One of my favorite phrases is that life has to be lived forward but is best understood in reverse.
I spent most of my career in marketing at Chick-fil-A. I was there for 37 years, 35 of which were in the marketing department (I rotated out for two years to lead an operations team). While reflecting on my time there, I made a discovery that I wasn’t consciously aware of while living it: the best marketing is not about generating sales – it’s about creating a story that customers want to be part of. The greatest brands have the greatest stories.
I think about Nike as an example. If I had a normal shirt on and I spent 20 cents to add a Nike swoosh to the shirt, guess what just happened to the value of that shirt? It went up by $20! Why did 20 cents worth of thread make a shirt $20 more valuable? It’s because Nike’s swoosh is a symbol of a story that Nike customers want to be part of. Apple is another great example – why do people put Apple bumper stickers on their cars? Because people want to be affiliated with the great brands they’re emotionally connected to. And they’re emotionally connected to them because the brand has a story that people want to be part of. In many ways, what makes a brand great is that they have the best story that attracts customers to want to be a part of it.
The relationship between brand and culture is another new discovery for me. What’s interesting is that culture is like the other side of the brand coin. Great cultures have a great story that employees want to be part of and have people waiting in line to do just that. It’s a different story than the brand, but it’s two sides of the same coin. The brand is the portal through which a customer views the story, and the culture is the portal through which the employee views the story. The weakest organizations have the weakest story for the customer and the weakest story for the employee. Average organizations have an average story for the customer and an average story for the employee. Great organizations have a great brand story that a customer wants to be a part of and a great culture story that an employee wants to be part of. And together, if it’s aligned and well-told, you have a Remarkable organization. One that’s fueled by the passion of your employees, which becomes contagious to the passion of the customer.
If you ask me which has to come first, I’d say the culture has to come first. The employees set the lid on how excited the customers will be. The customers will never be more excited about the brand than the employees are, so, in the long run, the culture becomes the lid to which the brand can rise. The more exciting the culture for the employees, the more exciting the brand for the customers. And when you ratchet up the culture, you ratchet up the possibilities for your brand!
When I think about a brand and culture and about the story that those two tell, here’s the underlying idea: what a great culture does is enable you to power your business on more than a paycheck. Paychecks are the commodity part of a business. Everywhere you go, you’re going to get a paycheck, so that’s universal. But you’re not going to be passionate about what you’re doing everywhere you go. Are you going to have a purpose that you believe in? Are you going to not just have a mission but be on a mission? A great culture enables you to power your business on fuel more powerful than a paycheck. Interestingly, a similar principle is found on the flip side of the brand and culture coin. In my mind, a brand enables you to sell your product on something more than a commodity level. If the only thing you have to offer as a business is lowering your price, you’re competing on price, which makes you a commodity. What a strong brand does is it insulates you from having to compete on price. So, normal businesses compete on price, while great brands insulate themselves from competing on price by having a purposeful brand that people are passionate about and want to do business with. Again, it’s two sides of the same coin. For a business to power itself on more than a paycheck is a strong culture. For a business to power itself on more than price is a great brand.
