Lessons Learned from Week 1 of Brand Management

This quarter, I'm lucky to be taking a class taught by Jim Stengel, the former Global Marketing Officer of P&G (the "UCLA CMO Experience"). I wrote about this class in my admissions essay, and I'm excited about finally experiencing it.

Below are my main takeaways from this week's readings and lecture.

• Firms of Endearment
  
• It's not share of wallet anymore; it's share of heart
  
• Freeman: customers are best served by companies that enjoy good relationships with all their stakeholders-employees, suppliers, the communities in which they operate, and of course, their stockholders (SRM = stakeholder relationship management)
  
• Aging population => search for meaning in life
  
• Characteristics: Endearing companies are enduring companies; Align interests of stakeholder groups; Executive salaries are modest; Open door policy at executive level; Greater employee compensation; More employee training; Lower turnover; Employees empowered to ensure customers satisfied; Hire people who are passionate about company and products; Humanize the company experience; Genuine passion for customers; Lower marketing costs and higher customer satisfaction and retention; Suppliers as partners; Honor spirit of laws; Corporate culture treated as greatest asset
• An increasing number of companies are behaving in ways that mirror the growing influence of self-actualization needs and processes that derive from our aging society.
• Effective communication: 4 principles: Principle 1: Establish a Positive Relationship (or Reinforce an Existing One) Before Getting Down to Business; Principle 2: Show Willingness to Be Vulnerable; Principle 3: Foster Reciprocal Empathy, Whereby Stakeholders Reciprocate the Company's Empathy; Principle 4: Conduct Conversations with Genuine Reciprocity
• Ideals as the ultimate growth driver
• Ideal: A business’s essential reason for being, the higher-order benefit it brings to the world; the factor connecting the core beliefs of the people inside a business with the fundamental human values of the people they serve; Not social responsibility or altruism, but a program for profit and growth based on improving people’s lives.
• Discover a brand ideal of improving people’s lives in one of five fi elds of fundamental human values.
• Build organizational culture around the brand ideal.
• Communicate the brand ideal to engage employees and customers.
  
• Deliver a near-ideal customer experience.
  
• Evaluate progress and people against the brand ideal.
  
• Coke is a happiness brand.
  
• Steve Jobs was one of the top 3 business people ever, and he was a marketer.
  
• Pampers: instead of focusing on product function, focus on what mothers actually care about
• If your ideal is high enough, it’s universal, and you just need to find a way to bring it to life around the world.
• Goal of brand: strong relationships which lead to strong loyalty
• Take what works for you in building a human relationship, and use that to build your business.
• Hardwire relationships into your business
• Marketing influences life, and life influences marketing
• 5 ideals fields of fundamental human values: joy, connect, explore, pride, impact
• Build your culture around your ideal
• Brand as culture, culture as brand
  
• Every communication is about the ideal