Latest / The Action Catalyst / REMASTERED: What Great Brands Do, with Denise Lee Yohn (Marketing, Branding, Business, Sales)

Transcript

REMASTERED: What Great Brands Do, with Denise Lee Yohn (Marketing, Branding, Business, Sales) · The Action Catalyst

• 0:00
  Host: Denise Lee Yohn, she is a speaker, her book is called What
• 0:05
  Great Brands Do, The Seven Brand Building Principles That
• 0:09
  Separate the Best From the Rest. She's been the lead strategist
• 0:13
  for advertising agencies for Burger King and Land Rover, Jack
• 0:16
  in the Box. She went on to head Sony Electronics, their first
• 0:21
  ever brand office, Frito Lay and Oakley, and Denise, thanks for
• 0:25
  being here.
• 0:25
  Denise Lee Yohn: Thanks for that great introduction.
• 0:27
  Host: So just kind of, first of all, you know, obviously you've
• 0:30
  got, you have the background and the pedigree of, you know,
• 0:33
  working with the big brands and everything. What caused you to
• 0:36
  write the book? How did you, why did you even say, Yeah, I want
• 0:38
  to, I want to go ahead and turn this into a book?
• 0:41
  Denise Lee Yohn: Yeah, well, I, you know, I should start by
• 0:43
  saying that I love brands. I'm passionate about them. I've been
• 0:46
  studying them for years. I've been working on them. You know,
• 0:50
  as a consumer, I'm fascinated by them, and as a professional, I'm
• 0:53
  even more fascinated and so, you know, certainly I, you know,
• 0:56
  this is a topic that I want to share my thoughts on. But more
• 1:00
  specifically, I feel like there's a lot of
• 1:02
  misunderstanding about how great brands and big brands get to be
• 1:07
  so successful. And so I wanted to share what I had learned from
• 1:11
  my research and work about what great brands do.
• 1:15
  Host: You talk about this concept, it's called brand as
• 1:19
  business.
• 1:19
  Denise Lee Yohn: Yeah. Well, maybe it would be helpful to
• 1:22
  contrast that to brand as logo or brand as name or brand as
• 1:28
  tagline, marketing, advertising, PR, website, whatever you know.
• 1:32
  I think that a lot of people, when they think about brand,
• 1:34
  they think about those elements which are really, I would call
• 1:38
  them expressions, or ways to communicate your brand, but your
• 1:41
  brand is your business if you are, if you are using your brand
• 1:46
  correctly. And so brand as businesses, is simply a phrase
• 1:49
  to kind of say, you know, there should be no separation. There
• 1:52
  should be no difference between how you're managing developing
• 1:56
  and growing your brand as how you're managing developing and
• 1:59
  growing your business. And a lot of it has to do with your
• 2:01
  culture, you know, inside your organization, has to do with the
• 2:04
  actual customer experience that you're providing, and, you know,
• 2:07
  your company operations and strategies, what you actually
• 2:10
  do. So it's really a very, I think, more comprehensive thing
• 2:16
  than people want to think of just a brand as, I mean, you
• 2:19
  know, think about like Apple, you know, Apple has, what,
• 2:22
  millions of fans around the world. I don't think any of them
• 2:25
  love Apple because they've got a great logo, or even that, you
• 2:30
  know, that they have great advertising, and they have some
• 2:32
  really cool creative advertising that I think, really, you know,
• 2:35
  rallies people and gets people hooked. But it's really the
• 2:39
  Apple products and the Apple stores and the apple community,
• 2:43
  and the Apple apps, all you know, all of that is what makes
• 2:46
  Apple Apple, and that's what the Apple brand is.
• 2:49
  Host: What do you think is different kind of if you you
• 2:52
  look at this approach that you call brand as business?
• 2:55
  Denise Lee Yohn: I think that, you know, it probably starts
• 2:56
  with the first principle in my book, what great brands do. The
• 3:00
  first principle is great brands start inside, meaning that they
• 3:04
  start brand building by cultivating a strong brand led
• 3:09
  culture inside their companies. And that also means that that
• 3:13
  means that they are saving, communicating, expressing their
• 3:18
  brand through things like a logo or a marketing campaign for
• 3:22
  after they've actually created this strong culture inside. So
• 3:27
  it's really about being more more focused on on how you're
• 3:32
  running your business, why you're running business, what
• 3:34
  are the values and attributes that you want to be known for
• 3:36
  and that you are really cultivating among everyone who
• 3:39
  works on your brand? And that's where you start. And then once
• 3:43
  you've got that to a point where you feel like, okay, we're
• 3:46
  really creating value here, then you go out and you start working
• 3:49
  on your external image.
• 3:52
  Host: So do you think that's one of the big mistakes that people
• 3:54
  make, is they do those in reverse order?
