Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Loyalty360: A Q&A with Author Doug Zarkin on Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone and Creating Emotional Loyalty
For marketers and customer loyalty professionals, creating authentic emotional connections between the brand and consumers is vital to success in today’s competitive marketplace. Consumers are seeking more value beyond the transaction, and if they don’t find it with one brand, they’ll swiftly switch to another.
Doug Zarkin is the Chief Brand Officer at Good Feet Worldwide and is an experienced marketing leader with a background spanning from advertising to fashion and beauty and now to health and wellness. His new book, MOVING YOUR BRAND OUT OF THE FRIEND ZONE, comes at a critical point for those immersed in the customer loyalty industry. Zarkin describes how brands stuck in “the friend zone” may be perceived by customers, what their value proposition should be, and how they may be able to reinvent themselves.
Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty360, spoke with Doug Zarkin about The Brand Value Equation, the Art of Sacrifice, and “thinking human.”
Good afternoon, good morning. It's Mark Johnson from Loyalty 360. I hope everyone's happy, safe and well. I want to welcome you back to another edition of our Authors in Academia series, where we look at topics and trends that impact customer channel and brand loyalty from a unique lens to give an enhanced perspective on the state of customer loyalty. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Doug Zarkin, who recently published a book entitled Moving your Brand Out of the Friend Zone. I think it's a very timely book for those who are immersed in the customer loyalty industry, because emotional connection, emotional engagement, is very important to brands. Right now, there's challenges with how to do that, how to measure that. So looking forward to having this discussion with Doug to understand some of the value propositions that brands should be looking at and considering as they move their brand out of friend zone, should I say so, Doug, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us today.
Doug Zarkin:Mark, good to see you. I think your background is probably the only one I've seen in all the podcasts and zooms that I do in Teams meetings. That is even more cluttered than mine, so congratulations. Very interesting stuff back there.
Mark Johnson:Thank you. A little bit of Bronco stuff. I know you're a big giant fan, so you got to show the colors, I think Absolutely 100%. So first off, we like to start these on a more personal level, to get to know the person we're speaking with. So I'd love to know a little bit about your background, most recent positions and also maybe a fun fact about you, something you enjoy, a passion you have outside of work.
Doug Zarkin:Sure. So my career journey really is, I think, a great example of getting on the train at the end and working my way to the front. I began my career, first career in the agency world, where I moved up the ranks and eventually started the youth, entertainment and lifestyle division of gray advertising. And then I went to the client side and sort of fun fact is you're talking one of the few men that was actually an Avon lady. When I joined Avon to help create and eventually launch their mark by Avon brand.
Doug Zarkin:I had really never worked deeply in the beauty and clearly, when you go to a company that is called the company for women, if you don't shut up and listen and learn from the ground up, you're going to make some epic mistakes. From there I went to Victoria's Secret to accelerate their pink brand, spent a number of years in fashion and beauty for 11 years at Essilor Luxottica, the chief marketing officer for Pearl vision, where I had the distinct pleasure of really revitalizing that iconic brand, and then this past week was named the chief brand officer for a company called Good Feed Holdings, which is an amazing health and wellness organization that owns brands like the Good Feed Store and OS First, which is a performance, sock brand and a bunch of others that are soon to be announced and really excited to get in there as the chief brand officer and help mature that portfolio.
Mark Johnson:Okay, excellent. You recently published a book Moving your Brand Out of the Friend Zone. I would love to know, kind of a high level, why you decided to write the book and what's the genesis of the book and what's the book about.
Doug Zarkin:You know, I'm realizing after spending my summer writing it and I wrote the book in about 16 weeks that I must be a masochist because I literally can't spell and auto-correct and I have a very, very love-hate relationship. But for me it was really two things. Number one, you know, I've had the privilege of being on podcasts and on stage in a number of conferences and it's always exciting when you say something that motivates somebody. And number two is I have the pleasure of being involved in several mentoring organizations, formal, like AdWeek and the Association of National Advertisers Education Foundation, but also informal with you know, people I've come across in my career that I spend time with and this was an opportunity in putting out this my first book, which is now available at Amazon and soon to be available in Kindle format to really bring that thought leadership and the opportunity to help every young marketer kind of figure out their way to bear. And so I'm excited that it's now hit and anxious to see the responses to it.
