What essential experience does your brand deliver?

Breaking a cardinal rule of branding
The author of the article, Maureen O'Connor chose to focus on the fact that Barnes & Noble is breaking one of the cardinal rules of branding. As the subtitle states,

While that angle might get the attention of the various branding and design folks that no doubt read the New York Times, I could not help but feel that it was missing a more important branding lesson. The lesson is that when brands fail to deliver on their essential experience – the purpose they serve (with a little p) - they ultimately end up degrading the very thing that caused people to buy from them.

Barnes & Noble's essential experience
What is the essential experience that Barnes & Noble offers customers? A chance to browse books. People visit a bookstore to explore titles, to discover new authors, to check out staff recommendations, discuss books with other book buyers. Midway through the article, O'Connor reports,

"The new look aims to encourage browsing, which Mr. Daunt (the Barnes & Noble chief executive) believes improves customer satisfaction. "If you just want to buy a book, the guys in Seattle will sell you a book," Mr. Daunt said. "The enjoyment and the social experience of that engagement with books in a bookstore? That's our game.""

And if that is your game, why do you need to offer consistent experience across your stores? Would you not want people to discover something fresh and different if they shop in the Upper West side instead of Union Square? If someone is mission shopping then consistency is good, the gardening books are always on the far-right hand side, but if someone is browsing then variety and serendipity are more important.

What is your brand's essential experience?
Can you sum up your essential experience in a few words? Barnes & Noble lost their way when browsing books became subservient to selling more stuff. If you don't know what experience people really value your brand for, that lack of knowledge makes it far too easy to seek revenue growth from expansion and addons which ultimately will detract from the experience people once enjoyed. Casting around for other examples of brands that have lost their way I first thought of Starbucks, then Facebook, but then a recent experience came to mind: a visit to Rite Aid, the now bankrupt pharmacy.

Should a pharmacy act like a convenience store?
In a different New York Times article describing the company's woes, Jeffrey Stein, Rite Aid's new chief executive, said he hoped to help the chain "reach its full potential as a modern neighborhood pharmacy." Strangely enough, I visited a Rite Aid store a few days after the bankruptcy announcement, and honestly, it felt more like a generic convenience store than a modern neighborhood pharmacy. Overall, my impression of the physical store was not bad, better than the last CVS I visited, but the pharmacy itself was in the far back-left corner, and while the signage for the different product sections and aisles was clear and well-designed, the pharmacy's was cluttered and amateurish.

The New York Times article states,

"In June, Rite Aid reported revenue of $5.7 billion for its most recent quarter, down from $6 billion a year earlier, driven partly by continued challenges in selling merchandise like food, beauty items and household goods. Consumers are increasingly turning to Amazon, the corner store and elsewhere to buy those goods."

So, I ask you, should a pharmacy act like a convenience store? I went to Rite Aid to get my Covid shot. I did buy some mouthwash and some Covid tests while I was there, but if I had wanted food items, I would have gone to the grocery store opposite.

If Mr. Stein really wants to succeed as a modern neighborhood pharmacy, then I suggest he focuses on delivering on the promise of delivering everything you need to stay healthy. Right now, in the US, there is a huge gap in the healthcare system that means many needs, particularly preventative ones, go unserved. That spells opportunity for someone, but they have to figure out how to deliver on that essential experience. The other established players are too invested in the status quo, Rite Aid's bankruptcy offers it a chance to reset and reframe.

Focus on what differentiates your brand experience
Now you can argue that my examples of essential experiences are generic. Any bookstore allows people to browse books. It is table stakes. Agreed, but my point is that when management loses sight of the table because of all the other stuff they have piled on it, then the risk of them degrading the essential experience rises dramatically. Both articles referenced talk about Amazon as a competitive threat. If you define your business as selling books, yes, Amazon is a threat. If you define your business as browsing books, then it is a lesser threat. If you sell drugs, yes, Amazon is a threat. If you sell healthcare, then it is a lesser threat. The online buying experience is very different from the offline. Online is great if you know what you are looking for, not so much if you want to browse or want to talk to a real person and get advice specific to your particular needs. (And don't tell me that I can get that online. Chatbots and AI still have a long way to go before they offer the sort of human interaction and personalized advice most people prefer.)

Empower your (local) team to deliver on the promise
The New York Times article about Barnes & Noble highlights the fact that local managers are given a free hand to deliver a customer experience tailored to their local community. Barnes & Noble CEO Daunt puts it this way,

"The curious trick has been that if you actually let the local book-selling teams do what they think is best, you suddenly get much better bookstores. About a quarter of them become dramatically better, and a quarter become dramatically worse — but it is much easier to focus on that quarter and improve them."

Presumably, the definition of better focuses on sales, because Daunt also removed the footfall counters used to tally the number of customers and calculate sales rates. Daunt claims,

"(removing the footfall counters) liberated the bookstore managers, and everybody else, so they could just concentrate on being nice."

Radical. I bet the customers really miss those footfall counters. However, to a more pertinent point, it is pointless to count things that do not need to be counted. Doing so costs money, wastes people's time, and rarely leads to useful action. I am sure some retail expert will tell me that sales per person is more accurate or useful than sales per square yard or meter, but is it really? What actions can the manager take if footfall is down. Put a sale sign in the window? Answers in the comments section please.

Identify when consistency is valuable not foolish
Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated that,

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." 

He might just as well have said marketers, designers, and academics.

Rigidly adhering to a specific design may or may not be a good thing when it comes to retail stores, it depends on what essential experience the customer really values. Adhering to your essential experience is not foolish, it ensures that your brand delivers on its promise. Similarly, adhering to a consistent brand identify is not foolish. The evidence finds that consistent presentation and use of brand assets like logos ties makes it easier for people to recognize the brand and evoke their impressions of it. However, you need to know how people really recognize your brand; what assets are mission critical and which ones are superfluous.

So, unlike Daunt, I would not allow four different brand logos to exist on stores within New York City, but once someone is in the store, does it matter that the paint colors are different? Instead of seeking foolish consistency, identify the essential experience your brand must deliver, then flex its delivery to the best effect.

But what do you think? Please share your thoughts.