From Advertising Supplier to Management Partner

STEP 1: Let's Get Excited Together to Enhance Corporate Value

Part 4: From Advertising Supplier to Management Partner

 

The customer's brand experience is like a "journey"

 

With the proliferation of social media, information about brands is now easily shared not only at the point of purchase, but also about experiences before and after buying. Previously, the process was complete after bombarding pre-purchase audiences with massive advertising. Today, however, impressions after purchase and actual use, along with feelings about after-sales service, can be shared with a single click and spread at incredible speed and scale.

Customer touchpoints with a brand must be understood across three stages: pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase. Furthermore, the proliferation of smart devices tends to increase the number of touchpoints with the brand. Viewing these customer-brand interactions as a continuous "flow" and managing them effectively is essential for enhancing brand value.

This is the starting point for the concept of "designing the total brand touchpoint experience." Comparing the customer's brand experience to a journey, it is called the "customer journey." Furthermore, the "customer journey" applies not only to everyday consumer goods but also to the entire service sector where brands are not tangible objects, such as hotels, hospitals, and banks.

Consider, for example, a customer taking out a mortgage from a bank to purchase a new condominium. From planning the purchase to looking back on this major life event after successfully buying the condo and securing the loan, even a rough estimate reveals over ten touchpoints between the customer and the bank (see right diagram). Incidentally, in typical consulting, a power session is held with the client's task force team and Dentsu Consulting Inc.'s staff to map out the brand experience of obtaining a mortgage from the bank from the customer's perspective.

A highly effective method for identifying customer touchpoints with the brand and extracting customer insights at each point is called "persona analysis." The term "persona" means "mask," representing a kind of virtual experience akin to role-playing. Even within the experience of obtaining a mortgage from a bank, the perceptions at each brand touchpoint will naturally differ between a young salaried worker getting his first loan after marriage and a 50-something department head with high financial literacy moving homes for the third time. Project members, like Watanabe-kun, a young sales rep with an athletic background, or Okada-bucho, the sales planning department head with an MBA, take on specific personas. They then immerse themselves in the actual sequence of brand experiences. Then, from the customer's perspective, they identify where the gap lies between expectations and reality for that brand (the bank).

How did they feel after reading the bank's website and brochures? Was the mortgage application waiting room comfortable? If not, what caused the discomfort? How would they rate the service at the application counter? How did the staff member who directed them to the counter behave? By doing this, we gradually see what kind of brand experience needs to be designed at each touchpoint to provide customers with a pleasant time and make them feel glad they chose that bank for their loan after purchasing a condominium.

We clarify the ideal customer journey befitting the brand, the state it should be in, and then backcast (work backwards) to get closer to that. Having the client's employees role-play from the customer's perspective also helps them objectively consider where their own brand value lies. Furthermore, in terms of making it personal, I believe there's also an aspect of internal branding.

This kind of consulting rarely emerges solely from left-brain, logical thinking. It stems from the breakthrough power of ideas that engage the right brain too, exciting both the client and ourselves. That's the kind of proposal we aim to deliver.

 

We believe that if we refine our strategy and tactics, we can always win.

 

Finally, a brief personal note. My awakening to the world of strategy and tactics dates back to my university days. I was part of the University of Tokyo baseball team, and to compete against other schools fielding teams of pre-professional players, we needed unique team strategies and tactics.

We'd deliberately trail by scores like 2-4 or 1-3 until late in the game, keeping the opponent complacent. Then, when they were certain of victory and their focus wavered, we'd seize one of our few opportunities using our mobility to turn the game around. We'd exploit their panic—"Losing to Tokyo University would be disastrous!"—and run away with the win. It was the classic underdog strategy. As chief manager, I conducted extremely detailed analysis of opposing teams. The joy when our plan worked perfectly and we won exactly as intended was incomparable.

The Tokyo Big Six Baseball League has a history of nearly 90 years, and Tokyo University has recorded 244 wins (against 1,530 losses). That translates to a win rate of just under 15%. Winning twice a year was considered a success, yet during my time there, we managed an astonishing 24 victories. Even a team clearly inferior in raw talent can win by honing strategy and tactics. The Tokyo Big Six Baseball games at Jingu Stadium are the origin of my ongoing journey.

Strategy only yields favorable results when analysis, policy, and action align. Good analysis leads to good policy, making clear what needs to be done. I believe this fundamental principle applies equally to baseball and brand strategy. Dentsu Consulting Inc. has also seen its capabilities grow increasingly robust. Moving beyond our traditional role as an "advertising supplier," we will now demonstrate our strength as a One & Only "business partner" capable of addressing diverse management challenges.