A blog about marketing, causes and a variety of topics in the “goodsphere”

Category Archives: Marketing

Marketing your hyperlocal reputation (or just being a good neighbor)

Posted on August 30, 2010 in Marketing, The Future, Urban renewal

I’ve lived in quite a few different places over the years (Switzerland, NY, Arizona, multiple locations in Germany, etc.) and everywhere I’ve been, I’ve had some pretty interesting neighbors.  In some places, it was really easy to meet people (almost too easy sometimes).  In other places, it was a bit harder.

In today’s increasingly transient world, people don’t stay in 1 place for a very long time and neighborly relationships are getting harder & harder to forge.

A few years ago, Robert Putnam warned in Bowling Alone that our stock of social capital - the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities.   Here are some depressing/interesting factoids from the book:

  • Every ten minutes of commuting reduces all forms of social capital by 10%
  • Joining and participating in one group cuts in half your odds of dying next year
  • Watching commercial entertainment TV is the only leisure activity where doing more of it is associated with lower social capital.

Encouragingly, a new generation of peer to peer online businesses are helping connect “people to neighbors” and reverse the “Bowling Alone” trend.  The NYT recently reported on a couple of interesting new web start-ups that allow people to share/rent their stuff.  NeighborGoods, Snapgoods & sharesomesugar are clawing out niches in the “rent online” world or “access economy.”  Both sites have a very social bent and promote saving $$, resources & rebuilding local community (all good ideas in the current zombieconomy).  Oh, and ladies, please check out this one bagborroworsteal (renting high-end handbags).

I can definitely see these sites working well in college towns and cities.  It will be interesting to see if the e-borrowing concept catches traction beyond the urban areas.  Will Ebay decides to step in and offer a “rent” instead of “buy/sell” section of their site as well?

Having a great reputation helps to sell online & offline.  It always has.  Just being a good neighbor & being a little more social offline can help turn around the very depressing “bowling alone” social capital funk we’ve been in over the past few decades.

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Why Engagement?

Posted on July 3, 2010 in Marketing
GLENSIDE, PA - MARCH 08: President Barack Oba...Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I apologize for the irregular postings lately. I will hopefully get into some type of weekly schedule by fall.

Brand teams and brand managers are interested in how much people are engaging with their brand today. Getting people to engage with the brand makes sense intuitively in a world where just about every consumer (myself included) has some dark, nefarious form of 21st century Attention Deficit Disorder.

The problem for the business manager is…how can he/she show that great engagement ultimately translates into top line, bottom line, market share growth or social impact?   Engagement metrics are great (or maybe not so great) but life can get frustrating if engagement metrics are “off the charts” (or at least better than competition) and yet business is in the dumps…

Activity Drives Identity

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the power of online & offline engagement. If you can get people to pay attention, then things should go well at some point down the road for the business.  Acting can involve the following (txs for the list Bob):

• Reading text (consciously)
• Watching video (consciously)
• Playing games
• Forwarding/sharing/voting/”liking”
• Commenting
• Creating text/graphics/audio/video
• Attending (or participating) in an event
• Signing a petition or donating online

So how deeply do we believe (as marketers) that activity ultimately drives identity? Or is it the other way around.  Is it symbiotic? In any case, when people identify with our brands judgmentally they will be more loyal.

Red Bull does “activity” pretty well…they practically own the Xtreme sport territory today. Obama and his staff probably understand the power of activity better than anyone else. I’m continually impressed with how well the Organizing for America online team keeps pushing their community to do something (sign a digital petition, donate, etc.) for Obama’s latest initiatives–health care reform, finance reform, etc.

Transformational activity

Xtreme sports are fine (well, maybe a bit scary for some) but why not consider transforming things along the way? Pepsi is starting to do this with its Refresh campaign.  Sure, Pepsi is just sugar water, but the Brand guys there are driving positive, transformative activity that will engender loyalty and (some day) hopefully lead to top-line/bottom line growth. Side Note: I’m hoping Pepsi will start getting a little more exposure from the mainstream media with their ambitious campaign. Though I like Apple products, I’m getting a little tired of watching CNN interview Apple fans zombies who queue for days to buy faulty phones.

