10 Ways Iconic Brands Win on the HOW

What separates the brands we use from the brands we can't live without isn't a shinier product, it's a smarter how the way they remove friction from our day, turn that's fine into that's effortless and make choosing them feel like second nature. Hey, friends, welcome back to Chats with Jason. I'm your host, Jason S. Bradshaw, and today we're joined by one of the clearest minds in branding on the planet, Alan Adamson. Alan crystallizes brand stories and turns them into action. As the former chairman of Lend Law, he's shaped icons like Accenture, FedEx, HBO, Marriott, and the list goes on. He co founded Metaforce, where senior operators actually do the work. He teaches at NYU Stern, is a regular on cnbc, NBC and abc. And he's the person companies call when their brand is under legal fire, serving as an expert brand Witness. His latest book, Seeing the How flips the script on disruption win not by what you sell, but by how your customers experience it. Today we'll unpack how to spot and simplify the moments that create unfair advantage, why branded experiences beat big budget ads, and how to design them and the brand playbook Alan gives founders, CMOs and boards when the market shifts under their feet. If you're a leader who's tired of adding more features, more funnels, more noise, then this conversation will help you make things easier and growth inevitable. Alan, welcome to the show.

Thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here with that sort of intro. I should probably say that's all and ended there on a high note, but thank you.

I know that I just gave the audience a headline of your career achievements and the impact you have? I'm wondering what's a tiny moment recently where a brand made your day easier and you thought, why doesn't everyone do it like this?

We have to put it in context because Covid forced lots of companies, certainly here in the States but worldwide, to reimagine how they interface with customers. Nothing like a little disruption to force innovation and fresh eyes. Still amazed at how many things changed in that one year that took 10 years without moving. But small things still catch my eye. I tell a story in the book about how Ace promised Ace Hardware. It's a local hardware store to be a better partner in keeping your house from falling apart. And over time, they've been getting better at it. When I have a problem, I used to go in and try to describe to the person, here's what's going on now before I go in, I'll send them a video saying, here's the pipe that's leaking. Do you have this part? And can you show me how to use the wrench? And so that is one big area. Another big area is in car repairs. I know your background is in the auto business a bit. And two years ago, when I first bought a new car, I took it into the dealer for service. And typically my consumer insight is once the dealer or car repair place tells you need X, Y, Z, and this part has to be flown in from Germany, you're calling American Express and saying, please up my credit limit. So you have a skepticism. But they didn't do that. They sent me a video under the car saying, look here, I want to show you this brake. Look how thin it's become. And this is why you needed a new brake. And now inside your engine compartment, and look at this belt here is starting. And all of a sudden a simple picture is worth a thousand words. Makes me trust my repair diagnosis a million times more.

Yeah, it's phenomenal how that experience has evolved and the difference that it's making to the consumer's perception of reality. There's a couple of things I want to circle back on from what you said there. First of all, you said it's amazing how the pandemic fast tracked innovation within organizations. Things that would normally take 10 years took a year. Why does it take such major disruption for a business to take off their blinkers and to innovate fast?

We could spend several episodes of your show talking about it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's probably the number one thing if everything's going fine and changing. Something involves risk investment. And most companies are in the risk reduction business, the investment minimization business. So if people are happy going into the store and picking up everything and taking a shopping cart and putting in their trunk and then driving, and they don't want you offering them the opportunity to have somebody hand you the bag. That drive through windows is a big investment. And you know, no one's asking for it because part of it is consumers also don't have. This is the way it is. This is the way you do car repairs. The guy writes down on a piece of paper, you need 15 parts. You don't even know how to spell them. He puts a big number there and my brake line, I'm not going to crawl under the car and take a mirror. So simple things like that, you need some disruption because organizations by definition are using mostly rear view mirrors in terms of this Works before every plan is an annual plan. Looking forward. People are happy buying it this way, doing it this way, until somebody, usually a smaller disruptor, changes the game. One of my favorite stories is when you used to buy big appliances in the U.S. it's a big investment, be it appliance or a car. And there was a publication that was around forever. It was called Consumer Reports, and they would rate all the washing machines, which one's going to clean better, break faster, make less noise. But it was very confusing. It was done by McKinsey sort of thing. You had three balls on the durability, two stars on quietness. It was impossible. You had to be a McKinsey consultant to try to analyze which washing machine should I get. And then a startup happened. New York Times border called Wirecutter. And you say, I want a pair of headphones that I want to use in the park for running only on weekends. And what's most important, it run, it rains.

