My first instinct in response to Casey’s sentiment (which, in context, was applicable to all banks with a social media presence) was to be somewhat affronted. After all, the agency I started works hard to help brands establish and maintain their social media presence as a full time occupation. I’d like to believe that all that hard work translates into nothing short of a fundamental transformation in the service culture of those companies.

Casey was right though – few corporate brands achieve a seamless experience between their on-the-ball, client-centric social media profiles and the actual day-to-day touch points between “ordinary” staff and “ordinary” clients.

Michael Jordaan, as the Twitter-savvy CEO of FNB, has gained notoriety (and I dare suggest a few customers) for his candid, sincere engagement on the platform. His pride and passion are contagious – it’s not hard to get excited about a brand whose fearless leader embraces innovation so willingly. After all, that’s what I want from the brands I spend money with – they must do the basics exceptionally well, and delight and surprise me with market-leading innovations. Michael recently elaborated on his fascination with Twitter in a Mail & Guardian article:

(Twitter) encourages and facilitates quick, impulsive conversations with your customers and the public and shatters the traditional hierarchies and channels of ­executive communication…

But social media are changing the way businesses connect with the press and I love being part of a network that tunes me in to the multiple and overlapping conversations that make our society so vital, interesting and dynamic.

Clearly, Michael gets social media engagement, as do many modern executives and business leaders. But surely the true value of their enthusiasm should be measured in the impact of that enthusiasm on the service culture of the organisations they represent?

I recently switched to FNB. The overall experience hasn’t been bad, but straight away the unmistakable characteristics of corporate silos, hierarchies, competition and anti-collaboration have been evident. I was contacted by FNB Premier banking, and met with a consultant, but even though I qualify as a private client I was motivated to join Premier banking because that was what suited the consultant. I relented on the basis that Premier banking would be cheaper, but the truth is I’m fundamentally lazy and would rather enjoy the pleasure of a Private banker than, well, do any banking-related admin at all. I did explain this to the consultant…

As soon as I signed up for Internet banking, the Discovery Credit Card I have had for years reflected on my profile – because of the link between Discovery and FNB. Today I had a query about that card – yes, the same one that is reflected on my profile – and got told by my assigned Premier assistant that they couldn’t help me with my enquiry but that I had to contact the Discovery Credit Card call centre to get the query resolved. I replied – and yes I sounded like a whiny snob but I think I had a case – that if I wanted to contact the Discovery call centre I wouldn’t have switched to FNB Premier banking. Swiftly picking up on my tone the assistant agreed to email Discovery for me to resolve the query. Surely that should have been the default option?

I’m under no illusions as to how hard it is to replicate the service ethic of social media profiles across corporations, but the goal is to try your level best. After all social media is so much more than a bunch of websites that link people together – it is a fundamental shift in the way we connect, communicate and collaborate with each other, with our colleagues and with our customers. It is incumbent upon brands that invest in social media profiles to educate key service staff, every day, about the evolving connected consumer and how to engage with them. The risk for those that don’t is that the blatant dissonance between the online and offline experience of the brand is so off-putting, that it does more damage than if you’d never been there in the first place!

Am I saying that brands shouldn’t be on Twitter, Facebook and others if they can’t pull a Zappos and present a ubiquitous client-centric brand across all touch points? Absolutely not, that would make me a hypocrite. I applaud all brands that make an effort, but would encourage a more concerted effort toward acknowledging that no two customers are the same and that all attempts must be made to establish departments and teams, failing a service ethic that encompasses this truth across the business, that can ensure a consistently good (or even consistently average) experience of the brand for influential customers.

Client-centricity is a misnomer. Today, brands need to focus on identifying and influencing influencers, because there is no better salesperson than a satisfied customer. Satisfied influential customers influence the masses in turn, and that advocacy will motivate a change of heart in even the most stoic dissenters. This is the value we try to add to our clients – strategies and training that fundamentally shift the experience of the brand in line with the social promise of the brand, in the eyes and hearts of its customers.