The case for driving “good” engagement internally and externally is here. According to CSR Magazine, being good pays out. The best corporate citizens list, which includes General Mills and I.B.M. (among others) had a total return on shareholder value of 2.37 percent over three years, while the 30 worst companies had a negative 7.38 percent return”.

Faith Based

Engagement is a bit nebulous.  Measuring engagement is a little tricky and tying it back to top/bottom line results even harder.  But everyone seems to believe in it, so lets not waste any opportunities to do good while we are driving it to another level.

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Ku Klux Klan, “Brand Doctor” and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl Crusader

Posted on June 6, 2010 in Books Influencing me, Causes, Leadership, Marketing, Purpose

Doctors are generally some of the most trusted people in America (#3 most trusted profession in a recent poll). They also tend to be some of the wealthiest Americans.

For the most part, we love our doctors. “Brand Doctor” works today. If a guy with a white coat & white teeth sells a product on TV, we’ll believe every word he says.

So it’s curious that “we the people” did not forcefully call on doctors & the powerful medical establishment to propose a viable solution for our 50 million uninsured people in the US over the past few years. Where were all the doctors in the debate over the uninsured? Surely they cared most about all the people left behind by our broken “big healthcare” system?

In the go-go 1920s, roughly 100 years before the latest round of healthcare debates, Dr. Michael Shadid cared.

Shadid was an industrious “foreign born” doctor who battled the Klan, racism and the medical establishment to help poor farmers gain access to quality health care in Dust Bowl Oklahoma. Dr. Shadid was a purpose driven doctor who bucked the system and dared to propose an alternative, cooperative business model in the face of traditional thinking.

Dr. Shadid’s book entitled Crusading Doctor highlights his struggle to start the first cooperative hospital in the US. It also shows just how hard the entrenched establishment will fight to keep the status quo. While reading the book, you’ll like be surprised to discover how ruthlessly and violently Shadid’s fellow doctors openly opposed and slandered him. Many of Shadid’s opponents focused on “what’s good for business” instead of “what’s good for poor, under served people.”

Crusading Doctor & Crusading Marketer
After observing the small community of Carter, Oklahoma build a thriving farming cooperative movement (cotton gins, grocery stores, etc) Dr. Shadid founded America’s first cooperative hospital in Elk City, Oklahoma (where I went to high school).

In 1929, Dr. Shadid’s alternative business plan looked something like this…he would organize 6,000 families who would buy a $50 share of stock with which to build and equip the hospital. Then, the community would pick a board of directors and each family would pay $25 per year (pre-payment plan) for their medical and surgical care.

Dr. Shadid set himself incredibly high targets in the beginning (6,000 members). So, he actually had to start the hospital on a discount system. By 1932, Shadid was able to apply the pre-payment plan. Getting to critical mass wasn’t easy, however. Dr. Shadid quickly became famous for using guerilla marketing tactics, word of mouth & CRM in order to gain enough members. He tirelessly promoted his cause, traveling across the country & lecturing on the benefits of preventative medicine and the cooperative model (a hospital owned by the patients).

Lessons from Dr. Shadid
1. Study Sociology, not just Technology: Dr. Shadid was a lifelong learner who kept up with new treatments and new technologies…but, he also kept up on the sociology and ethics of his profession. He was continuously interested in how his profession impacted people and society. This led him to better understand plight of people vs focusing on his own bottom line.
2. Purpose provides fuel in the face of extreme adversity: Dr. Shadid was very clear about his purpose; he wanted to provide quality health care at affordable rates for hard working, low-income farmers. Dr Shadid was slandered repeatedly as organized medical societies and their powerful allies tried to put him and the patient owned, cooperative hospital out of business year after year. He never wavered in the face of adversity, however, and he always put people and purpose out front.
3. Don’t Forget: Dr. Shadid continually remembered what it was like to live with hunger, poverty & lack of heatlh care, while growing up in an impoverished part of Syria. He remembered what it was like to lose patients in good, hard-working farm families. He didn’t forget these experiences & they fueled his desire to drive change.

