Museums don’t have managers. They have “curators” – people who are responsible not just for the day-to-day operation but for the entire experience.
I like to say that we have to “curate” our brands. Once we have a brand, the question becomes how to maintain it, cultivate it, and make sure the customer experience is consistent with it.
My good friend and branding expert Bruce Turkel, CEO/EDC of TURKEL Brands, came back on the show recently to help us answer that question.
A brand, he said, is your reputation. It’s what people think about you and say about you when you’re not in the room.
“It’s the message that comes before you do and stays after you leave,” he said.
Turkel went on to describe a couple of cases – former Olympic cyclist Lance Armstrong and news anchor Brian Williams – where high-profile and once-trusted people irreparably violated and destroyed their brands.
He said others – like Hillary Clinton – have been caught lying but have recovered their brands because our expectations of them are not as high. Or they admitted the lie and came clean with the public.
People can also recover a brand, he said, if the misdeed is not relevant to the brand. Tiger Woods’ brand revolved around being an expert golfer – until recently – not a faithful husband.
The bottom line in branding, Turkel said, is basically three things:
1. You have to know your brand – your “authentic truth.” “Amazingly enough, most people in business do not know what their brand message is,” he said.
2. Make sure everyone in your organization knows your brand.
3. Never, ever violate your brand.
Another example: Turkel said a friend once flew first-class sitting next to Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza. Monaghan shocked him when he said he wasn’t in the pizza business. Monaghan said he was in the problem-solving business – the problem being not enough food and not enough time to get more. Hence the company’s one-time slogan: “30 minutes or it’s free.”
We talked about a lot more, including:
– How social proof supports your brand.
– The best time to create a loyal customer is when they’re mad.
– There are two kinds of luggage: carry-on and lost.
Fun stuff. Click here to listen to the full interview with Bruce Turkel, CEO/EDC of TURKEL Brands.
