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Writer's pictureGiles Orford

Where to start in pursuit of consistency

I had just completed Focusrite’s Tone of Voice as part of a revision to their Brand Guide. I had also kicked off a glossary and lexicon initiative to operate group-wide, with variations by territory and brand, all in pursuit of improved consistency. I saw them as beautiful tools in their own right, stunning in their simplicity, and entirely fit for purpose. To that end, I couldn’t help but impress my own pride and excitement upon those around me. Surely everyone felt, just like me, that these tools would be transformative for all, driving consistency as well as saving time. Sadly, it wasn’t until a year later that any real value would be gained outside of marcomms, and it was only when I looked beyond my own department that I realised where the true impact would be achieved.



I also fell into another trap; mistaking beautiful theory for valuable practice. I gave a presentation to the management team on some of the key internal brand initiatives that were, in my opinion, going to transform their lives and the fortunes of the business. I was keen to demonstrate that, as the business grew, to ensure customers experienced a singular, consistent human entity, we needed to focus on the areas of greatest impact first. We must not be distracted by obscure and irrelevant touch points. In short, we had to prioritise, and I had developed an approach to touchpoint analysis that would ensure we focussed all our energy in the right places, pursuing consistency where it mattered. I’d even created a new (to my knowledge) equation to bring some data to the process. The problem was it remained theory caught inside the marcomms bubble for months as we shaped, refined and perfected the guides. It would have gone on that way for a while longer had the head of customer experience not casually asked me to take a look at something.


Focusrite had recently developed an MSD (mass storage device) ‘set-up wizard’, for their 3rd gen Scarlett USB interfaces, triggered upon connection. Indeed, the same solution would be applied to other products, complete with narrated video tutorials, written guides and step-by-step online journeys, guiding the customer through the ultimate getting started experience from the moment they plugged their new unit in. Since Customer Experience was undeniably the team closest to understanding the customer’s mental state throughout this process, and also the team most affected by, and measured on, the success or failure of the solution, it was in their court to deliver. Fortunately though, the Head of Customer Insight sought out my thoughts on the wording for the tutorials. That’s when it clicked. It was the touchpoints outside of marcomms that truly mattered.


Back to this equation then. An equation that should in theory guide any business to prioritise the application of its brand rules to the customer touchpoints most likely to impact its long-term success.


C / (TEQ) Control / (Time x Emotion x Quantity)

Breaking it down, the idea here is to create a comparison metric for the impact of all the brand touch points, to see which deserve the most attention. It considers the quantity of customers that each touch point is likely to influence, the impact of those touch points on each customer, measured in time and graded by emotional investment, and then the degree to which the experience is 'under' the organisation’s control.


By way of a comparison, let’s apply it to the creative work into which many marketing professionals pour significant time and money; advertising, or more specifically in this case, paper media advertising.


Firstly, if we consider time in this context, a paper media ad is, on average, viewed for just a matter of seconds. There are a number of different studies, and I do understand that it’s dependent on numerous factors and varies hugely, but two seconds is a repeat theme here, so let’s go with it. I divide time into five brackets, from one to five seconds, up to an hour plus. The two seconds flicking past an ad scores a ‘one’ on this scale.


Next, when we think of emotional investment in this context, the customer is rarely in a heightened state. They’re enjoying the experience of perusing a subject matter of interest, usually focusing on editorial copy and unlikely to be actively seeking a specific solution. Although your team’s creative masterpiece might be able to evoke some degree of surprise, fear, joy, sadness, anger or disgust, prior to engaging, (assuming they engage at all), more often than not there is little or no expectation on the part of the consumer ahead of having that experience. I’ve historically scored emotional investment from one to five, and at best, paper media scores a ‘two’, no matter how good the creative is.


Quantity is more objective than control and emotion, though it has its own complexities. For the sake of this argument, let’s assume a readership of 20,000, with a 1.5 multiplier for eyeballs on the page, so 30,000 impressions.


Finally, you are in control; well, almost. You can’t always manage the surrounding content (though you should always try, given the impact of subconscious precursors on our frame of mind) but you can at least control the content itself entirely. I apply a one to five score for control too, and paper media ads are routinely a four or five, dependent on whether one can control the surrounding media.


With all the data plugged in, I don’t bother normalising it. Indeed, I usually hide the results column. You just need to understand which touchpoints rise to the top. It’s the prioritisation that matters here, not the score (or perhaps I just want to hide my mathematical ineptitude). Regardless, paper media ads would routinely drop down the list, which is one of the reasons why the associated budget at Focusrite diminished over time too.


Now back to that chance opportunity that should never have been left to chance; to help write the script for the ‘Getting Started’ content.


On average, the getting started experience lasts longer than 20 minutes. In my scoring system, that’s a four. More importantly though, the emotional engagement is at its peak. The customer has just invested hard-earned cash in an item for which they have high hopes. Chances are, especially with more complex technology, they’ll also have substantial fears. ‘Will it do what I want it to? Will it work with my system? Is it really going to make a difference?’ Either way, that first experience with a new product scores extremely high on emotional engagement. Get it right, and you can have phenomenal impact, creating an almost evangelical advocate for your brand or service. Get it wrong, and you may end up with a detractor for life.

"that first experience with a new product scores extremely high on emotional engagement. Get it right, and you can have phenomenal impact"

In terms of quantity, I can’t share the specific number of customers who went through this emotionally-charged, 20-minutes+ experience, but nearly every customer did, and Focusrite are undeniably the world’s most popular audio interface brand; it’s a large number.


Finally, the entire experience, from the point they connect the unit, to ticking the box to confirm they’re happy with their new set-up, is entirely in Focusrite’s control to create and refine, with a constant feedback loop to improve, ad infinitum.


The getting started experience ended up being the single most important brand touch point for both Focusrite and Novation, and has since led me to realise how valuable touch point analysis is. It’s the old adage of ‘planning prevents poor performance’ which applies here in spades. Taking the time to really analyse how customers touch your brand, across the entirety of the organisation will help to ensure you direct your initial pursuit for consistency towards the right areas.


And if you’ve not yet created a guide to secure the kind of consistency essential in developing a ‘love brand’, do the touchpoint analysis first. Relish the opportunity to immerse yourself in areas of the business you’ve perhaps shied away from in the past. You might be surprised where the biggest opportunities lie. It’s a powerful reminder then that Marketing isn’t a department. Marketing is the entire business and brand consistency touches everything. Identify the biggest influencers in your organisation and get them involved in developing the tools you need to achieve consistency together. Play with the numbers and see what rises to the top. Reaching out in this way may just be the catalyst you need to rethink your own marketing mix, and perhaps even transform the entire business.

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