Are brands on social media simply smearing lipstick on the pig? Yes. Does it need to stop there or can the pig be fundamentally transformed into a, um, non-pig-like thing over time? Yes. Who can teach your corporate pig how to be non-pig-like? Your clients. So listen to them.

I have asked my FNB Premier consultant to advise me on Private banking. We’ll see how that goes :)

As a direct result my clients typically freak out when presented with the reality of social media, the tide of conversation around their brands and the idea that whether they like it or not they are going to be spoken about online. They acknowledge the need to engage, and yet are petrified at what might happen when they open up these channels of communication.

This dynamic has forced me to think carefully about why people complain, what a complaint is and what it actually means for a brand. If we strip down complaints to the core, a few key truths are undeniable:

1. There are only two possible outcomes for every complaint

   Recently I crapped all over Kulula because I received an SMS about a delayed flight en route to the airport one Friday morning a few months back. The delayed flight meant I’d miss an important presentation in Durban, and I was livid. I was on Twitter in a flash, ranting and raving and whining about Kulula’s incessant tardiness (or at least my perception of the same).

   Had I read the SMS better I would have realised it referred to another flight to Durban, also with Kulula, but three days later (the following Monday). Awkward. Once I realised my error I quickly hopped back online and apologised profusely. Thankfully Kulula had a laugh with me about my brainfart and all was resolved.

   I realised through this experience that when someone complains online there are only two possible outcomes: either the consumer is wrong, or the company is wrong. Once you’ve realised that, you can start to learn something from the experience (which brings me to my next point…)

2. Social media communities self-regulate

   If, like me in the previous example, the consumer is in the wrong, very often social media communities self-regulate around the brand. This is not always true but thanks to the open, democratic nature of the social web there is more opportunity for this dynamic to play out than any other forum.

   A number of people responded to my Kulula rants saying they agreed and that their experience of Kulula was the same. But an overwhelming majority responded in disagreement, saying they had not had such a negative experience and were in fact massive fans of the brand. The community self-regulated to the positive, normally a clear indication that a brand is doing a pretty good job and that it enjoys a significant measure of positive sentiment online. The converse is true if the community self-regulates the other way.

   time and time again I see the online community rallying around brands when consumers are truly out of line and in some instances we’ll advise our brands to step back and wait for the reaction of the community to a particularly unruly consumer.

   All that said, most often when a customer complains online it’s not them that are wrong but the brand, and when that is the case…

3. Humility and learning

   …learn from it, dammit! Brands are so defensive, and so afraid of appearing human in any way, shape or form. Let’s face it, if someone complains, and they’re not wrong, then…

   YOU’RE DOING A CRAP JOB.

   When the fit hits the shan and it’s clear you failed, surely you’d want to learn from that mistake and ensure it doesn’t happen again? When Jane finds a staple in her burger, complains to the franchise manager and he tells her “tough luck”, surely you’d want to know that so you can prevent it from happening again?

   Mistakes are the building blocks of innovation. If you never did anything wrong – if you never failed – you’d have no reason to improve as a business, you’d have no reason to invest in your brand. But nobody’s perfect, and you may as well focus on evolving when a chink in your armour is revealed.

   When you do that well, something magical happens:

4. Complaints are testimonials waiting to happen

   Google doesn’t forget – yet another reason our clients panic when they realise they’re getting talked about online. Every compliment and complaint – every engagement with every consumer – leaves an audit trail that other consumers can track, follow and judge you on. As such a paradigm shift is required when it comes to complaints. Every complaint is an opportunity for you to showcase how awesome you are at turning a situation around. Every complaint should be an opportunity for positive PR. Every complaint should be a testimonial.

   As such, approach every jibe and sneer with enthusiasm and vigour knowing that you can completely alter the perception of the brand through every positive engagement online.

