Support a Thriving Culture with Traditions, Artifacts and Secret Rooms

2 min read - 1 Quote & 1 Lesson

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Read time: 2 min

At a glance:

Quote: Want a thriving business? Support a thriving culture
Lesson: Three ideas to go beyond behaviors

Quote

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast, operational excellence for lunch and everything else for dinner"
Peter Drucker

Lesson

In branding, one of the most neglected audiences are employees. Although companies spend millions of dollars on brand campaigns and external facing activations, a bad experience with customer service can upend all of that.

Employees are the biggest under leveraged group of brand ambassadors and when they are on the same page and marching to the same beat, the effects are extremely powerful.

However, most culture efforts are one dimensional and detached from brand, becoming a HR values project instead of a company imperative at the highest levels.

Culture is NOT a bunch of posters on the wall

In this issue, I share with you three examples of how to create an environment for a unique and powerful culture to thrive.

HINT: It’s not just putting your core values on the wall or a desk top wall paper

Three examples to draw inspiration from:

1/ Traditions

Pumpkin carving contest at NASA

At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, they hold an annual pumpkin carving contest. It’s completely voluntary and not mandated by management. This is essential, because a tradition is never compulsory, if it is, it becomes a routine. And they are not the same thing.

At NASA’s JPL, their pumpkin contest is “out of this world”, from programmable pumpkins to pumpkins that literally hover above ground, engineers show off their skills by going all out.

Photo Credit: https://www.designboom.com/art/nasa-pumpkin-carving-contest-halloween-10-31-2018/

What kinds of traditions will help your employees bond while cultivating behaviors that exemplify the culture? Pumpkin engineering far outweighs value posters like “Creativity” and “Fun”, don’t you think?

2/ Artifacts

Medallion and Ceremony at Medtronic

At Medtronic, the giant medical device company, every new employee receives a hefty medallion that is inscribed with the company mission in a ceremony. And when its founder Earl Bakken was alive, he would personally present them at multiple ceremonies around the world every year.

The artifact represents the commitment to the company mission and highlights the induction of the employee into a culture that puts patient welfare at the heart of the business.

Photo credit: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/the-3-best-run-companies-in-the-healthcare-sector

Artifacts don’t have to be extravagant and lavish, it is a physical representation of what is important.

3/ Secret rooms

Speakeasy at Pixar

The legendary Pixar studios has many secret rooms, but the most famous is the speakeasy that you can only access through a tiny access panel. It was in Andrew Gordon’s new office when Pixar moved into Emeryville, CA, where he noticed an access panel that opened up to a small room that was meant for air conditioning maintenance.

He had other plans and outfitted it with Christmas lights, shag carpet and even a fully stocked bar. When Steve Jobs and others found out, they loved it. It became a VIP hangout. Dubbed the “Love Lounge”, as the signage says above the entry, it was visited by the likes of Tim Allen, Randy Newman and Roy Disney.

Photo credit: https://www.messynessychic.com/2014/04/24/the-secret-speakeasy-room-found-at-pixar-studios-where-steve-jobs-hung-out/

Photo credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/98868154304794481/

Frivolous? You may say so, but what is a better way to experience “Creativity” and “Out of the box” and “Fun”? A value poster? Or a secret Love Lounge? You decide.

Conclusion

Culture is not a set of posters on the wall. To encourage a thriving culture, think beyond behaviors. Think about how people can experience and discover what’s to be expected of them without telling them. Whether it’s traditions, artifacts or secret rooms, the key is to never force something, it should be organic and real.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 7/10/23 howie chan 7/10/23

It's Time to Leave "Value Proposition" Behind

3 min read - 1 Quote & 1 Lesson

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Read time: 3 min

At a glance:

Quote: Focus on what we really need
Lesson: Positioning encompasses what value proposition is trying to accomplish

Quote

"The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t."
Marie Kondo

Lesson

The world of marketing and branding is complicated. So complicated in fact, most marketers don’t have a clear grasp of all the tools and frameworks they need to build a strategy and a plan.

Why?

We are bogged down by lexicon and jargon, not unlike any industry that has been around for awhile.

I say it’s time to clean house.

In this issue, I’ll help you truly understand what is “value proposition” and how it can be abandoned for a clearer and more powerful concept: Positioning. I’m not an academic, and so my point of view will always err on the side of application and practicality. Are you open minded? If so, read on…

Ditch value proposition, embrace positioning

The definition of value proposition

Value proposition is the full mix of benefits or economic value which it promises to deliver to the current and future customers who will buy their products and/or services (Wikipedia)

It’s derived by looking at the pains, needs and wants of the customer and matching them with the features, functional and emotional benefits of the product.

“Howie, isn’t this important? Why trash it?”

It is important, but it’s insufficient, the work is not done, because a value proposition alone is not unique or different and it will simply blend-in with the myriad of options in the marketplace.

This is where the concept of positioning comes in.

The concept of positioning

Positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors (Wikipedia).

A positioning strategy is determining and deciding what is the most RELEVANT and DIFFERENTIATING for a TARGET CUSTOMER SEGMENT.

If you have this in mind, there is no need for a value proposition, because it’s a more encompassing concept.

By understanding the target customer, the product and the white space unoccupied by competitors, you can uncover opportunities for a positioning strategy which incorporates the unique benefits you need to communicate anyway.

Said another way, if you focus on positioning, the value prop is already covered.

So simplify and drop the value prop… stop trying to figure out why their different, when to use what and end up confused. Decide on clarity now.

Your objections, my replies

But Howie…

1/ I’ve read somewhere that the value prop is what is on the landing page, so don’t I need one?

Copy on the landing page should be a headline that hooks the audience. It is an expression of the positioning and brand strategy into a creative line as defined by a creative campaign brief, not a “value proposition”. Why not have a headline that not only communicates the benefit, but starts to own a unique space in the mind of the customer? So no, you don’t need it.

2/ Isn’t the value prop a broader concept than positioning?

The value prop as discussed earlier is not differentiated and hence you may read online that it is a broader concept. It is less specific and not as effective as it fails to consider the competition. Pass on the value prop.

3/ Don’t we have to communicate the benefits through a value prop?

Nope. See 1/.

Conclusion

Stop being confused on value proposition vs. positioning. Think of positioning as being inclusive of what the value prop is trying to accomplish, so drop it and keep it simple.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 6/26/23 howie chan 6/26/23

Establish the Voice of Your Brand & Get Ready to Be Loved

3 min read - 1 Quote & 1 Lesson

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Read time: 3 min

At a glance:

Quote: Voice matters
Lesson: The Clouds & Dirt brand voice model

Quote

"It only takes one voice, at the right pitch, to start an avalanche."
Dianna Hardy, Author

Lesson

Words move people.

From “I have a dream” to “This was their finest hour”, language creates ideas in people’s minds and if you change the language, you can change the ideas. “Self-checkout” sucks, but “express checkout” is attractive. “Sports mode” is ok, but “ludicrous speed” is exciting. Yes, words matter, both what you say, but more importantly how you say it.

One of the most informing book I read about the power of language and how to create a brand voice comes from Strong Language by Chris West. (Go buy the book! You won’t regret it!) He uses the example of Mini and Ferrari, showing how a brands voice can show up dramatically differently.

Mini

Born to corner. Driving a Mini is a ton of fun, thanks to its legendary go-kart handling. We could go on about its lightning quick responses and glue-like grip…

Ferrari

The Ferrari embraces the Side Slip Control 6.0 concept, which incorporates an algorithm that delivers a precise estimate of sideslip to the onboard controls systems…

It gave me and my practice of brand strategy an adaptable model to create a voice for any brand I’m helping to create.

Establish a voice for your brand that your audience will recognize and love

In this issue, I will share with you the Clouds & Dirt Brand Voice model, derived from the brilliant work of Chris West.

MACRO VIEW “CLOUDS”

Narrative

At the highest level, we need to know what story the brand is always telling. This sets up who the brand is trying to be. If there is already a brand strategy document, you will find either a brand narrative or you will be able to craft a narrative from the purpose, core values and personality traits. Here are some questions the brand narrative needs to answer:

What is the world the brand is trying to create?
What kind of people live in this brand’s world?
What does the brand stand for or against?
What does this brand believe in?

Example:

Mini (the Mini Cooper) believes in a world where driving your car should be fun, like driving a go-kart.

Tonal Values

You only need three tonal values. Each of them with descriptions that make the value clearer. Tonal values can be extracted from the brand personality. A brand that is “caring” can have a tonal value that is “friendly” or if a brand that is “prestigious” can have a tonal value that is “aloof”.

To give the tonal value more specific descriptions, use the 5 HOW technique, ask it again and again, until you get the value defined and differentiated in the category.

The brand sounds friendly.

How so?

It’s friendly like your neighbor

How like a neighbor?

Like someone who is welcoming

How is it welcoming?

By being very open, acknowledging your presence and sharing information

(Here we are getting someone - Friendly through information sharing)

You can keep going until you get to something highly relevant and differentiating for the brand.

MICRO VIEW “DIRT”

Once you have the Clouds set, it’s time to get down to the ground and really be specific.

Lexicon

Jargon is inevitable in any industry. The question is, which ones will you retain and which ones will you kill? If you are launching a whole new sub-category that is trying to differentiate itself, what words will you kill from your vocabulary?

What are some of the most used but meaningless words that your brand will not stand for?

Create a list around different groups, for example:

Product description
Customer service
Culture and careers
Problem statement/ disease state
Category/ sub-category description

Levels

When you have your tonal values, there is an ability to fine-tune them by your audiences. Take each tonal value and give them a 0-10 scale where your language most embodies that value at 10 and least embody that value at 0 (neutral). So effectively you have different levels of each value by audience.

For each of your key audiences whom you will be developing targeted copy for, go through an exercise to score a number on the scale to denote how much of that tonal value you will be using.

Example

Physician audience (Friendly 5, Prestigious 8, Nimble 10)

Patient audience (Friendly 8, Prestigious 5, Nimble 7)

This will give your brand voice guidelines the specificity it needs so your writers can do their job effectively and efficiently!

