Ballmer rubbishes iPhone, and will compete on price. Oops.
The Great Brand Disappearance
Three out of every four brands could vanish right now, and almost no one would notice or care.
Why?
Because for almost every product, there's an alternative ready to take its place in the customer’s basket.
Evidence of this is clear in consumer behavior: nearly eight out of ten searches on Amazon are by category, not brand.
Brand loyalty, once the cornerstone of marketing strategy, has become fragmentary, fleeting, and largely broken. The reality is, it rarely exists in the way we think it does.
A Crisis of Relevance
We're in trouble.
The Chief Experience Officer (CXO) role has turned into the most disposable position in the C-suite, often with the shortest tenure.
Sadly, many CXOs seem ill-equipped for the challenges they face. The proof is everywhere.
Brands shut down call centers to "help" customers better contact them, undermining real human interaction.
Platforms strip the emotional signature from customer voice chats to "protect" the agent, losing understanding, empathy and the personal touch.
Consumers no longer follow the linear stages we design, as they disrupt traditional customer journey models.
The traditional marketing funnel—a one-way conversation ending in purchase—is outdated yet still widely used.
There’s a growing disconnect between what consumers want and what business models deliver.
Too many companies confuse tactical elements like Voice of the Customer (VOC), Customer Journey Mapping (CJM), culture, and data with strategic direction.
This hastens our irrelevance, because we’ve lost sight of the "WHY."
A Misguided Search for the WHO
The common mistake many of us make is searching for the WHO—the mass of ready-made consumers wanting to buy—but the real prize is the market finding us because of our WHY.
When you focus on situational markets, you acknowledge the reality of markets.
They don’t stand still.
For decades we’ve told ourselves that consumers in our target markets are static, unchanging. But traditional segmentation creates a ‘who’.
Find the WHO: Target customer, engage customer, create loyalty.
Find the WHY: Tell a story, customers engage with us, and create situational loyalty.
Had visionaries like Jobs or Musk followed the WHO playbook, their brands would probably be niche players today. Instead, focusing on their ‘why’ made them global phenomena.
The CXO Dilemma
I have a side gig in an advisory role for a headhunter, interviewing potential CX candidates for C-suite positions. Some applicant statements have been startling:
A CXO recently claimed to have "after 10 years, pivoting to put the customer at the centre of what we do" begging the question: what was in the centre before?
Another advised other CX leaders to "tie objectives to the moves your competition is making." This reactive approach is akin to playing CX whack-a-mole.
How did we get here?
CX is challenging, compounded by seismic shifts in culture, behaviour, new platforms, crumbling cookies, collapsing funnels, and measurement myopia. Amidst an explosion of data, platforms, consultants, formal training, authors, newsletters (like this one!), methods, and measurements, we've lost sight of what truly matters.
The mistake?
Deploying old paradigms and playbooks to solve new problems.
This prevents brands from discovering what can set them apart.
Constants and Variables in Brand Strategy
Two things remain constant:
Brands will always need customers.
Customers will always value meaningful experiences.
Four critical factors are more relevant than ever:
Knowing the problem we are solving for our customers.
Knowing who our customer is (our customer archetype).
Understanding whether we provide value through time saved or time spent.
Having a clear Point of View (POV).
Exploring the Fundamentals
Customers are individuals, not aggregated segments. They switch archetypes throughout their day, driven by different needs and jobs to be done. This context is key to their decision-making, and situational influences significantly affect brand choice.
Simple example: Same person, two contexts
Context 1: Walking with family and finding a local restaurant—time well spent.
Context 2: Rushed and hungry, opting for food from a food delivery joint—time well saved.
Situational involvement happens when consumers attach short-term relevance to a product, like buying a computer as a birthday gift. This involvement (we mistake this for loyalty) disappears once the purchase is complete.
Brands with a Point of View
Successful brands share a clear POV:
Dove: In a commodity category (soap) Dove created a POV and marketing campaign that focused on the beauty of every woman while showing the artificial beauty standards of the industry.
It said: “..our perception of beauty is distorted.”
This resonated with almost all women.
The result?
Dove sales went from $2 billion to $4 billion in three years.
The POV was so successful that it became a movement.
Apple: Known for its POV on design, creativity, and privacy, Apple stands out in a saturated market. More recently, they have developed a POV on consumer privacy that stands out from competitors.
Taylor Swift: Yes, Taylor Swift. She’s a brand. She lives the brand. It’s her point of view about life that makes her so valuable to so many fans. They associate with her because she makes their performance better. They feel more. They understand more. They can relate better. They know that her POV in new songs will make them even more connected, understanding, and, in some cases, in love, so enhancing their emotional and relational experiences.
The Starbucks Struggle
Starbucks illustrates what happens when a brand loses its POV. Founder and three-time CEO Howard Schultz has repeatedly urged the company to rediscover its original POV centred on the coffee experience. I’ve never especially liked their coffee but in the early days did enjoy the experience - once about rich coffee aromas, an Italian style, personalised barista messages, and a ‘third place’ between home and office, Starbucks now feels commoditised with pre-packaged beans, ready-made meals, a depersonalized mobile app experience, a store every 250 yards. The mojo of its POV has been lost. This shift has led to poor results, with stock falls, and declining sales, especially in its biggest markets.
Lessons Learned
Here’s what we can change:
Use your promise and POV to create the market; consumers will find you.
Stand for something true, real, and sustainable.
Be distinctive—distinctiveness outshines being "better" in a world of good-enough alternatives.
Solve practical or emotional problems.
Lean into human biases and predispositions.
Remember, a consumer is a citizen first, and this informs many of their actions.
I can't make CX less challenging, but I can offer a better way forward. Together, we can aim to reduce the number of brands that could disappear unnoticed. For the love of experiences and the people who work at its core, let's choose to be part of this evolving conversation.
It takes me many hours to create an article but only takes a few seconds for you to share it with colleagues who’ll be interested.
My opening video of the Nortel CEO ridiculing the then-new iPhone and talking about cheaper prices etc is an example of how a POV is dangerous to ignore
Thanks for reading me.