Ian Ryder
CEO, UffindellWest
ian@uffindellwest.com

I. Ryder: ‘Linking Vision and Values with Brand (Specifically Reputation) Management’, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2007.
Accepted June 2007
Microsoft Word version

If you were offered an almost cast-iron guarantee of the route to sustained competitive advantage and a wonderful reputation would you want to know about it? Well let me try to show you what I truly believe is a very simple and easy mantra that makes it possible—but only if your organization truly embraces it as an operating (brand management) practice. Let me begin by explaining something that is really important to understand first, and the reason why the title looks the way it does.
   I am very lucky to be able to see quite a lot of academic work and current “think” pieces and for some reason the marketing world, or at least that part of it which purports to write and comment on “branding”, too often makes a misleading distinction between “brand” and “reputation”. The distinction most often indicating that they are independent or can be managed independently—I must address this first so that this article makes sense!
   Reputation management is brand management. The only difference is that brand management covers a broader spectrum. I have searched for some time to try and find a usable and easily understood analogy to explain my thinking here, so please allow me to take you through it. Then, as we see how business strategy, derived alongside a set of vision and value statements, is inextricably linked to brand strategy we will see clearly how these impact reputation, why employees are so crucial to that reputation and where the internal and external communications linkages need to be.
   I read a paper by a very well known research organization that actually damaged the “reputation” of their “brand” for me! As part of it the author argues, ‘The brand has psychological appeal; reputation appeals to the sense of social responsibility’, which is such a confused expression that if it appeared in one of the Journal of Brand Management papers I was refereeing I would be questioning the author’s understanding of the subject!
   My premise is that reputation is to brand as health is to body—allowing for the fact that no analogy is perfect.

Consider: the Body
It is a collection of 6 billion genes manifested in blood, organs, bones etc. all covered up by skin and covered in many places by hair.
   The “health” of that body is affected by such things as basic construction of those genes (i.e. luck of the draw actually) but seriously impacted by diet, exercise, sunlight or propensity to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, etc.
   ”Health” is positively impacted or negatively impacted dependent on how we treat these things and that impact, through our “health management”, will absolutely affect “the body”—it does not exist in isolation. Further, our health is the result (outcome) of the way in which we treat our body.
   However, there are things that we can do as part of our “body management” that arguably don’t affect our health, at least nowhere near as directly. We need to cut our hair, manicure our nails or treat our skin with creams to prolong elasticity, youthful looks, etc. (hasn’t worked for me yet though!)

Consider: the brand
It is a collection of lots (not 6 billion!) of “things” manifested in strategies (business, financial, marketing, HR, manufacturing, etc), systems, processes, premises, partners, products, services etc, all wrapped up and “covered” in a brand promise.
   In the same way we can take reputation (health) which is also affected by the basic construction (vision, values, culture, operating model) of the business brand (Body) but it is seriously impacted by the behaviour of our people, systems and processes or the way we communicate our attitudes to such things as CSR and customer management. “Reputation” is positively or negatively impacted dependent on how we treat these things and that impact, through our “reputation management”, will absolutely affect our brand—it does not exist in isolation. Our reputation is the result (outcome) of the way in which we treat our brand.
   However, there are things that we can or should do as part of our “brand management” that arguably don’t affect our reputation, again, at least nowhere near as directly. We need to manage our corporate identity, trade marks and patents, ensure we have a structured brand architecture and appropriate measurement systems in place.
   I know analogies are always open to attack because we can never find the perfect match, but in all my struggles to find one to try and “dispel the myth”, this is so far the best I have found and I hope it makes the relationship clear.
   Let us move on then to vision and values. Making these work in any organization is a major challenge and you really should read a book called The Committed Enterprise by Professor Hugh Davidson.1 It is one of the most readable non-fiction books I have ever enjoyed and it presents the results of a very substantial research programme looking at why many organizations fail to implement their vision and values. Two particular tables highlight some keys to success or failure which include:

Failure:
1. Agree vision and values amongst a small group
2. Develop values in a vacuum
3. Keep values vague and don’t measure
4. Allow senior management to flout values
5. Communicate inconsistently
6. Micro-manage the organization brand

Success:
1. Use vision to align and unite stakeholders
2. Establish values that build competitive advantage
3. Convert values to measurable practices
4. Communicate by action, signals and repetition
5. Macro-manage the organization brand

(See the book for the complete list.)