Conclusion

Establish a brand’s voice and you can paint the world in the mind of your audiences. They will recognize your brand anywhere and they will love you for it.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 6/19/23 howie chan 6/19/23

Seven Principles for Brands to Capture & Hold Attention

3 min read - 1 Quote & 1 Lesson

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Read time: 3 min

At a glance:

Quote: The value of attention
Lesson: How to capture & hold attention

Quote

"One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention"
Jim Rohn

Jim Rohn probably didn’t see it coming, but he predicted the attention economy. The value of our attention is being traded everyday and so if we were to master this economy, we have to master attention. Not just giving our attention intentionally but also the skill of capturing and hold the attention of our audiences.

Lesson

To influence anyone’s behavior, you have got to first capture and hold their attention. If not, your brand is invisible and will do no one any good.

I will share seven principles I learned from the book: Influencing Human Behavior by Harry Allen Overstreet and use The Dollar Shave Club ad as an example to illustrate each principle.

This ad has more than 28 million views on YouTube, it launched in 2012 and sky rocketed the brand into unicorn status, ultimately resulting in a $1Bn acquisition by Unilever four years later in 2016.

Learn and apply these key principles of attention for any brand

1/ MOVEMENT

Imagine if you had to hold your attention to a dot on the wall. It’s an impossible task, our eyes want to wander and if it does in fact stay focused on one spot, our brain is going to be put into hypnosis, or state of sleep.

Movement is paramount to holding attention, and if you’ve noticed, the scenes in the Dollar Shave Club ad is in motion the entire time. Whenever you ask “What is happening” or “What is going to happen?”, you’ve nailed this principle.

2/ KEEP THEM GUESSING

Unpredictability and drama is key. When the audience discovers it for themselves as opposed to being spoon fed and explained, they pay far more attention.

In the ad, they keep you guessing the whole time. What other crazy things will Mike say?

“Are the blades any good? No, our blades are f***ing great”

And what ridiculous scenes will appear?

Screenshot from Dollar Shave Club YouTube Channel

3/ LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE

The way in which we influence will determine who we influence. When we speak passionately, we arouse those with passion, when we proceed with cheerfulness, we get frank cheerfulness from those naturally cheerful.

I also call this the magic mirror. We need to show up as the person your target audience wish to become.

In this ad, Dollar Shave Club is clearly attracting those who have a sense of humor, not prude and see themselves as a rebel of sorts.

4/ LEAVE IT UP TO THEM

It’s infinitely more interesting if you ask a question than if you give a statement. Example in the book:

Let’s say there is a pamphlet on habit training for kids. Which is more attention grabbing?

“Does your child have temper tantrums?” vs. “Many children have temper tantrums”

“Does your child fuss about his food?” vs. Many children fuss about their food”

When you are asked a question, you are expected to reply. It leaves the answer to the audience and it engages them.

In the ad, Mike asked:

“Do you like spending twenty dollars on brand name razors? 19 of them go to Roger Federer”

This is infinitely more interesting than saying “The brands you buy today are too expensive”.

5/ INTRODUCE A CHALLENGE

When Gandhi flung a challenge to the British Empire, he became a figure of foremost interest in the world. If you want people to pay attention, throw up a challenge, but it needs to be fair and it needs to show sportsmanship.

Mike throws down a challenge to the status quo of paying for expensive razors.

“Do you think your razor needs a vibrating handle, a flashlight, a back scratcher and ten blades? Stop paying for shave tech you don’t need.”

And people paid attention. It rallied an entire market to rebel against big brands choose affordable convenience instead.

6/ NEW BUT FAMILIAR

We all know that introducing something new attracts attention, but what’s really important is that the new thing you are introducing, it needs a connection to what is familiar.

If an idea is introduced that seems like a complete overturn of the current perception and idea, you will turn people away instantly. The magic in the new never grows old, but be sure to sufficiently tie it back to the old to be at least interesting as well as acceptable.

The new business model of a subscription vs. buying each blade at a retail store wasn’t just thrown out there in the ad. It was introduced as money and time saving solution. Affordable blades shipped to your home.
7/ DON’T OVERWHELM

The mental limits of attention is real. When too many options are given, when too many elements are presented in a piece of art, the mind wonders, it shuts down and attention is lost.

With all the craziness going on in the ad, the key message is clear and presented as a slogan at the end of the commercial.

SHAVE TIME. SHAVE MONEY

Conclusion

Attention is critical to influence behavior. Apply the seven principles so you can best capture and hold the attention of your audiences.

P.S. - I’ve watched the ad probably 50 times. It’s just so good…

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 6/5/23 howie chan 6/5/23

The Problem of Brand Purpose & How to Solve It

2.5 min read - 1 Quote, 1 Lesson & Framework

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Read time: 2.5 min

At a glance:

Quote: Give it away, give it away , give it away now!
Lesson: Learn a framework to get your purpose “just right”

Quote

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."
Pablo Picasso

The idea of purpose has become a cultural talking point, at least here in the United States.

But the big problem about purpose is that it can be too big and intimidating for every brand to embody (at least that’s the prevailing perception today)

I saw this comment once on LinkedIn

“We sell ball bearings to businesses, there is no need for a purpose, we aren’t saving the world”

So what should brands do?

(My point of view is that I don’t care what you call this: mission, vision or purpose, technically they are different and I’m more than happy to get into an academic discussion about them, but hey, who has the time? You just need an idea to bring energy and a direction to the brand.)

Lesson

In this issue, I will help you solve this problem of purpose.

I will share a framework that helps you choose a purpose that is just right for the brand and use it as a Northstar, no matter how “small” it may be.

A brand’s purpose should feel natural and bring energy to the brand

Introducing the Goldilocks Purpose Zone

Where the right purpose for the brand rises above the BAR OF IMPORTANCE and falls within the ROLE OF THE BRAND.

1/ THE BAR OF IMPORTANCE

A purpose needs to feel important. It doesn’t have to be about saving the world, but it needs to feel like something a person would be willing to fight for. Something that goes beyond the product.

Some brands talk about being the best, building the best widget in the industry. If we are honest about it, does it rise above the bar of importance? Do people really care? Are they willing to fight for it? What about your customers and stakeholders? Do they care?

But Howie, my company just makes widgets…

I say, if water company can have something compelling, you can too

Liquid Death: “To make people laugh and get more of them to drink more water more often, all while helping to kill plastic pollution”

To make people laugh -> right there is an idea that goes beyond the product, water in cans. Who doesn’t want to laugh more and feel more joy?

Even if you are making ball bearings, are you helping the world run smoother? Can that idea transcend the product?

Notice that this is a choice, and that’s part of your brand strategy: making a set of decisions and choices to win in the market.

In the world of healthcare, brands can usually rise above this bar, the problem is usually the next guideline.

2/ THE ROLE OF THE BRAND

Sometimes the purpose of the brand is unbelievable, so audacious that it feels inauthentic, forced and unachievable.

Some brands will talk about “transforming the entire industry”. And whenever I hear that in healthcare, I call BS. No one company and brand can change the multi-trillion dollar industry with misaligned incentives at every level. That’s going beyond the role of the brand.

But Howie, my company IS really saving the world…

This is where we have to take an honest look at not just our beliefs but actions. What is the proof of your company saving the world? Especially beyond what you are selling? Brands who have grand visions of world changing work, don’t just do it through the products they make, because that is self-serving. When making claims of world changing ideas, actions need to directly oppose making money.

Patagonia: Yvon Choinard cemented their purpose of “in business to save the planet” by giving the entire company to a trust that will forever fund sustainability efforts.

CVS Health: “Building an entire world of health care around each and every person we serve, no matter where they are on their journey” They were one of the first to pull all tobacco products from all of their stores even though it meant losing millions and millions of dollars in revenue at once.

Fall within the role of your brand.

Don’t go talking about world changing ideas unless you have the actions to back it up and it passes the sniff test.

Conclusion

Every brand can have a purpose. Having a Northstar beyond just making widgets and money will bring energy to the brand, and give it opportunity to communicate and engage on a larger idea. Just make sure it rises above the bar of importance and falls within the role of the brand.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 5/15/23 howie chan 5/15/23

A Creative & a Strategist Walk Into a Studio: Creating Desire in Brands with Meg Beckum & Paul Collins

EP. 21 | Meg Beckum & Paul Collins

Read time: 2.5 min

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What if creatives and strategists worked seamlessly together? What if they were able to put aside their egos and created brands that were desirable?

In this episode of the Healthy Brand Podcast, I had a great discussion with Meg Beckum, Executive Creative Director and Paul Collins, Executive Director of Strategy & Innovation from Elmwood, a brand design consultancy. We dove into the potential conflicts of creatives and strategists, where to find big ideas, and how to create desire in the world of healthcare.

EP. 21 A Creative & a Strategist Walk Into a Studio: Creating Desire in Brands with Meg Beckum & Paul Collins

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In this episode:

Strategy needs to be provocative by having a point-of-view
Choose debate over framework, conflict over compliance
Make healthcare brands desirable through emotional rewards

Get strategic inspiration in the arts and culture instead of peers
How to be a super star creative
The epiphanies of Paul and Meg during a pivotal moment of their lives

KEY LESSONS

Strategy needs to be provocative by having a point-of-view

“How do we be very commercially sound in our recommendations? How do we create the urge to actually want to work on this brand? It should make people say - Oh my god, I never thought of this category like that.”
Paul Collins

One thing that both Paul and Meg emphasized was how the brand strategy needs to provoke new and expansive thinking about the brand.

The rigor of analysis needs to be there, but the end result is a definitive point-of-view, a distillation of research and creative thinking.

“Love your hundred page deck, but we’re going to put everyone to sleep. A strategist needs to bring things to a hard point”
Meg Beckum

Choose debate over framework, conflict over compliance

“That's something that we'd really try to encourage in our studio. Maybe we frustrate each other a bit with that. But I think our best work comes from all of us sitting around the table debating - are we pushing this far enough? Is this interesting?”
Meg Beckum

When asked about whether they use templates and frameworks, what was more important to Paul and Meg was the culture of debate and critical thinking. Rather than filling out a template, it was more important that creatives and strategists get into a room and push on the idea.

“We are building a learning culture that's based on crits or critiques, infusing the values into those meetings because you don't want it to become like a checklist. And so the idea is to be meeting frequently and having conversations and reinforcing those beliefs. So it becomes more organic to the work versus formulaic...”
Paul Collins

In this way, there is actually more learning and it becomes more specific to the context and problem at hand.

Make healthcare brands desirable through emotional rewards

Healthcare has a dearth of desire and that is impacting people’s lives. Meg and Paul sees a world where healthcare brands are attractive and desirable, helping to remove psychological barriers so people can live healthier.

