What Are We Really Doing Here
The problem we are solving for our clients is… It begins with the notion among the internal management that best practices resources are not affordable or not available to scale (the systems, processes, or people) the organization profitably. One issue is cost, the other is simply wherewithal. Client teams often don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t understand what they need to do each and every day in order to affect their own future for the positive. Good people that would crush it if they could produce the right message and deliver it at the right time to the right customer, could measure their own impact and continue to iterate and improve the merchandising offer, use experience, and overall service… seamlessly.
The natural instinct to solve the problem is… to “Do.” Hire a layer of management to identify a market opportunity, create a “brand strategy,” build a website, produce content, distribute eMail, publish social media, make “better” product for the market opportunity, and measure all of the big stuff (e.g. sales) and all of the little things (e.g. conversion rate). Missing is the engine that makes it all go, the thing that drives and coordinates all of the doing, that defines how all of these disparate efforts manifest, work together, and produce results.
The real problem is… The alchemist is missing. In the above scenario, one plus one equals less than one.
The difference is “Being” the right thing versus “Doing” the right thing. It’s not about just producing the work. It’s about having an engine, a conductor, a source of light, an invisible hand that guides the right work in the right way.
Realizing fundamentally the difference between Be and Do changes every aspect of the business, including: the financial model, data collected, metrics reported, the type of content produced, where it’s distributed, and the type of people and skills required to operate.
This is why we call the structure “Loyalty Architecture.” We view companies as organisms instead of organizations, and brands as living breathing manifestations of purpose and principles. The Brand Ecosystem Model is the engine. It is the invisible hand. It transforms an organization that requires ideation, constant management, oversight, and leadership into an organism that empowers autonomous teams to act deliberately with purpose.
The premise is practicing “Loyalty Architecture” can generate radical growth by taking a brand from nascent and latent to fully embodied primarily by orienting around the engine. We use the Brand Ecosystem Model to point to as ideal and identify gaps in brand performance using the Brand Equity Index. This combination shines light on what to do and how to do it, such that the need for constant ideation is reduced. This is where productivity and market impact reside.
We build brands from a foundation of genuine intent, from the ground up. Not through ideation, but by codifying founding principles and designing the consumer experience from those principles. This is literally a framework for creating long-term sustainable relationships with the brand’s customers. All based on a shared worldview. It’s science. Alchemy.