Boom.

They say, this is the headphone for you. Product reviews were always done, and there was a belief that the more complicated, the more choice, the more information, the better decision. But consumers today don't want to read 15 web pages. Some people do, of course, Car enthusiasts or washing machines enthusiasts. But there's a perfect example that somebody looked at the market, said, isn't it crazy it's so complicated to give some professional advice on making a big purchase?

Yeah, they absolutely just simplified the experience, got out of the way of looking smart and actually delivering value. The other example that you gave was around your vehicle repair experience and how pictures told a thousand words. Now, there is, at least in every major market that I'm aware of, consumer research that says consumers don't trust the repair experience. And then at every industry conference I ever went to within the automotive sphere, there was someone getting up on stage saying, we've just piloted or we've just implemented the exact video experience that you spoke of. And yet 80% of brands still don't do it, despite the fact that it leads to higher retention, happier customers, and repeat sales. Why, despite data, does big business still sometimes resist that urge to move with the obvious?

I was a brand manager for many years in brand management at Unilever, and they pride themselves on the product. They worship the products. This Dove bar, you know, Alan, wash your face this side with Dove and this side with Olay and you'll see they are so hardwired to having it be all about the product that they don't know how to zoom out. How can somebody spend this much money in car without knowing about the torque and the handling and the braking distance and the acceleration. I just think they are myopically focused. And they also have something else going on which you alluded to, which is they tend to hire people that don't like them. So if you go to a beer company, they have a lot of people who I know beer. I've been in the beer business 20 years and this is the way we sell beer. We do promotion at the bar and everybody does high fives until somebody looks at it from the outside saying, that's strange. Have you ever thought of this? There was an old Seinfeld episode where George Costanza, the character, decides that his life is going so badly, he's just going to do the opposite of what his intuition is. And my view is that if people admit, say, look, this is the way we've done it, what would happen if we did the opposite? And I think they'd be surprised as to how many innovations they would get.

Yeah. I actually remember that episode bringing back some good memories. The question I ask all guests on our show, if a 10 year old asked you, what's the difference between brand marketing and experience, how would you explain it? But just by using what's in their backpack. Yeah.

And using it without using the thousand words of jargon that pollute the entire field. I would say a brand is like the book in your backpack. It's the store you want people to remember when they meet you, drive your car, clean your clothes at your shop. Marketing is how people get that story, that book promote. Have you read it? Try to read it. And try to go from it's in the pages to understanding it and believing it. And experience is a faster way to do marketing because if people experience something, they learn it faster, they believe it more. We knew that from sampling back in the day. We could spend forever talking about things. But you get somebody. Try this lemonade. Tastes great. Less filling. And importantly, social media. Yeah. No one shares. Did you see this toothpaste? Says 12% more fluoride. Wow. But if you came across a place in Central park and somebody said, hey, let me show you this new toothpaste. Can we brush your teeth for you? Right in Central park and all your friends videotape yourself getting your teeth brushed, you would share that. And then when you went to Costco or to Target to buy, you said, I like the taste of it and it's a good story. My friends thought it was really funny. I'm going to buy it.

I love the line. Experience is the faster version of marketing. I think that could be the sound bite of the year. I also love how you unpacked and demystified the differences between them all. And I think as people that spend our lives in this space, it is easy to just throw a lot of words at it to make people feel that it's important. But in reality it is as simple as you described. I'm wondering, was there a specific moment in your career where it clicked for you that improving the how improving the experience beats adding more features?