"People talk about experience all the time, but it's less about the path to purchase or moving commercial drivers. And it's really about saying, what are the psychological obstacles or barriers that are preventing people from taking this action. And then how do you actually design the experience to remove those obstacles and barriers?"
Paul Collins

Paul shares three things to think about when creating desire:

Vision: Paint a really interesting and compelling vision of the future instead of just talking about what the brand does for you in the here and now.
Chemistry: Express beliefs, values or point of view to establish a rapport between the brand and the audience.
Agency: Through effective communication design and experience design, give people the control over their destiny and “art direct” their own future - part product, part perception and framing.

The trap that most healthcare organizations especially those creating medicines and devices is communicating solely about their science. According to Meg, what they need to make happen is creating a world where that abstract science becomes tangible and real. That’s how desire is created.

“A lot of organizations come to us and are like, we really want to talk about the science. The science is so advanced. And it is, it absolutely is.”
“Imagine a cancer drug or something like that. Yes, I want to know it's the very best science imaginable, but I also want to feel better. Making the abstract of science feel real and see how people can make that progress and paint that picture for them. I think that's sort of the power of a designer - you can make that abstract science real”
Meg Beckum

Conclusion

When strategy and creative can move and groove together, amazing things can happen. Whether you are in an agency or a client working with one, make sure your teams are aligned, willing to debate, so the best work prevails.

Learn more about Meg and Paul:

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 3/20/23 howie chan 3/20/23

How to Make Your Brand More Memorable

4.5 min read - 1 Quote, 1 Lesson, 1 Tool

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Read time: 4.5 min

At a glance:

Quote: Don’t let them forget you
Lesson: The five principles of memorability backed by neuroscience
Tool: Introduce a S.T.A.R moment in all your presentations

QUOTE

"If you can’t be brilliant, be memorable"
David Ogilvy

If people can’t remember you, can’t remember your brand, you’ve lost your chance to be different, to be picked, to be loved.

Lesson

Henry Molaison was a normal 8 year old boy living in Hartford, Connecticut, until he was knocked down by a bicyclist and hit his head. Shortly after, he began experiencing seizures.

His seizures got worse and worse, so bad in fact that when he was in high school, his principal wouldn’t let him walk across the stage during graduation because he was worried Henry might have a seizure mid-walk and cause a scene. Amidst the increasing number and intensity of seizures, his family was approached by a surgeon with a proposal of an experimental procedure.

And in their desperation, they said yes.

Henry Molaison, then 60, at M.I.T. in 1986 (Photo credit: www.nytimes.com)

Henry was 27 years old and on September 1, 1953, he had portions of his hippocampus and amygdala removed.

Although his seizures was somewhat alleviated, he lived the rest of his live, almost 50 years in more or less 30-second increments. He was no longer able to form memories. You could introduce yourself to him, leave the room and come back having to introduce yourself all over again.

This was a tragedy for Henry, but it was also one of the most significant breakthroughs in neuroscience. Why?

In 1949, Donald Hebb, the “father of neuropsychology” published a seminal book, The Organization of Behavior which he hypothesized that neurons are capable of forming networks that create and store memories, and different types of memories are located in different locations of the brain. And the case of patient HM confirmed this hypothesis, paving the way for an entire new field of memory and memorability research.

“Neurons that fire together, wire together”
Donald Hebb

The logic here is that the more neurons that fire during an experience (watching an ad, listening to a pitch, seeing a TedTalk etc.) the more memorable the experience. When building brands, when communicating, if no one remembers you, no one can choose you.

My top five favorite principles to be more memorable, backed by neuroscience:

(1) Involve more senses: When each of our senses are engaged, specific neurons in our brain start to fire. And so it’s not a big leap to find that when more senses are engaged, the more memorable the experience. Especially for smell and taste, where specific areas of the brain is activated, primarily the hippocampus and the amygdala, two areas strongly implicated with emotions and memories. If possible, engage people with more than sight and sound.

(2) More emotional peaks: We remember more details about emotional events than neutral experiences. They are more vidid and accurate. You probably remember more about your wedding than when you brushed your teeth this morning. When BBC did a neuroscience study on emotion and memorability, they found that 70% of long-term memory encoding peaks are associated with emotional intensity peaks. In addition they found that brand films with 10+ emotional peaks rank in the top quartile for memorability. Find ways to to emotionally engage your audience and pack in those emotional peaks

(3) Introduce novelty: When you present the brain with something it has never seen before, it has to process and hence involve more areas of the brain. For example, there is the strategic use of ambiguity, where multiple meanings could be derived from a single image or statement. Such a practice has long been used in advertising, where viewers are made to exert just enough cognitive effort to help code it into long-term memory.

Absolut vodka: capturing the product’s unique shape as formed by different subjects. It holds the record for the longest uninterrupted advertising campaign ever – 25 years across 1,500 different ads. (Photo credit https://www.hapskorea.com/)

(4) Deliver surprise:

Our emotions amplified more than 400 times when someone is surprised. 400 times! Think of how much more of an emotional peak that is, no wonder we remember surprises so well. When we are surprised, it tells our brains that something is really important and we need to pay attention. We actually physically freeze for 1/27th of a second. When we are positively surprised, our feelings of happiness, joy will be amplified, but the same can be said for negative feelings. It doesn’t however alter its memorability.

(5) Tell a story: The most important way to be memorable is to tell a story. What’s fantastic about stories is that this one strategy can string together senses, emotional peaks, novelty, and surprise! The term storytelling has been gradually gaining importance in the world of business for years now, but what is actually happening to our brains when stories are told? It turns out that when you hear a story unfold, your brain waves actually start to synchronize with those of the story teller. That is why story is is such a fantastic vehicle to deliver memorability, our brainwaves actually sync and the more of the other principles you use, the more memorable it becomes.

Conclusion

The science of memory continues to evolve, but what we already know gives us some great principles to apply to increase the memorability of our message and our brands. I’m not at all suggesting we have to apply all of them, in the end it needs to serve a purpose and it needs to feel authentic to the brand.

Tool

What is the last presentation or talk or pitch you remembered? I’m thinking NONE. The truth is, most presentations and pitches suck. Too many things to say and nothing really said. I learned a simple add-on from Nancy Duarte’s book Resonate to make your presentations more memorable and it uses many of the principles listed above.

It’s called a S.T.A.R moment.

Give the audience Something They’ll Always Remember. This particular moment, when done well should be what the potential investors, the management team, the client remembers after two weeks while chatting at the watercooler or better yet, becomes a viral post on social media.

Here are the five types of S.T.A.R. moments from the book:

Memorable dramatization: Use a prop or a demo or a reenactment or a skit (e.g. Bill Gates releasing mosquitoes into the TedTalk auditorium)
Repeatable soundbites: Coin something that is pithy and something that perhaps rhyme so it’s easily repeatable (e.g. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” Johnny Cochran)
Emotive storytelling: Attaching a great story to a presentation so it can be retold over and over again (e.g. James Clear telling his story of when someone mistakenly swung a baseball bat into his face and he had to start stacking habits to return to normal)
Shocking statistics: If you have shocking data, present it upfront and draw attention to them (e.g. Black women in the US face three times the maternal mortality risk as white women)
Evocative visuals: A compelling image that is emotional (e.g. below on climate change)

Never bore you audiences again! By introducing a S.T.A.R moment in your presentations, you increase the probability that the audience will remember your big idea.

Photo credit: icepeople.net

References:

Patient HM:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/magazine/the-brain-that-couldnt-remember.html

Hebbian Theory of Learning:

https://thedecisionlab.com/thinkers/neuroscience/donald-hebb

Principles:

https://www.pocketprep.com/posts/how-sensory-memory-and-your-5-senses-can-improve-study-effectiveness/

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/how-does-emotion-impact-memory#:~:text=From a neurological standpoint%2C emotional,effectively %2C resulting in stronger memories.

https://bbcnews.bbcstudios.com/media/5331/bbc-science-of-memory-2018.pdf

https://scitechdaily.com/why-do-we-remember-emotional-events-better-columbia-neuroscientists-identify-specific-neural-mechanism-responsible/

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/11/815573198/how-stories-connect-and-persuade-us-unleashing-the-brain-power-of-narrative

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 3/6/23 howie chan 3/6/23

Branding is Not Just Advertising, it's a Complete Experience

2.5 min read - 1 Quote, 1 Lesson, 1 Post

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Read time: 2.5 min

At a glance:

Quote: What is our reality?
Lesson: A brand experience framework
Instagram Post: Idea is not execution

QUOTE

"Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced"
John Keats

We can know everything about something, but until we go through it and feel it in our bones, can it truly become a part of us. That video you just watched about cliff diving, it's not real until you jump off that cliff. That promise the brand just made to you, it doesn't become real until you've experienced and felt that promise.

Lesson

Learn the framework to pull through your brand essence across every touchpoint.

By leveraging every touchpoint to build brand equity, you are giving people every opportunity to trust and love your brand.

Most marketers and brand builders fail because they use a marketing funnel that ends when the prospect "converts" or purchases the product or service. That model tremendously limits all activities that could be aligned to the brand.

YOUR BRAND IS NOT A FUNNEL, IT'S A CIRCLE

The framework

Awareness & Interest (educate and help the target segment understand why your product or service is relevant and different)
Comprehension & Decision (make the purchase decision easy by removing all barriers to a yes)
Adoption & Utilization (create a product and service experience that delivers on the promise of your brand so it results in repeat use or new purchase)
Community & Ambassadorship (allow users and customers to become part of a special tribe, leveraging voices of fans to make more people aware of the brand)

Look at every instance where the target segment is exposed to the brand. How is the brand essence experienced? What unique experiences can we provide beyond ads, videos, and content?

Consumer Example:

Fictional consumer brand - Mandalore Pans

Brand essence - "Cookware for the planet"

1. Awareness & Interest

A downloadable iron chef recipe booklet that features dishes that use only sustainably sourced ingredients in your region.

2. Comprehension & Decision

When you buy, you are automatically enrolled into a pan recycling program where you can send old pans to be recycled for free 1 time.

3. Adoption & Utilization

All packaging is 100% made from recycled materials and compostable. The tags and instruction booklets actually have embedded seeds that grow into flowering plants. Just add water.

