FIVE

The Six Brand Intentions

The relentless pursuit of business is winning the customer.

When it comes to the art of business, whether it's the business-to-consumer or business-to-business marketplace, nothing rings more true than the importance of knowing how to win the customer. If you're clear on your brand intention and your company or team is aligned to it, you'll definitely increase your chances to win. Alignment to brand intention is a characteristic and key ingredient that successful market leaders have in common; it plays a significant role in how they beat the competition.

The six brand intentions—community, customization, preeminence, low price, physical wellbeing, and personal actualization—provide a framework for understanding and leveraging what the customer is seeking and aligning a company's strategies to meet those expectations. They provide a way to focus on the alignment of what the product or service offers and how a customer need is satisfied. This awareness of what the customer requires for emotional fulfillment is part of the culture of market leaders. They are in tune with what the customer seeks and behave in a manner consistent with those desires. Particularly important is that this awareness is apparent to the customer. This is quite remarkable.

There are certainly other important aspects to how products or services are created and delivered to the marketplace. For example, convenience, speed of delivery, reliability, and availability, none of which should be ignored. They are elements of the customer experience that play a role in and support the brand intention. Indeed, availability and speed of delivery are aspects of how customers define good service and have become givens in our world of fast or instant gratification.

Another force makes the six brand intentions as powerful as they are. It is the fact that they are natural responses to the three customer motivations of attention, competency, and caring. They provide a lens through which to determine which of the three is at the center of the success of a brand and the product or service it represents.

The big take-away from the work of the great thinkers about the art of business is that the key to success is to identify what the one thing is the customer is buying and to relentlessly pursue its delivery. In business, although you can be good at many things, strategically you have to be passionate about and master the one thing that you deliver to the market and through which you win the customer. If you look at the research over the past several decades, this has been one of the great guiding principles for creating success. Whether it is a mission statement, purpose, credo, or tagline, the aim is to communicate the brand intention. The clearer and more emotionally grounded the message, the greater the power of the brand.

In the classic comedy film City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays Mitch, a middle-aged advertising salesman living in New York City, who is undergoing a midlife crisis. In search of renewal and finding his purpose, Mitch and two of his closest friends go on a cattle-driving vacation. Leading them on the drive is the trail boss Curly, a tough old cowboy who doesn't suffer fools well and who soon finds himself at odds with the three city dwellers. Unexpectedly, Mitch and Curly bond. Mitch confides in Curly and asks him how to confront the issues in his life. Curly advises him to focus on the one thing that matters to him most. In business, as in life, it's important to know what the one thing is. In today's complex and chaotic world, it's important to know and focus on that one thing. The clearer it is, the more passion we have for it and the more likely we'll live and act in alignment to it. In business, it means aligning every employee and team member to the brand intention. This doesn't mean you should ignore everything else, yet it does mean that everyone understands and acts in alignment to the key deliverable and the supporting priorities of the business.

We often talk about the secret sauces or unique recipes that lead to business success. Over twenty years ago, before becoming a leadership psychologist and student of business, I earned a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, arguably the top cooking school in the world. Along with developing my skills and knowledge and advancing my passion for cooking, a key lesson was that for a customer to consider a dish successful, it has to deliver a tasty and eye-appealing combination of great ingredients. What most customers want is high-quality ingredients combined in a unique and competent manner and priced at a level that reflects the quality and skill with which it is delivered.

This same approach applies to brand intention. The six strategic intentions are not mutually exclusive. Like a great meal, all the ingredients must come together to provide a unique product or service that is creative, innovative, and captures the customer's attention. While the complementary blends and unique combinations are important, ultimately it is the main ingredient that must stand on its own and deliver customer satisfaction. If you go to a seafood restaurant and order a fish fillet, it doesn't matter how good the vegetables and potatoes are or how tasty the sauce is. If the fillet isn't as good as advertised, or if it is of lesser quality than the price demands, or it is not prepared correctly, the customer will not be satisfied. The same principle applies to a powerful and successful brand intention. Great products or services, winning brands, and market leaders have this in common. The brand intention is clearly defined, articulated, and delivered. The customer knows clearly what the main ingredient is. This applies as much to business-to-business as it does to business-to-consumer brands.

Another aspect of brand intention that is too often overlooked and undervalued, especially by smaller businesses, is that the more powerful a brand intention is, the more the customer is willing to pay. What the market will bear from a pricing standpoint and the resulting influence on profit margins are almost always related to the clarity and consistency with which the intention is delivered. This kind of brand power and competitive capability should never be underestimated. The only obvious exception is when a brand is engaged in selling on low price. As we'll explore later in this chapter, while I can use five of the six brand intentions to carve out and grow a niche market, low price requires the ability to create volume.

COMMUNITY

Community defines the brand intention of products or services that invite and deliver membership in a group. It offers relationship, affiliation, and connection. The customer motivation in the brand intention of community is attention. Community offers a sense of belonging and inclusion. It satisfies the human need and desire to feel important and have self-worth. Group members are able to receive attention and give it to others.