   Just this selected list provides so much rich discussion about what impacts our ability to manage our reputation. We will refer to this later to see how the links are made.
   Let us consider the more commonly understood primary elements that help to build or destroy reputations. There are three main ones:

• product or service quality;
• customer experience;
• social or environmental record.

   Clearly there is a very direct impact on reputation if the physical product bought is of poor quality and fails to do the task for which it was purchased. We have all bought what we think were “bargains” from unknown branded sources only to curse later when the CD didn’t play, or the handle fell off the spade, knife, wheelbarrow, etc. But we also know that even where we are buying a solid, recognized quality brand, there is a large component of “service” in the “total customer experience” associated with that brand—it is not just “service” brands that need to watch out for reputation failures from a service perspective!
   Quick example: recently I was looking to replace the Philishave electric shaver that had given me good service for about 12 years—solid product brand experience. I went to several outlets looking for advice on current models and after two experiences in well known suppliers from staff that cared less about what I wanted and knew even less about the product, I was despairing. Then I was walking through Boots (a large retail chemist) and just happened to notice that they had a section containing shavers and, as I stopped to look, I was approached by a lady who asked very nicely if she could help me. To cut a long story short, this lady knew everything I needed to know about the alternatives and handled the interaction so smoothly and in an unpressured way that I bought a model far more expensive than I had originally been considering, and I went away feeling I had enjoyed buying it!
   The key morals here are:

• “product” brands often also rely on service to complete the brand experience;
• “channels” are critical and need to be part of your brand management system in order to ensure a consistent, enjoyable brand experience for your customers;
• it was the individual that made the difference.

   This is all very self-evident in service businesses where restaurant staff, telephone contacts with such as insurance companies, banks etc. all make good or bad service very immediate. We have all spent much time, I am sure, spreading both good and bad observations around our networks that have either enhanced or detracted from the reputation of those brands!
   And so it is that employees, and indeed the wider definition of that, which includes everyone who represents our brand and helps deliver the brand experience that drives our reputation, are absolutely critical to the process. One crushing statistic that I discovered a few years ago in the Journal of Marketing found that in the list of reasons why customers defect, whilst only 9 per cent are lured away by competition, a huge 68 per cent are turned away by an attitude of indifference on the part of an employee!
   This is not rocket science! A very simple rule set says:

(a) ensure your employees understand what we mean by a ‘consistent, positive brand experience’;
(b) explain why we need to manage that;
(c) help them recognise and understand their role in that;
(d) engage their commitment to fulfilling their part in the delivery of it;
(e) make the measurement of our performance in achieving it both easy to understand and a matter of public record, so we can see we need to improve, or rejoice that we are retaining delighted customers.

   All of the above we now delight in calling brand engagement or embedding.
   Which leads us neatly into: what are the links across the organization that contribute to our reputation? Well we have already touched on several, but probably the single most important factor is the CEO of the organization. He or she is responsible for as much as 40–55 per cent of the image and reputation of any corporate brand (depends on which survey you look at), and is also clearly the driver and owner of the company vision and values—note I didn’t say developer of those (refer back to Hugh Davidson’s key failure list).
   Common situation: the CEO says: ‘We keep telling them what our vision, values and strategy are and yet I keep seeing employee surveys telling me they don’t get it—how often do they need telling?’ (N.B. this is a genuine Fortune company CEO quote.) The answer of course, is not to tell, but to listen. Listen to the voice of your customers, employees, even your suppliers and respond to that input. Your reputation is created through them and driven by every single experience (moment of truth) they have—it is also instantly changed for the worse but only gradually changed for the better.
   So, again, a very short check list:

• from any level of the organization (or brand delivery owner) up to the CEO, the delivery of the brand experience must be absolutely consistent with expected values;
• the “soft”, informal networks are the most true and valuable—listen to them and act upon them;
• your systems or processes must be designed to facilitate customer service and support in line with your values
• measurement systems are crucial. Ensure they are designed to complement and not work against each other—convergent goals. ( Jack Welch, of GE fame, had a passion to create what he called a ‘boundary-less’ culture, which is even further advanced thinking than convergent measurement, but it helped turn GE into the global powerhouse of the 20th century.)

