What Brands Can Learn from Politicians
Every year, marketers spend billions of dollars to uncover new trends, find underserved markets and to predict consumer behavior. But once the sale is made, there’s little or no investment in trying to understand what personal values and expectations led to the sale in the first place.
It’s true that some companies conduct research, known as customer satisfaction index (CSI), which explores the attributes that drive satisfaction. But even that data provides an incomplete story: it’s after the fact.
By contrast, any professional politician understands that shared values are the key to creating support and loyalty. Political campaigns are all about identifying shared values. They’re the foundation of all political parties, social movements and religious affiliations. Shared values drive behavior and create long-term relationships.
All you need to say is Trump, Hillary, Bernie, or Cruz—and people can immediately identify the values of each candidate. This is no accident. Political campaigns carefully craft and calibrate their messaging to appeal to very specific groups of voters almost completely based on values. And in an election campaign, they do it weekly.
One unique aspect of this election cycle is that Donald Trump has been able to attack the values of so many stakeholder groups while maintaining a strong loyalty among his own base. However, we’re beginning to see elements of backlash as those stakeholder groups organize and rebel against his message.
Political campaigns have many commonalities with business: campaign promises are like brand promises. A voter’s true relationship with an elected official begins after the election. A consumer’s relationship with a company or brand begins after the sale. This is where the rubber meets the road.
Voters may feel disappointed or misled by a politician’s campaign promises, just as they may be let down by the performance of a given product or service. Voters have to wait an entire election cycle to remedy their discontent. Not so in business. Disgruntled customers can destroy a company’s brand reputation in a matter of days.
For most companies—and some politicians (John Boehner and Eric Cantor spring to mind)—it isn’t until they violate an expectation or value that they have any idea of what was expected of them. Customer loyalty is built by ongoing experiences with a product or service, as well as the conduct of a company.
Companies are often blindsided when they experience backlash in the marketplace. And it’s usually because they have failed to assess customer values after the sale. Anytime you hear backlash it’s because a stakeholder group feels that their values have been violated.
The result can be customer complaints, boycotts and the potential for a social media firestorm. Then, inevitably, you will hear the CEO state he or she had no idea that customers felt so strongly about an action the company took. Unfortunately, once the crisis begins the damage is done.
That’s why measuring and understanding customer values has become absolutely critical to developing long-term brand loyalty. Most of the time, you can avoid misunderstandings by aligning corporate values with stakeholder values.
A very good starting point is using social media to continuously monitor customer values and feedback. But—like a politician—it’s imperative that you have an accurate understanding of your constituency’s values, as well as needs and wants. This can be easily accomplished through follow-up customer research or customer advisory panels.
Finally, technology has created a tremendous conduit between politicians and voters—companies and customers—but will never replace personal relationships. Understanding your brand touch points is key to mapping all the opportunities to build a relationship.
In addition, corporate governance, the actions taken by the organization, must be consistent with the assigned customer values. Your senior management must be sure that they are acting in concert with the assigned values of your stakeholder groups, regardless of personal or political beliefs.
The good news is that understanding shared values has never been easier. The rewards have never been greater. And remember: your customers vote with their pocketbooks.
John Foley is CEO and Principal Brand Strategist at LEVEL. He can be reached at [email protected].