Suppose two young, very creative, and intelligent men get together to develop a new product. It began a few years before they met, when a at 21-years old, one began exploring how to bring an idea to fruition. Two years later, he finds someone interested in collaborating with him to create a start-up company and bring the idea to market. They share a vision for what's possible and begin building a prototype in a 10- × 15-foot shed. They work tirelessly and, hoping it will be the beginning of a successful launch into the marketplace, begin seeking people to use their product. Three years later, customers begin to want their product. They find someone willing to sell it for them, develop a logo, move into to a 28- × 80-foot building, and expand their operation to eight people.

The two men continue to recruit talented people interested in collaborating to build the business and, over time, the company grows to over $5 billion in annual revenue. Despite many ups and downs and challenges, they find new ways to collaborate with others, solve problems, and to continue to grow.

The resilience of its brand is defined by how it overcomes great challenges, building an identity of boldness and perseverance. Its customers become some of the most loyal brand ambassadors on the planet and the driving force behind the company's capacity to continually expand and define ways to market and reinvent itself.

The company becomes one of the first to use crowd sourcing to engage its customers to market to others. With little prompting, its customers invite others to join its worldwide following. The company's diverse community, comprised of people in all walks of life and generations, celebrates its shared passion and loyalty for the product and its brand by gathering in groups a half million strong.

Can you correctly select the brand to which this story applies?

1. Nike
2. Harley-Davidson
3. Facebook
4. Geico
5. Budweiser
6. Microsoft

If you chose “b” for Harley-Davidson, you are correct. In 1903, when the company produced its first motorcycles, its inventor William S. Harley was 23 years old and his partner, Arthur Davidson was 22. Their story is familiar in that the company's founders were young, talented, and started the business in a fashion that many of today's success stories mirror. Much like the folklore of the Microsoft garage and the humble beginnings of so many other companies that capture our imaginations, Harley-Davidson started with practically nothing more than a great idea. Over one hundred years later, the company generates over $5 billion in revenue.

At the core of their success is exceptional brand loyalty. The essence of the brand, what makes it so powerful is its incredibly strong brand intention of community. The company's mission statement has community and inclusion embedded in it: “We ride with our customers and apply the connection in every market we serve to create superior value for all our stakeholders.”

The company's market strategies embody and continue to be aligned to its brand intention. Much as it did in its early years when it sold to members of the military, the company pursues selling to groups and communities and leveraging camaraderie and affiliation. After World War II, when motorcycle owners loosely grouped into organized clubs, Harley-Davidson captured the idea of community and built its brand around it. Over the years, despite its quality issues, the brand maintained itself by expanding this platform.

Today, the community continues to expand and the company's sales continue to grow. The Sturgis and Daytona motorcycle rallies attract well over a half million riders each. While not directly sponsored by Harley-Davidson, their motorcycles enjoy, by far, the greatest representation at the two events. To further the community brand intention, the company hosts toy drives, conducts cell phones for soldier campaigns, and sponsors concerts and an assortment of other events. It encourages participation in the Harley Owners Group (aka HOG), markets to members of the military, offers group rides, and locally connects individuals to fellow riders. The logo the company unveiled over 100 years ago hasn't changed much, is recognized the world over, and maintains its popularity even as a tattoo, which is a pretty good representation of the power of brand intention.

Another example of the immense power of the brand intention of community and its emotional effects is Facebook. On May 14, 2012, Facebook's IPO was one of the biggest public offerings in history; it raised $16 billion and resulting in a market capitalization of $104 billion for the company. Then its value dropped. Initial trading on the day of the IPO went as high as $38 per share. And, then it fell. By August, shares sold for about $20.

A host of factors affect how people make the decisions to buy and sell stock, and those decisions influence share price. What is so telling about the Facebook IPO is how emotional it was and how much that emotion related to the company's brand intention. The company's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, first created the predecessor to Facebook as a means to connect university students. He soon discovered that people registering for the site wanted to learn more about one another and, more important, wanted others to know about them. Facebook satisfied their human need for attention and connectivity and, along with other social networking services that began emerging, paved the way to leverage technology to accomplish it.

Facebook demonstrates how the human motivation of attention created the emotional influence that led to its IPO value. The emotion associated with the offering was not only about making a quick killing in the market. Underlying the share price was a value associated with the human need for attention, connectivity, and inclusion. At its emotional core, social networking is a way to give and get attention, which satisfies our need to feel important. The more friends I have, the more significant I feel.

Mark Zuckerberg's timing, perhaps inadvertent, was excellent. Today's demographic profile supports the world's rapid adoption of social media. The vast majority of Facebook members are Gen Xers and New Millennials, who are technology savvy and, based on their life experience, apt to seek social connectivity and the attention that goes with it.

Many companies use the brand intention of community as the engine to deliver their products or services. Disney aspires to inspire together, create positive and inclusive ideas about families, and provide entertainment experiences for all generations to share. Going to Disneyland or Disney World is entering into the Disney community and becoming a member of the worldwide Disney family. Zynga, the company that brings you FarmVille (and soon FarmVille2) has a mission to connect the world through games. It is the world's largest provider of social games. The Grateful Dead continues to thrive, adding new generations of fans to its powerful Deadhead nation community.

