All credibility is sticky. If you have it and live by it, people remember it. They associate you with it. Credibility is the Super Glue of branding. Without credibility, it doesn’t matter what your message is.
All of this is a huge duh. So why aren’t more companies concerned about credibility?
Since I have spent about 16 hours a day lately looking for innovation across America (shooting mini documentaries), I thought I would sit down and write a few ideas I have on the complicated subject.
First, it’s really not complicated, or it shouldn’t be; it’s just difficult for many people to fully wrap their minds around. [...]
{Another Story about Glue}
Just when you thought America’s infatuation with coffee was exhausted, along comes the next generation of bean purveyors with a twist. Except the twist is really pretty stupidly simple (which, if you know me, is my motto on almost everything branding and business).
Richmond, Virginia, police may have found a way to Glue police to criminals, a feat not easily pulled off in other cities.
If you are even remotely familiar with Thomas L. Friedman’s book, “The World Is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” you know about one of the biggest flatteners in the world: Wal-Mart.
Let’s look at how Toyota Glued its management to its employees, and its brand and products and strategy and positions and future to the world’s automobile buyers.
We have given many examples of Glue during this series. So let’s review.
Glue holds things together because it’s sticky. Duh. Seems obvious. But too many companies try everything else before they Glue. And there is no shortage of theories to try.
Let’s all stand and sing the song that will make or break your company. It’s called Customer Experience – the process formerly known as customer service, except it is about more than just service. More? Much more. Customer service almost always dealt with problems. Customer experience does that and also works to avoid problems. Sales [...]
Apple, ever the font of Glue, has been confounding analysts and critics alike for years with Macs, G4s and iPods and iTunes and iPhones and amazing customer service and the genius Genius Bar in their retail stores. By the way, everyone who supposedly knows retail predicted Apple’s failure in retail as well. Last quarter, 21.5 [...]
Ever since digital video recorders like TiVo came out, people have been prophesying the death of commercials because people can fast forward through them to only watch the show they recorded. But reality proves otherwise.
This is the third in a series about corporate Glue. The stuff comes in so many forms that you could use it to hold every company in the world together. But few people do. Let’s look at Glue out there in several companies in particular and industries in general – or even in American politics.
Imagine you are in a room with a single lamp. The room is dark. You flip on the lamp. Nothing happens. You immediately think the bulb is blown. But then you fumble around in the dark and see that the lamp is not plugged in. So you plug it into the wall.
This is the first in a series about the contact points that make a company successful. I’m not talking about just branding or marketing success; I’m talking about total success – in sales and operations and customer service and distribution – success in the management offices and the cubes and the janitor’s closet. Most importantly, [...]