Mark Johnson:That's Awesome. So the friend zone. Can you tell us a little bit more why brands should not be there? It'd be good to know.
Doug Zarkin:So you know don't kid yourself, Mark we all know what the friend zone is in our personal life We've all been there and in the world of branding and marketing. Unfortunately, brands don't know until it's too late that they're in the friend zone. And the friend zone is essentially when you think you have a stronger relationship with your consumers than they think of you, and the easiest way to understand that reality is by looking at your sales trajectory and that sort of trigger tendency to start engaging what we all call latent customers. You know, if, more and more, that database gets bigger and bigger, where people aren't coming back to you with the regularity that you expect, you're in the friend zone. The friend zone is where there is a decent level of passion and trust, but not enough to prevent somebody from moving on, moving up or moving out of your brand and your products.
Doug Zarkin:And so the premise is in today's marketplace, where a great idea can go from idea to execution in rapid time thanks to Kickstarter and Etsy and Instagram, you've got to really deepen your commitment, your consumers, to create what I call brand love. You know where consumers are so passionate about your brand and your business and your products and your services that it doesn't matter what the hot trend is. They're going to look really, really hard before they make any leap. And, most importantly, these are the consumers that are your advocates, Because, whether we like it or not today, tomorrow and in the future, the most powerful tool in the marketers toolbox is word of mouth marketing, and that really comes when you can take customers and turn them into advocates.
Mark Johnson:Interesting. So one of the things that we see at L360, being a trade association for the industry a number of brands growing number that are focused on emotional loyalty, right?
Mark Johnson:So it's the same thing. You know, having that deep emotive connection with the customer is very important, but brands struggle with that Many brands. We just did a survey over the summer around emotional loyalty and brands think they have a deeper connection with their customers. They have a higher emotional loyalty quotient than they may actually have, right? So there's some challenges there, similar to what you said. The relationship piece. How do brands address that because most brands don't have metacognition to really understand the true depth of the relationship with the customer. Is that step one? How do brands or how should they address that?
Doug Zarkin:I love the double word score metacognition don't ask me to spell it, but the way brands really can address it is first to admit that they have a problem, and the problem is is they're being too transactional with their consumer. You know, if every engagement opportunity that you find is about trying to push something, whether they need it or not, you're not going to create brand love. And so it's sort of resisting the urge and saying at the end of the day hey look, I'm in it to win it with you over the long term. Let's work together to find the right opportunity where you can educate, inform and then stimulate me to do the action that I need to do when I need to do it.
Mark Johnson:Excellent. When you look at the brand value equation and its impact. This is something obviously quite relevant to our members. As I mentioned, many are redoing the customer value propositions to try and get that brand value equation. Can you talk a little more about that, what it is and how brand should be striving to get that ?
Doug Zarkin:righ, I'm definitely not Einstein and this is not the Pythagorean theorem, but what I've created in the book is the brand value equation. The notion is that whether you're making $550, $500, or millions of dollars, you instinctually, without even knowing it, want brand value. If I told you that your neighborhood fast food chain was going to raise their price of their hamburger from $249 to $1249, you wouldn't go buy it. Just at the same way, if I told you that a luxury resort was going to discount all of their rooms to $99, no black out fees, no regulations you'd be jumping and booking a trip.
Doug Zarkin:You just went through the brand value equation. Brand value equals experience as your numerator divided by prices, your denominator. As long as you have a net positive relationship, especially two to three times, you're going to be able to deliver brand value. If your product or service is $100, you need to be delivering $200 to $400 in experience in order to have a really strong brand value equation. The brands that find themselves in the friend zone are ones that are like $100 experience for $100 price or $75 experience for $100 price, where you're satisfied but there's no intensity.
Mark Johnson:That makes sense. Interesting. You also have a unique idea around brand positioning and the art of sacrifice .