In business to business, the idea of community has long been established, and exploring its past tells us a great deal about how it can be applied going forward. Trade and professional associations are the hallmarks of community, and they offer it as a value to other businesses and companies. Trade associations target the individual. In business to business, one company attempts to sell its products or services to another, yet, when it comes to selling community, it makes more sense to sell to individuals.

A crossover that demonstrates this principle is the social networking website LinkedIn. The company is the world's largest professional network. At the beginning of 2013, it had over 200 million users worldwide. LinkedIn's success is not in selling business to business. Although it sells advertising to create revenue, it is by engaging individuals—employees of companies large and small—to join its community, that LinkedIn creates its success. It has tapped into the vast rapidly growing market of individual entrepreneurs and single person businesses. Studies show that the trend toward small business includes a growing number of nontraditional workers, including myriad service providers, such as consultants, freelancers, and contractors. It is estimated that by 2015, this group will be 1.3 billion strong worldwide. It should be no surprise that the increase in single-person businesses and companies includes a good percentage of younger people, many of whom want to start their own businesses. What LinkedIn has accomplished through its brand intention demonstrates how valuable community is. For companies and businesses relying on one of the other five brand intentions, community can be a great ingredient in their unique recipe. We already see the trend toward using the term community in lieu of customer base. While every business seeks to grow its community of customers, buyers, and users, that does not mean that it is their brand intention. Using community as an ingredient and marketing strategy in service to the primary brand attraction is different than being the main attraction of your brand and, ultimately, your company.

CUSTOMIZATION

Customization defines the brand intention of products or services to reflect the customer's requirements and wants. It offers a product or service created and delivered to the customer's specifications. The customer motivation in the brand intention of customization is attention. Customers know what they want and expect the product or service to be modified, tailored, or made-to-order on their terms. Customization satisfies the human need and desire to feel important and significant. As a customer, I own the solution and expect to be heard.

It's not easy to find companies with globally recognized consumer brands or companies of substantial size that provide customization. That doesn't mean they don't exist. Put the word customized in front of a product and search on the Internet. In most cases, you'll find a significant set of options. What makes the customization provider unique, and often limits the company's size, is the level of attention required to work with and please the customer.

In business to business, because of the high level of attention required for success, providers of customized products or services often work with a few select customers. These include custom manufacturers, private label products, or prototype manufacturers. Call centers that follow the scripts and processes of the customer and health care contractors that follow the protocols, processes, and procedures of the customer are good examples of customized service providers. The key to success in delivering the brand intention of customization is to pay a high degree of attention to customers and what they want—not to tell them what they need.

As a consumer brand delivering customization, Lands' End has, and continues to, deliver exceptionally well. The company emphasizes, “What is best for the customer is best for the company.” The company accepts the return of any item at any time for a full refund of the purchase price or replacement. Lands' End provides replacement buttons or a single glove or mitten should you lose one. The company is committed to making sure you never feel ignored. The employees see themselves as a community and a company dedicated to new ways of connecting and aligning to the idea that the customer is always right. This translates into a high degree of capability to pay attention to the customer and to customize products to the customer's needs.

From big and tall to short and slim for men and petite to plus sizes for women, Lands' End is all about customization and customers getting what they want. When you buy a pair of pants from Lands' End, you can get the waist and leg length tailored to your individual liking. The company will even finish the leg length to within a quarter inch or a half a centimeter and will cuff them in any fashion you like. And, if you don't like the way it fits, even if you're the only person in the world it's made for, you can return it, and the company will issue a full refund.

This relentless pursuit of alignment of brand intention creates extraordinary results in the business-to-business side of the company. Lands' End is expanding globally and wants to become the leading provider of customized corporate wear. Its 2020 vision is to reach $5 billion in revenue and do it in alignment with the customer promise that has become the core of its success. It is an excellent example of how alignment to the brand intention of customization applies to both consumer and business-to-business marketplaces.

When you are a service provider in the business-to-business market, it is important to determine whether you provide a response to the customer's solution or whether you are the solution provider. This is an important distinction that requires clear articulation. The lack of clarity leads to conflict with customers, as well as conflict and misalignment among the parts of a company and members of a team. If the customer gives you the design, solution, or blueprint and expects you to provide it looking exactly as shown, you're delivering customization. Often this also includes specifications and stipulations for how you are to provide, deliver, or implement it. The customer motivation is a high degree of attention and the assurance that they will be listened to and get what they want.

In contrast, if the customer has a problem or need, is unable to create a solution, and looks to you to resolve it, you are selling your competency by providing a solution. This is an important distinction because customer motivation is moving from self-reliance to a dependence on the provider to solve the problem.

A good example is an Australian furniture brand, Evolvex. Providing customized furniture is made more achievable by the software-driven design and manufacturing technology available today. Evolvex has turned over the design to the customer. Options include color, size and configuration. Customers access the design software online and design their own customized desk, table, cabinet, and so on. Evolvex also accepts a sketch of what you'd like by mail, email, or telephone. The company boasts that it outperforms the discount giant Ikea. In 2012, Evolvex received the Australian Business Awards for “Best New Product” and “Product Innovation.”