What has happened to Dr. Shadid’s model?

As the NYT details in this article: It has survived. Shadid built a team of doctors who collaborated closely and were not paid based on how many procedures they performed. Today, this description fits the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic as well as less-known groups around the country.

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Identity thoughts

Posted on May 25, 2010 in Brand Purpose, Marketing, Randomness, Uncategorized
The Thinker (1)Image via Wikipedia

Identity is a pretty complex “umbrella” concept that gets tossed around a lot. If you talk to someone in business/marketing, identity covers everything from a company name and logo, to an entire image or perceived set of values in the marketplace.

If you talk to a social scientist, they’ll use identity to describe a person’s expression of their individuality. Indeed, social psychologists will see identity as it relates to self-image. They will describe to you how people develop mental models of themselves at the individual level.

Years ago, your identity as an individual was pretty fixed. And, if you lived in a caste society…you basically had no chance to develop a new identity. In our increasingly homogenized global world today, however, identities are more fluid. People often struggle to discover their identity (identity crises happen). Some even look to the marketplace of ideas and commerce for answers. Savvy brands are able to step in and articulate lifestyles or create symbolic worlds that people identify with, filling a void.

Thoughts on what this says about our culture in 2010 aside, how can brands discover this magic identity juice? New age brand building will tell you to turn inside to discover how to build a great brand and unlock that hidden identity that everyone loves. Meditate…hole up in a forest and you’ll come back with a solution.

I’m all for reaching deep inside from time to time, but sometimes we just need to form a vision & start going–start reaching outwards instead of focusing on our navels. Having a bias for action instead of waiting for the field of dreams is a key ingredient in moving anything important forward. All too often mental mind models don’t translate into action plans that change the future.

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Marketing and Military Metaphors

Posted on May 10, 2010 in Leadership, Marketing
LONDON - APRIL 24: Employees of the company U...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

If you start working in the marketing promotion and brand management space, you’ll quickly notice that a lot of the jargon sounds sort of “military-like.”  Experienced managers often talk about developing strategic targets/flanker strategies, launching campaigns & driving guerrilla marketing.

Military Mindsets

Al Ries and Jack Trout developed the warfare / marketing metaphor in their go-go 80s business book entitled Marketing Warfare.  The title perfectly fit the Cold War zeitgeist.  80s marketers likely connected with references to cola wars and burger wars, etc. after checking out screenings of Top Gun and reading Tom Clancy novels.

Corporate Mindsets

On the flip side, the dominate institution of our day (the corporation) has influenced military jargon and mindsets.  Intelligence services offer products & services and private security companies operate with corporate like efficiency.

Kinder, Gentler

By 2010, however, warfare fatigue seems to have set in with respect to military metaphors and business thought leadership.  Command-and-control brand management has come under fire as of late for being outdated and unable to cope with the new realities of the agile web.  Admittedly, in the new world of collaborative and open brands, top-down military references don’t really seem to fit.  Plus, in a day of bank bailouts and corporate greed, people don’t want to hear that they are being “targeted” by people who bizarrely seem to understand their preferences better than they do…

As Pres. Obama recently pointed out in a speech to the Naval Academy:  “After an era when so many institutions and individuals acted with such greed and recklessness, it is no wonder that our military remains the most trusted institution in the nation.” Obama went on to positively highlight what he called the “selflessness and service of all of the armed forces.”

Businesses and marketers have adopted a lot of operational military jargon over the years; it might be time to pick up on some on the values related jargon (selflessness and service) as well.

