By Jackson and Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 minutes

Editor’s Note: A father and son project often results in something being built. A treehouse, a restored car or a piece of furniture. With very little mechanical skills but a knack for storytelling and a son who is an English major, our project resulted in a white paper on Personality Based Marketing to be published in the fall. The blog post below is an excerpt from that piece, Jackson researched and wrote it, I just helped to frame it, without any tools…of course.

John B Watson is a crucial character in the use of personality in advertising, used extensively today, yet for many his name is unknown. He lived during a time (1878-1958) that saw the rise and boom of both psychology and personality studies.

As a professor at Johns Hopkins he did extensive research in psychology until a scandalous affair with a student would cost him his job. After being forced to leave the university, he entered the world of marketing work as a door-to-door salesman for advertising agency J. Walter.

It didn’t take Watson long to start making observations about his customers. He concluded that rather than consumers being rational, they acted emotionally. Watson claimed: “tell him something that will tie him up with fear, something that will stir up a mild rage, that will call out an affectionate or love response, or strike at a deep psychological or habit need.” The Authenticity Bomb.

Using this, Watson would lead several advertising campaigns, utilizing strategies that are still in use today. During his advertising for Ponds Cold Cream and Pebeco toothpaste, he revolutionized the way that testimonials were used.

These testimonials were based on evoking the emotional response of desire for the customers. The ads featured seductive women, and were not directed to men but instead to women with the promise that they would become more desirable. The same approach used today in the advertising of skin and beauty products.

Attractive men and women drinking beers together sent a message greater than “this is a good beer” but instead “drink this beer and you can be like them.” Watson’s style of ads pitched a new reality attainable through the acquisition of their product.

There is now a new phenomenon in advertising. A new alliance few expected between social movements and corporations. Historically, adhering to social movements could be bad for business, and we have seen many examples of this.

Two recent examples are Budweiser’s “Born the Hard Way” Ad and Pepsi’s famous “Live for Now” ad. Both of these ads came out in 2017 and they were massive failures, each in their own way.

The story behind the Pepsi ad is more complex than that of the Budweiser ad, and the fact that Pepsi advertisers never foresaw any negative response is astonishing, yet you can tell their heads were naively in the right place.

They picked up on the popular movements at the time, specifically the #resistance movement aimed at the Trump administration and the foundations of the BLM movement. This can be seen everywhere in the ad, where the focal point is an enormous protest with young people marching, directly aimed at their millennial audience.

Then, the ad makes a massive turn for the worst, the idea that a Pepsi can bring everyone together. The moment that Kendall Jenner hands a police officer a pepsi is the moment that Pepsi created what could be considered one of the worst ads in history.

The message is patronizing, calling on both the absurdity of the message along with popular anti- Kardashian-Jenner sentiments that they are relatable people. This “bomb” exploded because Pepsi appeared to be disingenuously producing an ad that attempted to take advantage of social movements, but perhaps they were at the right place at the wrong time.

And that brings us to today, following the death of George Floyd and the monumental growth of BLM protests that have grown across the entire nation in 2020, companies are scrambling to produce as many ads as possible to address this audience.

The interesting phenomenon is, just like where Pepsi produced an ad using social movements as a marketing ploy without any relevance to their company, so are an extensive amount of corporations with seemingly no backlash…so far.

On July 13, 2020 Old Navy, released its “#WeAreWe” ad. It is colorful, upbeat, and poetic, praising the social movements of 2020. It is also accompanied by a new store manifesto committed to activism within their own company, and it has been successful.

Below the surface lurks the fact that their clothing is produced in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Philippines, Sri Lanka, etc., countries renowned for their cheap labor and lack of environmental protection laws.

While Gap, Old Navy’s parent company, has addressed its garment production in the past giving it some praise, it still has glaring issues when it comes to worker pay and empowerment. Good on You, a website dedicated to rating the ethical behavior of companies, scored Old Navy a “2 out of 5” when it came to labor, and a “3 out of 5” when it came to environmental friendliness.

What Old Navy, and companies like them are pursuing is potentially dangerous to the brand. In addressing one issue they are exposing themselves to others. And potentially, setting themselves up to be unable to fulfill their promise to consumers, making them seem hypocritical.

What companies must realize is that while they may have the best intention, in order to be authentic they must be able to live it.  Especially when the “trolls” come knocking. In the emotional and polarized environment we live in today, “covering the bases” is a tightrope that keeps shrinking.

Watson’s ads were successful because companies pitched you a new better version of yourself, one you can attain only through them. Now, companies pitch you a new version of them, one that they hope you accept at surface value but don’t look at too closely.

