Your brand is what you do

I read with some interest the post by the CEO of Zappos entitled Your Culture is your Brand.  There are several things I'd like to expound on in this blog. 

The first is to note that the CEO of Zappos, who I am sure is a very busy executive, is taking the time to blog.  He understands the value of speaking to his online consumers and customers, and is building a network of engaged consumers.  He is also constantly reinforcing what he believes is important, to his management team, to his employees and to his prospects and customers.  After reading his post, I have no doubt about the focus and goals of Tony, and I suspect that this filters down to the rest of the organization.  Contrast this with a lot of the firms I do consulting work with.  In many cases blogging is banned, and even reading blogs from other individuals or firms is difficult or banned.  In addition, many firms don't have a clear strategy or message that has been communicated, much less a CEO that is willing to state publicly what is important or unimportant.

Next, I'd like to point out that eventually your brand is not what you say, but what you do.  Most people believe that branding is about a logo and a tagline.  These are the manifestations of what we say our brand is about and what our values reflect.  However, if every customer touchpoint and interaction don't reflect that brand, then eventually any marketing or other reinforcement of the icons, taglines and other messages won't matter, because people will remember the interaction and its success or failure in achieving the message and intent of the brand. 

I've had the experience to work with several firms struggling to communicate their value proposition and their intent.  What senior leaders often don't understand is that if there is not a clear message reinforced by the evaluation and compensation metrics, people will literally make up something to believe in and will reinforce that belief or message.  That belief or message may be as simple as "leave me alone and let me get back to my magazines" from a sales clerk, or it may be exceptional good service because one individual or team thought that was the right thing to do.  In the absence of a clear, compelling intent and ongoing reinforcement, there's not a vacuum - there are hundreds of different messages or brands and customer experiences, depending on who you happen to interact with that day. 

So, you can dispense with the fancy ad budgets and neato icons.  They don't matter until the messages, cultural attitudes and customer experiences reflect something that is consistent.  In fact one could argue that you should build the cultural attitudes, reinforced by how people are measured, evaluated and compensated, and then build the tagline and the logo or icon.

I hope the Zappos employees realize that they are lucky to have a CEO who understands the importance of culture and engaging the entire workforce in a clear consistent message about the importance of the corporate culture.  I'm sure there are some unhappy or dissatisfied people at Zappos - there are some everywhere - but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of the employees - and customers - are excited and engaged by the company and its service.