4. Community & Ambassadorship

Closed group “Mandalore Chefs” to share recipes, cookware care, and other tips on sustainable living.

Health care Example:

Fictional health care brand - “Invisible” hearing aids

Brand essence - More than meets the eye

1. Awareness & Interest

Invisible ink consumer activations - posters, billboards, post cards etc. Looks empty/ benign until UV light is applied

2. Comprehension & Decision

Audiologist and sales rep materials that look very generic on the outside, but a totally different experience on the inside

3. Adoption & Utilization

Packaging and app designed to be more like a premium speaker than a hearing-aid

4. Community & Ambassadorship

Hearing aid parties where only those with “invisible” hearing aids can hear the music

Conclusion

Elevate your branding efforts by using this framework to pull through the brand essence across every touch point. Go beyond messaging and content into experience.

Instagram Post

When you feel like you made progress by having an idea…

Credit: @thomasandvisuals

You get to a brand essence only to NOT execute it. It's such a shame! For those of you building brands, take a swing and bring it home... help those who are ready to LOVE your brand.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 2/20/23 howie chan 2/20/23

"Atomic Culture": Applying the Power of Habits to Organizational Culture

3 min read - 1 Quote, 1 Lesson, 1 Post,

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Read time: 3 min

At a glance:

Quote: Action creates identity
Lesson: Three-step framework to apply habit principles to culture
Instagram Post: Don't stop, keep going
Resources: Two books and a podcast episode

QUOTE

"Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become"
James Clear

Lesson

I will share a simple three-step framework to help you tap into the power of habits to build a formidable culture.

Because as we all know, culture is one of the most important elements to an organization. It can make or break a company.

But most organizations just put values on the wall or on their website and they call it a day. No one practices those values nor do they make tough decisions based on them.

If you want behaviors that last (habits), you have to focus on identity

James Clear talks about the three layers of change that occurs when creating habits: outcomes, processes, and identity.

Most people start off by saying "I want to lose weight" and that is an outcome. The next layer is by implementing a system or process like going to the gym and ultimately a new identity "I am a person who works out" is where lasting behaviors reside.

Similarly, when organizations are creating a culture, they want people to behave a certain way. For example, they want their employees to collaborate more, that's an outcome. By implementing a system to aid collaboration like cross-functional teams, that's a process. For lasting change to take place, you'll want to establish an identity "I am a person who collaborates".

An example:

Amazon

Outcome: Collaborate for the customer
Process: Two pizza teams
Identity: An Amazonian is obsessed with customer experience, constantly being curiosity, nimble, and experimental

The power of identity comes when someone who works at the organization is personified "Amazonian" or "Googler". This makes it very simple for employees to adopt behaviors at the deepest levels, often times so powerful that these values are retained after they've left the organization.

Here is a three-step framework based on the layers of behavior change as described by James Clear to build a compelling culture.

Envision: Showcase what it means to be a person who thrives at the company. What are the principles, why it matters and why it makes you better. Name it for maximum effect (eg. Amazonian's and their "Day 1" mentality )
Enroll: Help people understand how to live those values. Set up processes and systems that make it easier to live them everyday. (eg. At Zappos, they measure percent of customer interaction on every call instead of number of calls taken per hour - establishing a system of measurement and rewards that deliver the best, not the fastest service)
Experience: Make sure employees feel what it's like to adopt this new identity. This is establishing vocabulary, stories, artifacts, and traditions that immerse employees into the culture.

Creating a culture is about creating an environment for it to blossom. Ultimately if you create the right conditions, principles and values can become part of the identity of your people, making the outcomes more attainable and the new behaviors more sustainable.

Instagram Post

When you are having a tough time deciding what projects or tasks to execute on:

Instagram post from @lizandmollie

We are often impatient for change, but a great reminder is that every mountain is climbed the same way - one step at a time.

Resources

Culture Built My Brand by Mark Miller & Ted Vaughn: Book + my podcast episode with Mark

Atomic Habits by James Clear: Book

(Affiliate links: no extra cost to you, something to keep the newsletter free!)

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howie chan 2/6/23 howie chan 2/6/23

Poetry, an Action Priority Matrix, & Silent CEOs

3 min read - 1 Quote, 1 Idea, 1 Tool, 1 Article

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Read time: 3 min

At a glance:

QUOTE: The importance of rational and emotional thinking
IDEA: Is it really a tactical ask?
TOOL: Use this to prioritize projects and tasks
ARTICLE: CEOs are silent on societal issues... now what?

QUOTE

“Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe.”
Ursula K. Le Guin

I think about this quote a lot. As a strategist, there is so much we do that's at the intersection of rational and emotional thinking. Too often, the rational proof points, features, and benefits are prioritized over the emotional part of the story.

This quote reminds us that both the rational and the emotional have a role to play and they are equally powerful.

IDEA

Throughout my career as a strategist, I can't count the number of times the client was asking for a tactic (eg. website, brochure, social post etc.) but after further inquiry, they realized help was needed further upstream -> Strategy.

There was not an established brand strategy to create any content or tactics that would move the needle.

Something to think about: what do you actually need? Do have a firm grasp of what problem you are solving for? Is the solution really a tactic? Or is there foundational brand strategy work that needs to first get established?

Some questions to ask:

What is the brand's positioning?
Is there a defined voice and tone?
Is it crystal clear across the organization?
Do we know the singular message for each tactic?
Do we know exactly the barrier we are trying to overcome for each tactic?

These questions can help to point you in either direction. Tactic or Strategy?

TOOL

When you are having a tough time deciding what projects or tasks to execute on:

Ref: https://www.productplan.com/glossary/action-priority-matrix/

There are usually more things to do than the time or resources required to do them. This matrix works really well when you are trying to decide what projects NEED to get done vs. those that SHOULD get done. With this matrix, you (and your team) can start to stratify and strategically prioritize what are the projects you need to plan out, which ones can be quick points on the board, which ones you may execute opportunistically and which ones to stay away from.

It's very simple, but a highly effective way to help any team figure out what to do when they have a laundry list of things to tackle.

ARTICLE

America's CEOs have gone silent on national tragedies

2 min read on Axios here

Human rights issues, societal challenges, the recent death of Tyre Nichols - CEOs are quiet.

As brand builders, executive communications are very important. The take away is that the power of employees has somewhat diminished from 2020 and because of the economic recession, many companies have laid off their DE&I departments.

Two things that struck me:

We need to redo DE&I in organizations, it can no longer be a side hustle, it needs to be embedded into the organization and its business (through product development and building a brand around all purpose driven efforts.)
Companies don't have DE&I as part of their purpose, or their purpose is just a plaque on the wall, purely for decor. This makes it hard for leaders to take a stand.

I believe companies can and should speak out, especially those who seek to do good while doing well.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
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Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 1/22/23 howie chan 1/22/23

The Art, the Science, & the Practice of Generating Insights

3.5 min read - 1 Quote, 1 Idea, 1 Tool, 1 Article

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Read time: 3.5 min

At a glance:

QUOTE: Everyone might see the same thing, but you can think something different
IDEA: Insights are not observed data
TOOL: The bridge between the problem and the strategy
ARTICLE: What does an insight look like in your brain?

QUOTE

“Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

TBH, I had to read this quote a few times. But the more I read it, the more it was revelational for me. This quote IS an insight. It brings me back to when I was working at a big agency and whenever we were in a pitch, we were scouring for data no one else might have so we might present insights that wowed.

And every single time, when the data came back, we always said, “there is nothing new here.” We then proceeded to come up with different hypotheses and eventually landed on something that is deeper, more controversial, all without new data.

This quote puts into words what we did without knowing what we did.

Takeaway? When generating insights, try looking at it from a different perspective instead of spending time digging for new data.

IDEA

Visualizing the quote in a slightly different way would be this 👇🏽

Data comes in all forms: interviews, survey results, desk research, analytics, modeling, etc. And what is really important to understand here is that no matter what the data presents, it won’t give you the insight.

Data = What is explicit

Insight = What is implicit

An insight takes a leap of creativity, creating a revelation and an “aha” from the patterns we see and experience.

Here are some examples:

Data = Apple falls from the tree straight down onto the ground

Insight = The force that makes the apple fall and that holds us on the ground is the same as the force that keeps the moon and planets in their orbits

Data = Shaving ads for women look all the same

Insight = Companies are afraid to show hair on women

Data = Patients choose where to get care using physician reviews

Insight = Unlike retail, location matters less in health care, people place experience over convenience

TOOL

A simple framework is the insight funnel. It shows how a problem is solved through an insight. It’s a simple way to communicate a solution or a strategy you arrived at.

This framework also shows the process of getting to the solution. From a problem, there is the Conscious Submersion phase, where you gather all the data, do some analysis, start to read and dissect anything that is relevant about the topic, rally submerge yourself into that world.

After being thoroughly soaked, you enter a stage of Subconscious Creation, where the mind start to make connections and generate ideas, often the insight appears during a shower or on a walk. So don’t fret during this phase, it’s a natural part of insight generation. In fact, take the time to step away.

Once you’ve landed on an insight, there is a Conscious Emergence stage, where you start to translate how that insight leads to a specific action or solution.

ARTICLE

This is a downloadable chapter of a book titled Toward Super-Creativity. The chapter is called The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights by Wesley Carpenter (you can read it online or download it by registering)

Want to see what an insight looks like in your brain?

The image on the left shows a topographic distribution of gamma-band activity during an insight and the image on the right shows area of activation corresponding to insight effect during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

In this study, participants were presented with three words (e.g., potato, tooth, heart) and they were asked to think of a single word to create a familiar two-word phrase for each word. (e.g., sweat potato, sweet tooth, sweetheart). Once they arrived at a solution through an insight, they were asked to press a button. This specific type of problem was used because one can solve it analytically OR through insights.