Another great example of a custom manufacturer serving both the consumer and business-to-business markets is ATS Acoustics. Located near Chicago, with close to 30 employees, the rapidly growing company delivers customized acoustical products, including sound-absorbing wall panels. Like Evolvex, the customer is able to design the acoustic panels online and, along with color and size, can choose the look and feel of the fabric. The customer can even get an image or photograph printed on the product. The company provides kits to designers and architects, giving them the ability to design the product. And, while the company has a high degree of expertise to share, it remains dedicated to empowering customers to make decisions and choose what they want. Its employees take pride in their ability to adapt and alter their approach to respond to and empower their customers, including Bose, Starbucks, Warner Brothers, and The Voice.

The company's founder, Mark Aardsma, is passionate about listening and paying attention to the customer. He even refuses to employ voice prompt technology. When someone calls the company, a live voice promptly answers the phone. The company is well aligned to the customer motivation of attention, which shows in everything its employees do.

There are many other examples of companies that are great customizers of their product or service. From small companies like ATS Acoustics, Evolvex, WeBobble, and Customized Girl to larger companies like Lands' End, success in delivering the brand intention of customization requires a focus on what the customers and clients want and the empowerment that comes with it. To win requires consistently taking the idea of it's all about listening to the customer to a higher level than your competitors.

PREEMINENCE

Preeminence defines the brand intention of products or services that deliver superiority, high levels of expertise, and competency. It offers products that are innovative, unique, cutting edge, and revolutionary. Preeminent services deliver high levels of competency, aptitude, know-how, excellence, and capability. The customer motivation in the brand intention of preeminence is competency. Preeminence offers a sense of predictability, control, and accomplishment. As a customer, I feel competent that I made the right choice.

A few years ago, Karl Sigerist, the President and CEO of Crelogix, a Canadian company that provides consumer credit services, told me that although his company's goal was to deliver superior products or services, he preferred not to use the term “superior,” as it might make his employees believe they could rely on the level of product or service already achieved. As a result, the company might not continue to innovate and create new and advanced products or services. He sought alternative ways to express the ongoing pursuit of superiority.

I began to explore the different ways to express the idea of superiority and, eventually landed on the term preeminence, which conveys the distinction, uniqueness, prominence, renown, and excellence that business leaders strive for. One outcome of this exercise was the realization that whatever word you choose to describe your brand intention is fine, as long as it accurately articulates and conveys the value you're striving to deliver to the customer and how you align your internal communication to the company and team. The six brand intentions do not change nor does their alignment to the three customer motivations. The following example demonstrates the many ways in which preeminence can be articulated.

BMW does not sell a car; it sells the “ultimate driving machine.” For years, it was difficult to find an advertisement or marketing piece referring to a BMW as a car. Over a period of over five years, we discovered only two ads that did. The same is true of Apple. When you walk into an Apple store, the alignment to its preeminent brand intention is obvious. The clean and simple configuration of the store and the clean lines of its tables convey the company's objective of removing clutter from the customer experience. As discussed in Chapter Three, the company is driven by its desire to amaze and separate itself from the pack. At the store level, this alignment extends its image of innovation and uniqueness. As a customer, if your laptop isn't working properly, you don't go into one of its stores expecting to have it serviced; there is no customer service or repair department. Instead, there is a “genius bar,” and “you'll need an appointment to speak to a “genius.” This expression of preeminence reminds you of how good they are.

When it comes to service providers, preeminence is expressed by exceptional knowledge and expertise. Unlike alignment to the brand intention of customization, where the customer provides the solution, alignment to preeminence means the customer expects the provider to create the solution. Accounting, legal, and consulting firms often fall into this category.

Companies that develop and deliver tailored software applications for financial and healthcare institutions, and government entities, among others, are typically providers of what are referred to as custom solutions. Even if the software is part of an off-the-shelf program, it may require tailoring, alterations, and changes to accommodate an organization's needs. Often, the software developer creates software specific to a single customer's needs or requirements. This is an often overlooked form of preeminence. In brief, preeminence typically exists when the customer relies on the provider of a product or service to deliver the competency, expertise, and know-how to create a solution, implement a strategy, solve a problem, or obtain a necessary service. Outsourcing is often used to accomplish one or more of these.

An example of a powerful service provider that touts its preeminence is SAP. The 40-year old company is the world's largest provider of enterprise software and software-related services. Other examples are McKinsey and Company, Ernst and Young, and Bain and Company.

Another well-known brand delivering preeminent consumer and professional products is Bose. Founded by MIT professor Dr. Amar Bose, the company is a brand leader in home and professional audio technology and products. While audio devotees may believe there are better products at comparable or more competitive pricing, Bose has done an exceptional job of marketing its brand value.

Bose's prowess reaches beyond the audio products for which it is famous. It has branched out to develop and deliver test instruments for materials research and product development, as well as a shock-and-vibration system that offers protection to cargo carried by the heavy-duty trucking industry. While there is always a degree of risk associated with expanding a brand to other product or service strategies, if your new product or service is aligned to your already existing brand intention, it can be successful. In contrast, if McDonald's began offering a high-priced gourmet burger, it would be a recipe for failure.

