revenue machine, but it lacked heart. Microsoft under Nadella rediscovered itself.
Meaningfully different brands capture a greater share of mindshare because they hold those five common characteristics at their core and they see benefits across their organisation. They typically see commercial success as a result too, but in addition they may also experience a number of other benefits. They punch above their weight relative to their size and product scope. They attract communities of advocates, and the communities drive future growth. They are magnets for talent. And being first to market is not a deal breaker for them; they focus on being best to market rather than first.
Surrounding most brands that people feel a connection to is a brand story. Sometimes these stories come from their founders; sometimes from their values. But these stories are engaging, human and relatable. Brand stories, when executed correctly, build resonance. That’s why brands lean into them. Not only are the stories a way of making you like them, they’re a way of making you remember that you like them. Like biblical parables or other stories, the idea behind the passionate founder that wanted to make the world better and forged a company to achieve this is powerful. The best brand stories – the ones you actually remember – tick those same simple, tangible, unexpected emotional boxes as we discussed previously. In fact, you only remember these stories because they tick those boxes. You don’t recall the story of the wealthy person doing the same thing they’ve done before to get more wealthy. You remember the underdogs that beat the established players. The ones who got a lucky break. The crazy ones that had an idea and felt they could change the world. The people who’d won big and could have retired on a beach happy, but rolled the dice a second time, bet the house on black and won even bigger. You feel the passion. You remember the values. You like the brand.
When someone likes your brand, what they’re liking might be the logo but is more likely not some attribute of the brand. These attributes contribute to some their value judgement whenever they’re exposed to you. Starting with their pricing strategy and then extending into their brand, organisations will try to differentiate their value and the value of their products or solutions so that when you think of them you are already positioning them against your needs. Consider the example of price:
The brand is low-cost – buying this brand or product will provide good value because the cost is low. ‘Low-cost’ is typically preferred to ‘cheap’ as cheap can suggest that quality is poor. For some brands low-cost naturally pairs with the idea of good quality because their other values are to remove optional bells and whistles and just provide quality functionality at an affordable price, but low-cost is the lead message.
The brand is Premium – buying this brand may cost more than you typically need to pay for this type product or service, but you receive a higher quality product. Premium is a sweet spot for many companies, because premium solutions can still generate volume sales, but can also be more profitable than other options.
The brand is Luxury – luxuries are typically only affordable by a select few. Brands like to associate with Luxury because it connects with being available to only a select few, typically meaning low sales volumes and high mark-up on each transaction.
You will note that there is no ‘standard’ option within here. Very few brands aim to build an association with being good-enough, reasonable or average. Part of the reason for this is that it necessarily requires that the person regarding the brand understands that there are other options available that could equally do the job well. For this reason many car manufacturers will own and operate multiple sub-brands, allowing them to sell vehicles to broad segments of the market without diluting the prestige of each of them. Volkswagen group, for example, owns marques that include Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Skoda and Volkswagen. Within this spectrum, you can arrange the brands so that you have the lower cost SEAT and Skoda, the premium Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche and the luxury Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini. With this breakdown, whatever your budget there is a product or service they can sell or upsell you to. Volkswagen was originally the People’s Car for its dependable basics but has evolved from low-cost to Premium. Because Premium can be the sweet spot of volume sales and profitability, there is always an upward pressure on the lower-cost or standard options to differentiate and move upwards, while luxuries can become commoditised through oversaturation of the market and slide down to premium.
Why do brands pay premiums to celebrities and sports personalities to help them advertise? Why do organisations pay for professional speakers to present at their events rather than their own executives? Why can top performing sports teams charge so much more than mid-field teams for sponsorship? Because, of course, people are more likely to engage if they like something. And the more people like them, the more they like brands that are associated with them. The 1960s / 1970s the space race between NASA and the USSR was a content of world-leading, high-precision programmes commanded by some of the greatest and bravest men in the world. The sacrifice of the women of the space race was neglected for far too long but the world is finally catching up to this. By providing watches the America astronauts wore to the moon the Omega brand became associated with precision and pushing the boundaries. They are still trading on this legacy today with Omega Speedmaster Moonwatches.
Similarly, Michael Jordan’s partnership with Nike is one of the most successful examples of brands building value from each other. Jordan’s unparalleled success in the NBA has helped Nike to become one of the world preeminent sports brand and made Michael Jordan immensely wealthy. This despite the NBA banning the shoe that Nike had designed for Michael Jordan to wear. In 1985 NBA policy stated that shoes must be 51% white with a fine of $5,000 per game for violating this, but Nike’s Air Jordan’s were only 26% white. Nike opted to stand out from the crown and pay the fine. Nike also took advantage of this marketing opportunity with an advertisement that read "On September 15th, Nike created a revolutionary new basketball shoe. On October 18th, the NBA threw them out of the game. Fortunately, the NBA can't keep you from wearing them.” The Air Jordan line was launched in April 1985 with the goal of making $3 million in the first three years. They made $126 million in one year.
When organisations are looking to find customer speakers for their events, they look very closely at their customer list to find the logos that will resonate most. They want customers that see the event to think something like this: ‘I like company X and they’re speaking about company Y, therefore I should go to company Y’s event and hear what they have to say’. A word of warning on building your brand image through paid partnerships, though. In late 2009, few would have expected that Tiger Woods – one of America’s most recognisable and successful golfers – would go from sporting idol to public pariah. As allegations of infidelity first trickled and then gushed forth, Tiger Woods image, which had until this point been marketing gold, turned sour. Multiple affairs, a car crash and a rapid fall from favour followed. Accenture, AT&T, Gatorade and General Motors ended their sponsorship deals completely while others removed him from advertising and then declined to renew their contracts as they expired. Shareholder reports would later estimate that the combined cost of Tiger Wood’s infidelity cost the brands connected with him – both those that dropped him from advertising and those that continued to support him – between $5bn and $12bn.