Hello,
A very experienced brand manager grilled me on the relevance of Blockchain to branding (or to a brand of a company, or a product category or a product line).
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Side Note
She happens to be head of branding for one the largest education brands in India.
Side Note Ends
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I was sweating (intellectually) to see what I can share with her. So, I asked for some time to get back to her.
I prepared.
I FROG-ed.
I gathered my ROI.
Side Note
FROG = Find. Recognize. Organize to Grow.
ROI = Reflections. Observations. Insights.
Here are my notes for that impending conversation with that brand manager.
(Will share the outcome of my call with her, at the bottom of this post! So, keep reading).
A brand has to deliver value.
A value as perceived by its market and as expected by every suspect/prospect.
The value delivered should meet the promises you have made to every person who is interested in buying your product (or service).
You are 'delivering your promise consistently over a period of time'. That is when your brand is alive, kicking and exciting.
If your brand has no value, forget about blockchain, nothing can help you to survive and sustain.
Growth for your brand will be a distant dream.
So, if you are delivering value consistently over a period of time, only then worry about BlockChain.
Otherwise, 'you are too early for the next class'.
Go get that excitement for all the customers who want your brand.
You want your brand to represent trust and quality.
How do you make your brand represent trust?
How do you make your brand represent Quality?
Let's deal with that TRUST thing first.
In a blockchain, a transaction is conducted between two parties who don't trust each other.
And this transaction is non-reversible.
You are essentially empowering your brand to have economic transactions that are public and shared.
So every time someone transacts with your brand, and that gets registered in a blockchain, your brand is building a 'whale' of trust.
Side NoteA BlockChain whale is an individual or entity that holds a lot of girth in that corresponding environment. As they move, they create a whole lot of momentum to others in the marketplace, either good or bad or ugly or all of them).*
So the more transactions of your brand on a blockchain, that is an exciting thing for you, Ms. Branding Whale!
These transactions on block chain are much much better than those followers on Twitter, or likes on a Facebook post or a traffic to your website.
Your voluntary decision to be on a block chain itself, is a huge leap of faith to be on the path of being a trustworthy brand.
Now let's deal with the quality of your brand!
The quality of the brand is just not the quality of your product or service, per se.
The customer can check if your product is genuine or counterfeit, all by themselves, with the technology available and accessible to them.
More so, the entire journey from the produce of the vendor to the customer.
It is the quality of relationship that the universe of your customers have with your brand.
The quality of the relationship depends on the value (we dealt with this already), the output of the product, and the outcome obtained by your customer, be it in the short term or in the long term.
The more your brand delivers this overall quality, the higher the transactions, and then these transactions on the blockchain gives you the ticket to be that elusive whale that a brand can be.
How?
By being on blockchain, you are being transparent with what you do.
By being on blockchain, you are easily traceable for every suspect/prospect/customer who wants to do business with you.
By being on the blockchain, the data of your presence on the blockchain is immutable.
Side Note
Any business transaction on a blockchain, makes both the parties to be transparent, easily traceable, and etch their transaction in bronze (Immutability of the data).
So, your brand's presence on the blockchain, helps the customer to know that they are getting an authentic product, and more so, the expected value for money.
Aha!
Can you see that immense value your brand is delivering by choosing to be on a block chain?
There is another benefit for a brand to be on blockchain.
That is the visibility of your demand to the inventory.
This helps in having that JIT (Just-in-time) or SHIT (Some-How-In-Time), which further reduces the costs of inventory, and the profitability.
Since this is not relevant to the education business, let's take a rain check on this.
The best benefit of being on a blockchain, is to know that your customers are authentic and which further gets your brand closer to the customer.
This in turn, if you have the appetite for it, to create products that can be developed to cross sell and upsell.
You can deduce effective and efficient ways to increase the lifetime value of the customer.
Side Note
By knowing your authentic customers in an authentic way, it opens up huge opportunities to improve your product lines and product mix.
Sorry for that irrelevant banter!
Therefore, the brand can work its way through the market opportunity and the stiff competing business, to work their way for the future of their product mix and product lines.
So, you see, the brand manager has to be on the edge of their seat and ensure that the entire buyer journey and the customer journey are built on and through blockchain.
This will ensure that the brand has stronger relationships with the customers (and the vendors) and enable and empower their business operations, especially marketing operations, for a blockchain driven world.
Side Note
While I had shared the contents of this post over a call to the brand manager, she mentioned that she has to get started on this 'Blockchain thingy (web 3.0)' just like the way she digitally transformed their education business for the online driven world (web 2.0). I can not but agree with her!
I know she is going to come back to help her brand to transition to 'blockchain driven world', and I am already sweating (intellectually).
Do you have any advice and suggestions to me (or to the brand manager) in transitioning their education business to that future?
Thanks in advance for your advice and suggestions!
As always, thanks for your attention.