Michel Jansen TOTAL IDENTITY

Create optimum brand experienceBrand flow between organisation and customer experience

Create optimum brand experienceBrand flow between organisation and customer experience

Michel Jansen

2010 TOTAL IDENTITY Amsterdam

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In essence, every organisation faces the same question: what legitimises

our organisation’s right to exist? Put another way, why is it justifiable for an

organisation to carry out a certain activity? The answer to this can be found

in the extent to which added value is created. In practice, this simply means

that the organisation’s offer of products and services must meet the wishes

and needs of its customers, in as surprising a way as possible. If the added

value is substantially larger than the added value offered by other suppliers,

then the customer will show his appreciation in three ways, namely prefer-

ence, loyalty and readiness to invest. The reverse is also true; a lack of added

value will mean the customer will have no trouble switching to the alterna-

tives provided by other suppliers. These days we see this phenomenon occur

in a lot of markets. Customers move relatively easily from one supplier to

another. If an organisation wishes to guard against this then it will have to

come up with a unique offer based on its own skills that is better than what

the competitors are offering. It is then immediately clear that the creation

of added value surpasses finding the right balance between a) a company’s

own competences b) its relevance to the customer and c) its distinguishing

capacity in relation to the competition. By offering the right added value, the

organisation creates a strong market position and ensures its right to exist.

The creation of added value is a delicate process because it is a moving

target. This is because it listens very closely to the extent to which the

three factors mentioned above are balanced against each other at any

given moment. The difficulty lies in the fact that the three factors are

continually subject to change so that the way they relate to each other

keeps on being altered making it difficult to find and keep the right bal-

ance. However, every organisation will have to strive towards this

because if they can’t, the added value they are offering will come under

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pressure and they will lose the market position they have built up. The

creation of added value is never ending and organisations must continu-

ously come up with new propositions (products and services) to prevent

their market position being taken by their competitors (see image 1).

The creation of added value is top-level sport

Building a successful organisation is like a race without a finishing line.

The organisation cannot hold any power in reserve for a final sprint as it

needs to stay ahead all the time. A moment of weakness or loss of con-

centration means the leading position is immediately taken by other par-

ticipants. The organisation therefore needs to excel in the present and

innovate, while always being focused on the future, in order to keep its

momentum and create added value. It is striking to see how some are bet-

Time

PropositionA

PropositionB

PropositionC

PropositionD

PropositionE

PropositionF

Proposition...

Adde

d va

lue

Image 1 The challenge in continuously creating added value

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ter at doing this than others. Organisations like IKEA, Nike, Albert Heijn,

HEMA, Rabobank and Interpolis are capable of being successful over long

periods because they keep on serving the customer in a way that is rel-

evant and sets them apart. Consistency in management radiates power

and vitality which the market translates into the brand’s added value

and makes the market position unassailable. What is remarkable about

these powerful brands is that they possess a paradoxical characteris-

tic: they manage to excel in their markets in what appears to be a simple

way. They seem to perform effortlessly at the peak of their ability and yet

at the same time they are capable of responding at lightning speed and

with great flexibility to market opportunities that arise. For this reason,

they are capable of continuously creating an optimum brand experience

and linked to that a customer experience even though they have to deal

with the same difficult circumstances as their rivals.

Go with the flow

This characteristic, the moment an organisation seems to perform effort-

lessly at the peak of their ability shows a lot of similarities with what

Csikszentmihalyi calls Flow. In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal

Experience (2007) he describes the special state of consciousness peo-

ple achieve when they are focused on a certain activity at the peak of

their ability. During such moments they feel strong, they are highly alert,

they do their work effortlessly, they have a full grasp on the situation and

experience intense happiness. Although a flow experience appears to run

effortlessly, this is by no means the case. It requires a huge spiritual and/

or physical effort and without using the right skills, the flow experience

will not get off the ground. Flow happens when people are busy achiev-

ing great things, such as a musician playing a piece of Mozart, a group

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of mountaineers scaling Mount Everest or a football team playing for the

championship. Flow comes about the moment the required skills and the

challenges being faced - at a high level - are in balance (see image 2).

Flow cannot be reached by taking a short cut; it is achieved by taking the

long road. The musician, the group of mountaineers and the football team

all had to invest in extensive training in order to reach their goals. More-

over, during their performance they are fully focused in achieving their

goal and are in a supreme state of concentration. They cannot allow them-

selves to be distracted because one false move could be fatal. Through

their powerful focus they arrive at the state of consciousness called

flow, which enables them to draw optimally on their strengths and skills

and achieve that top performance. At that moment they are completely

in balance; everything happens automatically and all the pieces fall into

Image 2. Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Model (2007) Brand Flow Model (Jansen, 2009)

Skills

OrganisationBoredom (situation a)

Brand flow channel

Flow-channel

Customer (experience)Fear (situation b)

Chal

leng

es

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place at the right moment. Although it appears that the performance is

achieved without any effort, the reality proves otherwise. During the per-

formance the maximum is demanded of body and soul. The mountaineers

will have to brave the elements in order to reach the top of the mountain.

