When it Comes To Branding, Express Your Inner Penguin | by Richard K. Hendrie
“Because, in the process of defining the future, the plan begins to shape itself to reality. Both the reality out there and the reality you are able to create in here. As those two realities merge, they form a new reality, call it your reality, and call it the unique invention that is uniquely yours, the reality in your mind and heart uniting with all the elements in your business and your business with the world to form something that has never existed before in exactly that way.” | Michael Gerber E-Myth Revisited
I believe Gerber is talking about deciding on a central context or value around which to unite business and heart, mind and passion. You need to find the underlying essence that expresses who you are and for what you stand. I’ve seen so many smart business people create missions statements and lists of values upon which they base their approach only to have them end up on shelves, barely read and never used. The search for the animating values of a business needs to be simpler, more direct, and purer for it to fuel a brand to thrive for the long haul.
Start with the simple question, “What are the two or three values or principles for which I embed the sword of business life in the sand?” But that isn’t enough. You’ve got to decide on how you want ‘to be’. Most anyone can ‘do’. Successful people operating a brand based on focused values attempt to’ live’ the brand in the way they manage every moment.
As we look to fulfill perceived needs of specific target, the focus on the ‘how’ or the ‘what’ of your enterprise is secondary to determining the ‘why’. What is your purpose? It is for you to dig down and reveal that incomparable expression of your ‘you-ness’.
In a recent article in the Travel Section of the New York Times (12/12/04) an iconoclastic hotelier, Andre Balazs was profiled. Here is a quote from the article by Donald Albrecht, author of New Hotels for Global Nomads, “…Balazs understands that hotels are great public living rooms where the combustion of celebrity, drinking, the sexiness of seeing and being seen can be very theatrical (a man after my own heart). Basically, he’s a tastemaker, building a nexus out of his own life in a world where a million things are coming at you, particularly in the United States. Where there’s no aristocratic class, the tastemaker sitting at your side telling you ‘Yes, do that. No, not that way,’ can be very powerful.”
The article went on to profile other boutique hoteliers, each of whom had unique created properties that reflected some part of the essential nature. From Ian Schrager’s many hotels to Joie de Vivre and Kimpton, companies recognize that successful branding includes ingredients from the interior world of imagination and personality.
Creating something out ‘of the nexus’ of ones’ life is another way of saying, “Express Your Inner Penguin”. It’s so named in honor a successful and iconoclastic friend, Michael Katz who decided to name his company Blue Penguin Development and crown himself Chief Penguin. He’s in the e-marketing business, focusing on e-newsletters and marketing strategies, which has nothing to do with either zoology or wingless creatures of unusual color.
My friend and colleague, Michael Katz His work is superb, but it is his name “Blue Penguin Development” and his title, of Chief Penguin that gets the notice first and creates the initial indelible memory. Why penguin? Who on earth knows, except that it represented to him an inimitable expression of his soul. Further, he has created an indelible craving to find out ‘Just what the heck a Chief Penguin does?’ The fact that his business is related neither to zoology nor the Antarctic, but to e-business makes the point. His choice came from some inner place, where logic doesn’t reign. Before his unorthodoxy makes you too uneasy, remember Richard Branson created his Virgin billions by putting out the first Sex Pistols albums*
We’re in paradoxical times, where guest expectations for excellence are nil, but the hope to be wowed greater than ever. As the authors of the Deviant’s Advantage state, “Authenticity is essential because people hate phonies and can smell them a mile away.” In that kind of business environment, a brand which wishes to thrive and endure must deliver on the basics of great product or service as price of entry. But that’s only the first step. It’s only after a brand embraces the power of its inner penguin that it really blossoms.
This is a critical point about branding. You are sorely mistaken to believe that ‘good food or comfortable lodgings provided by friendly associates,’ is effective positioning. Any competitor with a clearly articulated vision offering the same commodities, can charge more, steal your customers and clean your clock. Think the old time amusement parks versus Disney. Think the classic coffee shop versus Starbucks.
You start by drawing that line on the beach of values that determines, “Who I am going to be.” Then bring out the ‘Inner Penguin’, your coat of arms, your style, your persona, influencing all you do on the journey to your ultimate business destination. You end up, in the words of Michael Gerber, “…uniting with all the elements in your business and your business with the world to form something that has never existed before in exactly that way.”
There are practical Guest Experience Marketing Strategies to use on your way, as means to get there.
- Know Thy Audience
- Know Thy Staff as Thyself
- Orchestrate a Theatrical Retail Experience
- Be Distinctive
- Deliver On Your Promise
- Target Your Efforts
- Be Innovative
- Know Your Competition
- Be Profitable
- Market From Inside, Out
With your values made unique by your Inner Penguin, that peerless view of your own promised land, these GEMS are practical and maximize the potential embodied in your brand. You’ll provide a guest experience that only you are capable of providing. Even those of you who are franchisees of a concept, your vision of the experience, abetted by the franchisor’s brand identity, still must be delivered in an unsurpassed manner. Why do you think there are such disparities in sales between stores of like location, demographics and population?
The ‘Inner Penguin’ in each of us is a combination of the features, qualities, beliefs and values that transform a human being into a distinct personality. How to get there? Start with the willingness to listen to the voice inside which says, “There is a better way.” Don’t permit yourself to be a generic ‘thing’ providing homogenized product in a generalized way to an anonymous transaction. Express your ‘Inner Penguin’.
By Richard K. Hendrie