Peace.

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Celebrity Brand Managers

Posted on May 1, 2010 in Brands and Culture, Marketing
Sean CombsSean Combs via last.fm

Normally, celebrity-brand partnerships start like this…a brand needs a quick boost of awareness around a product or service.  The brand team enlists a boutique celebrity agency to find the right fit.  Boutique agencies evaluate a celebrity’s cultural appeal by using star indices and their own expert intuition.  “Star picking” is kind of like the NFL draft.  A-list stars get chosen fast and command massive fees.

This process sounds pretty straightforward.  Increasingly, however, brand savvy stars are turning down potentially lucrative deals from companies when they don’t feel that the partner enhances their own personal celebrity brand.  And, some celebrities don’t want to be used just for their image; they see themselves as foundational brand builders and want to be part of the entire process.

Celebrity Brand Managers

Sean John Combs (aka P. Diddy) is a good example of this new celebrity mindset.  He recently partnered with Diageo in a very interesting alliance, which allows him to oversee and manage all branding and marketing initiatives for Ciroc Vodka.

According to this NYT article, Combs said he wanted to work with Diageo because the company understood his business and brand savvy.  In the article, Combs was quoted as saying, “I’m not just a celebrity endorser, I’m a brand builder. I’m a luxury brand builder.”

Indeed, Combs is not your run of the mill rapper from the ‘hood; he studied Marketing at Howard University and promoted concerts before becoming an mega-urban lifestyle star.

Celebrity + Brand Partnerships are Working

Companies have clearly seen strong business results from celebrity partnerships.  Chanel, for example, signed Nicole Kidman in 2003 and executed an incredible global campaign which included a mini-movie commercial shot.  According to Euromonitor and the NYT, global sales of Chanel’s classic perfume jumped 30 percent on the back of the campaign.  With companies continuing to see such strong results, celebrity-brand partnerships will only keep increasing.

The use of Celebrity to sell brands is not just confined to the US & Western Europe.  Rohit recently wrote about this phenomenon in India.  Bollywood stars in India sell everything from facial tissues to pens.

Sometimes, though, after a bit of reflection, one gets the sense that we’ve become too obsessed with celebrity.  Reality TV, Celebutantes, Gossip Blogs, Tabloids, Drug Overdoses, people are digging deeper and deeper into the lives of their favorite celebrities today.  And, technology (Twitter, YouTube, etc.) has delivered new ways to track celebrities.  Can all this superficial celebrity infatuation really be that good for us?

Repercussions…

About a year ago, a popular psychologist named Drew Pinsky did a compelling study of the repercussions of today’s fame-obsessed society.  In  The Mirror Effect, Pinsky shows through research that a high proportion of stars suffer from clinical narcissism.  What’s interesting is how the rest of us, especially the youth and teen market, are mirroring these dangerous traits in our own behavior.  Below is the product description of Pinsky’s book on Amazon:

The Mirror Effect reveals how figures like Britney and Paris and Lindsay and Amy Winehouse—and their media enablers—have changed what we consider “normal” behavior. It traces the causes of disturbing celebrity antics to their roots in self-hatred and ultimately in childhood disconnection or trauma. And it explores how YouTube, online social networks, and personal blogs offer the temptations and dangers of instant celebrity to the most vulnerable among us.

Any New Brand Role Models Out There?

Solid business results via the use of celebrity spokesmen/women will likely continue.  There will be times when mega celebrity brands like Tiger Woods stumble, making companies rethink their celeb strategies.  And,  savvy brand builders who understand the system (e.g. P. Diddy) will continue to make the partnership landscape interesting.  I wonder, though… will there ever be a real backlash against celebrity antics?  Will that point ever come?  If that happens, how will brands respond?

I’m going to stop here tonight.  If you have any thoughts, please let me know in the comments.