Like many providers of preeminent products, Bose is able to price its product and enjoy margins that reflect the customer's perception of the preeminent value of its product. In maximizing its margin, it is able to invest in furthering its strong market presence, support its research and development efforts, and continue to build its brand in the manner required to sustain its brand intention. Customers are willing to pay for the value they expect and receive and that best responds to their motivation and emotional fulfillment.

LOW PRICE

Low price defines the brand intention of products or services where price is the main consideration. The customer motivation in the brand intention of low price is competency. Low price offers a sense of predictability, control, and the accomplishment in getting the best deal. It satisfies the human need and desire to feel competent, coping, and good at what we do. As a customer, I feel competent that I got the best deal, was a smart shopper, or paid the least possible amount for the product or service.

There are many companies that fit this bill. Wal-Mart immediately comes to mind because it does it so well. By the numbers, as of February 28, 2013, the company has 10,626 locations around the world. In 2012, company-wide sales topped $460 billion. The expectation of a Wal-Mart customer is to get the lowest price.

Behind Wal-Mart's success is a relentless company-wide ambition to innovate to maximize the cost-to-goods-sold ratio. Among the many things the company does well is keep the costs associated with its supply chain management low. Whether that means automating its warehouse and distribution, dictating price and packaging specifications, or taking over a market, Wal-Mart approaches everything with a can-do attitude that borders on obsession. The result is that the company is very good at creating the outcome intended by a price leader.

The brand intention of low price is about attracting customers by predictably offering the lowest price possible and leaving your competitors with little option other than to try to match your prices. The main goal is to gain customers and take market share. While the other five brand intentions can be used to create and grow a niche and, eventually become a market leader, the low price leader's quest is to build volume.

The definition of trust lies in the promise to give the customer the lowest price. Hence, many low-price competitors go so far as to guarantee the low price and honor coupons or match the discounts their competitors are offering. This “we'll match or beat them every time” attitude convinces the customer to trust the brand.

Commodities most often fall into the low-price category and reflect the supply–and-demand approach to price setting. The relationship of price to availability and scale demonstrates that leveraging the economies of scale in the successful pursuit of low-cost strategies is vital to success. Other equally important strategies include operating efficiencies, mass buying power, control over vendors, and the ability to leverage low-profit margins in relationship to sales volume. The thinking behind this brand intention is that five percent of $5 million ($250,000) is better than seven percent of $3 million ($210,000). Smaller companies competing for market share do not have the same economies of scale and, over time, cannot compete. If a low-price leader like Wal-Mart, Aldi, Costco, Amazon, or Ikea, knowing it can operate more effectively and grow with slimmer margins, chooses to do so, it can lower prices to a level that competitors are unable to sustain. As a result, they take market share, often causing their competition go out of business.

Whether a company provides a consumer-based product or service or business-to-business products or services, there are other routes it can take when competing on price to protect a specific market share and retain higher margins. “Value-add” offerings and marketing can sometimes be used to compete against the lowest price leader and maintain and grow a niche market. For example, Toyota was a low-price competitor that strategically developed its offerings to sell a cousin to low price, low cost of ownership. To compete with Wal-Mart's warehouse brand Sam's Club and differentiate themselves, Costco offers a sampling of better quality and more select products. The appeal of better quality and an increased level of service attracts customers for whom these are worthwhile considerations.

Other examples include a builder who offers timely project completion or superior craftsmanship as a means to win business, even if the bid is only slightly higher or a trucking company that promotes timeliness and promises lower freight damage can separate themselves from lower priced competitors. Many entrepreneurs and small business owners, as well as many established larger companies, struggle to come to terms with changing strategies when a low-price competitor cuts into their market share by taking away customers and attracting new ones. It's an important decision whether to innovate and change to compete on price or to further separate oneself from the low-price competitor to sustain and grow on one of the other five brand intentions. Whatever the decision and regardless of the size of your company and market, clarity and alignment to your brand intention is necessary for success.

Another aspect of low price needs to be considered. What the customer gains from getting the best price is often offset by the perception of poor service and lack of attention. Low-price providers are often seen as “win at any cost” competitors, leaving customers questioning whether the company cares enough about them and their employees. The drive for leanness and operational excellence can result in customer dissatisfaction, leading them to pay a bit more somewhere else to get their needs met. These important considerations should not be overlooked.

Some believe that eventually all products find themselves becoming a commodity. If a particular product does not undergo significant change and advancement, the options for how to compete become limited and eventually low price is the only path to success. This thinking often gets companies that rely on one of the other five brand intentions in trouble. Mobile phones are a good example. Nokia has found itself trying to keep up with Samsung and Apple, each of which is focused on continuous preeminence. They define market leadership in different terms and keep focused on brand intention. If Nokia is unable to keep up, it may find itself gravitating toward becoming competitive on price.

The lesson is that the brand intention of low price, like the other five, is best served when it is pursued by choice, rather than imposed by market forces.

PHYSICAL WELLBEING

Physical wellbeing defines the brand intention of products or services that deliver improved bodily health and contribute to the customer's physical welfare. It offers improved appearance, fitness, strength, and sometimes vigor; it can also be used to offer environmental comfort and safety. The customer motivation in the brand intention of physical wellbeing is caring for oneself and others. A part of our self-concept is how healthy we feel and how good we look. At a deeper psychological level, physical wellbeing satisfies the human need and desire to care of oneself and others we care about.