Maybe we’ll have to hook up our strategists to an EEG and fMRI and take the images to qualify their insights 😂

This chapter is such a fascinating read, but to save you time, I’ve summarized the key points here:

Insights are but one method of problem solving
Insight problem solving involves unconscious processing to arrive at that “aha moment” that merges into one’s stream of consciousness. Analytical problem solving on the other hand is systematical and involves logical reasoning.
Each method has its own pattern of errors
Analytical: errors of commission (i.e., incorrect responses). Analytical approach may have one fixated on irrelevant information as a looming deadline approaches.
Insights: errors of omission (i.e., timed out). Insights is typically an all or none approach.
Solving a problem through insights allows loosely connected ideas to be surfaced
Imaging and electrical activity in the brain shows that insights are preceded by a weak activation of a broad semantic field, allowing remote associations of knowledge to stream into consciousness.
Removing visual distractions can help your brain create insights
Before an insight appears, a burst of alpha waves and then gamma waves happens. To lay people like us, what does that mean? It suggests that the brain is limited visual distractions and focusing the energy inwardly for remotely connected knowledge elements to contribute to the “aha”. Whereas an analytics method is focused more externally, where alpha waves are decreased in the visual cortex.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
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howie chan 1/8/23 howie chan 1/8/23

Branding is Everything, a Bulletproof Strategy Framework, & More

3 min read - 1 Quote, 1 Idea, 1 Tool, 1 Article

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Read time: 3 min

At a glance:

QUOTE: Trust and relationship building does not belong to just one function
IDEA: Branding is everything
TOOL: Campaign strategy framework
ARTICLE: Brand marketing works

QUOTE

“Brand relevance, relationships, trust, should not be left to marketers and communicators and brand experts. That should be the core of any leadership team”
GARY GRATES

There is so much wisdom behind this quote. Organizations typically silo their functions, but when something like reputation and brand relevance is involved, the entire organization needs to be aligned.

Look at what happened to Southwest Airlines. Culture and branding was probably siloed and left to the marketing and HR functions, because in order to truly fulfill their brand promise of LOVE (their latest campaign being “GO WITH HEART”), it really should mean having the best technologies and systems to make that a reality, which we all know was their downfall over the holidays, canceling over 16,700 flights and forecasting a loss of $875 million.

Trust and relationship building does not belong to just one function.

IDEA

This one illustration garnered 265K views on LinkedIn. I think one of the reasons why it achieved viral status was that it spoke a truth that most understand and feel, but never talked about in the open. Amidst organizational politics and fiefdoms, who dares to claim branding (typically a function of marketing) is everything?

But understanding this one thing has far reaching consequences. How does an entire organization align around fulfilling that brand promise?

TOOL

A simple but highly effective way to frame up any marketing or communications program is the BUSINESS-TO-BRAND STRATEGY framework, adapted from the Nested Strategy from Julian Cole, an ad strategy trainer.

BUSINESS GOAL: What is the business trying to achieve? (eg. Gain 5% market share in 1 quarter)

BUSINESS PROBLEM: What is the business problem we are trying to solve? (eg. Competition winning new accounts)

BUSINESS STRATEGY: What is the business strategy to tackle the problem? (eg. Focus on new accounts where we have a foot in the door)

HUMAN GOAL: What is the decision maker/ target customer trying to achieve? (eg. Physicians are trying to get through the day without total burn out)

HUMAN PROBLEM: What is the underlying problem that is preventing them from reaching the goal? (eg. Being high achievers, they are not willing to half-ass anything)

HUMAN INSIGHT: What is a revelation that no one talks about? (eg. The right technology can half the time without sacrificing their identity)

SINGLE MINDED PROPOSITION: What is the one thing we want the audience to take away? (eg. Show that ABC technology can help them achieve everything without sacrificing anything, including themselves)

ARTICLE

This is about a year old, but the message is very clear: brand marketing works. Early 2022, Airbnb’s CFO talked about their financials from 2019 to 2021. They decreased performance marketing spend by 44% and increased brand marketing spend by 119%, and saw their losses turn into positive profit over a 2 - 3 year period.

My takeaway is that brand marketing works, but it also needs to be balanced with performance marketing tactics. In addition, brand marketing results take time, so set up your measurement and start tracking efforts over the long term.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 11/13/22 howie chan 11/13/22

Brand Activation Clock Model

Brand activation is not just ads and promotions, run through the clock framework to see how you can build brand at every step of the customer journey.

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When people think about brand activation, it is usually restricted to advertising. That’s significantly under-leveraging the power of branding.

One of the most powerful frameworks you can use to fully capture the branding opportunity is using the Clock Model.

Professor Scott Galloway of NYU has taught the Clock Model in his brand strategy classes for years and here I will dissect it in the lens of a health care brand.

The model is simple - three segments of the clock

Pre-purchase
Purchase
Post-purchase

I’ll walk through the model using a fictional health care brand, selling a sleep apnea prevention device that has to be prescribed by a physician called SLEEPZ.

PRE-PURCHASE

In this section of the clock model, it’s all about prospecting and nurturing, getting potential customers (physicians and patients) to learn about the device, consider its use, and make a purchasing decision.

For SLEEPZ, they are thinking of targeting consumers and for this section of the clock, they will be using digital ads on sleep apnea related articles. For paid search, they will focus on key words that allude to potential customers looking for a solution beyond CPAP machines. In addition, they will be working with a handful of micro-influencers who have sleep apnea and will be reviewing the device. Their compelling content will help to spread the word in the social sphere.

Since one of the micro-influencers has a really interesting story, it will be pitched to a local TV station in hopes for potential coverage.

All these activities are usually considered marketing and communications, and the extent of branding typically ends here.

PURCHASE

SLEEPZ however, wasn’t going to stop at pre-purchase. They are a #HealthyBrand! 😎

In order to get more physicians to experience SLEEPZ, they have an onsite hands-on demo program at a sleep apnea center of excellence for any physician that is affiliated with a clinic who has decided to sign a contract with SLEEPZ.

For consumers, there is a quick insurance checker on the website to see if their insurance covers the device and for those who want to skip going to a trained physician at a clinic, they can opt for an e-appointment and get a prescription that way.

Purchasing a medical device has never been this smooth…

POST-PURCHASE

This part of the clock is about creating brand loyalty. After the purchase is complete, most companies forget that they have a captured audience to build true fans.

SLEEPZ understands this. Once a physician has signed the contract, they are immediately signed up to a high-touch training and onboarding program, espousing the values and beliefs of the brand through the way its scheduled, executed, and followed-up. No note-taking required, everything is available through a portal and an app, all feedback recorded and pushed to their dashboards, which also acts as an inventory management system, ordering new products, promotional materials and even a way to customize social posts.

For patients, unboxing the device revels the Apple experience and a smart phone app walks them through how it works with an AR experience. The device is controlled through the app as well, simply designed and delightful to use.

Companies and brands don’t have to invest resources in all of the segments. In fact, most brands don’t.

I hope this clock model serves you well, as you build the healthiest brands on the planet.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 10/16/22 howie chan 10/16/22

The Only Thing That Matters in a Story

Storytelling doesn’t have to be complicated. Learn this ONE thing and you can infuse “story” into all your communications.

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Storytelling has been making its way through the business world in the past decade.

In marketing, in communications, in every facet of the professional realm, we hear about using story to convey our ideas. While there are many frameworks out there, it doesn’t have to be complicated.

The frameworks for storytelling are plenty:

The Rags-to-Riches framework
The Big Idea framework
The Story Cycle framework
The Hero’s Journey framework
The Pixar’s Once upon a time framework
The Mountain framework
The Nested Loops framework
The In Medias Res framework
The Converging Ideas framework
The Petal Structure framework
The False Start framework

Wow. That’s a lot of frameworks. Maybe you want to spend the time to learn every one of them and figure out which one to use when, but maybe you don’t.

If you do, just google them and find out more! But if you don’t read on…

Storytelling can be simple

The simplest story can be conveyed in a few words. Six word stories do just that:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

He got diagnosed, I got married

Together, they whispered, only one jumped

Why do these simple stories work? They make you feel something. You want to find out the meaning behind those words. Your brain almost immediately concocts an entire story to make that statement true.

But how these simple stories do that? It introduces a gap in the mind. How? Why? When? A gap is what’s between an expectation and a result. Your mind can’t help itself even if it tried…

We are meaning making machines

The human mind is made to fill gaps. Its basic function is to make meaning from the data it receives. A simple example of this is how the mind fills the gap of our literal blind spot or the way it tries to make out animals in the clouds or faces on the surface of Mars!

Image courtesy of https://www.smithsonianmag.com/

By introducing gaps in your narrative, you move the audience to engage, to lean forward. This is inevitable because that’s how the human mind works. It wants to see patterns, it wants to make meaning out of data. And that’s how you get your audience to engage, introduce a gap.

The power of the gap

By introducing a gap, your brain just can’t help but want to close it. Why do you think you spend hours everyday consuming reels and videos? Gaps are extremely evident in today’s “viral” videos and social media posts:

After reading 100 books on stories, this is the ONE thing that matters

The three things I changed to go from breaking even to 6 digit profit

The 5 health foods no one is talking about

This is truly the only thing you need in your arsenal when telling a story. Sure, does it help to have a storyline, characters, inciting incidents, showdowns, resolutions? Of course! But when all else is getting complicated, just focus on introducing gaps at every stage.

Our healthcare experience is terrible, and it’s a complicated mess

But we think we’ve cracked the puzzle and it doesn’t take millions of dollars

In fact, it gives back millions. Let us show you how…

I hit the send button and I realized I made a grave mistake

Sweat beaded on my forehead and my hairs stood on ends

Was it too late?

Practice the gap everyday

In your social posts, in your pitch decks, for your kids and your friends, practice introducing gaps in your stories. Make your audience want to lean in and complete that gap.

It doesn’t have to be complicated, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. It just takes some thoughtful application of the concept.

Good luck story tellers!

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 9/30/22 howie chan 9/30/22

Is Branding Really Necessary in the World of Healthcare?

Surely, branding has no place in healthcare. It is an industry where there are ample facts and figures, where it’s heavily regulated by government institutions, where clinical evidence is needed for approval, where decisions can have life and death consequences.

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Branding is not just design and pretty colors. It is aligning, designing, and consistently executing the visual, verbal, and experiential components to create a desired feeling and perception. In other words, branding is how you build a brand.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON BRANDINGMAG

Sure, it applies to consumer-focused industries like apparel, beer, and packaged goods, where decisions to purchase are typically made on a whim, and the consequence of making a wrong decision is small.

But what about healthcare? An industry where there are ample facts and figures, where it’s heavily regulated by government institutions, where clinical evidence is needed for approval, where decisions can have life and death consequences? Surely, branding has no place in healthcare.

Let’s look at healthcare facilities and clinicians. Do they need a brand? Shouldn’t consumers just go to a physician recommended by another physician? Or pick one closest to their home and in their provider network?