Doug Zarkin:Can you tell u
Doug Zarkin:You're going to shar. Sorry for the yawn, it's early my time. It's really simple. You and I, I am sure, in our past lives or current lives, have found ourselves rolling up to one of those great buffets in Las Vegas or other places. There is absolutely nobody who physically feels good after going to a buffet. The human body is not designed to consume lobster and pizza and steak and Italian food and ice cream and pie. Okay, you feel like shit. Brands that try to do too much also feel that way, and the notion is practicing that art of sacrifice is part of the talent. That is absolutely where you need to truly decide what you're going to do, what you're not going to do. Every piece of communication can contain every single message.
Mark Johnson:Yep. And I think that's interesting because we had a discussion this week in our community around just that right Having too much communication going out. A lot of brands do it. Supporting the retailers being one of them, and how to simplify that but have it to be more impactful based on their data and what they understand about the customer is very challenging with brands. Is that something you see, or maybe not as much?
Doug Zarkin:Like 50-50. I think you're starting to see a little bit of it, but I think there could always be more.
Mark Johnson:Okay, when you look at customers, they have a tendency to be more irrational. You talk about looking for that alignment. They may say they have an interest in or value in a certain thing, but they may not actually end up, you know, partaking in that behavior. So you talk about looking to add value, you know, at $200 to $400. How should a brand look to establish that or do that when they're looking to add value, if they don't necessarily understand customers?
Doug Zarkin:So you know, to me it kind of goes to the notion that I talk about in the book, about thinking human. And thinking human emanates out of two things. Number one, recognizing that consumers make emotional decisions before they make rational choices, and so that shapes not only what you say but how you say it. The second thing is addressing your consumer with the mindset that imagine if that consumer that came in was the only consumer that you saw that day. What would you do? How would you treat them? What would the experience be? And that's the story. I mean, that's at the end of the day. That is the story.
Mark Johnson:You also talk about the currency of trust within the book. You know, when you look at the currency of trust, your brands are very focused on trust, but trust can be very immeasurable in some manners. How should they be looking to build that trust quotient up?
Doug Zarkin:Slowly and with humility. A really easy way to build trust is through a series of small moments of caring connection. Discounting is a gesture Sending an email or picking up the phone and calling your consumer a couple weeks or a couple months after they've engaged with your product, just to see how things are doing. Got to be honest with you. That goes a lot further. You know, imagine you have your doctor who operates on you. They call you the next day, the nurse calls you a week later. You go and you see the doctor a month later, two months later, six months later. But what about if, like a year later, out of the blue, your doctor just called you and said hey, listen, how's it going? Is there anything you need? That takes about seven seconds. But wow, don't you think that that doctor really cares about you? And the next time that somebody in your family friends network needs a doctor for that particular specialty, I bet your bottom dollar they're going to recommend it.
Mark Johnson:Yeah, that makes sense, perfect sense. When you look at brands today, they're struggling with the technology, struggling with personalization, being able to do it scale. When you look at the opportunities for brands today, what do you think the biggest challenge or potential opportunity could be regarding brand loyalty, brand affinity?
Doug Zarkin:So I think brand loyalty they have to think of it like one of my personal passions. To your earlier question that I didn't answer is I'm a competitive tennis player and in tennis, yes, there are certain points that you went off your serve, but the majority is about setting up your opponent to win. And I think, if you look at loyalty like a game of tennis, if you want to sell something incremental who emails before that you want to send the email that pushes that product or service? Heat up with some content, with that moment of care and connection that's going to make the return on investment that much greater.
Mark Johnson:Okay, that's a great point when you look at your career very successful, very unique, very diverse. What's the biggest challenge you have solved in your career?
Doug Zarkin:Biggest business challenge, I would say, was probably repositioning Pro Vision, Revitalizing the iconic brand, getting it out of the friend zone, getting out of the world the buy one, get one free. At the same time, the biggest challenge in my career itself has been my career itself moving from the agency world to the client side, navigating that world, learning how to be a leader. They didn't teach you leadership in graduate school. They certainly didn't teach you in undergrad. You lead by learning how to lead and certainly I continue to be a work in progress. My leadership style has evolved tremendously Early in your career. It's all about accomplishment. It's about being a single contributor, a rock star Wow, that kid's great. Let me get him on the team. Let me give him an opportunity. Well, when you reach a certain point in your career, it's about others and it's about celebrating the journey and ensuring that others want to come along to the ride. Climbing a mountain alone yeah, you can reach the summit and take a selfie, but it's that group pic. It's a hell of a lot more fun.