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The First Apple Product Evangelist & Advocate…

Posted on April 25, 2010 in Marketing, Value
day 24 of 365 daysImage by intuitive cat via Flickr

In the Garden of Eden, all of the apples were (likely) delicious & satisfying and they probably even looked the same.  In a sense…they were commodities.  So how was demand created for the apple hanging from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil?

Reframing Value

The serpent knew that people very often buy into benefits and don’t only choose products on the basis of price.  People have different value equations.  The serpent smartly found a way to turn a commodity product with a big downside (leaving a worry free life in the garden, for a consumer life on a cursed earth) into something incredibly desirable with immediate benefits.

Keeping it Simple & Memorable + Minimizing the Costs

The serpent didn’t make things complex.  He didn’t go into a long manifesto about how great it would be to understand good & evil…nope, he kept his message short, simple & memorable (Your eyes will be opened).  And, the serpent never mentions the significant number of downsides; he keeps his message about the apple upbeat & positive.

Building Advocacy

The serpent also knew that Eve wanted to feel like a smart apple consumer. Eve wanted to pick the superior apple in the garden in order to show her husband that she was a brilliant, savvy shopper.  The serpent knew that Eve would pass on the news about the apple to her husband…

Culture Catches On

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote:

Possessions delude the heart into believing that they provide security and a worry free existence–but in truth, they are the very cause of worry.

Eve didn’t fully understand what she was getting into when she went after the death laced apple.  She’s the first woman to step into the circle of consumer worry and stress.  From the moment she eats the apple, she’s forced to work hard to keep her image as a smart apple consumer.   She even passes the flawed product design & lifestyle to others (Adam).  From now on, they will both need clothes, shoes, and a big McMansion, etc.

Why Adam decides to take the apple recommendation from his wife without asking questions highlights another human failure that’s being discussed in our culture today.  A new movie The Joneses is wholly devoted to the theme of being “sold” by your closest friends and family.  In the Joneses, neighbors befriend neighbors and hide their true intentions (they are really corporate product advocates in disguise) to sell more product.  Though I have not yet seen it, I’m sure the film is a great converation starter about what’s behind word of mouth programs.  

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When the image builders ruin your image?

Posted on April 11, 2010 in Advertising, Brand Purpose, Lifestyle, Marketing, Purpose

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, I was a Andre Agassi fan.  I remember thinking how cool Andre’s life must be…jetting around the world, winning the big tournaments, making the big bucks.  Like many others, I liked Andre because he was a tennis rebel in an often lame world of white shirt tennis guys.  Agassi seemed to be a sort of Gen X rebel with an attitude.

Canon picked up on the Agassi craze and launched an ad campaign early in the tennis star’s career around the rebel concept.  In one ad, Agassi famously quips “Image is Everything.” The line was interesting because you could interpret it in a few different ways: i) a play on words because the product was actually a camera capturing images ii)  a tongue-in-cheek slogan about Agassi’s image iii) a pseudo serious claim that creating some type of outlandish image is required if you wanted to be a winner or cool in the “mullet-infested” early 90s.

An image that ruins your image

In his new tell all book Open, Agassi laments this campaign and rants against the ad agency, the Canon execs and everyone involved in making him parrot the image is everything slogan.  While kids & fans idolized Agassi, the sports media bashed him because he became a cultural star before really proving himself to be a true champion.  The sports media saw the Canon campaign rightly portraying Agassi as a guy with style, but no substance.

Part of the reason (I believe) Agassi decided to write Open was to debunk the idea that he was only an image conscious narcissist who used style and flamboyance to get sports marketing deals.  In the book, Agassi definitely reveals his own flaws as well as the flaws of many others he loves (hates?)  Interestingly, in doing so, the press has come out strongly on his side, with glowing reviews of Open.  Indeed, with Open, Agassi may have benefited from the Pratfall effect…

Pratfall Effect?