   There is a worse sin than not turning a complaint into a compliment though…

5. Missing compliments is an even greater risk

   …and that’s missing the opportunity to engage with a consumer who says something good about you. Our clients are constantly scrambling, panicking about all the negative things people are saying about their brands and sometimes forget that missing an opportunity to thank a fan for their advocacy is an even greater risk. Fans are gold. Failure to acknowledge them is death. It is so much harder to win a true fan than convert an “unbeliever”, so when you have them treasure them.

Complaints are not all that bad. Complaints need to be seen as opportunities. Whether you like it or not, they’re going to happen and how you choose to see them and deal with them could be the difference between you succeeding and failing in your attempts to grow brand equity online.

This is a good thing. Brands tend to forget that platforms like Facebook and Twitter were created for individuals to connect with other individuals, and not as business tools. When creating profiles, responding to and initiating conversations, businesses are constantly challenged with this dynamic and as a result have had to unlearn some of the long-standing principles of traditional marketing to succeed.

But that is only one side of the story. Not enough, in my opinion, is being said about the responsibility consumers have when they interact with each other, and with brands, online. The power of freedom of speech and the open and democratic nature of social platforms tends to encourage behaviour that is incongruent with how individuals might behave in “real life”. Consider the recent example of Ard Matthews‘ well-documented foul up of the South African National Anthem on live television. Angry citizens on Twitter and Facebook hurled violent insults and jibes at him – statements I’d be willing to bet they’d never say to him face to face.

I recently had a public spat with Dale Immerman (who is in fact a rad dude, I just didn’t agree with him in this instance), about a conversation he had with @StandardBankGrp, Standard Bank’s Twitter presence. I felt like Dale was bullying Standard Bank (you can see the whole conversation here – http://bettween.com/mikestopforth/idale), and I had a bit of a go at him as a result. I’m probably hyper-sensitive to this dynamic because of the abuse I witness our clients receiving at the hands of sometimes unreasonable consumers.

Uncle Ben (from Spiderman for the non-geeks out there) told Peter Parker that “great power comes with great responsibility.” To say that the average Twitter user with 200 followers has great power is a bit of a stretch, but it’s an undeniable fact that social media users (who have no access to any other media platforms) have greater reach and influence than what they would have had before they built those profiles, and it cannot be ignored. Surely consumers should be more conscious of their behaviour online? Surely, seeing as businesses are made up of individuals and have Twitter and Facebook profiles run by individuals, they should be treated with a degree of respect too? As much as we as consumers expect brands to use social media to connect with us in revolutionary new ways, we should understand that we are required to do so in an equally respectful manner.

There is a danger that consumers who have gained significant levels of influence use that to manipulate and bully brands online. In my experience, practicing responsible consumerism (I made that up) elicits a more positive responsive from brands.

With that in mind I’d like to propose a Connected Consumer Code of Ethics – a set of ‘rules’ (maybe guidelines is a better word) that I believe consumers should follow when interacting with brands online. We had a debate at the office about this, so feel free once you have read through it to disagree wholeheartedly!

The Connected Consumer Code of Ethics

• Do some homework. Your insurance company messes up a claim. It’s one thing if you try the website, phone the call centre, go in to your branch, receive no help and then rant and rave on Twitter. But ranting and raving on Twitter because the volume knob comes off the console of your Toyota Auris before taking it into the dealership is unreasonable. Give the brand a fair chance to solve your issue before dragging their name through the dirt.
• Speak as you would expect to be spoken to. If and when you get to the point where ranting and raving on a social platform is your only solution remember there are other human beings behind the social profiles of even the biggest organisations. Profanity and defamation will probably not get you the results you hope for.
• Don’t be a ‘mobster’. Mob mentality kicks in on social platforms, and all too often. One person complains and before you can say “brainless” hundreds more are retweeting and sharing and re-posting the same complaint. If you have an issue with the brand in question, feel free to echo the sentiments of the originator. But if not, why perpetuate negativity? Surely we have enough of that already? (this tip courtesy of Heike.)
• Balance the scales. It’s human nature – it’s so easy to complain when something goes wrong, but so much harder to remember to give kudos when they’re due. Try developing a habit of complimenting brands as often as you slate them.
• Temper your expectations. Even though you as a consumer should not be expected to differentiate between company structures, departments or silos, you should still have a realistic expectation of what a brand is capable of doing online – specific to the limitations of the platform (this tip courtesy of Keenan.)