As mentioned in Chapter Two, Whole Foods is a good example of a company that successfully delivers on the brand intention of physical wellbeing. Founded by John McKay in 1980, it offers its customers the highest quality natural and organic products available and shows the same level of caring to all its stakeholders. It is devoted to organic farming, seafood sustainability, humane animal welfare practices, promoting health and education, and caring about the environment. It has over 300 stores in the United States and is expanding into the United Kingdom and Canada. In 2012, its revenue topped $11.5 billion. The company's vision is to expand to 1,000 stores worldwide.

Whole Foods expresses a commitment to caring for the health of its customers and the planet. It is summed up in an interdependent philosophy of good food, good people, and a good earth. Whole Foods provides a model for any business that is seeking to align the various facets of how it operates, including how to align its vendors, sources, and assorted other suppliers. Whole Foods communicates its mission and values to its customers and marketplace very well. Much like Harley-Davidson, Apple, Lands' End, or any great brand, it has achieved a remarkable alignment with its customers, who are willing to pay for the emotional connection. Whole Foods employees are exceptionally well aligned to the brand intention. When a customer asks for assistance in finding a particular item, rather than telling the customer the location of the item (Whole Foods stores do not have aisle numbers), the team member (the term the company uses for its employees) stops what they are doing and walks you to it. In all likelihood, they will also start a brief conversation with you, further demonstrating the caring attitude, which is in alignment with the brand intention and is expected from every team member.

At the core of its brand intention and caring is the message of social responsibility and the openness and honesty that it conveys. This aspect of Whole Foods' brand intention can be easily overlooked, yet it is key to the trust and loyalty it engenders and the subtle and powerful message that underscores its brand—that it is open and honest about what it offers and sells unlike all those grocery store chains that, for decades, have been selling you inferior, overprocessed, and sometimes unhealthy food. The emotional element of the differentiator Whole Foods offers engages the competitiveness that we show toward the brands we prefer. Much like Ford vs. Chevy, Coke vs. Pepsi, McDonald's vs. Burger King, and Samsung vs. Apple, the customer takes an active role in supporting the competitor they align with, becoming a fan and advocate for the brand. By shopping at Whole Foods, the alignment of the customer to the brand intention creates the resources necessary to carry on the competition.

Another psychologically compelling example of the brand intention of physical wellbeing is coffee. A couple of years ago I had a toothache that kept me awake for most of the night. I was tired, edgy, and anxious about going to see my dentist. En route to the dentist's office, I stopped and bought myself a double cappuccino in order to feel more awake and energetic. About twenty minutes later, as I sat and nervously waited to have my tooth repaired, I found a magazine whose cover photo was a large coffee sack lying on its side. From it spilled beautifully roasted coffee beans and the headline, “Coffee, the world's drug.”

Flipping to the article, I came across a table comparing different sources of caffeine: colas, teas, cocoa and coffee. For each, the chart indicated the type of caffeine, its strength, how long it affected a person's metabolism, and how long after consumption it took to have a physical affect. My anxiety escalated. The caffeine in coffee had a physical affect after 25 to 35 minutes—at just about the time the dentist would be drilling my tooth. Sure enough, just as the dentist began his work, I felt myself becoming more and more restless. I was more anxious and tense than if I had not consumed the coffee.

Like many people, I believed that coffee had an immediate result, in the range of seconds to 5 or 10 minutes. Some people think they can feel the effects with the first sip; some think they can feel a physical response when they inhale the coffee's aroma. This reaction is an example of the physiological influence that is conveyed and leveraged through the brand intention of physical wellbeing.

There's an aspect of confidence that is inherent in feeling healthier, stronger, attractive, and more energetic. The more a brand and its marketing and messaging leverages the psychological impact, the more powerful the brand. Hence the powerful psychological influence of the promise of energy that coffee offers, even though its initial effect is much like a placebo.

In 1984, Folgers coffee introduced the world to its now widely recognized jingle, “the best part of wakin' up is Folgers in your cup.” For three decades the jingle has accompanied television advertisements with images of people waking up to the drip of fresh coffee brewing and immediately being welcomed to the new day. Energetic and refreshed by the aroma alone, the ads convey the sense that Folgers will make your day, your relationships, and your work better. More recently, its television commercials depict family members connecting and caring for one another, another reminder of the caring aspect of its brand intention. The emotional aspect of these ads is powerful.

Folgers' approach to marketing has made it America's #1 coffee brand, comprising over 40 percent of the ground coffee market. It did this by competing for market share against many other coffee companies, including Maxwell House, Eight O'Clock, and the gourmet offerings of Peet's and Starbucks. It offers its coffee through retail grocery stores and supermarkets and has created additional revenue streams selling to restaurants and offering gourmet blends and single-cup options. The brand intention of Folgers is so effective it often overcomes the price trends typical of commodity markets (coffee is second only to oil among the top ten most traded commodities worldwide).