Mark Johnson:Excellent. That's kind of a follow-up question could be what are you most proud of in your career? Is the Pearl Vision kind of transition?
Doug Zarkin:I think what I'm most proud of in my career is the people that I've had the opportunity to lead and grow. I'm a big proponent of the how is as important as the what, and I think I certainly am a requiring leader. I don't suffer fools. Well, I do require my team to have purpose and bring the energy and the passion which is what I hire for, but I think I'm most proud of the fact that I'm actually a really good person at the end of it. I love hard and, unfortunately, I hate hard. So for me, in building a high-performing team, when you get a group of people that will go to bat for you, there's nothing and nobody more important to them, and I've made some very special relationships in the course of my career as a result.
Mark Johnson:Excellent and, when you look at your book, very impactful in a number of different areas. Are there one or two things that you would recommend to brands who want to take that first step, because a lot of times they're sold to read a book and it's very, you know, boil, the ocean type approach, very challenging from a measurement implementation, but are there one or two things that you would recommend brands should consider to start with.
Doug Zarkin:Yeah, embrace the notion of being a niche brand. Niche doesn't mean small. Niche means opportunity. You know it's an opportunity that can allow you to grow and become a powerful force. I would much rather have a very good idea of who my consumer is and know that I'm satisfying a need state beyond what they even expect, than to just spray and pray. You can't afford to spray and pray. It's just way too many competitors in the marketplace.
Mark Johnson:Absolutely Interesting. And the last question, from a loyalty perspective are there a brand or two that you are most loyal to, that you find yourself driven to, and why.
Doug Zarkin:In the world of sports for me, I'm probably most loyal to Wilson from Iraq, a6 for my sneakers. There are some niche brands that I've really become loyal to, like Mugsy for Jeans. I think they do an amazing, amazing job. The brands that I'm most loyal to are the ones that add value to my life and to my family's life. I can't think of what my life would be like without Amazon Prime. I can't think of what my life would be like without some of that. I can't think of what my life would be like without some of the streaming services that I'm joined mainly because they provide sources of entertainment and joy for myself and my family.
Mark Johnson:So, yeah, okay, and now we have our fun quickfire question session and looking forward to hearing your responses and what's your favorite word yeah. Awesome. What's your least favorite word? Can't, okay. What excites you People? What do you find tiresome People? Okay, what is your favorite travel destination?
Doug Zarkin:It's a great question. It's a great question I would wow I don't even know how to answer that Probably going out east to the Hamptons to my in-laws house and just sitting by the pool and vegetating, doing a whole lot of nothing.
Mark Johnson:Okay, a profession. What profession would you have liked to attempt if you weren't in the marketing arena?
Doug Zarkin:Either journalism as a newscaster or being on Broadway.
Mark Johnson:Okay.
Doug Zarkin:What profession would you avoid? Food service, because I tried it and I cannot balance a track. Terrible.
Mark Johnson:Who inspired you to become the person you are today.
Doug Zarkin:My probably my mom, my dad.
Mark Johnson:Okay, what do you typically think about at the end of the day? Gratitude and last question how do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?
Doug Zarkin:Somebody who made a difference, not just for what he did, but how he did it.
Mark Johnson:Excellent. Well, doug, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today. Congrats on the book. You know Moving your Brand out of the Friend Zone. It's available at Amazon and the Kindle Edition is coming out soon. You mentioned.
Doug Zarkin:Kindle Edition is coming out soon. Paperback version is available on Amazon and you can always go to dugsarkincom to find the links if you can't find it Perfect.
Mark Johnson:Well, thank you very much again for taking the time to talk to us today and helping brands get their brand out of the Friend Zone, and thanks again. All right, thank you. I appreciate it, mark, absolutely. Thank you everyone for taking the time to listen. I'll make sure you join us back for another edition soon. Have a wonderful day.