Perhaps if we are all a little more conscious of and responsible for our actions online, brands will steadily improve their response rates and willingness to take social platforms more seriously as customer service channels. Regardless, I think how you conduct yourself in relation to brands or other users (especially when it’s safe to hide behind a digital mask), says much about your true character. That should be reason enough.

No two brands are exactly the same. Every brand has a different message, culture, strategy and even audience. There’s no arguing that Twitter offers brands a unique opportunity to reach and converse with a captive audience in a relatively personal space – not only to sell but also to learn – but not without a handful of strategic challenges that must be navigated early on. This series of posts will hopefully highlight, and give clues to overcoming, these headaches.

The first challenge you’ll face when venturing into the Twittersphere is exactly how to present your brand. Twitter is after all a space that was designed for individuals and brands have had to adapt to that environment. I’ve been asked, “do we use a persona?”, “should the CEO be tweeting?”, “should multiple people tweet from one account?” etc. The truth is none of these are right or wrong, it’s just that certain options are better suited to some brands than others.

As I see it brands have four (broadly) possible options when deciding on their identity Twitter. Here they are in no particular order, I’ve picked examples for each option that were correct at the time of publishing:

1. As a brand

e.g. Huggies, Woolworths

Companies can choose to present themselves as a logo with a voice. This voice can be authored by an individual, a team of individuals or even an agency. Regardless, the individual / consumer on Twitter is never introduced to the origin of the voice.

On the plus side, this approach allows you to build a team behind the Twitter profile and spread the responsibility of publishing and interacting across a number of individuals. It also will be the option most closely aligned to your CI, and ensure that your brand logo is seen, literally, every time you tweet.

On the negative side this approach is rather impersonal, and gives the average Twitter user the feeling they are speaking to a big grey building rather than an individual, or group of individuals, who genuinely care about them and their concerns.

2. As a team behind a brand

e.g. Ford

In this case a brand will choose to present themselves as a logo but use the Twitter bio or background, or the tweets themselves, to introduce the individual team members behind the content and interactions. The bio from Ford’s Twitter account does this very nicely:

Drive One. This account is run by @ScottMonty (^SM) Digital Communications & @AHall32 (^AH) Technology Communications, with occasional help from our agency team

Tweets end with either ^SM or ^AH to indicate who authored them. This adds a personability and approachability to the account while maintaining the brand identity through the constant appearance of the logo. At Cerebra we highly recommend this strategy, as a change in personnel behind the account is less disruptive. Some of our team accounts have up to 7 or 8 people working on them at one time, using tools like hootsuite to co-ordinate efforts between them.

3. As a (real) individual

e.g. Comcast (Bill Gerth)

Some brands elect to present themselves to the Twittersphere through a single person in the business, often from the marketing or executive teams. Everyone who follows the account is followed in return and engagement is often encouraged to be offline (Bill will ask people with complaints to DM him directly, thereby taking the conversation out of public scrutiny.) This ‘offline’ approach is not unique to these kinds of profiles though, often employed by teams or brands too.

The major disadvantage with this approach, provided of course that Bill is actually a real person sitting behind a desk at Comcast, is what happens the day he decides to leave the company. That personality he’s spent so much time building up at Comcast is suddenly rendered useless. I guess a team or individual could pick up the account and run with it behind the scenes but that would just be odd.

So what you gain in personability and approachability using this approach you lose on the risks of having your brand associated with one person’s name. Even if it’s the CEO, it’s a risk.

4. As a (not so real) individual, persona or character

e.g. FNB (R. B. Jacobs)

In South Africa we have an exceptional example of the fourth approach to Twitter branding – the persona. FNB, a local bank, uses an identity known as @RBJacobs, who is touted as an individual and speaks as an individual even though he is clearly not real (R. B. Jacobs is the generic name printed on credit cards in FNB advertising).