Psychologists studying the “pratfall effect” find that when a person is generally competent, making a blunder can actually increase others’ liking of that individual (See this article.)  Agassi’s life appears to be 1 giant blunder in Open.  Hearing that the Gen X star was really a pyromaniac, self-loather, people pleaser, part-time drug user, tennis hater, etc. hurts.  But in some ways, it also reminds us that we’re not perfect either.

Reformed Perfectionista & People Pleaser

There’s one brutally honest part when Brad Gilbert calls out Agassi for trying too hard to be perfect on the court:

When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing?  You’re chasing something that doesn’t exist.  You’re making everyone around you miserable.  You’re making yourself miserable.  Perfection?  There’s about 5 times a year you wake up perfect, when you can’t lose to anybody, but it’s not those 5 times a year that make a tennis player.  Or a human being for that matter.

I’m not a big fan of Gilbert, but I like the idea that we take ourselves too seriously and forget that we’re flawed humans.

No Purpose Man Finds Purpose

Agassi also admits that he saw no purpose or meaning in Tennis.  As his career progresses, it is great to see how he transforms his thinking and realizes that he’s been given all these resources & the gift of celebrity to help people (e.g. Agassi prep academy, Agassi Foundation for Education).  As his website notes…Since retiring in 2006, Andre Agassi has increased his focus on his Foundation and on promoting education reform. He is also building a lifestyle business through endorsement relationships, joint venture investments and real estate development.

But wait, reread the last part of the paragraph above…don’t think for a second that Agassi hasn’t lost his touch with the commercial world; he’s knows he’s still in the lifestyle business.

The Brands are Still There

Agassi has re-fashioned his image over the past decade into family man + philanthropist and the Brands have stayed with him (Adidas, Longines, etc, etc.)  Kreiss even has a Steffi/Andre collection.  Agassi communicates about his activities on this blog.  He definitely still understands the value of image building as he even keeps a PR CEO on his advisory board.

My Own Blunder…

To sum up my rambling comments on the Agassi autobiography, I think Open provides an honest look into the world of a conflicted Sports idol and his relationships/entourage…additionally, Agassi provides some interesting insights into the celebrity world & sports sponsorship/marketing world.  Hopefully he also scares overzealous sports parents into backing off their kids a bit.  Admittedly, I did wonder why Agassi happily promotes this book, which clearly is meant for an adult audience (rough language, etc.) on his education foundation website with an article next to it entitled Agassi’s past doesn’t diminish what he does now.

Maybe on a later blog post I’ll reveal more about my own blunder in trying to get Andre to sit next to me & my German wife in a Stuttgart hotel pub during a Tyson fight.  During the evening, my wife & I were chatting with Brad Gilbert & the rest of Agassi’s entourage.  Agassi walked in and I abruptly asked him to sit with us.  He wouldn’t do it as he probably thought I was a crazed fan.  However, he did shake my hand and we had a small chat about the 1994 US Open.

I embarrassed my own entourage a bit that night with my uncool behavior though.

We all make mistakes…

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Refreshing the American dream

Posted on April 2, 2010 in Lifestyle, Marketing, Randomness

What do you value?

I’ve just stumbled upon an old slideshare presentation listing American core values:

Achievement & Success, Individualism, Freedom, Progress, Material Comfort, Activity, Practicality, External Conformity, Humanitarianism, Youthfulness, Fitness & Health.

Many of these values flow from our history as a country promoting life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness in the “land of plenty.”

James Truslow Adams first coined the term American Dream in his 1931 book Epic of America:  He wrote: “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

When we talk about American dreams, we often forget to mention the social order part that Adams mentions…instead, we tend to focus on the part about high wages & motor cars.

The US has long been seen as the prototypical consumption led economy.  Businesses have successfully “helped us” translate life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness into consumption terms.  “Free” offers are designed to break down our barriers to purchase, our mailboxes are filled with credit card offers, and we have leaders advocating shopping to cure our ills (Pres. Bush post 9/11 speech).  Clearly, we’re living in a culture revolving around the acquisition of stuff.  We have even turned most of our holidays into “key consumption periods.”