   Finally, how do we use vision and values as a route to a strong reputation through alignment of internal and external communications? I refer back again to Hugh Davidson’s list which has communications as the key to either success or failure in the actualization of making vision and values work. Once more this is not difficult although there are many companies out there who try to make it so!

Internal communications
This is not the place to review the myriad tools available to serve internal communications. However, research indicated that the relationship of satisfaction with internal communications and the percentage of those who are prepared to speak highly of the company product or services is seriously connected. On a four-point scale from ‘very low’ to ‘high’, this moves from less than 20 per cent to almost 80 per cent of employees who would speak highly. The jump from the ‘medium’ satisfaction with communication to ‘High’ is staggering though—it more than doubles!

External communications
Again there is a myriad number of ways in which companies “communicate” to their various constituencies, but the key is clarity and consistency. It is no good, for example, espousing a set of values that include care for the environment and then behaving in a way that conflicts with that (one of the problems that the oil and chemical industries have struggled with). In fact, the topic of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown out of that very conundrum into a major field of its own. It is not difficult to understand why when you consider just a couple of frightening facts like:

• it has taken only 30 years to consume one-third of the planet’s resources that took 3·8 billion years to make;
• in the past 50 years the world has lost a quarter of its topsoil and a third of its forest cover.

   The lesson is, as always, very simple. Do what you say you will do and make sure that the messages being delivered through whichever communication disciplines you have chosen for external audiences, are the same as those being driven internally through training or induction and measurement systems.

Humanity-based strategy
As we move towards the summary, I wanted to share some thinking that began with my esteemed colleagues in the Medinge Group and which resulted in my contribution to our book Beyond Branding. Based around anthropology, this thinking has developed into what I call Humanity-based Strategy (HBS).
   Take a look at the four top expectations or needs as expressed by Disney employees and “guests”:

   Disney’s vision and values are legendary and they define their “Total Customer Experience” in four elements:

(a) anticipation;
(b) ‘Welcome’;
(c) the Experience;
(d) ‘Goodbye’.

   Whichever way you look at this very simple overview, it is quite clear that Disney is thinking about their customers and employees as human beings and for very good reason!
   HBS is a very simple, but powerful, concept with just three basic tenets:

(a) people are people first;
(b) manage the reality gap;
(c) create trust and relevance.

   Since man descended from the trees we have been driven by a base set of programmed behaviours that always prevail whatever social behaviours we overlay. Your customers’ (and employees’) first reaction to any situation and brand experience will always be the human one—feeling good, or feeling bad. You simply must begin to understand and learn how to manage that.
   The reality gap is simply the difference between what you think you are doing to and for your customers and staff, and what you are actually doing—there is always a gap of some kind and this can either be causing you to waste revenue or profit opportunities, or allowing gaps for your competition to enter. Learn what it is and how to manage it.
   The two most powerful words in the world of customers: without trust you can have no loyalty of any kind and no “advocation” other than bad press. Without relevance, in both product or service offer and timing, you will be unsuccessful with the sale.
   Your vision and values should drive your building and execution of each of these three tenets.

Summary
It has not been possible to address in depth any of the items that I have touched on in this article but I hope you have some pointers to use to examine your own situations, along with some further reading.
   Vision and values “fail” in organizations either because of a “flaw” in the vision or failure of the values to create any competitive advantage. However, even if these are not flawed and do lead to competitive advantage, they are executed (and that word has a very interesting double meaning!) by your people, primarily, and supported by the systems and procedures and measurements within your company. It is no good having the best website in the world, easy to navigate, user-friendly and quick, if your distribution process (owned or outsourced) lets you down—your reputation will not survive and prosper!
   The last example I will use is, not surprisingly, one that has now moved into the history books as one of the most spectacular: Enron Corporation. It is not my place or intention to question what exactly were Andersen’s values that resulted in the shredding of key papers, the action that was probably more to blame for their “crash” than the questions about their basic audit processes. But it has to be said that if they had been rigorously executing a brand management system, that was linked to the business values and disallowed any such practices because of the reputational impact of failure to conform to values, then they would not have been faced with the disappearance of what was a globally powerful brand. To link back to my opening distinction, the rapidly failing reputation (health) was bringing down the brand (body).