This account is managed by a number of people behind the scenes but we are never introduced to them, nor are we aware at any point in time which of those people we are engaging with. This is not a bard approach as one can be quite creative with the creation of a persona, and can have a team working on it.

The disadvantage is that it is clearly not a real person, which is sometimes a drawback for certain users on Twitter – a bit like telling the Ronald McDonald statue that your burger is off.

Once again it’s important to note that none of these approaches is right or wrong. Which direction you take as a brand will depend entirely on the resources available to you and your willingness to be vulnerable and open in social media.

Regardless of what you decide make sure there is a workflow and strategy for addressing issues brought to the attention of your Twitter profile so that you can deliver on the ‘immediacy’ expectation so characterised by these channels. Users will expect you to react as though you’re sitting glued to the screen all day, with nothing better to do than solve their problems. Good luck!

Let me preface an introduction to it first by that I can’t remember the last time I washed my own car. I feel guilty about that fact because of my upbringing – my dad is one of those men’s men who believes that a man washes his car and is proud of doing so. He’ll get up at 7 on a Saturday and wash his car until it’s spotless. And I appreciate that – he is valuing the possessions he has worked very hard to obtain. I’m different. I could care less for washing my car. I like a clean car and feel good when it is so, but would far rather pay someone to do it for me. I use ‘job creation’ as an excuse…

You might have guessed that the business I am talking about is a humble car wash. Situated on South Rd by the Shell garage (near the Rivers church complex), Morning View car wash is a simple company with a winning formula. It’s not one of those machine washers, it’s a human-only, pressure-washer-powered experience followed by intensive drying and interior cleaning that leaves your car – forgive the cliche but it’s true – good as new.

The owners of the car wash know full well it’s not the easiest business to differentiate from competitors. We have our cars washed largely based on location and convenience. I don’t know many people who are loyal to a car wash! So in order to create loyalty and a repeat customer base they’ve come up with simple ideas that make the experience painless and professional. These were some of my observations:

1. Happy staff. It’s not rocket science… Happy staff mean great service. The supervisors don’t sit back barking orders to their underlings – they get involved, give advice, participate, clean the cars themselves. The most senior people are willing to do the crappiest jobs. It means their staff are interested and motivated. Perhaps they have a scheme in place that rewards staff based on the amount of vehicles they process, I’m not sure, but whatever they’re doing works. The staff I met were professional, smart and friendly. I went upstairs for lunch at Europa and the staff there could learn a lesson from the car washers in the basement…

2. It’s freakishly clean. Car washes are supposed to be littered with manky rags, cranky old vacuums, rubbish from cars, etc. But the whole area is kept clean and tidy, probably by the staff who actually care about where they work.

3. Above and beyond. I paid R 130 – R 70 for wash, dry, interior and tyre polish and R 60 for a leather treatment. Then after the clean, which was great, I asked one of the supervisors to look at an oily stain on the door panel leather, which he then proceeded to fix for me, no extra charge. Before I climbed back in my car someone had put a little carpet outside it to prevent me treading soapy water into the car. How’s that!? Just excellent service all round. Customers don’t remember businesses who do what they expect, they remember those that exceed their expectations.

The parking area underground was packed with at least 30 freshly washed cars, with many lined up to get washed outside. The valet area (R 400 whole day clean on every part of the car) was packed too. It’s simple – do great work and business will come, regardless of how ‘ordinary’ your occupation is.

interesting read, the decision wasn’t purely made because of our SM channels. And it wasn’t leaked to News24. thanks

Yesterday Twitter and Facebook were pumping with debate around a News24 story which reported that Woolworths “(had) taken a business decision to no longer stock any religious magazines, with immediate effect”.  Christian shoppers were up in arms, threatening a boycott until the decision was reversed, and the furore soon descended into a rather scathing (as is often the case with religion) argument on Woolies’ various social media platforms (see their Facebook fan page as an example).