• 3:57
  Denise Lee Yohn: Absolutely. I mean, you know, how many times
• 3:58
  do we read about, like, when a corporation is in trouble, and
• 4:01
  the first thing they do is, oh, we're going to launch a brand
• 4:03
  campaign, or we're going to change our name or refresh our
• 4:07
  logo, and, you know, and I'm not saying that those things aren't
• 4:10
  important, but I think that, you know, customers are pretty savvy
• 4:14
  these days, and, you know, a new logo or a new tagline, those
• 4:19
  things are kind of like, you Know, dime a dozen, and people
• 4:22
  really want to know, okay, what, what are you doing that's
• 4:25
  different, you know, what, what value are you creating for me?
• 4:29
  Why should I pay attention to you? And the, you know, the
• 4:33
  external image is only a part of that.
• 4:36
  Host: How does personal branding fit into this?
• 4:40
  Denise Lee Yohn: You know, I think within a corporation, you
• 4:42
  know, you are in charge of your career, right? And I spent 15
• 4:45
  plus years in the corporate world, so I know you know how
• 4:48
  hard it is to, you know, shape your career and pursue your
• 4:52
  individual career goals at the same time supporting and, you
• 4:56
  know, pursuing your company's objectives. And. I think that
• 5:00
  you know you need to be very cognizant of what you are known
• 5:05
  for within an organization so that you can accomplish those
• 5:08
  goals and and a lot of that has to do with, again, the value
• 5:12
  that you create, the projects that you sign up to, to work on,
• 5:16
  the way that you conduct yourself in meetings. And you
• 5:19
  know a lot, I think, unfortunately, some personal
• 5:22
  branding experts are much more focused, again, on your image.
• 5:24
  You know, how do you what does your avatar look like on social
• 5:28
  media? And you know, you know, and how do you dress? And again,
• 5:32
  those things are important. But I wouldn't be advising both
• 5:35
  within a corporation as well as a small business owner or an
• 5:38
  individual consultant that it's really you need to focus on, you
• 5:43
  know, what value you're creating and how are you doing business
• 5:46
  that's distinctive, and, you know, memorable and compelling,
• 5:50
  and you know, and as a salesperson, I think that you
• 5:53
  are, when you go and you call on a customer, you're not only you,
• 5:57
  you're representing two brands, your own brand and your company
• 6:00
  brand. And I, and I would venture to guess that most
• 6:03
  buyers are, you know, basing a, you know, buying decision on
• 6:08
  both of those brands. You know, it's they want to know. Is this
• 6:12
  person that I them sitting, you know, across the table from, you
• 6:15
  know, do I like them? Do I respect them? Do I trust them?
• 6:18
  But then, and then, in addition, you know, do I want to do
• 6:21
  business with this company? And so it's really, I think, the
• 6:23
  combination of the two that makes a very powerful sales
• 6:26
  presentation.
• 6:27
  Host: I'd love to hear like an example of some companies where
• 6:30
  you go here is somebody who had a very weak brand, and it was
• 6:35
  not going well, and then they did this and this and this and
• 6:40
  this, and it changed.
• 6:43
  Denise Lee Yohn: Well, I'll talk about one of the my clients that
• 6:46
  I worked with a while ago, and so I think I can speak fairly
• 6:49
  freely about them. And they're a public company. It's a fast food
• 6:52
  chain called Jack in the Box, and I would say that when we
• 6:55
  started working with them, they had the image that they had
• 7:01
  created from their television commercials. So Jack in the Box
• 7:05
  has this CEO character, Jack, who's kind of like a kick butt,
• 7:09
  you know, fun, funny, bold, convention breaking, kind of
• 7:13
  CEO. And these advertisements, I think, really created this
• 7:16
  personality that people liked, but there was a very big
• 7:20
  disconnect between that image and what you would actually
• 7:24
  experience in the store. You know, in fact, I think the
• 7:27
  executives would agree when we started working with them, the
• 7:30
  other stores were somewhat dirty, somewhat slow. Service
• 7:34
  was inconsistent. You know, probably inconsistency was
• 7:37
  probably their biggest problem, and they had definitely had
• 7:39
  bright spots, but they also had a lot of problems. And so the
• 7:43
  work that we did, you know, we certainly helped them refine
• 7:46
  their position and really kind of focus more on their
• 7:48
  positioning. But more importantly, what we did was
• 7:51
  worked with every person who worked on that brand, from you
• 7:55
  know, the executive team to the corporate departments to the
• 7:57
  franchisees. You know, both the master franchisees that own
• 8:00
  hundreds of units, as well as the smaller franchises, and then
• 8:03
  the restaurant employees all to understand what is their role in
• 8:08
  interpreting and reinforcing the Jack in the Box brand. And you
• 8:12
  know, there was certain there was a certain positioning, a
• 8:14
  certain personality, values and attributes that that they wanted
• 8:17
  their brand to be known for. And through that work, I think that
• 8:20
  the stores, the store experience, has become much more
• 8:23
  in line with what this image was. Now they still have a long
• 8:27
  way to go, and I'm sure that, you know, you would you, if you
• 8:29
  went into Jack in the Box, maybe nine out of 10 times, or maybe
• 8:32
  eight out of 10 times, you'd get this great experience that that
• 8:35
  reflects their brand, but you would still have some
• 8:37
  inconsistency. But I think the most important thing was that
• 8:39
  that, you know, they brought in a lot more personality into what
• 8:42
  they were doing in the stores. A lot of their stores decided to
• 8:46
  stay open 24 hours, and they built a whole late night program
• 8:50
  and a special menu and kind of special promotions to promote
• 8:54
  this kind of late night time, which really appealed to their
• 8:57
  millennial target customers, and kind of would be the kind of
• 9:00
  thing that this jack character from the advertiser would
• 9:02
  actually do in the store, and so I think, and now, if you look at
• 9:06
  their stock price, as if that's any indication of the success of
• 9:12
  this change that they've made, I don't want to misquote, but I
• 9:16
  want to say that their stock is on fire, and I don't want to
• 9:18
  take credit for that completely, but I think that's part what our
• 9:22
  work was, in part what has been contributing to their success.
