Behind the Brand Values

To me, the notion of the word ‘Brand’ comes down to the intangible essence or feeling invoked when you experience whatever that service or product is offering.?

Whenever you see the logo, hear the name, or see someone with the product or using the service, all those touchpoints connect and build something almost cerebral, quite outside of the tangible process of using the actual product. It’s a memory, a feeling or a hook that immediately and inevitably connects you with that brand, and creates associations with it, whatever the promise may be.??

As it’s not about anything material or tangible - a brand can be anything. Lawrence is a brand, the USA is a brand. Even the Fall season is a brand these days according to influencers on YouTube and TikTok.

Mo Gawdat’s ‘happiness equation’ poses the notion that an individual's happiness is equal to, or greater than the difference between the events of your life and your expectations of how life should behave.?

I think this equation can apply to the brand experience too:? customer satisfaction is equal to, or greater than the difference between the experience of using a product, and your expectations of how the brand experience should be.?

If you have high expectations, then the brand needs to deliver to meet that expectation. And if it meets them, loyalty is sustained. If it doesn't meet that expectation, the loyalty starts to crumble, and if it fails you completely, then you are lost forever. But if you’ve not heard of a brand, and your expectation is very low, then you experience it and it exceeds your expectations then your satisfaction will be doubly high, per the expectation versus satisfaction equation.?

The evolution of a brand?

Johnson Controls, the American Irish-domiciled multinational conglomerate headquartered in Ireland was founded back in 1885. In 2015, its air conditioning business merged with that of Hitachi, a Japanese conglomerate corporation known for design-led heating, ventilation, and air conditioning products manufactured originally for mines, founded in 1910.?

Building a brand takes time, and Johnson Controls-Hitachi is a relative newcomer. With over 200 years of branding between them, both brands have a solid legacy and a heritage to uphold. People recognize Johnson Controls for one thing, and Hitachi for another. So when we created something new together, we had to go back to the satisfaction vs expectation equation to make sure that we were consistently meeting and exceeding those expectations.?

If we had rebranded and done something else completely new, we would have probably lost a lot of customers. As it was, we gained new customers as others left us. Through the natural evolution of a brand, this is par for the course.?

Some protect their brand heritage by creating a house of brands - like LVMH. Whilst many of us have heard of LVMH, few of us would associate any feeling or essence with them. Think of Fendi, however and you’ll think of luxury leather goods and Italian craftsmanship. Tiffany & Co - jewelry, romance, Fifth Avenue, and Veuve Clicquot: French champagne and a certain shade of yellow.?

Reinventing and rebuilding

I am of the opinion that brands go through a natural evolution as they grow older and learn more, just like people do.?

These elements layer on top of one another, forging new pathways and exploring alternative routes. And it takes consistent work to make sure there is alignment on the eventual goals. But the guiding principles may morph and change throughout the process.?

For example, the Harmony promise is very much a celebrated part of Hitachi’s brand heritage, but is it still relevant today? Innovation has become another of our important principles, but the two concepts seem contradictory. Harmony means peace, alignment and balance. But I am looking to make a dent - to establish new ways of doing things and celebrate change.?

We’ve been thinking a lot about this internally recently, how to reconcile the old with the new in the natural journey of a brand's evolution.?

Ultimately, we always seek to create products that are harmonious, but the process to get there need not always be harmonious. Harmony remains a principle brand value because when all is said and done, the battle is won, the process is delivered and the actual product ends up in the hands of our actual customers - the experience is perfect harmony.?

Which brings me back to my earlier point about the intangible notion of ‘brand’ as distinct from a tangible company or its people and processes. The brand is the value of the product or service at the endpoint of the user’s experience of it - nothing more and nothing less.