Woolworths, who have historically been lauded for their conduct and responses on social media platforms (including by myself), were distinctly absent from the conversation, and to be frank I don’t blame them.  It got ugly, fast.

At 16h00, Woolworths announced the following on Facebook:

We have been overwhelmed by the response. Thanks to everyone who has supported us – we really appreciate it. It was not our intention to offend any religious group. Woolies has a deep regard for all faiths and will continue to respect all our customers’ beliefs. We’ve always prided ourselves on listening to our customers and we really do want our social media pages to be a 2-way conversation. As a retailer, we continually review all our products including magazines and stock products that our customers want and buy. You posted – we listened and have now decided to put all magazines back on our shelves. We will continue to take a retailer’s view on our catalogue going forward to ensure we stock the magazines that most of our customers want.

I don’t agree with this move.  That said, I’m not sure Woolworths had too many options left after the explosion of negative PR around the issue online.  There were clearly a series of mistakes made that hopefully you and I and other brands like Woolworths can learn from:

1. Why was the decision made in the first place, and how was it communicated?

To be leaked to News24 (who must have fallen over themselves in excitement at finding out about the rather controversial move), someone internally had to have communicated this as a decision to”remove religious titles from shelves”, or something similar.  I’m a Christian, I love God, and yet I still see the sense in a retailer removing titles from stores if those titles aren’t making enough money, or turning fast enough.  That’s just good business sense.  But somehow this was communicated internally in such a way as it sounded religiously motivated, not commercially motivated.  This was a disaster long before News24 broke the story, simply because of how it was communicated.

2. A lack of engagement

Woolies, historically very vocal in their social media channels, were suddenly conspicuously quiet – like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. That silence irked consumers who have traditionally been spoiled with the openness and transparency Woolies usually leverages when the going is good, and let’s be frank, for Woolies the going is often good. Everyone loves Woolies. That’s another point – this wasn’t so much a backlash against Woolies as that age-old religious debate rearing it’s head. Another example – all those boycott-happy people who loathed BP so much for the gulf oil spill, I guarantee you, are back at BP stations filling up already. Two weeks from now nobody will remember these shenanigans and if they do, they won’t care.

3. Woolies’ skewed perception of the role of their social media audience

Woolworths have done an amazing job of building up a strong brand presence and community on Facebook and Twitter. Having achieved this their next strategic focus must be on how to include these smitten fans in such a way as to entrench a perception of transparency among them. No brand can afford to be completely transparent. They can be authentic, don’t get the two confused, but transparency is risky. So if Woolworths were thinking of removing certain titles from their shelves, and they sniffed even a whisker of controversy at that decision (which I have to believe they did), my suggestion would have been the following…

Communicate via social media, and in store, the instatement of a ‘customer referendum’ – a bit of a political play that echoes the likes of Nandos and Kulula. Announce that the business needs to make a decision about keeping certain titles on the shelf, and removing others. Ask customers in store to vote for their 3 favourite titles (and stand a chance to win subscriptions to all 3), and ask social media fans to vote on polls on the Facebook fan page to show which titles they love best. Ascertain via this process which titles people really have an affinity for and then gently, quietly, remove those that people don’t over a period of time.

The brand could then use the same ‘referendum’ mechanism to ask fans to vote for products they’d like to see, or products the brand used to stock which have been removed from shelves in the past, etc.

The major issue I see here is that Woolies have a skewed perception of the role and influence of their social media audience. The audience is a minority. A small, loud bunch of fans who should not drive business decisions. Changing a business decision because 34,000 fans are arguing about it is like refusing to drive to work because you have a blister on your foot. Sure it’ll sting, but at least you’ll be earning money.

The social media audience should have been included in the decision making process, thereby enforcing their advocacy and fanaticism for the brand. You could still remove religious titles rather surreptitiously, but I guarantee much less noise would have been made because all customers and fans would have felt like they were part of the process. Remember – the customer is king, but they sure as hell are not always right.