A couple the big challenge was that in a time long ago, in a galaxy far away, if you developed a better mousetrap, you had a better mousetrap for a while. In today's marketplace, if you have a better mousetrap, if you have it overnight, that could be good. So differentiating, which is the rocket fuel of brands, has been evaporating for years. And so it became clear that I can't win on somebody using when I work with P and G and dishwashing liquid showing how much cleaner you got your dishes. That story was not going to win. All I could win with was maybe a package that became a scrub brush that made it faster or maybe a reef co or maybe environmental packaging. In other words, it's been happening for a while, but now that differentiation is no longer the holy grail, marketers need to zoom out and say, I can't tell you that this smartphone is any better than the other one. They both have the same size, same screen, same battery life. I've got to make the experience that when something goes wrong with your smartphone, you don't want to talk to AI, but you want to go and find somebody in a blue shirt that says, look, here's how you do it. Al, you were pushing the wrong button on the iPhone. I thought you knew how to. You need to disrupt the business, which I think is driving Everyone talks about Apple for years, but I think the fact that you can spend an hour with customer care and Apple trying to find out why your Microsoft PowerPoint app is not opening is an indication that they're there to help you solve life's issue. They're not there to say, well, if there's something with your Apple app will happily take care of it, but if it's not opening somebody else's, good luck to you. No, they still sometimes do that. And people don't talk about. People are not conscious of it. But when they're making a decision in technology, simple always wins. No one wants to read instruction books. Remember when you used to buy all the electronics, you would get a book that says in 14 languages. Even in the car business, it's still true. If you're trying to find something out about your car. One, they have the screen display interaction which is a user experience from the Flintstones. Or you have the Encyclopedia Britannica where everything about the car from mat cleaning to how do you escape if the windows are locked? Somebody's got to look at that and say, you ever wonder why when you have a question on the car, you know you have to read a book.

Yeah, yeah. It's also fun when you do look at some of those manuals, like why is my car not starting? Have you checked to see if you've got the key with you? I'm glad you've wasted a page on that. It's true that we do talk about Apple a lot and.

I think it.

Just reinforces the power of the experience lens that they operate through versus the product lens. Now, I think you could still argue that Apple is somewhat product led, but.

Yeah, because their culture is about the elegance of the product.

Yeah. Google released a teaser ad just in the last 48 hours where they show you generations of Apple iPhone and switch in. It is, if you're sick of unboxing the same product every single year, unbox the new Google Flip 10 that you can unbox, you can open up twice. They're really playing on the fact that the product itself, the Apple iPhone itself, hasn't materially changed in looks and physical feel for five years or so. Yet many would argue that Apple still wins the conversation. People when they think smartphone, they might not buy iPhone, but they reference Apple in the conversation. Is that purely driven by the experience that they're known to deliver or is it something else?

I think it's driven by consumer insight that says when you're using technology, the last thing you want to do is go into a store and someone say you didn't have the key in the car or here's the on button for your phone. And in that world where people don't want to be embarrassed, the comfort of saying, I know how to work an iPhone, I know how to do the software update. I don't have to read the instructions. I can call somebody, get somebody live, I can go on and speak to a blue shirt who will spend time with me setting up a new computer. Consumers don't want to feel stupid and having a system that they are confident in doing. Which is why the promise is they don't have to say it. People users know that if you switch from a PC to a Mac or Mac to a PC, or you switch from Android to iOS, if you're not really technically fluent, you're going to be sitting, not able to get on the subway because your phone will automatically jump to Apple Pay, or you'll be entering a new credit card and have to relearn how to upload. And they're constantly taking friction out as it ever gets to Apple. But AI will make that across the board. I think it's the soft stuff in experience that I have a good experience. It ain't broke, don't fix it. The reverse from a consumer point of view, I think keeps them chugging along.

Yeah, yeah. It'll certainly be interesting to see how that brand story continues to unfold. You get the privilege of meeting with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in the work that you do regularly. If a CEO was to say to you, we just need to add another feature to a product, they're absolutely convinced that the only thing that they have to do to improve their business is to make the soap cleaner, to make the product have a new gadget attached to it. How do you gently flip that thinking in just a few sentences so that they open their mind to your way of thinking, which is about improving the how?