The guarantee!
Lest I fail to do what I am now going to implore you all to do, I did promise to let you in on the six-word secret to sustained competitive advantage through a great reputation and therefore unassailable brand.
   Make a promise … keep a promise!
   If you just think through what living to this very simple philosophy means, first developed way back in 1987 when I was asked to define brand management, you will realize how powerful it is. A brand is a promise, and a promise is about trust. Your vision and values act as the beacon. Then, using this “mantra” as the guiding principle for the delivery of those will ensure that whatever your business, be it product- or service-based, whatever your channels of selling, support, delivery or after-sales, your incidence of poor customer comment will be so low as to ensure your high reputation is maintained.
   Perhaps the last words should come from a gentleman of outstanding credentials (Nobel Award winner) who described, way back in 1937, what business was all about: ‘Fulfilling customer needs via relationships you maintain’ (Ronald Coase: Nature of the Firm).
   Says it all really doesn’t it? Good luck!

Reference
H. Davidson: The Committed Enterprise: How to Make Vision and Values Work. Boston: Butterworth Heinemann 2002.

Colin Morley
Permission to republish to be sought from the family of Colin Morley c/o the Medinge Group

C. Morley: ‘Why More Brands Now “Have a Conscience”’, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2007.
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Demonstrating that your brand has a conscience is becoming more and more important as the population of the developed world has more of its basic needs met and starts to look for higher values. The brands in this book demonstrate the growing importance of ethical issues with the opportunities it gives to new challengers and the need for existing brands to develop new values.
   But first, ‘Hang on a minute,’ you may say. ‘How can a brand have a conscience?
   ‘Surely brands are just devices used by corporations to market their goods and services? A brand is not a conscious being so how can it have a conscience?‘
   Yes, ‘Brands with a Conscience’ is an attention-getting headline. And it also highlights one of the roles that brands now play beyond just telling you the functional characteristics of what you are buying.
   A brand can be the symbolic glue that binds a group of people together in creating and delivering value to customers. The name, colours and design of the brand come to symbolize a deeper set of shared experiences, values and beliefs that build trust between the owners, managers, employees, suppliers, customers and the wider community.
   So when you find yourself traveling past a McDonald’s or Wal-mart you have a pretty good idea of what to expect if you stop and go inside as a potential customer, employee, supplier or community representative. The owners, managers, employees, suppliers and others who have created and delivered the products and services that you will experience there have a common understanding of what they are providing that enables them to act together as an embodiment of the brand.
   The brand does what is implied in the word we use to describe the organization—it makes one body or corporation out of a group of people and things. So you can hold the corporation or brand to account for its actions in different times and places, even though different people may have delivered the product or service each time on behalf of the brand.

   As the twentieth century went on, corporations were seen to have a single mind as well as a body. It is now commonplace to think of corporations as having a “soul”, and beyond that lies the world of the corporate “spirit”. Ken Wilber describes the evolution of human consciousness through the levels of body, mind, soul and spirit in his book A Theory of Everything. Corporations and brands are evolving through the same levels of consciousness.
   Most of the brands we use every day do not seem to be very concerned with ethics or morality. They may provide features that satisfy functional needs (e.g. food, taste, vitamins) and benefits that satisfy emotional needs (sustenance, pleasure, well-being). Features and benefits are provided within an ethical or moral framework that is dictated by the economic, legal and regulatory system in force. So for example, products have to be fit for their purpose and must not make untrue claims about their performance. Few major brands or corporations seek to extend the regulatory frameworks in their industries to make production more ethical or expensive.
   That was all very well during the materialistic era of mass consumption that has driven the world economy over the last 30–50 years. Over this period, most people have been unconcerned with the ethics or morality of what they were buying. The only criterion for choice has been, ‘Does this brand do what I want it to do for me?’ Does it fulfil my needs? Does it keep me alive, make me more comfortable, give me pleasure or enhance the way other people perceive me? At the lower and middle range of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs there are few or no questions of conscience for brands or consumers.
   Consumers who think this way look for value by considering the functional and emotional benefits of the product or service quality provided, versus the price charged and any inconvenience involved.