You might argue that it’s over and Woolies have won over their audience again by this retraction, but I argue that they’ve set a very dangerous precedent they will have to honour in future by being swayed by a blister on their foot. It’s going to be interesting to see how that pans out for them.

The conference will discuss pertinent issues relating to media, public relations and branding in both the public and private sectors. The premise is that media, public relations and branding combined act as a magnet, and a channel of communication, that holds all sections of an organisation together.

The summit promises to focus on new strategies aimed at improving public relations and corporate communications for companies. The idea is that this will improve your company’s reputation in the eyes of management and stakeholders. According to the organisers, those who attend will walk away with the latest ways to integrate media measurement into their company’s business goals.

When: 20 to 21 October, 2010

Where: The Park Hyatt Hotel, Rosebank, Johannesburg, South Africa

Fee: R7999

To attend, contact Bronwyn: 011 781 9131 or info@asmcomm.co.za by close of business on Tuesday 19^th of October.

I am a golfer. Well, not really. I am a guy who owns golf clubs, who tries relentlessly to play the ridiculously frustrating game with some semblance of skill. Honestly, it seems my golf game gets worse the harder I try. But I try nonetheless.

One of the ways I assuage my pain is to blame the golf clubs. Before you judge me, I know it is my fault and not the clubs – I know very well that a skilled golfer can use average clubs and still play well, whereas a useless golfer can use the best clubs in the world and still be useless – but it makes me feel better.

On a recent trip to the Woodmead Pro Shop I decided I would replace my perfectly good Taylormade driver with a Callaway alternative. The salesman, thinking he needed to let me swing the golf club to secure a sale (when I would have happily walked out the door with it straight away), secured a net and a few stray golf balls and encouraged me to have a wallop. The series of wallops that followed confirmed beyond a doubt that I am able to produce a big ugly fade with remarkable regularity, and as such, that my swing needs serious work.

The salesman gave a bit of advice, advice I have heard before, and encouraged me to try again. Same results.

He then told me, in no uncertain words, that he refused to sell me the club, or any club for that matter, until I fixed my golf swing.

Here was a guy who, I imagine, does not earn a fortune doing what he does, and yet he turned away a sure sale (and I’m sure guaranteed commission) because he knew what was right for me, and insisted I acknowledge the facts.

The Pro Shop lost a sale that day (of a R 4,000 driver, I might add), but because of one salesperson’s honesty and integrity, have secured a customer for life. Sometimes it pays to turn business away.

These are the unedited, unrefined thoughts I penned around “branding”. I’d love your comments and contributions, whether you agree or not!

What have brands got to do with it?

We’re precious about our brands, aren’t we? We spend the GDP of a small African state on creative agencies so that they can come up with a funky logo bundled with a 42-page Corporate Identity document – “something that reflects the personality of the brand.”

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a funky logo. But do not be fooled – many a business with a crappy logo has done fine on the back of great internal culture, quality products and solid customer service. Seldom will you find the reverse – companies with beautifully designed corporate identities but diabolically bad products and customer service, who thrive.

What we need to realise is that ‘brand’ and ‘logo’ are not synonymous.

Picture a stream of shoppers coursing through the passageway of a popular local mall. Some are coming, some are going. Some are heavily laden with a day’s purchases and others skip from store to store. Every single one of them passes a bank which rents space on that floor – let’s call it National Unified, or better yet, substitute in your mind’s eye your bank of choice.

Now thanks to the central marketing and branding team at National Unified every shopper notices the backlit logo mounted on the wall above and next to the revolving door leading into the branch. Much time, energy and money has been put into ensuring that the ‘brand experience’ is consistent regardless of which branch of National Unified you find yourself in.

The thing is, that’s only half helpful. Regardless of how slick and current National Unified’s shiny logo is, and no matter how well appointed the branch layout and décor is, no two people passing or entering the store will feel exactly the same way about the bank.

Surely this is not news to you?

Joe walks past, notices National Unified, but it’s not his bank – he’s with RFB (a National Unified competitor) – and as such doesn’t really care.