The post The Authenticity Bomb appeared first on Carbon Design.

by Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 1 Minute

Given the popularity of our last video clip we are releasing another clip of Scott’s interview with Brent. In this slightly longer piece Brent addresses the question of what to do if the buyers felt like they had all the content they needed to make a purchase decision and all sales reps were trained on Challenger. How could you still compete?

To view the full interview with Brent Adamson please click here.

For more tips on marketing, business, and thinking differently delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter at www.carbondesign.com/subscribe.

The post What If Every Rep Was Trained On Challenger? Interview with Brent Adamson appeared first on Carbon Design.

by Katie Weisz
Estimated read time: 1 Minute

Back in September of 2019, CEO, Scott Gillum, had the opportunity to sit down and interview VP, Brent Adamson. Brent is a distinguished Vice President at Gartner, and a published author with a lot to say about the case between sales and marketing.

During this interview, Brent dove deep into the idea of Challenger as a sales and marketing methodology. These newly released clips are a major highlight to what Challenger is, and isn’t, and how the idea of it has changed over the years.

In part 1 of the clip, Brent goes forth with debunking the idea of Challenger as a ‘sales methodology’, why it should be looked at as more of a ‘go to marketing’ model, and why sales and marketing need to be co-owning the idea of challenger marketing.

In part 2, Brent continues his dive into Challenger Marketing and how marketing and sales needs to focus on the customer in a different way.

Are the customers overlooking information, do customers know more than sales and marketers, or do we need to be telling them what they miss?

To view the full interview with Brent Adamson please click here.

For more tips on marketing, business, and thinking differently delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter at www.carbondesign.com/subscribe.

The post How Has Challenger Changed? Interview with Brent Adamson appeared first on Carbon Design.

by Katie Weisz Estimated read time: 1 Minute CEO, Scott Gillum, had the chance to be a guest on “AQ Blog and Grill” with host, Alan Quarry. As Alan states on his website, the show “dishes up food for thought on entrepreneurship, branding, startups and more in this video-based weblog.” In this episode, Scott shared more on the building of Carbon Design Co., how he has built consulting success around the idea of “working differently”, and how Carbon delivers value-based services thanks to the team and a “smarter not harder” approach. Follow the conversation here:

For more tips on marketing, business, and thinking differently delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter at www.carbondesign.com/subscribe.

The post AQ Blog and Grill Feature: Reinventing the Market Agency Model appeared first on Carbon Design.

There is a grocery store a few miles from my house. It’s small and older, at least thirty years in its current location. Usually, the shelves are poorly stocked with a limited selection compared to the newer stores surrounding it. Despite these facts, the store manages to stay in business which is somewhat hard to comprehend given the cut throat, low margin nature of the industry. It survives because it has a secret weapon.

His name is Andres. He’s a cashier and has been at the store for twenty plus years. Andres speaks five languages and knows most of the customers by name, typically, greeting them in their native language. He knows where everything is, or isn’t, and if it’s not there he knows when it will arrive. He is the store.

While some customers, like my wife, frequent the store because it’s convenient, and quick, as long as the item is on the shelve. The majority of the customers go because of Andres. The store is in an affluent international neighborhood with many retirees. These core customers have time to shop and chat with Andres. For them, a trip to the store is an experience, not an errand. I haven’t seen the numbers, but I would guess that the revenue per square foot is why it survives.

The interesting thing, having worked with B2B companies for the past twenty years, is that many of my past clients also have an “Andres.” His, or her name may be different, but their role inside their organizations are not unlike Andres. They know the customers, how to get things done, where the “dead bodies” are buried, and how to navigate the complexity of the organization. They are the company.

As organizations rapidly move to “digitalization” and look for AI to play a larger role in customer interactions, they need to consider the importance of these essential employees. Like the grocery store, there are customers who may be highly profitable that aren’t doing business with your company because it’s convenient or fast. They are and have been customers, because of the experience. And a good portion of that experience is shaped by the “Andres” of the organization.

As other grocery stores move quickly to eliminate cashiers, Andres’s store has no self-checkout or online store pickup. Management seems to recognize the importance of the shopping experience, which seems to make up for the lack of selection and inventory. As your organization moves toward the future, does the management team fully understand that not all customers are the same, or want the same things. They may also speak separate languages and while self-service may work well for some, others want the full experience, which may include a personal conversation with their “Andres.”

The post Do You Know Your Andres? appeared first on Carbon Design.

Original post date January 27, 2011

Owners of the MINI-Cooper have long been known to be one of the most fanatical and loyal of all call owners.  They are likely to custom design their cars online, actively participate in local motoring clubs, and are in general, a passionate and faithful community.