It is not just about facts and figures when it comes to consumers choosing where to receive care

In a Press Ganey Research Report on consumer experience trends in healthcare, where they surveyed 1,000+ consumers in September of 2021, they found that most consumers (84% of those surveyed) would be unlikely to see a provider with less than four stars even if another provider had referred them. Reviews are important, but they also found that incomplete listings, outdated websites, and lack of online scheduling options were also reasons consumers cited as discouraging when looking to book appointments.

In a separate consumer survey by McKinsey & Company, respondents were asked about where they learned about the quality of a clinician or facility and 37% said they searched online and 31% visited the hospital or physician’s website. They also found that proximity appears to be more of a “nice-to-have” option. Most respondents would choose lower-cost or high-quality options over options that were higher-cost and more convenient.

Healthcare systems and practices need to show up consistently and put their best self forward for consumers to find them, understand them and schedule with them. And when consumers have many options to choose from, branding becomes even more important. How do you stand out?

Maybe healthcare facilities and clinicians need to pay attention to their brand and branding strategy because consumers are involved, but when it comes to deciding on a treatment option, isn’t it up to clinicians and doctors?

Consumers are more empowered to make treatment decisions for themselves

It is not entirely up to the doctor when deciding on a treatment. In a Deloitte 2020 survey of US Health Care Consumers, they found that most consumers (80%) are comfortable telling their doctors when they disagree with them. It also reported a general trend that consumers are becoming increasingly active and engaged in their health care. So, even if you may question the Pharma industry for spending billions of dollars on direct-to-consumer marketing and branding, the fact is you cannot forget about the consumer audience. They are only going to be more empowered to make decisions as the onslaught of sensors, at-home diagnostics, and other digital health solutions continue. Branding is only going to help them understand why your product is different and how your product can help them with their health.

What about clinicians and doctors? Surely the decisions they are making are purely evidence-based and squishy feelings have nothing to do with it?

Sentiment and feelings do play a role when doctors are making clinical decisions

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it turns out that emotion and sentiment do come into play when doctors make clinical decisions. In a study by MIT computer scientists, feelings and sentiment scores were correlated with the number of diagnostic imaging tests across a collection of medical records from 60,000 intensive care unit patients over a 10-year period. The researchers found that the doctors’ “gut feelings” had a significant role in how many tests they ordered for the patient.

“Clearly the physicians are using something that is not in the data to drive part of their decision making,” Alhanai (a lead author of the paper) says. “What’s important is that some of those unseen effects are reflected by their sentiment.”

There are probably a thousand other scenarios we can explore about different types of decisions and actions in the world of healthcare, but we should understand the common denominator here.

It’s us. We are humans.

Humans do not experience the world objectively and that is why brands and branding exist

It comes down to the fact that humans rely on mental models and pattern recognition to make decisions and navigate the world. In a Forbes article about the neuroscience of branding, our mental model is explained through a simple example of the blind spot. All of us are partially blind, yes, we all have a blind spot where the optic nerve meets the retina, but none of us notices it. The brain fills it in with visual information using a mental model. Our experience of sight is not an objective fact.

It’s this mental model that explains how branding affects beliefs and how beliefs can translate to real outcomes and how we operate as humans. Some researchers from Penn State were studying how brand perceptions can make a difference in performance in 2016 and had some interesting results. In an experiment, participants wore earplugs to minimize distractions and improve concentration while completing a math test. Half of the participants wore unbranded earplugs and half believed they were wearing 3M earplugs. The branded group answered more questions correctly.

The key takeaway here is that as long as we are humans making decisions, behaving, and performing based on mental models and perceptions, branding and brands have a role to play, regardless of industry vertical.

So, yes, branding is necessary in the world of healthcare, over and beyond the clinical evidence, the facts and figures required to demonstrate safety, efficacy, and proof.

Use branding to create the desired feeling, perception, and mental model in the minds of your audiences

Whether it’s a hospital facility trying to attract clinicians of the future, a life science company battling for top talent, a next-generation treatment trying to gain adoption in the physician community, or a digital health app vying for downloads and engagement, branding is essential.

It’s essential to deliver a consistent promise at every touch point, so the doctor, the nurse, the patient, and the consumer have a mental model of your company, product, or service and decide to become a user, a prescriber, an employee and a fan over everyone else they can choose from.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
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Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 9/18/22 howie chan 9/18/22

Develop and deliver messaging that doesn't suck

Your goto messaging exercise is a 4-hour brainstorm. Yeah, don’t do that to your colleagues or clients 😱

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Messaging is a core deliverable for any marketer and communicator, but from what I’ve seen over the past two decades, they typically suck.

The process is terrible and usually involves some kind of aimless brainstorm.

I recently sat down with a friend to help him figure out how to run a messaging workshop and develop the messages needed for a healthcare Startup’s Series A funding announcement. And from there, it spurred me to pull together my best exercises and frameworks.

Download the six exercises and frameworks including examples free of charge!

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But also checkout the conversation between Anthony and I below:

Full transcript here:

Anthony:

Basically I'm working with a healthcare investment management firm. A VC firm. And what ends up happening is we end up doing a lot of work sort of off the cuff for some of their like early stage portfolio companies who don't have, you know, any like comms infrastructure. So one of these portfolio companies in particular is we're releasing like their Series A announcement next week.

Howie:

Yeah.

Anthony:

And you know, the client brought up that you know, they'd like to have sort of a messaging brainstorm for them to sort of, you know, get the brand messaging down.

Howie:

I think when you go about messaging, it's almost like one step after you’ve gotten the foundation of the brand down. Right. So I think the, the key question to always ask is, do you have a good handle on their positioning? Which is, you know, how are they different and how are they relevant basically. The key component. So if you think about anybody in their ecosystem from a competitor standpoint or within their category, you know, do they have a good idea of how they're different, right. What's their secret sauce, if you will, that they're different? And then what problem are they solving? So from a relevance perspective, what is that pain that they're taking away? So if, if you feel like, whether it's explicitly written down or intuitively they have a good sense of what that is. Yeah. You can do messaging. But if you don't have, that is very hard to come down to a set of messages, because what you'll find is then you'll just get a collection of stuff.

Anthony:

Right.

Howie:

And they want to say everything. It's very hard to then narrow down and prioritize what's important and what's not.

Anthony:

Yeah.

Howie:

So I would say if you feel like they don't have that, whether it's intuitively or explicitly written down, like what is again, the, the secret sauce, the, the superpower, if you will, that's differentiating. And then what's the pain point that they're really trying to solve for? You might wanna start the messaging brainstorm just to, just to focus on that, because that's really the strategy, right? The positioning, what are you trying to own? And then from there, I would say, when you think about messaging, I always think about it again, you know, this is how I do it, you know, it's, it's not necessarily right. I think about it in two parts. One is the things that you're trying to say. So the what. And then when are you gonna say it? I would focus on the what first.

Howie:

So literally when you think about brainstorming… all the stuff that you wanna say, everything. Put 'em on stickies, you know, a virtual white board, whatever. I dunno how you're doing it, but map them out on a two by two matrix. So again, back to relevance and differentiation, those are the two axes. So high relevance, high differentiation. That's what you want. Those are the drivers. Those are the, all that you wanna say should live there. Yeah. Then there's gonna be high relevance, low differentiation that's table stake stuff. That's like anybody in a category would say, because that's table stake, things that you need to just say, you know, to play. And then there's gonna be ones where, you know, high differentiation, but low relevance that's Koolaid, Koolaid. Right. So they think it's so awesome, but then the customers or whoever, they don't really care about that. I don't really care. They get into the nitty degree stuff. That’s not a benefit that anybody would care about. Then, you know, don't say it, it doesn't matter. Then of course the irrelevant and non-differentiated. Dude, don't even put them on a messaging matrix. That's you know, don't talk about that. Yeah. The idea is once you brain dump all the stickies, all the stuff you wanna say, look at the stuff that's in the highly relevant and highly differentiating category, then you start the cluster, right. What are the themes that start to emerge? I'm sure. You know, for a biotech or a science company, it's always gonna be some sort of technology or research science focus cluster, perhaps there's gonna be a people cluster the type of people, expertise, cluster, and then maybe it's a process.

Howie:

How do they get to the drug or how do they get their treatment cluster? So again, depending on what they put down, you'll find these clusters, right? So that becomes your pillar of messaging. So that's the, what, the one, the, what is done then now comes the, when, when do you say this stuff? So you can think about that as like, you know, look at it from the target audience perspective, right? Who, who are they? Who are they targeting to say this? Sometimes it's a broad audience sometimes specific, but then the key thing is how do we move them from current state to desired state? So they can be a belief that can be what, you know, just like, where are we starting a conversation with these people? Yeah. For some companies that's literally creating a totally new category, like something they haven't even thought about before.

Howie:

So they, they don't even know the problem. So you need to start at here, the problem <laugh> right. Yeah. So that the, when, so, so you start piecing together messages that you found that was relevant and differentiating, and then start to populate this journey from current state to desired state. Right. So if it's the problem, if it's, you know, talk about your offering and then talk about how you can engage with 'em again, just start laying them out in terms of the, when that can give you then, you know, both the architecture for pillars, but also how do you bring them into your world, right? Yeah. A lot of times you can't just start, Hey, this is our platform, da, da, da, what are you talking about? Who are you, what are you talking about? Like, what's the problem? What are we solving here? What's the current state? So those are the three sort of components when I think about messaging. So I hope that was helpful. And we can talk about this more.

Anthony:

Question. Super helpful, super helpful. I think, I guess, you know, one area that I'm struggling with a little bit is, you know, yeah. Obviously, right, like you, you mentioned it earlier, like a biotech company, they're gonna have a lot of this, like really technical jargon and, you know, descriptors of what they're doing. And it's like, how does that sort of fit in to what you were like, you were just saying like the broader brand messaging. Yeah. You know, because I think it's like, we don't, I don't want, I don't want their message architecture to be like super technical. But also there is this piece where it's like, they need to sort of explain to certain stakeholders what it is that they're actually doing, you know? Yeah.