• 9:25
  Host: Now you use the phrase integrated approach. What does
• 9:28
  that mean to have an integrated approach?
• 9:31
  Denise Lee Yohn: Oh, well, at the most fundamental level, I
• 9:33
  think it means that you do what you say that you are doing, you
• 9:37
  know? So I always say that a brand can't just be a promise.
• 9:40
  It needs to be a promise delivered so you're integrating
• 9:43
  your promise with your actual execution. But I think
• 9:46
  integration is also about every aspect of what you're doing,
• 9:50
  every aspect of the customer experience, needs to be
• 9:53
  integrated so that it creates this branded experience, this
• 9:57
  really compelling, different. COVID experience for the
• 10:01
  customer. And so it's you know, about making sure that your
• 10:05
  products are the types of products that you have are, you
• 10:11
  know, expressing the value that you want to be known for. The
• 10:14
  types of services you offer are integrated with those products.
• 10:17
  The pricing that you use reflects the value that you want
• 10:20
  to be known for. You know, the promotions and the marketing you
• 10:23
  do build up an expectation that then is delivered from those
• 10:27
  products and services. So it's all part of a cohesive whole.
• 10:30
  Host: Let's say somebody that's out there listening and their
• 10:33
  small business owner, what's the first thing they should do?
• 10:37
  Denise Lee Yohn: It's probably safe to say that in most every
• 10:41
  area, every sector, every industry, the competition is has
• 10:46
  already increased or is increasing, and your need to
• 10:49
  stand out and be known is becoming, you know, even more
• 10:55
  critically important, and you can't just expect your customers
• 10:59
  to figure that out. You know, if we just run a good business,
• 11:01
  people will, you know, will come to us. I mean, that's not the
• 11:04
  way that it works today. You need to stand out and give
• 11:07
  customers a reason to choose you. So that's why it's
• 11:10
  important. And then I would say, you know, part of the reason why
• 11:14
  you might have all these different, you know, logos or
• 11:17
  expressions, or, you know, different brochures, or, you
• 11:19
  know, whatever, maybe because you yourself as as a business
• 11:23
  owner or partner team, are not focused and clear yourself on,
• 11:28
  what does your brand stand for? You know, what is that core
• 11:31
  essence or core purpose or core mission that really holds
• 11:34
  everything together? And so you, I think you need to spend some
• 11:38
  time, and it's not something that is, you know, takes a long
• 11:40
  process, and it's not something that you even really need to
• 11:43
  spend any money on, but you need to do some very, you know,
• 11:46
  serious like introspection and strategic planning on what is it
• 11:49
  that we want our brand to known, be known for, and very clearly
• 11:52
  articulate that don't assume that people just get it or
• 11:55
  people know it, but, you know, write it down and make sure that
• 11:58
  it's clear on what you stand for and how you're different and
• 12:01
  better from your competition. And then from there, I think, is
• 12:04
  a matter of then ensuring that everyone who works on your brand
• 12:06
  shares that understanding and then brings that to life in
• 12:09
  their area of responsibility. And if you don't create a
• 12:13
  reputation for yourself, one will be created, right?
• 12:17
  Host: Where do you want people to go, Denise, to connect with
• 12:20
  you?
• 12:21
  Denise Lee Yohn: Yeah, so, um, definitely you go to my website,
• 12:23
  DeniseLeeYohn.com, and that's d, e, n, i, s, E, L, E, E, y, O, H
• 12:31
  n.com, and from there, you can actually access all the
• 12:34
  information about my book. There are materials for my book that
• 12:36
  you can download, links to where you can purchase it, and then
• 12:39
  that also clicks or links you to my blog and newsletter.
• 12:43
  Host: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing this with us. Denise Lee
• 12:46
  Yohn.