   As the population has become more affluent and better educated, many people have satisfied the basic needs of survival, pleasure and esteem of others. New questions begin to arise that relate to the goodness or badness of what people buy.

• Were these shoes produced using slave labour?
• Does this food have organic ingredients that have been fairly traded?
• Are these packaging materials recycled and/or recyclable?
• Are the employees of this company fairly rewarded for their work?
• Does this company pollute the area where it manufactures its products?

   Some of these questions are intertwined with the functional features of the product for the consumer. For example, people may prefer organic foods because they believe that pesticides are bad for them, regardless of the perceived environmental benefits. And some of these questions are driven by media and pressure groups that are hungry for scandal and bad news with which to create headlines. Some governments have responded to public and media pressure by setting up tribunals and committees to review issues of corporate behaviour and governance. Corporations have in turn banded together into trade associations to lobby governments and supra-national bodies to reduce or limit the regulatory pressure on their activities.
   Some major corporations have discovered that questions like these can damage or even destroy them; regardless of how healthy the bottom line was before they were asked. Sunny Delight in the UK, McDonald’s, Arthur Andersen and Nike are just a few.
   However caused the interest in these questions knocks on to how people perceive themselves and takes us higher up Maslow’s Hierarchy to ‘self-esteem’ and ‘self-actualization’. When you have a choice between having your needs met ethically or unethically for the same price then there is no need to challenge your self-perception as a good person by continuing with the unethical option.
   So the question, ‘Does this brand have a conscience?’ has become more and more relevant for consumers, employees and investors.
   As a result we have seen brands and corporations adopt CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility as a standard of operation. By auditing environmental and ethical impacts and specifying programmes to alleviate or eliminate negative impacts, CSR has helped to create a conscience in many organizations. Investors have discovered that companies that practice CSR often perform better on the stock market because corporate scandals are avoided and the quality of management improves.
   Where CSR standards have been adopted by all the companies in an industry the costs and benefits involved have been common across those industries and all the brands have demonstrated a degree of conscience.
   Real Brands of Conscience, however, are those that accept the challenge of leading their industries. They accept the short-term cost sacrifices (such as more expensive ingredients and production processes) because they use the communication power of their brand values to gain a long-term benefit by appealing to the new target audience of ethical consumers. Brands of Conscience make a leap of faith that customers who today are ethically unaware or uncaring will grow to adopt the brand values and place value on the conscience of the brand.

   Many brands have CSR policies that underpin their operations and do not publicize their consciences for fear of being scrutinized more closely by people looking for violations of ethical business principles. These companies believe that the benefits to their reputation of publicising their CSR policies would be outweighed by negative publicity of their violations or by the extra costs that they perceive would be needed to eliminate their violations. High-profile brands like Nike and Coca-Cola now find it very difficult to shake off the campaigns by activists who target them continuously.

http://killercoke.org/

http://www.saigon.com/~nike/

Brands of Conscience accept this challenge and communicate their policies widely so that critics can scrutinize them and they can learn further from the feedback. When they are targeted by activists they engage in dialogue and build a constructive dialogue which further changes policies and ultimately enhances the brand’s reputation.

So a brand with a conscience is explicitly making moral or ethical conduct part of its values and positioning in the marketplace. It is making an appeal to its consumers’ sense of responsibility for right and wrong.

   So to what extent will consumers use ethical considerations to discriminate between brands in the future? Indeed will brands be able to satisfy the needs of the Cultural Creatives who have often rejected brands altogether and chosen the equivalent of the local farmers’ market instead of the supermarket?
   Here I believe we come back to one of the major roles of brands—to make the provision of a mass product or service more efficient by gaining economies of scale. The original motor cars of choice for the Cultural Creatives were basic, reliable, high quality products like Citroën 2CVs and Volkswagen Beetles. Lean production with minimal waste and based on consumer pull is becoming mainstream thinking in many factories. Brands that enable cheaper prices while expressing ethical values will have a major competitive advantage as populations move up the spiral.
   Brands that have raised ethical considerations like Body Shop and Virgin have taken business from incumbent brands that woke up too slowly. So now the race is on between the established brands that need to evolve fast, and challenger brands that can reposition the incumbents as unethical dinosaurs. Both groups can be ‘Brands with a Conscience’.