A new project took me to the mid-west and I finally got a taste of the MINI-Cooper, courtesy of Budget rental cars.   Initially, I was excited by the opportunity to find out what the buzz was about, but after getting in the little red car with white racing stripes, I quickly found myself totally discombobulated.  It was like the car was designed by aliens, nothing was where it is should of been, and the layout, among other things still remain a mystery to me.

I couldn’t operate the windows the first half of the day, drove around with my blinker on for the other half.  The radio settings were in the speedometer, and the tachometer was where the speedometer should have been.  Even the gas gauge wasn’t a gauge at all, but rather a circle of lights.

The post Customer Engagement and the MINI-Cooper appeared first on Carbon Design.

Pick up any book on Customer Service and the first tip on how to improve or provide a good customer service experience is to “listen to the customer.”  This advice is so incredibly obvious and intuitive that you shouldn’t need a book to tell you. Yet putting it into practice is incredibly hard to deliver. Why? 

Recently, a transportation company set out to answer that question.  Our task was to discovery the key to delivering a “good customer service experience.”  We surveyed over 500 customers, conducted multiple focus groups and held one-on-one interviews.  And after all that data collection, what did the customers say they wanted?

They wanted the company…are you ready for this…”to know them.” Know them personally and their business.  Defined by having an understanding of their business so that you can anticipate their needs, and as a result, be a valuable partner. Doesn’t sound too difficult to deliver, right?

In this case, it was. The company had no customer service standards, and no rules to govern customer interactions.  They also lacked a centralized customer database to capture and archive customer conversation and data. To make matters worse they delivered customer service in a decentralize environment with over 100 centers, all operating independently.

Given that scenario you would think that this company could implement some simple fixes that would have a big impact—some simple fixes. But first you must understand how the company got into this situation in the first place.

At its core, this is an operations driven company, and customers can sometimes get in the way of efficiency. Their culture and core operating model was to move a box as quickly as possible from point A to B without damaging it.

Customers who have special needs and/or require assistance slow down the process. In this environment, delivering good customer service can be too costly and/or too inconvenient. The insight was that the (logistics) process was found to be more important than the customer.  Internal systems (or lack of), compensations, key performance indicators were all designed to move freight, not to measure customer satisfaction.

The feeling was that if a package made it to it’s final destination on time, and in reasonable shape, customers would be happy, and for the most part they were.   It’s when that process broke down that customers wanted more.  They wanted the customer service rep to know them, their company, their issue and have a solution.

And with that, the company had its answer.  The challenge that remained was to change the corporate culture.  Unfortunately, that turned out to not be as easy as going from point A to B.

The post How Process Can Impact the Customer Experience appeared first on Carbon Design.

Original post date October 27, 2008

Last week I took a flight to Orlando.  I fly a good bit and have reached a preferred status (whatever that means) on USAir, so I got bumped up to first class.  Big deal!  No meal, a 30-year-old plane, a terminal and jet port that looked out of a third-world country. I know I sound like a whiner, but hang on, I have a point.

The industry that led the way on defining the customer experience in the glory days of “jetting” and customer loyalty with reward cards has lost its way. In particular, the U.S. carriers are lost in a forest of bankruptcy. As the rest of the world moves towards enhancing customer experiences and building customer advocacy, the airline industry seems to be doing everything it can to move in the opposite direction.

For example, the airline I mentioned above now charges $15 dollars for the first (yes, the first) bag checked. As a result of that brilliant money making idea, we now have flights delayed because everyone is trying to jam their bag into an overhead. Or how about charging for water, tea or coffee?  Yes, on this same airline coffee and sodas will now cost you two dollars. On the flight down the price of beer and wine was $6; two days later on the return it was $7. It’s probably close to $10 by now.

Maybe you’re saying that they have to do that because of fuel cost, labor cost, etc. Well then, how is it that Virgin Airlines, in particular Virgin Atlantic in the States is able to make money in this industry despite its new planes, expansion of routes, etc. Because Sir Richard knows it’s about the Customer Experience!

Southwest Airlines has turned this into a whole campaign. The strong, well managed will make the weak pay for this approach. The bottom line is that “nickel and diming” your passengers/customers isn’t going to make the airline profitable again. In fact, it will probably do the opposite.

What will help restore profitability to the airlines?  Well I’ve a got a few ideas: how about we start with Innovation…then good management practices…and a decent labor contracts, etc.!  BusinessWeek ran an piece on the performance of innovative companies in its September 22, 2008 edition. Companies known for delivering innovative customer experiences have an average stock return of 2.5% and revenue growth of 5.1% from 2004-07. Those with innovative business models were more impressive with a 16.6% return and 7.2% growth.

So I say to the airlines, to get flying again…innovate yourself out of this nosedive…and give me back my free coffee!

The post How US Air Killed the Customer Experience appeared first on Carbon Design.

The post Web 2.0 Please! appeared first on Carbon Design.