Yes indeed, corporations, shareholders, advertisers, politicians…everyone has helped lure America (and a large part of the western world) into becoming a consumer led culture. We’re taught to buy…and then critique.  Increasingly, we’re even being taught to “take.”  Brands are encouraged to become Brand Butlers (or free service providers) or Brand entertainers, etc.

Buy.  Take.  Free.  Rate & Review…

The Sad Part

The short-term consumer mindset built by elite leaders, organizations and even us (yep, we are shareholders too) has put America in a shockingly deep debt situation.  We’ve prodded the middle class into binge consumption, yet real wages have not risen. In fact, middle class Americans have seen a $2,000 decline in median family income over the past eight years.  That’s depressing and shameful.

Average household debt in the United States is 130% of average household income, up 20% since 2005 and double what it was twenty years ago. The US household savings rate is close to zero.

We’ve taught the middle class and a couple of generations that it is totally OK to live beyond their means.

A day of reckoning is coming…

Refreshing the Dream (at least a bit)

So how can we communicate and build brands by highlighting that lesser known part of the American dream–namely the social order part?  Campaigns like Pepsi Refresh are starting to do this by helping people,  communities, etc. create, build and develop a post-consumption world.  These campaigns tap into those forgotten American values listed above (Humanitarianism, Practicality, etc.)

The Center for the New (Old) American Dream is trying to help Americans consume responsibly, protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice.  Have a look at their website or blog for more thoughts on getting back to basics.

I’ve got some more thoughts on this, but need to quit…so, shoot a couple of comments over if you want.

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A bold marketing promo claim from USAA…can they live it?

Posted on March 14, 2010 in Marketing

I don’t think I have ever seen any large financial company boldly step out and say that they value people over profits…but check out USAA’s homepage and you’ll notice this inspirational claim.

In a day & age when public financial companies routinely cut corners & people (though they might even be profitable) in order to meet Wall Street & shareholder expectations, USAA boldly claims that they are a company of, by, & for the people.  In fact, USAA proudly notes that they are not beholden to Wall Street in the “about” section of their homepage; I’ve listed a blurb from the site below:

USAA is not a publicly traded company, so we don’t answer to stockholders - we answer to our members. They rely on us to suggest products and services that meet their financial needs. In fact, some of our best advice costs absolutely nothing.

USAA?  Why haven’t we heard more about these guys?

USAA is a private financial services company headquartered in San Antonio.  They have $119 billion in owned and managed assets and 7.3 Million members.  They are the 23rd largest bank in the US and compete with the likes of Citi, Geico, etc.

In 2008, a year when most financial services companies posted record losses and the S&P 500 Index total return dropped by 37%, USAA earned $423 million in net income and generated positive investment income.

So why hasn’t the American public heard more from the USAA CEO on CNBC over the past couple of tough years?  Here was a financial services company that successfully navigated the crisis by staying focused on people and the military community they serve.  Shouldn’t we have heard more from them?  Shouldn’t they have been held up as a case study in excellence for the all too often greed infested financial services world?

CNBC finally covered USAA and its community focused banking success model last month (Feb 2010).  Click here to see the video where Joe Robles (CEO) says that his company truly puts people first & focuses on building trust in the community it serves.

I’ve been a USAA customer since the early 90s and I have generally had good experiences with the group over the years–until I had to make a couple of claims.  Obviously, insurance companies are not going to satisfy everyone.  USAA will definitely need to ensure their customer service is impeccable going forward as they seek to live up to their people over profits message.

Customer service can be a strategic differentiator and USAA is putting their focus squarely on people as they seek to become a shining light in a sector that needs fresh thinking.  So, hopefully the Financial Services 2.0 charge USAA is leading will catch on.  Good luck to USAA & the others out there seeking to create a service that works for real people and the real (not speculative) economy.

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