Nicholas Ind
Equilibrium Consulting, pb 5822 Majorstuen, 0308 Oslo, Norway
nind@equilibriumconsulting.com

N. Ind: ‘Beyond Branding: from Abstraction to Cubism’, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2007.
PDF version

Abstract
This paper focuses on the limitations of marketing as it is currently practised. It argues that the discipline’s desire for credibility has led theorists and practitioners to base their thinking around quasi-scientific rationality. This has been valuable in creating credence in the board room, but it is not a very good way of understanding the connections between the organization and its customers. Rather the emphasis should be on people and the nature of relationships.

Introduction
There is an adage in marketing—indeed it may be the adage—that it pays to be close to the customer. To become close suggests a communion between the customer and the organization in an almost intimate way with both sides willing to open up to each other. Close indicates transparency and reciprocity. The primary way organizations have tried to do this has been through the vehicle of market research, which has been a key driver in transforming many organizations from being production led to customer focused. However, there are challenges in using traditional research as a means of getting close to customers and also in the way organizations sometimes misuse research to aid decision-making¹. The key problem is that research must abstract and group and categorize customers. If we accept the specific individuality of people, this categorization will inevitably be flawed. Yet such is the widespread faith in measurement and systems² there is a tendency to mistake the abstract for the real: as soon as managers start seeing numbers, they tend to stop seeing people. While market research can be valuable for informing decisions, the argument is we should not over-rely on it nor mistake data for reality. It is at best an approximation based on the present and past and inevitably predicated on assumptions. As the philosophers, Guattari and Deleuze, echoing Spinoza, say, people tend to categorize and universalize the particular: ‘we think the universal explains, whereas it is what must be explained.’³

From abstract to cubist thinking
While numerical analysis is valuable in informing decisions, we should not over-rely on it nor should we universalize behaviour without questioning the intensive processes below the surface (Deleuze 1994). Research is too often used not as an inspiration to understand how people might think and behave, but rather as a judgment on how they will behave. The example of the Volvo Cross-Country car (Ind and Watt) demonstrates the point. This car was developed by the Swedish car maker as a hybrid vehicle, designed to reach a new type of younger customer who might want the practicality of an estate car with the off-road appeal of a sports utility vehicle (SUV). At the time this was a new approach and Volvo felt the need for the reassurance of research. The model of the car was tested in clinics but the consumer response was negative: people had never seen a vehicle like this and couldn’t put into any existing category. As a result of the research, the project was closed down. However, shortly after, Subaru successfully launched a new vehicle, the Outback, directly into this supposingly non-existent sector. Volvo quickly restarted its own project and launched the Cross Country to critical and commercial success. The lesson is that rather than universalizing and abstracting we should see marketing as Cubist; that there are many perspectives of the same thing, where ‘solid apprehensible reality seems to give way to a world of shifting relationships.’

In search of the human
The question we ought to pose is whether there is another, more ‘cubist’ way of building brands? The solution lies in recognizing that the relationship between an organization and its customers is dynamic, non-linear, non-controllable and difficult to predict. This is about putting quantitative analysis and abstraction in its place. And recognizing that it is the customer who has the power to begin, sustain or terminate a relationship. Thus, the organization should look to reconnect with its customers: to break down the borders between the inside and outside. One of the attributes of humans is our ability to recognize in others feelings that we ourselves have and to link the past with the future.⁴ This is much easier if we concentrate on a direct dialogue rather than using mediated information.
   Some organizations are adept at this process: Linux and the whole Open Source movement are based on the principle,⁵ as are the sportswear brands Quiksilver and Patagonia and the online game company, Funcom. The design and innovation consultancy IDEO, uses co-creation methods and “unfocused” groups for the development of services and products in such areas as IT, medical equipment and children’s toys. Volvo uses close customer connectivity in developing new models. Interestingly all of these organizations limit market research primarily to a source of insight and some, such as Quiksilver, Patagonia and IDEO reject the abstraction of research.
   The skate, surf and snowboard company, Quiksilver is a particularly apt example of the ability to break down borders and connect with customers in an intuitive way (Ind and Watt, 2004). Like Patagonia—and the early Nike (Ind, 2001)—it recruits people from the sports it serves; employees who spend their spare time surfing and skating and who are intimately connected with the culture of their sports. From the CEO (a surfer) down, employees attend and take part in sports events. Also Quiksilver encourage interested professionals, such as designers as well as board riders to contribute their ideas. The 240 professional riders and an army of supported amateurs are an extension of the grass roots’ connection Quiksilver enjoyed in its early days when it was run as a hobbyist surf shorts business. Quiksilver knows creativity has to meet with the approval of the enthusiast audience both to ensure it is a trend leader and to maintain its authenticity. Some innnovations are the direct result of input from riders, such as the development of surfing fiction books aimed at girls or the design of a wet suit range and some ideas are the result of dialogue that provides inspiration for designers. Rapid feedback also tells the company when its products aren’t working as they should or its communications aren’t connecting. Quiksilver treats its customers as insiders and the language of the company reflects this. The free-flow of ideas out from the company’s employees and back in from its network creates the opportunity to build relevant value for the customer. However, it is only an opportunity: to sustain a process of continuous creativity, Quiksilver needs to be an active listener. It has to have the humility to recognize good ideas can come from outside the company and the willingness to share ideas within the company across organisational boundaries. This ensures the continued relevance of the brand to its core customer base. As Quiksilver Marketing Director, Randy Hild says, ‘the challenge is to keep an open mind … I look at everything that comes my way. We’re very good listeners.’

