Brand Fable: The Uncounted Number

Behind every business problem is a number. And behind every number is a brand experience.

Counting Place #1: Starbucks

Almost all of you reading this have been into a Starbucks. Chances are good that you’ve been there at Coffee Rush Hour (which seems redundant, doesn’t it?!). So the odds are pretty high that you’ve seen Starbuck’s Uncounted Number, the Invisible Metric in Starbuck’s Counting Place, and you probably didn’t even know it.

It goes like this…A customer be-bops up to door, opens it – but then their face goes ashen, their shoulders slump as they see the long line emanating from the cash register. You can almost hear the gears in that customer’s mind as they do the math as to how long it will take them to stand in line, inch their way up to the register, wait for the barista to shout out their drink order like a twisted game of Coffee Bingo, and then finally get their precious cup of caffeinated nectar.

Uh-oh…they close the door without walking through it. They turn and go.

What just happened?! In those brief few seconds, that customer just told Starbucks, “You’re not worth it.”

Ouchy-mama!

This is a crucial moment in Starbuck’s brand experience – and this moment repeats itself tens of thousands times a day across the country. But guess what…Starbucks didn’t even feel the slap in the face they just got. Why? Because with all of the Metrics they do count:

The number they are not counting is “how many times customers choose to not walk through their door.”

So am I saying to ignore the numbers? Toss all the metrics out the window? NO!

Behind every business problem is a number – but it just might be a number that you’re not used to counting.

What I am saying is imagine a world where “# of times customers choose to not walk through our door” is a heading on one of the columns of the Financial Spreadsheet! Imagine the power that is in THAT number! Imagine the discussions of a management team on this number that is tied directly to the company’s brand experience.

In order to truly measure your brand’s impact and vitality, I’m saying you need numbers based on behavior, like Terra Firma’s Brand Pilot™ -- a dashboard that combines hard numbers, qualitative data and even an internal perspective. Financial data is meaningful, of course, but it only tells you part of the picture.

Behind every business problem is a number.

Behind every number is an experience.

And that experience directly impacts the success or failure of your brand.

If you’d like to discuss Terra Firma’s Brand Pilot Dashboard or how we can help you clearly define your brand experience, contact us at info@terrafirmamarketinginc.com