The brand intention of physical wellbeing can be applied to many products: skin care brands such as Nivea, Olay, Bath & Body, Burt's Bees, and L'Occitane; diet supplements, vitamins, and many pharmaceutical products; and programs and services that promote stronger and longer lives, such as Weight Watchers and Curves. The latter franchise provides fitness and weight-loss facilities for women. Founded in 1992, its first franchise opened in 1995. Since then, it has expanded to include franchises in 10,000 locations in over 90 countries. Curves offers a variety of programs ranging from thirty-minute workouts to one that includes exercise, a managed diet, and individual coaching. To further the value of its brand, it partnered with the Cleveland Clinic, one of the world's best-known medical facilities, to certify its coaches. In the business-to-business marketplace, the company has developed Curves Wellness, working with insurance providers and employers to improve employee health, decrease absenteeism, and boost productivity.

Physical wellbeing can also be delivered through the products or services that make up and contribute to the customer's environment, among them furnishings and home decorating products that are a part of our living and work spaces. For example, while the ergonomic furniture design has its appearance appeal, the intention is to provide physical comfort.

Another less obvious example of the customer motivation of caring for self and others is a customer service or sales center employing hundreds of phone service and online chat representatives that provides ergonomically designed chairs, desks, and lighting that replicates natural sunlight. This allows its employees to be more comfortable and, in turn, more productive. In the business-to-business arena, Herman Miller, the award-winning furniture company, has established itself as a brand specifically oriented to the ergonomic market. It boasts of its design capabilities and innovative approaches and environmental advocacy. In 2012, the company's revenue topped $1.7 billion. In all of its approaches to business, the company leverages the customer motivation of caring.

Trust is conveyed through a belief that the provider of physical well-being will look out for customers' best interest and care for them, regardless of who they are, and that the provider will always be open and honest with them. It's much like going to see a physician. While a doctor may be the most competent, if he doesn't demonstrate a desire to care for you as an individual, you're likely to doubt his true intentions. This sense of trust is the essence of the brand intention of physical wellbeing and applies to consumer and business-to-business markets.

PERSONAL ACTUALIZATION

Personal actualization defines the brand intention of products or services that deliver and support the customer's psychological self-knowledge and development. It offers self-discovery, psychological growth, consciousness, increased self-esteem, and inner peace. The brand intention can also be used to offer improved communication, better relationships, and greater happiness. The customer motivation in the brand intention of personal actualization is caring for self and others. When you feel better about yourself and are more in touch with your feelings and emotions and their origins, you are more alive and able to accomplish more. A part of our self-concept is how likeable and lovable we are.. Therefore, the better you know you, the more you can accept and like yourself. At a deeper psychological level, personal actualization satisfies the human need and desire to love one's self, to be loved and accepted by others for who we are, and to have the ability to be open to accepting and loving others.

Of the great brand names delivering self-actualization are the giants of self-help, self-improvement, human motivation, and spiritual leadership. Among them are Anthony Robbins, Joel Osteen, Oprah Winfrey, Eckhart Tolle, Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and the Dalai Lama. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were two of the great pioneers and influencers of much of the work of personal actualization and self-invention. The breadth and depth of personal programs available worldwide makes it relatively easy for anyone to engage in any form of personal actualization.

Over the last five decades, the market for personal actualization has grown rapidly because of the ever-increasing interest in self-help and self-improvement. Including books, seminars, video products, and personal coaching, the self-improvement industry in the United States in 2012 was estimated to be approximately $11 to $12 billion. As much of the money indirectly and directly spent on personal actualization flows into not-for-profit and religious organizations or is attributed to other industries, such as education, travel and business consulting, this estimate is probably conservative.

Among the range of outcomes that the customer seeks through personal actualization are:

• Managing life's changes
• Growing rich
• Changing one's life
• Becoming a better leader
• Increasing personal effectiveness
• Modifying behavior
• Dealing better with anxiety
• Improving one's love life
• Getting rich quick
• Finding the right mate
• Achieving better life balance
• Leading a fulfilling spiritual life
• Influencing others better
• Living in abundance
• Actualizing one's power
• Overcoming addiction
• Managing conflict more effectively
• Being happier
• Dealing with adversity
• Becoming a better performer
• Overcoming abusive behavior
• Managing stress better
• Attaining the ideal afterlife
• Overcoming loss
• Being more content
• Changing habits
• Finding one's true self
• Improving communication skills
• Finding inner peace, and
• Being a better father, mother, daughter, son, brother, sister, wife, husband, grandmother, grandfather, and friend

My intention is not to poke fun at any of these or devalue them in any way. Rather, my aim is to demonstrate the tremendous range and value that personal actualization provides. Indeed, we are willing to pay well for it, and it provides some of the best margins of any industry today because, for the most part, when customers buy these products or services, they are primarily paying for a concept, philosophy, set of ideas or ideals, program, or process through which they achieve something they feel they lack. Another important aspect of this brand intention is that the primary responsibility for satisfaction resides with the customer and not the provider. The customer determines whether they received the value they expected—their desired outcomes—from their investment of money spent and time committed.