Yeah, it's really tough. I wish I had an easy way because you can say, well, do you remember something called the dvr? And if you ever wanted to record something, it didn't do it. I worked for a B2B industrial company as a client for many years, and they were doing the same way of business, renting equipment to construction and contractors for 30 years, stock through the roof. And they sold belly to belly. In other words, it was about their people being on the construction site, getting their belly next to the customer belly and saying, here, you need this forklift. But then a CEO came in whose motto was, I'm an impatient guy. And he was totally driven by watching his daughter live a completely digital life where she could order anything, get anything delivered. And he became passionate, saying, why do you have to call us up and speak to somebody to make a reservation? You needed a change agent there because the stock wasn't going down, the money was coming in the massive case, and everyone was happy with their profit sharing. And no one wanted to invest in a lot of technology that would cost millions of dollars and hard to execute. Until you had a leader who said, I seen around the corner, and if we don't do this one day, we'll be disrupted by a company that provides a better experience. Better how? But there's no easy way. Usually they do it when the sky is falling, revenue is going down. And my previous book was Shift Ahead. Why so many great brands have disappeared. Because by the time the tide is going down, there's no money to invest. The best talent has already left. If you only start thinking about how to change your experience when sales go down, it's almost always game over.

I think there's also another danger zone is when companies do invest in improving the experience, and they might invest in it over a number of years, five, six years or longer, and they think they've nailed it, and so they stop investing in the experience.

Yeah, and experience is hard to do because unlike adding more fluoride to the toothpaste or putting a new windshield wiper on the car that squeaks less, you have to rely on a human being, at least for the short term future to deliver that. I worked with an insurance company. They had the brand line. We're in a business of caring. And they told their people to be very caring on the phone. When people called up for their why am I not getting reimbursed? But they also said, you have to do 24 calls an hour to get your quarterly bonus. Even though they tried to be carrying the structure was, we need efficiency. I'm sorry, Alan, you have that problem. Here's our website. Let me send you to that and if you continue to have trouble, call me back and get in the phone free and take 20 minutes to get to me again, at which time I'll tell you I have no time and send you back to go without collecting your money. So it's people changing people. I've worked a lot in hospitality airlines. Really, if there's no product difference, it's not about, yes, you can have a better seat that's more comfortable and a better screen, but ultimately, speaking to the CEO of Delta and I said, what keeps you up at night? The price of fuel? You buy a Boeing or you buy an Airbus. And he said, I have to put a team together. 10 people coming together that don't work together. A pilot from this thing, a flight attendant, they have to gel and they have to understand that our job at Delta is exceeding expectations. And no matter what it takes, getting that culture to deliver a better experience took a lot of time and requires constant investment. Because once you get the experience here, somebody else takes it here. And it's just much harder to change customer experiences if it's primarily delivered by the most powerful touchpoint, a human Interface.

Yeah. It's interesting that you bring up the airlines because at the end of the day, a 747 or a 737 or Airbus A380 doesn't matter what brands on the outside, they all very much have a similar product, physical product. But I'm sure, like me, you've sat on a Delta flight and you've thought, this is the best flight ever. And then the next Delta flight or American for that example, you're like, why am I flying them? So we know that the human to human experience is the best emotional connection that you can deliver through an experience. How do we create cultures where we do more often than not get that alignment around all the moving parts to deliver an experience that is worthy of remark or an experience that is worthy of loyalty.

It comes down to simple strategy, difficult execution. Danny Myers is a very famous restaurateur, but his business is completely built. But finding people that have that natural warmth and being happy, because if you're unhappy, Whether you're at FedEx, I spent a long time working with them, or at Delta or at Marriott, there is no way you as an individual are going to deliver. You'll deliver it. When somebody's watching you and you're on video and you're asking for a rating after the call, please push to. And if your employees are not happy, it's impossible. So it's never about training, it's about the basics. In Danny Meyer's case, he screens for people that have that natural DNA skill.

Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. I've always said that recruitment is one of the most crucial steps to the culture of the organization. Because if you get that wrong, it's going to have its flow on effects. You've mentioned the word friction a lot. If we were to go for a walk together through any business, where would you look first to start identifying friction? And what's your approach to addressing it quickly?

It's a great question. I think you pick the one that's going to give you the highest chance of really hitting it out of the park. If you try to tackle a really big problem, it's going to take a long time and you need time to iterate and you need money. But I am a believer that pick things that you are sure your culture, your company, business strategy can execute well and do the easy ones first. Don't build a racetrack for your cars. If you can't get the dealer to answer the phone, we can spend a whole show on that. But pick something that your company, your culture Be honest with yourself. Who are people? What are they naturally good at? And pick an experience because you're better off one success at a time rather than famously boiling the ocean.

Yeah, yeah. Having success versus building a multi year project that by the time it's delivered may not even be right anymore.

Yeah, you know, and B2B companies do tell me. When I was running a big agency, they said, we're going to have a better way to manage your expenses. And they gave us a whole platform. People had to scan receipts, you had to change behaviors. And it costs a million and another million. And it took four years until it even broke even with. Fill out this paper form and we'll send you a check. Pick things that you can get easy wins on.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So what are one or two simple checks that tell you that a brand is truly distinctive versus just being different?

They've done something for their customer that is at the core of why they do business with you. It's not, oh, this has an extra feature on it or we'll accept 24 hour returns. It's looking at the customer and saying what would they need to become super loyal? So I made a startup a couple years ago when I went to visit my daughter in university and she was in a sorority house and I went to the front deck of the house and it was shipping and receiving. They were Amazon, Target, Sephora. And I spoke to a couple of kids, I said, how do you return things? They go, well, we don't have a printer, I don't even know where the post office is. We just leave it in our room and maybe we'll return. This company saw that and for people who are heavy shoppers, they started Return Queen and they pick it up for you, they submit it, they tell you that Amazon hasn't refunded this yet. In other words, they manage. It's sort of like a shipping and receiving manager. Before you talk about how easy it is to drop off this box and wait in line at the drugstore.

Wow. Talk about creating a new service industry, identifying that people, some people are too lazy to return their product for free. We'll do it for you or you.

Do it for you or the heavy users, they buy so much in return that another thing of COVID that was my job during COVID as everything was delivered, I was in the shipping and handling department. I had to return to things and undo the boxes and we were getting everything dropped off in a box and it was a full time job. In addition to trying to keep My business going.

Yeah, we all had a few pivots during that time. So AI is something we haven't touched on a lot. But the reality is it's here and it's growing. How can AI scale the how but do so in a way that's not removing the heart from the experience?

I think it's coming. I'm not as surprised as some people perhaps as to what AI is doing when you ask it a question, how thorough the answer is, whether you're asking it about leaky pipe or what the best podcast to listen to is. But I'm not surprised because I grew up watching a lot of Star Trek and science fiction in that world, having a computer smarter than you that could tell you what's around the corner. Is that an alien that's going to hurt me? Yeah. Was part of that world. And I think we're there. But they need to make it more human. Just typing on the screen. Ultimately, you want to be sitting next to the smartest kid in class when you're in a store and say, jason, I can't. There are 20 shampoos here. Look at my hair. I'm going to show you my hair. Here's my. Look at my credit cards. Yeah, they're all overdrawn. Which shampoo should I buy? So you want to give them non structured questions because it's never about which has the highest reviews. They have to personalize it. Which is why I'm still somewhat optimistic that if Apple could figure out how to do this and connect your AI to your calendar, to your context, to your mom's birthday and say that it's your mom's birthday tomorrow, do you want me to send her some cupcakes? Because last year you did that and she loved it. I saw the note. I think that's where AI is. But probably five years from now. But I'm skeptical whether we'll still replace a human. Because the best experiences I learned when I was working with Marriott higher end brands was the surprise that a creative employee did for a customer. I'm sure you've heard the stories about how a kid left a teddy bear in the room and everyone sent it back. Put the Ritz calls and people took the teddy bear around the hotel and they photographed it in the pool, on the beach and created a little book for the kids saying, I'm sorry you forgot Teddy, but let me tell you, Teddy had a great time here. Don't worry. And you can't look at a thousand customer complaint letters and triangulate what that little bit of creativity did for their brand. But I assure you the parents that got that book will be hard pressed to say we could stay at Otown for $4 less, but I don't think so.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. Ritz Carlton is. From an outside perspective, the Ritz Carlton is still providing a bed, a clean room, a hotel experience. But it's those, the overlays that they put on it that are delivered by people. I've had the privilege of holding a number of events at Ritz Carlton and you go through the planning process and what food and what room and all the rest of it, and yet they still find a way to add a level of personalization that you just simply don't get elsewhere because other properties are focused on the product and not on the experience.