Sally walks past, thinks of the cash she nearly forgot to draw for her son’s sports day, and quickly darts inside, heading toward the ATM. “Thanks goodness there was a branch right here to remind me”, she thinks.

Jennifer walks into the bank behind Sally, nervous as she needs to file an application for a homeloan and has been turned down twice already at National Unified competitors. National Unified has the power the to make her dreams come true, or break her heart.

Fred walks past the bank in the opposite direction to Joe. Fred recently resigned from his job as an advisor at National Unified, and can only cast his eyes heavenward in gratitude that he took the plunge. Thanks to a particularly narcissistic boss, he absolutely hated working there.

Every one of these stories, emotions, associations and relationships contributes to the ‘brand’. A brand then is so much more than a logo; it is the collection of emotions and associations each individual person who comes into contact with that logo has. We can draw two very scary conclusions from this:

1. There are as many different ‘definitions’, or ‘realities’, for your brand as there are human souls who connect with it.
2. It is absolutely impossible to assume that we can control how people feel about our brand, at least directly.

Let me explain that second point with an example: A popular motor vehicle manufacturer is in the throes of a PR crisis centered around a recall of faulty vehicles. In order to ‘change perceptions’ in the market, their agency puts together a wonderful feel good campaign with smiling faces and picnic baskets and Labradors to convince us that their vehicles are in fact not coffins on wheels.

The company spends millions on making sure everybody sees this campaign. Billboards, double-page spreads in industry magazines and weekend papers, TV, radio and cinema. It’s a big one.

Meanwhile, you are in the market for a reliable family sedan. You’ve done your homework. Part of your homework was watching a video a friend of a friend posted to his Facebook profile demonstrating how his faulty recall vehicle spontaneously combusted because of an electrical short. That image – the story of a trusted contact in your personal network – is burned in your mind.

What measure of exposure to the aforementioned campaign – the picnics and smiles and Labradors – will it take to trump that image in your mind? I’m guessing it’s going to take some doing. Your perception of the brand has been forged by the most powerful form of advertising there is – a referral from a friend. And unfortunately for the company in question, it’s a bad referral.

So how then do you ensure the collective perception of your brand, in the mind of both your customers and your employers, is as congruent as possible with the brand you idealise?

Do a good job.

That’s common sense.

Technical crap aside, it’s all fair and well having a faster, more expensive car but if you don’t have the after sales service to go with it you may as well not bother. I did not buy the Merc new, but it was recently due for it’s second service and so my first experience with Merc Sandton came to pass.

What a breath of fresh air. There’s not much between Audi and Merc, car-wise. I mean, there’s not much between an A4 2.0T and a C200. But there certainly is a big gap in service ethic between Audi Sandton and Merc Sandton (I can’t speak for other branches). From the moment I pulled up this morning, I was surprised – friendly staff, freshly-brewed coffee, orderly processing of vehicles, and a swiftly organised lift from the dealership to my breakfast appointment – all done and dusted in about 10 minutes.

When I picked up my vehicle the seats and steering wheel had been covered in plastic to prevent dirt or scuffing, and the car was spotless. It took another 10 minutes to pick up my keys, sign the paperwork and leave.

And then my heart sank.

I realised my CD changer was empty. All my CD’s were gone. A Leatherman I keep in the middle console was missing. So was the loose change, and, I kid you not, my gum and tissues were gone too.

I was livid. So much excitement, followed by such devastating (and all to familiar) disappointment. In fact I lost a wedding ring to an Audi dealership the same way.

In a state I phoned the service advisor Martin Fortuin to ask if he knew anything about it. He asked me to hold for a second, returned to the phone and broke the news…

My stuff, all of which had been carelessly left in the car by me (I’m bad that way), was all tucked away neatly and safely in a Ziploc bag back at the dealership, ready for my collection. Wow. If only all brands understood service and honesty like Mercedes-Benz do.

I might never own another brand of car. I mean, who needs more than the sound of that V8?