Howie:

What you can do is if you feel like sometimes it comes up organically, sometimes it doesn't. So once you do the two by two matrix, right? Like they put all the stuff they wanna say, and let's say, there's this cluster of, you know, the technical stuff, the science. Right. And if you look at all the sticky, all the stuff that, that has, dude, you would look at it. It's like, it's so deep. There's no benefit. There's nothing that ladders up to something broader. Then you probably need to do a specific exercise on that. So, guys, if you look at this science stuff, nobody will understand what you're saying because it's so deep. So then you go through the exercise of asking the why, so why does this matter? Why does this matter? Why does this matter? You keep asking why does this, why does this matter until you get at a higher enough, you know, messaging that anybody would understand. Oh yeah, I get it. And then this is how you do it. You go down the, I mean, so you, you sort of build it up. And then from a messaging standpoint, you can start at the higher level one. And if you wanna learn more, boom, boom, boom.

Anthony:

Boom. Gotcha.

Howie:

Yeah.

Anthony:

Perfect. And so as far as like, you know, I like what you say about the, the sticky notes and things like that. And that was one thing. And I'm, I'm, again, I'm sort of forgetting exactly how we did it, but I do remember like, you did a really good job at that. Right. Like sort of, having an exercise for everyone that was in the room, which I thought was great because it made sort of more of an interactive environment instead of like people just sitting there staring at us, like talking the whole time. Right. Yeah.

Howie:

Yeah. So, so if you are going be in a room with them, absolutely. So it depends on how many people in a room, what sort of expertise, you know, if it's cross-functional groups, you know, they can just, actually, it doesn't really matter. Like they can just get a packet of stickies and just go. So one idea, one message for each sticky and just put it up there, put it up. So basically what you have is a big poster that has that grid, the two by two and that's it. And then they can just go and put their stuff on. Then when they're done, that's when you, actually, what I do is when they start putting those stuff on, I already start to move things and cluster things. When people start to put things down, I start to move them around. And then that's also sometimes a good time for all of them to take a bio break, you know, five minutes. Whenever they come back, then you walk them through what you’ve found. Like this is all the clusters. And then you start to push like really, is this really differentiating? Is this really relevant? And then you work with them to move things around so that you end up with these clusters, right?

Anthony:

Yeah. That's super helpful. I will definitely try that.

Howie:

Yeah.

Anthony:

Great. Yeah. And I mean, if you have any other like so basically with the sticky notes, the prompt is just to say, like, you're asking them the very simple question of how are you guys different? How are you guys relevant? Yeah. Is that, are there, are there other prompts?

Howie:

Basically all the things that you wanna say, what do you wanna say? Yeah. You can start from like your function. What area do you represent? What do you wanna say? Sometimes it's good to prime them up front to say, all right, these are your target audiences, right? Like this, this is your target audiences. This is their world. If, if you guys have any research or any persona stuff, it is always good to kind of just get grounded in. Alright. You sort of folks that you're trying to influence. Yep. This is what they're thinking about. This is what they care about. These are their pains. These are the gains, right? Like anything to ground them to make that exercise better. Right. Okay. So again, like for, for me, when I, when I, when I worked with clients to build this stuff, I would've really gone through all the all the positioning work. Like again, like, what is your secret sauce? What is differentiating? Yeah. What is positioning and all that before we even get to messaging. But it doesn't mean you can't do this exercise cuz I think, you know, it's just good to even align on that. Anyway, you sometimes going through this exercise, you can find out, oh, this is something that everybody rallies around. That that is the thing that could be, can be that cornerstone for the company, you know? Okay.

Howie:

Yeah. Cause it's always good to ask them. Like if there's only one thing you can say, there's like these five clusters of stuff, what is the one thing, if there's, you can only say one thing, you know, to, to, to your audiences, like what would you say? What

Anthony:

Which would you say? Yeah. Yeah.

Howie:

Doesn't mean that's the only thing that you say forever, but that's the first thing that you would say what's the most important, right? Cause again, messaging is always about hierarchy.

Anthony:

Yeah.

Howie:

Like people can always drill down, but if you start at the bottom, you lose. I mean, nobody's gonna wanna learn

Anthony:

Anything. Exactly. Exactly.

Howie:

<Laugh>

Anthony:

Okay. But yeah, I mean, this is just, it's, it's an art, right? Like it's an art, it's not a science it's so I know like it's just, some people are so good at just, you know, running these type of workshops. So good at taking what's, you know, these like broader concepts and explaining them in a way that like lay people can understand. Right. Like these people, it like one, one issue I have right. Is like a lot of times I'm so deep into the you know, day to day of like working at an agency that like sometimes I forget that like not everyone is doing marketing in comms every day and they're not like, you know, so it's like, you gotta take a step back and say, you know, this is how,

Howie:

Yeah,

Anthony:

This is what it, this is what we do. This is how we do it. You know? So yeah.

Howie:

I mean also if, if, you know, if you have a group of folks that, like you said, very removed from marketing and they are so into the science and technical, it might even be good to open up the entire session with an ad, right? Go find a YouTube video of an ad that's freaking phenomenal. Right. That's you know, even if it's a non healthcare company, like something that just put them in a mood of like, dude we're, we don't have to like double, triple click down to the weeds here, we will get through the weeds, but what's gonna resonate. What's gonna have people emotionally bound to your company. Right. Right. But even if you start off the workshop with with an ad or some like really just inspiring video yeah. That, and then jump into it. I think it will be good. You just set the room in the right mood.

Anthony:

Totally agree. I will definitely look for some of that. Okay. Yeah. This is, this is super helpful. Just to sort of get me to, to start thinking about it. I have a we're we're gonna do the session after the labor day holiday. So I have a little bit of time to sort of brainstorm and, and get myself prepped.

Howie:

How long do you have, how long is the, the session with them?

Anthony:

Two hours. Yeah. Good. Plenty of time, but I, but I wanna also make sure we, you know, we have, we're filling that time. Right. Like we're not after an hour. Yeah. Yeah.

Howie:

I think you'll for sure fill up the time, especially once you, you know, it, it just takes a while, you know, especially if people are like, no, this needs to be there. That needs to be here, you know, depending on the group. And then, and then again, if you wanna fill up the time, if you think about the, the, the story arc, right? Pick like the top three audiences and see how that defers, maybe even break them up into groups. You know, let's say there's the investor group. And then there's the physician group, you know, and then maybe there's an internal group, whatever, pick three top audiences, split them up in groups and then see how they populate, you know, the journey from current state to desired state, you know, from an audience perspective and then come back together and then look at how different or whatever. I mean, you can use it as a way to fill the time and also give you what you need to build, you know, a, a full messaging matrix.

Anthony:

Thank you very much again, man. I really appreciate it. Super helpful. Absolutely.

Howie:

Absolutely. Well, good luck. Good luck. Let me know how it goes

Anthony:

All right. Will do.

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 8/22/22 howie chan 8/22/22

Every Brand Needs an "Oh Sh!t" Story

I passed out. And the only times I realized that I passed out was when I woke up.

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I passed out.

And the only times I realized that I passed out was when I woke up.

“Crap, I passed out again, this is dangerous” I thought to myself in a foggy, dreamy state as I carried Concertina wire (razor barbed wire) to a truck.

I was slipping between conscious and unconscious after 4 days and 3 nights digging a foxhole. We were a battalion of soldiers digging on a hill for 4 straight days. Each foxhole was in the shape of a U, it holds two people and it is about five and a half feet deep. I had been awake for 74 hours. I was covered head to toe in mud and dirt, my hands were blistered and bloody, and I was glad it was over.

Exercise SPADE, the first trench/ foxhole digging exercise as part of our officer cadet school training in the Singapore army. We would take position in our foxholes during dusk and dawn, lay communication wires across all the trenches, set-up a Concertina perimeter, patrol our position, and run attack/ defense exercises at various times of the day. When we weren’t doing that, we were digging… all through the day and into the night

This memory and story has stuck with me for the rest of my life.

When I faced physical hardship, I would think “Oh sh!t, if I pushed through SPADE, I can probably push though this”

Every brand faces challenges in it’s quest for glory

You can easily see how a story like this can apply to you and your personal brand. It helps anchor your beliefs and propel you to do other difficult things. But the same is true for company or product brands. Taking the appropriate action can ink a story so compelling, it becomes THE “Oh Sh!t” story that can help overcome doubters, barriers, and anything that’s in the way of the brand.

A great example for this is establishing a company brand. When a company is being launched or relaunched, it communicates its new beliefs, purpose, and values. Sometimes the change is large and when that’s the case, people (both internal and external) might not actually believe in this new direction.

When CVS doubled down on its identity of a healthcare company, it made a dramatic action that shows employees, customers, and investors that they were serious. By taking cigarettes away from all their shelves, they inked a legendary story that displayed their commitment. No amount of messaging and campaigns can take the place of an act that demonstrates who they were as a company. Willing to lose billions was their “Oh Sh!t” story.

A framework to build your “Oh Sh!t” story

STEP ONE

What is THE barrier to your brand being at its best?

Example:

A company’s new brand is all about customer service, but in the past the company has put profits over service.
A product’s new brand is all about simplicity and ease, but traditionally the contracting process to get the product onto the customers system has been tedious.

STEP TWO

What is ONE time where your brand was truly at its best?

Example:

There was one time where a customer service rep spent 8 hours on the phone with a customer and the social media response went viral.
There was one time when contracting was a breeze for the client, when the company directly worked with the client’s IT team.

STEP THREE

How can you put in place a system so the ONE time becomes ALL the time?

Example:

A new service metric and incentive was rolled out where it’s not about the number of calls/ hour, it’s about the extent of the THANK YOUs and APPRECIATION the team gets from their customers.
A new process of working with the IT team was put in place.

STEP FOUR

What is a simple story structure that reminds everyone why we can be our best?

What was the challenge?
Why was it difficult?
How did the brand overcome?
What’s the takeaway?

Example:

Our customer was really upset, but it was not our fault so it was against “procedure” to do anything. But one courageous customer service rep bent the rules and was on the phone for 8 hours to solve the customers problem and in return, our efforts have gone viral on Instagram. We are a customer service company and the new way of working is no longer calls/ hour, it’s about the extent of the THANK YOUs
Our product works like a charm, but getting it on the client’s system takes weeks, if not months, directly contradicting our brand promise. An ingenious sales rep took it upon herself to warm up the IT team and then seamlessly created a transition and implementation plan. It was painless and we were loved before they even started using the product. Now, it’s a part of our process, our simplicity extends across all we do.

STEP FIVE

Tell your story at every chance you get, particularly if Sh!t is hitting the fan!