And why I'm bullish about experience is because social media is the most important marketing tool and no one shares ordinary. No one shares the hotels didn't mail me back the teddy bear or Delta refunded me the wi fi charge when it didn't work. They're going to say Delta gave me a laptop to use on the plane that was hardwired to the pilot system or they rented a Starlink and put it in the back for me. You have to do something that surprise people and once they share it, that's the fuel that is going to drive brands and businesses going forward.

Now, just a couple of questions before I let you go. You talked about having hope for Apple and AI's future with Apple. And you gave us this excellent example. Although some might be worried about just how much personal data is being ingested, you gave us this example. Tomorrow's your mother's birthday. She loved the cupcakes you sent last year. She loved the flowers. Do you want me to organize them again? Completely get it. Completely understand and agree. That's probably a path we're going down. But then I raised the question. Google has the world's most used email platform. Google has a smart ecosystem. It has AI that is arguably better than Apple's. Because Apple's is.

Apple doesn't have anything yet.

They have a tagline, they don't have a system. So in theory, they already have the capability to send me a reminder at very least to say tomorrow's somebody's birthday and they like the flowers you sent last year. Should I order it again? And they're not doing it. What's holding them back?

What's holding Apple back?

No, what's holding Google back? They've already got all the data They've.

Already got the data. I think it's the people that are most likely, in my experience to try new things are economically further ahead. And the user base of Apple is much more affluent than any other phone. I think privacy is going to be key. And if you believe Apple has higher privacy and people are comfortable in the Apple ecosystem so they're not going to buy a new phone just to get mom some donuts on her birthday. But if they trust the Apple brand, if they don't muck it up and do what Elon did to Tesla, then I think they have a fair shot. Their audience, their comfort with their products, their confidence and to feed in only the things they do. So I do think the decision to delay the improved Siri, which is terrible because it's, yeah, you have one shot to make a first impression. It's my favorite expression. And so don't bring anything out that's not ready for prime time. Start with something you can over deliver on before you make a promise you might under deliver on.

So if I'm reading in between the lines, you think Apple's playing it smart by delaying a half baked update to the existing.

Yeah, there's more brand damage. Right. Their expectation for Apple, I think is I don't have to read instruction. It's going to work and it'll work reliably. And then I trust it. And once you try it and you say, Siri, tell me how to get to Jason's house and it sends you to Cleveland. You cooked?

Yes, absolutely. Alan, before we wrap up today, I'll get you to complete this sentence for me. If you want customers to love your brand, stop blank and start blank. So replace the word blank. If you want customers to love your brand, stop blank and start blank.

Stop doing what you did yesterday and start surprising them with something delightful.

There we go. Yet another great takeaway. Start surprising your customers with something delightful. Alan, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show.

Enjoyed it. Enjoy the conversation. Thank you.

Thanks to Alan for a masterclass on why brands we love don't just sell better, they make life easier. Your quick challenge is to do a 10 minute friction walk this week. Pick one step in your customer journey, remove or simplify it and note the before and after small change, real momentum. If this episode helped hit the follow or subscribe buttons, leave a short review and share it with one leader who needs a nudge towards simpler, smarter experiences. I'm Jason S. Bretchell. Transform your experience to transform your business. Thanks for listening to chats. With Jason.