Summary: a different future
As organizations grow they move away from the intuitive knowledge derived from a close and evolving relationship with customers and tend to rely more on the abstraction of research. However, abstraction needs to be explained and the intensive processes that lie under the surface explored. This indicates the value of moving to a more human-focused approach that encourages a direct relationship between the organization and its customers; a relationship founded on trust and a willingness to take down the border between inside and outside.
   Organizations have to try to engage customers and to involve them in the process of creating relevant value. This has several implications: the boundaries of the organization need to be challenged, managers need to encourage transparency and work at active listening, employees need to be encouraged to engage with customers and communications need to flow across internal boundaries. Companies will have to rework their organizational structures so that the customer is no longer a box on the outside but a connected part of the organizational machine. Also rather than concentrating on internal departmental units, the flows between them, that enable customer knowledge to be shared, need to be emphasized. By combining structural and attitudinal changes the customer can become an active presence rather than a mere spectre in the organization.

Endnotes
   1. Philip Kotler in Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning and Control, 5th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall 1988, p. 188 identifies six pertinent complaints about market research, one of which is ‘marketing information is sodispersed throughout the company that it takes a great effort to locate simple facts.’
   2. Dostoyevsky writes in Notes from Underground: ‘But man is so partial to systems and abstract deductionthat in order to justify his logic he is prepared to distort the truth intentionally’. F. Dostoyevsky: Notes from Underground, tr. J. Coulson, London: Penguin 2003, p. 31 (originally published 1864 as Zapiski iz Poolpolya).
   3. G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, What is Philosophy? London: Verso 2003, p. 49. Benedict de Spinoza writes in Ethics (II/135): ‘how easily we are deceived when we confuse universals with singulars,and beings of reason and abstractions with real beings.’
   4. J. Barresi: ‘On Becoming a Person’, Philosophical Psychology, no. 12, 1999, pp. 79–98.
   5. In E. Raymond: The Cathedral and the Bazaar, 1997, the author calls the approach the Bazaar model and contrasts it with the Cathedral model where the source code is a carefully guarded secret. He suggests that the Bazaar model is a more effective way of testing software code than the Cathedral model which has to second-guess customer reactions.

References
   D. Boyle: The Tyranny of Numbers: Why Counting Can’t Make Us Happy. London: Harper Collins 2002.
   G. Deleuze and F. Guattari: What Is Philosophy?, London: Verso 2003.
   G. Deleuze: Difference and Repetition, tr. P. Patton. New York: Columbia University Press 1994 (first published 1968).
   N. Ind: Living the Brand, London: Kogan Page 2001 (rev. ed. 2003).
   N. Ind and C. Watt: Inspiration: Capturing the Creative Potential of Your Organisation. Basingstoke: Palgrave 2004.
   B. de Spinoza: Ethics (1996), tr. E. Curley. London: Penguin 1996 (II/135) (originally published 1677).

A version of this paper appeared in the Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 15, no. 2, 2006.