The brand intention of personal actualization has become a prominent fixture for several reasons. Throughout history, religion, philosophy, mythology, and, more recently, psychology have all been means by which we've explored the human endeavor, all with the aim of understanding and knowing ourselves. The origins of self-help date back to ancient Egypt and the Greek and Roman empires. The Christian bible and the story of the life of Jesus Christ ask us to look inward to explore who we are, what our intentions are, and how we can be better servants to one another and to God. Other religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism—also provide a framework for self-discovery and the need to take responsibility for our actions and deeds. They all provide a means through which to evaluate and learn about one's self and to become the person we ideally want to be.

These approaches to understanding human behavior and emotion have helped us to pursue our knowledge of who we are and why we do the things we do. Increased self-knowledge and realizing who we are socially, psychologically, physically, emotionally, and spiritually convey tremendous power. This power lets us choose what we say and do and also allows us to better explore and interpret our own thoughts and to manage what we think. It allows us to manifest the most powerful aspect of human behavior: choice.

In a business-to-business context, employee and leadership development are aspects of personal actualization. Over the past twenty years, much like the personal and life coaching industries have grown, so have the leadership and executive coaching industries. In the United States, the executive coaching industry has grown to over $2.5 billion in annual revenue. Worldwide, coaching is one of the fastest growing industries. Among business leaders and executives, the capability for self-knowledge is a key attribute of success.

This is pretty powerful stuff. Emotional intelligence, social intelligence, emotional maturity, leadership IQ, and interpersonal intelligence are all excellent examples of the level of study, science, and art to which self-knowledge and actualization have been taken in a relatively short time. The formalized study of psychology is only a little over a century old. The products or services that deliver personal actualization are popular for many reasons. Four of these are key. The first is our natural desire to understand ourselves and get the most out of life. Regardless of a person's stature in society, station in life, or personal experience, we all want to get the most from our lives. We all want more and seek that which we feel we deserve. Many products or services providing personal actualization and individual abundance respond to this desire. The idea of personal and professional coaching is now readily accepted, whereas just two decades ago the few who had professional or life coaches weren't ready to let the world know about it.

A second reason for the popularity of personal actualization is the pace of change and complexity of our world. With the ever-increasing speed of change and the bombardment of information and messaging, we seek new ways to cope with the range of demands and multiple activities we engage in. This ongoing challenge has led to the shared understanding that our mental health is a primary contributor to our overall wellbeing. Advances in healthcare and our ability to live longer lives have put mental health center stage because of its influence on the quality of those additional years.

A third reason is our business society and the way we currently live. Before the industrial age, most people engaged in agriculture. The increasing need to grow crops to feed and clothe the growing population led to many of the mechanical and technical inventions that resulted in the industrial revolution. As our capability for technological development increased, we moved into the information age that has further increased the pace of innovation and change. One of the greatest challenges we face is how to manage and use all the information and knowledge available to us. Going forward, the range of choices is not likely to lessen, thereby requiring us to be much more aware of how we use all the information and content we have access to, as well as how to use our increased capacity to communicate over distance, over time, and with larger numbers of people. We may look back on this time as a transition from the information age to the age of awareness. Our times require that we find ways to deal with these challenges.

A fourth influence is the Baby Boomer generation's interest in self-help and self-improvement. This was as much a result of timing as it was the influence of the changes that rippled through society. Knowledge of psychology was expanding, resulting in an increased understanding of human behavior. In addition, during the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, experimentation with hallucinogens and other substances offered this generation the opportunity to explore and access experiences far beyond what earlier generations experienced. Add to this the Cold War and the increased awareness of the environmental impact of industrial expansion, the AIDS epidemic, the ever-increasing pace of change and innovation, and societal change, and it's no wonder people wanted to better understand their personal relationship to life.

The experience of the Baby Boomer generation, with its increasing interest in products and services offering self-actualization, was passed on to the Millennials. Many of the tendencies toward self-expression and the advocacy of communicating emotion have become a cornerstone of the generation and contribute to the open sharing of imaginative ideas. All of this encourages even higher levels of innovative and creative thinking that further fuel the future of our business society. By adding the expanding capability of today's communication technology, you can see what a powerful offering personal actualization will continue to be.

The six intentions provide the framework for identifying the main ingredient a product or service represents. In service to the main ingredient, aspects of the other five can be applied in varying degrees to increase its value and convey additional customer satisfaction. Often, using one or two intentions in support of the main offering is referred to as a value-add. A word of caution—the main brand intention must be able to stand alone. Trying to be everything to everyone is a dangerous strategy. This is often a hard lesson for leaders and their companies to learn.

The six brand intentions allow us to readily identify the key emotional motivation of the customer that is present and represented in each (Figure 5.1). These become an important aspect in the design of not only the product or service. They are also important in how the product or service is delivered and how all team members and the organization behave in alignment and support of the intention. Whether it is a large multinational corporation or a small business in a local community, every great brand that enjoys customer trust and loyalty demonstrates this alignment.

Figure 5.1 The Alignment of Customer Motivation and Brand Intention

In the following chapter, we'll explore some well-known brands, as well as some smaller companies that you may not know, and look into the unique recipes that make them great. We'll identify the customer motivation and how it translates into brand intention.