Zig or Zag…

… I’m sure he didn’t come up with the phrase,… but Marty Neumeier uses it in his marketing how-to book ZAG.  This easy-to-read book follows naturally on his previous bestseller, The Brand Gap.  In The Brand Gap, Neumeier talks about the importance for brands to effectively bridge business strategy and design.  Then in ZAG his message is one of differentiation, what Marty defines as radical differentiation,… when everyone else Zigs, you need to Zag.  To succeed, brands must stand out from the clutter (or the glut) of the many similar brands out there.  If they fail to be distinctive in some or many ways,… they will likely not be noticed.  And if they are it’s not much better, as they will need to match the best price from all the other look-a-likes out there.  In the book, a brand is defined as ‘a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.’  So much for expensive ad campaigns,… it’s not what you say about your brand, but what the customer ‘feels’ about your brand.

So how do you change a person’s feeling about your brand,… you delight the heck out of each and every experience they have with your brand.  From how they hear about your brand, how you help them decide, where they have access to your product/service (to kick the tires or test the service),… to how they continue to be delighted by your brand after that first experience.  I have an Audi TT coupe,… and even though it is 8 years old, I still get a thrill running it through the gears from a dead stop.  This serves to strengthen my feeling about Audi as a brand, and specifically the TT as a sports car brand.  I’ve also noticed that when others notice my car, it reinforces those good feelings.  I especially love to see little boys noses pressed against the back windows of their Mom’s minivan, looking down at my little bubble of a car.  “Wow, look at that”, I can see them saying,… as if it were the only sports car they ever saw.  I even have flashbacks to when I was a teen,… looking out the window of my Dad’s Chevy Nova,… wondering if I could ever afford a Camaro, or better yet a Pontiac Firebird.
What I really like about this book is the emphasis Neumeier places on the importance of not following the leader.  I see it all the time,… a new watch looks like all the other watches; one restaurant's value meal has a new name, but it’s the same stuff; once one soda goes to ‘zero’, everything is ‘zero’; nothing stands out.  But it’s not just about being different.  The baseline requirement is that it has to be good if it’s going to have lasting brand value.  Back to cars, the Edsel was different, but not a great car.  I know, because I joined 4 other fellas in investing in one, a pink one, back in 1975,… thinking we could polish it up, get it running, and make a fortune on resale.  It didn’t work, and in the end no one wanted it parked in their drive,… and it was almost impossible to get rid of.  So I get being good.  The author uses the Mini as an example of different and good,… and the brand is a rising star.

One proven way to be different is to uncover a new need: the book talks briefly about this.  Many successful companies employ user-centered or human-centered approaches to identify these needs.  We do this at Steelcase,… by observing users in real work situations (ethnographic studies), to determine behavioral patterns that represent opportunities for innovation.  These could be work situations that cause users extra effort or forces them to work-around a situation.  It could be a struggle or a frustration the user has with using a particular function/feature of a product.  Or in the best of situations, we correlate these user stories with a series of work-related trends,… and create an entirely new category of solution.  We did this with a product that’s about to be introduced called media:scape.  It redefines how information assets are brought into a group collaboration.  It uses a new table shape, an innovative new data switch from IDEO, and a dramatic shift in the way information displays are fully integrated into the furniture setting.  It’s really good, it’s really different.  Zag, you think…?

Comments

[Mark Greiner]

Best of luck on that zag Brian...! I love the Walkstation as well.

Mark

[Brian Weidner]

Good post Mark. I have been following Steelcase for quite some time and believe that the organization does a nice job of creating innovative products that create customer value. My favorite is the Walkstation!

I've taken a Zag approach with my business as well. I'm the founder of four specialty job boards that solely focus on a specific health care dicipline in Wisconsin (http://www.CareerTreeNetwork.com).

While my competitors, like monster and careerbuilder, are going after all the candidates and all the jobs...I'm only going after an extremely small subset of the larger pie.

I'll have to check out that book. Thanks for the recommendation.