For my own story of digging foxholes and surviving the toughest of times, it’s a story I tell myself, particularly now, as I’m training for my half-marathon in September.

Conclusion

Build you stories so your brands can be at their best!

Ways I can help you:

Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth
Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist
Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

howie chan 6/15/22 howie chan 6/15/22

The right way to SWOT

The SWOT analysis is a 2x2 matrix superstar, it’s in every strategy textbook and probably taught to millions of students every year. However, it’s often used WRONGLY. Find out the right way to SWOT!

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The SWOT analysis is a 2x2 matrix superstar, it’s in every strategy textbook and probably taught to millions of students every year. However, as I’ve encountered it in the world of business, it’s often used WRONGLY. In this post, I’ll share with you the right way to use the famous 2x2 matrix, helping you to develop real strategies as an outcome of this analysis.

BASICS

Strengths and weaknesses are analyzed from an internal perspective while opportunities and threats are analyzed from an external perspective. The interplay of internal vs. external is where the magic happens, it’s where strategies are created. Most people stop after they fill in these boxes, they fail to SWOT the right way and it becomes a page in a strategy powerpoint that garners little discussion or worse, NO REAL STRATEGIC DECISIONS. But before this interplay, we need these four boxes to capture critical insights. Notice the word CRITICAL. If we use this 2x2 matrix to capture the “kitchen sink” it’s going to be of no value to anyone. How do we do that? Read on my friends…

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT

You need to be very critical of what goes into the matrix, and you might discover after going through this exercise that you don’t have enough research or data to fill it out. Then you have to decide how to get the data, which is probably another blog post. The key attributes to filter what’s in and what’s out are:

RELEVANCE
DIFFERENTIATION
SUSTAINABILITY

For each box, i’ll go through what this means.

Strengths

Relevance: a relevant strength delivers real value to the customer. Is this something that the customer wants and/or needs? If it doesn’t bring any value, it cannot be considered a strength.
Differentiation: Is this strength unique? Meaning, does the competition also have this strength? If it’s something that is commonly held across the industry, it is not a strength.
Sustainability: Can competitors easily deliver what you might consider a strength? Is this strength something the company is aligned to for the long term?

Weaknesses

Relevance: genuine weaknesses are those that decrease the value of the brand in the eyes of the customer. If the customer doesn’t really care about it, it is not a weakness.
Differentiation: Is this weakness unique? Again, if it’s something the entire market suffers from, like the need for high cost raw materials, this is not a weakness.
Sustainability: Can this weakness be easily corrected? Can it be counteracted by the organizations strengths or strategy etc.? If so, it’s not a true weakness.

Opportunities

Relevance: Opportunities listed in this box needs to be large and accessible by the brand. If it’s something that has unsurmountable constraints, it should not be listed as an opportunity. And if it doesn’t bring a relatively large value to the brand, it should also not be listed.
Differentiation: Is this opportunity very different from other opportunities? When an opportunity start to conflict with other opportunities, it should not be included. For example if an opportunity is going after the low cost segment when the brand has been positioned as a premium brand, it’s in conflict.
Sustainability: Will this opportunity last? Is it a fleeting trend, or is it something that is durable enough to justify the effort of pursuit?

Threats

Relevance: Are these threats gnarly and unmitigated by other factors? For example, a big decline in one market can seem to be really threatening because of the large impact it can have, but if it is compensated by the growth of another accessible market, it’s no longer considered a threat.
Differentiation: Is the threat truly new and undefended? Is it not met by current strategies? If it is being addressed in some way today, it’s not a unique and new threat.
Sustainability: Will this threat be around for the long term? Or is it going to diminish on its own over time? For example a short-term pricing or blunting campaign is just that, short-term and not considered a real threat.

When you have all three attributes (relevance, differentiation and sustainability) met for each box, WE ARE NOT DONE, but you have a solid 2x2 matrix, ready to work for you.

MATCHMAKING

The next step is to align the internal with the external

Align a strength or strengths that can be used to capture the market opportunity. For example, a strength of having significant awareness and mindshare in a disease area is coupled with the opportunity of a competitor recall in that market.
Align a threat or threats that causes a particular weakness to worsen. For example, the threat of new regulations on cybersecurity and patient data compliance is coupled with our weakness in the current business model where digital services is free and not resourced appropriately.

This iterative process may mean new SWOT items be uncovered if there are some unaligned SWOT factors. The process is complete when every factor is matched up.

KEY SUCCESS FACTORS (KSF)

After they are matched and lined up, you will then develop KSFs that addresses each match up.

WHAT do you need to do to capture those opportunities? Continuing with the previous example, a KSF would be to leverage KOL-relationship to influence the neglected providers in a share gain campaign.
WHAT do you need to do to avoid weaknesses being made worse? Looking at the previous example here, a KSF would be to shift digital to a paid service and resource accordingly.

CONCLUSION

Once you have a list of KSFs, you can then proceed to the next step of HOW. This is putting together the plan for how the organization can address each KSF. The additional rigor and steps to your SWOT process means you no longer dread the previous useless exercise of putting together this 2x2. Now you can SWOT right, SWOT happy.

Ways I can help you

Download free guides (Healthy Brand Blueprint & Branding 101) to help you build healthy brands
Work with me as a fractional CMO/CBO or through Healthy Brand Consulting (Schedule a 15 min intro call)

howie chan 6/1/22 howie chan 6/1/22

Learn the four traps when branding is mistaken for marketing

Branding is NOT marketing. So when organizations thinking they are the same thing, the brand is in jeopardy! Learn what can transpire when this happens…

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Brand, the feeling and perception anyone has about a company, product, person or service is the result of all touch points and interactions. And so branding, the way to create that feeling and perception, is essentially everything.

But because the idea of brand and branding is born out of the field of marketing, it’s usually seen as the same as marketing. I want to tell you that it is NOT! And it can be detrimental if it is seen as such. Marketing is not everything. There is communications, there is customer service, there is HR, there are many functions that make up the entire experience! From before the purchase to during the purchase and after the purchase.

Four traps when branding is mistaken for marketing:

ONE: Time pressure

Marketing is driven by campaigns and campaigns are time bound. How did it perform? What were the metrics? While campaigns are short term, building a brand takes time. Every campaign that we introduce in the market adds to the brand, it continues to build that feeling and perception. Think about Coca Cola or even J&J, their brand is forever solidified in the minds of their audiences. Each campaign throughout time etches that perception and feeling about the brand ever so deeper into our minds. If we abandon the brand strategy because the campaign did not “perform”, we are missing the opportunity to create a snowball effect.

TWO: Stifled potential

When branding is solely seen as marketing, it’s just infinitely harder to align every touch point to create the perception you want. You are not enrolling every tool in the tool box, instead trying to imprint that perception only through one function. The potential of creating an aligned experience across every function in the organization that drives brand equity is lost. Think about the Zappos brand–an entire ecosystem that communicates and exemplifies their brand of WOW and QUIRKY DELIGHT. It’s their HR, their customer service, their culture, their emails, their shopping experience… it leverages everything the organization can muster.

THREE: ROI rabbit hole

Marketing and ROI has become inseparable. It’s fair, because marketing is business of capturing the increased perceived value through branding! It’s capturing that value by an increase in revenue, either through higher prices or a larger share of the market. A marketing budget needs to be substantiated by ROI. How much return or increased revenue are you going to deliver based on the spend? This kind of thinking would quash branding efforts… as they go beyond revenue generation (at least in the short term). It’s creating that perception, it’s shrinking the consideration set, it’s building fans. If it’s about ROI, Patagonia will not run an ad saying not to buy their jackets. If it’s about ROI, CVS would not have pulled tobacco from their shelves.

FOUR: The “not my problem” problem

Branding requires everyone. It’s not just a marketing “thing”, nor is it a “sales” thing. Successful and powerful brands permeate entire organizations internally and all those they serve externally. When branding is seen only as a marketing “thing”, disaster strikes. Other functions have no skin in the game and hence they don’t need to cooperate, they don’t need to chip-in and fund a branding initiative. When the brand is not owned by everyone, it becomes dismissed and departments/ functions can easily look the other way.

Conclusion

Insist that branding is NOT marketing. Even if marketing is accountable for initiating, organizing and orchestrating branding efforts, branding is EVERYTHING. Organizations can bring together people, processes and incentives to design branding into everything they do.

Ways I can help you

Download free guides (Healthy Brand Blueprint & Branding 101) to help you build healthy brands
Work with me as a fractional CMO/CBO or through Healthy Brand Consulting (Schedule a 15 min intro call)

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NEWSLETTER ISSUES

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Culture is NOT a bunch of posters on the wall

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Establish a voice for your brand that your audience will recognize and love

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Learn and apply these key principles of attention for any brand

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"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."

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A brand’s purpose should feel natural and bring energy to the brand

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KEY LESSONS

Strategy needs to be provocative by having a point-of-view

Choose debate over framework, conflict over compliance

Make healthcare brands desirable through emotional rewards

Conclusion

Learn more about Meg and Paul:

Ways I can help you:

QUOTE

"If you can’t be brilliant, be memorable"

Lesson

“Neurons that fire together, wire together”

My top five favorite principles to be more memorable, backed by neuroscience:

Tool

References:

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"Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced"

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Instagram Post

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"Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become"

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Instagram Post

Resources

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“Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe.”

IDEA

TOOL

ARTICLE

America's CEOs have gone silent on national tragedies

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“Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.”

IDEA

TOOL

ARTICLE

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“Brand relevance, relationships, trust, should not be left to marketers and communicators and brand experts. That should be the core of any leadership team”

IDEA

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ARTICLE

When people think about brand activation, it is usually restricted to advertising. That’s significantly under-leveraging the power of branding.

PRE-PURCHASE

PURCHASE

POST-PURCHASE

Storytelling can be simple

We are meaning making machines

The power of the gap

Practice the gap everyday

Branding is not just design and pretty colors. It is aligning, designing, and consistently executing the visual, verbal, and experiential components to create a desired feeling and perception. In other words, branding is how you build a brand.

It is not just about facts and figures when it comes to consumers choosing where to receive care

Consumers are more empowered to make treatment decisions for themselves

Sentiment and feelings do play a role when doctors are making clinical decisions

Humans do not experience the world objectively and that is why brands and branding exist

Use branding to create the desired feeling, perception, and mental model in the minds of your audiences