During a flow experience, this pain is felt but doesn’t have to stand in

the way of the top achievement. It is an almost obvious part of the opti-

mum experience. Another significant characteristic of flow is that it is

accompanied by a feeling of discovery. People performing at the peak of

their ability experience personal growth and leads to them setting them-

selves new challenges. By training hard their skills are further developed

and a new flow experience becomes possible. By continually raising the

bar and skill level it is possible to keep up the momentum and experience

continuous happiness.

Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas of flow offer an interesting foundation on which

organisations can build because many organisations represent great chal-

lenges that demand the necessary skills. In this event, flow is the result of

the fact that an organisation is in balance (between challenges and skills)

and performing at the peak of its ability. At that moment the organisation

creates optimum brand experience from the point of view of the customer

and gives it a higher added value than the competition does. The strug-

gle an organisation undergoes to achieve flow is relevant because future

challenges will only get bigger and the organisation must use its skills to

remain equal to them in order to be successful and bring about growth.

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Creating optimum brand experience

Achieving flow is a great challenge for any organisation, because it means

its employees use their competences to develop propositions with which

to respond to customer wishes and requirements in a relevant and dis-

tinguishable way. From the customer’s point of view, flow is equal to

creating the perfect brand experience. The question that arises is: how

this can be achieved? This question is answered in this essay and a con-

crete framework is offered as to how to achieve flow and as such offer

the desired added value, now and in the future. In addition, it becomes

clear that a fundamentally different attitude towards customer interac-

tion and the building of brands is required than many organisations have

so far been used to. In order to indicate the desired change in thinking

and acting, the framework in made up of six paradigm shifts. These are:

– From Reactive to Proactive

– From Image-driven to Brand-driven

– From Transaction to Relation

– From Repositioning to Vitality

– From Change to Further Development

– From Speed to Timing

Paradigm shift 1

From Reactive to Proactive

The first paradigm shift concerns the way an organisation currently deals

with challenges in the market and lets its brand determine its actions. In a

short time, the socio-economic context has changed dramatically and the

added value of the brand has come under pressure. In many markets there

is hypercompetition and commoditisation. In the brand flow model (image

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2) this changing relationship can be simply explained. In the past, organi-

sations seldom had to deal with big problems, such as critical customers,

so they weren’t spurred into action. The result was lazy brand manage-

ment. These days this has been reversed and brand management faces

the huge challenges of issue management, portfolio policy and issues sur-

rounding customer experience, to name but a few (situation b). The fear

and panic that arise mean the organisation allows itself to be led through

the hectic situation by the brand. The organisation is thereby the great-

est cause of the turmoil, whereas it’s exactly during such times that it

needs to take back control. Instead of acting reactively the organisation

must approach the market proactively.

Paradigm shift 2

From Image driven to Brand driven

The second paradigm shift concerns the way the brand is regarded

within the organisation. The most important message here is that the

brand must be the driver of the organisation’s actions and no longer

just a handy instrument for creating an attractive image in the market.

The reason behind this is that the brand has evolved from a means of

creating familiarity in the market into a construct that is meant direct

the entire organisation. The brand ensures focus which is needed in

order to perform optimally. Organisations like Interpolis, IKEA, Nike, BMW,

Nespresso, Rabobank and Starbucks do this. They place brand ambition

in a position that is central to their actions and, by doing so, they max-

imise the effect of its power. This is contrary to what a large number of

other organisations do where initially the focus rests on the creation of

an attractive image. Organisations must be prepared to give the brand

a central role between the organisation and customer experience. It is

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only from this position that the potential power can be used as a predic-

tive and reliable filter.

Paradigm shift 3

From Transaction to Relation

Originally a brand was used to create customer preference. In the mean-

time, however, there is a large number of stakeholder groups it also has

to be relevant to, for instance employees, the public, trades unions and

suppliers. The reason for this is that a brand represents the entire organ-

isation. It its task is also to create added value for the groups mentioned

above and the great challenge is to pay attention to these groups’ inter-

ests. The relationships have gradually changed and the brand must no

longer be deployed on an equal footing with the stakeholder groups and

focus less on the customer. A brand is no longer able to act on a transac-

tion basis; rather it has to adopt wholeheartedly a relationship-oriented

attitude towards the various stakeholder groups. A brand may not just

enrich the organisation but will have to search for ways to offer added

value to multiple stakeholder groups. It is the only way to have a right to

exist, not just now but in the future.

Paradigm shift 4

From Repositioning to Vitality

Once it has been established that the brand is a construct that leads

the way for the entire organisation and that it has to create added value

for various stakeholder groups (including the customer), its position

alters completely. The organisation’s ambition now becomes the leit motiv

and as such the role of the brand is less informal that it used to be. The

unique power of the brand is to create coherence in action within the

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organisation so that its ambition is actually realised. The brand therefore

guarantees clear ambition as well as the focus the organisation needs

for its actions and learning capability. In other words, the employees

can fully focus on the ambition that the organisation has set for itself.

Brand strategy drives the organisation to greater heights and pre-

programmes the customer’s perception so that the brand formulates

customer queries in such a way that they can be answered on the basis

of  the right appli cation organisation’s own competences. Informally

changing the brand definition from time to time (or repositioning the

brand as it’s usually called) has significant consequences for the organ-

isation and is therefore to be avoided. A brand should be formulated

once, after which the focus needs to be placed on keeping it vital to the

customer and the organisation.

Paradigm shift 5

From Change to Continued Development

The brand is expected to respond in a relevant way to the wishes and

needs of its customers. The brand has to excel in living up to the ambi-

tion it communicates and this can only be achieved if there is room within

the brand for the continued development of the organisation’s own skills

and competences. In doing so the brand creates a sustainable competi-

tive advantage for itself and and guarantees a relevant customer experi-

ence. It is based on the unique qualities that enable the organisation to

excel and which other organisations or brands are scarcely able to trans-

late into a distinguishing and transformational customer experience. At

the same time, there is a deeper relationship with the customer because

the customer perceives that the brand is really living up to its ambition

and doesn’t make empty promises. By allowing the innovation process to

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be a structural part of the daily management of the company, the devout

routine is interrupted and the brand keeps having to find its own rhythm.

The continual development of the competences and skills instead of con-

tinuing to alter them is the fifth essential paradigm shift.

Paradigm shift 6

From Speed to Timing

The brand stands for the great challenge to represent added value in within

a continually changing context. An uninterrupted stream of innovation is

required in order to keep the brand up to date for the customer and so avoid

endangering its right to exist. The organisation must identify opportuni-

ties in the market and simultaneously keep in mind its own competences,

because creating flow means finding the balance between the challenges

that the customer sets and the organisations own skills. The brand must

also dare to choose its own momentum and not allow itself to be tempted

to join in the everyday frenzy of the environment within which it exists.

This thought leads to the understanding that timing is more important than

speed when innovating. The organisation must ensure that it introduces

a correct proposition at the right moment in a response to the wishes and

needs of the customer, based on the right competences and stemming from

its own ambition.

Two worlds

The six paradigm shifts are inextricably linked to one another and reveal

their added value in the way they interact with one another (see image

3). They make sure the organisation is capable of performing optimally

and that the organisation, brand experience and customer experience

are aligned. Moreover they represent fundamental changes in the way in

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which many organisations currently manage their brands and customer

experience. By acting from within these new paradigms the brand is not

only able to survive, but to create the possibility of giving direction to its

own customer interaction and the resulting future.

Achieving Brand Flow, however, isn’t an easy task because it forces organ-

isations to continually bring their brand in line with their skills in order

to respond to the market challenges of the coming years.

The introduction of these paradigm shifts will therefore not be without

difficulties. A strong market position awaits the brands that are will-

ing to think and act using the new paradigms because they will continu-

ously find a balance, in a constructive way, between market challenges

and their own qualities. The opposite applies too: organisations which are

unwilling to introduce the desired changes to the management of their

company will find it difficult to keep on creating relevant added value.

They are not sufficiently capable of surviving in the environment that is

becoming ever more complex.

Speed

Change

Image-driven

Transactionfocus

Timing

Proactive

Vitalise

Reactive

Repositioning

Developfurther

Brand-driven

Relationfocus

Image 3 Two worlds as a result of powerful interaction

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These paradigm shifts must take care of the required brand stability, in

the context of both organisation development and customer motives. The

brand has become beacon for the organisation and fills the role of inno-

vation driver whose primary objective is to stay relevant to the various

stakeholders. Brand Flow provides a framework which allows an organi-

sation to offer an optimum brand experience all the time. This is a heavy

but not unassailable challenge because just as with people, flow is pos-

sible for every brand. The ideas presented in this essay are universal. As

such they are relevant and can be applied to any organisation’s brand,

irrespective of the market.

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Reference listThe text for this essay is based on the book Brand Flow, published by Michel Jansen in September 2009.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2007), Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Amsterdam, Boom Publishing

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