Synopsis: WOW has a Who, a Where and a How, as well. Remarkable Branding (www.remarkablebranding.com) sees the whole as greater than the sum of the parts and those parts consisting of much more than product, service and ambiance. Holistic management offers a means to infuse WOW everywhere, starting with the animating value that drives one's business soul, through the brand story and then all the tangible elements that make it real. WOW isn't hyperbole, but it is theatrical. When you understand WOW, you 'get' that the difference between a disappointing retail experience and a remarkable one is that the first is transactional, the other theatrical. Transactional retail is impersonal. Theatrical retail is engaging, authentic and personal. We're in Show business, baby, so get your tap shoes on, it's time to WOW.

Part Two: The Who, Where, and How of WOW

"Americans love to eat. And Americans love to shop. But we don't like to shop for food. It's a chore, like doing laundry," laments John Mackey, 51, the sneaker-and-jeans-wearing found… "Whole Foods thinks shopping should be fun… we're pioneering a new lifestyle that synthesizes health and pleasure."

(John Mackey Chairman & CEO of Whole Foods, quoted from an article from the Money Section of USA Today, March 9th, by Bruce Horowitz)

Who Creates WOW?

It's anyone who has decided to up the bar and 'stand for something' more than just a product and/or service. To "Be somebody" and do it with energy, impeccable taste and attention to detail.

WOW'ers are often entrepreneurial, irritated by the constraints of middle brow, in-the-box thinking. They go to the edge. Noted hotelier/entrepreneur/trendmeister Andre Balazs has redefined the essence of hip: "… Balazs understands that hotels are great public living rooms where the combustion of celebrity, drinking, the sexiness of seeing and being seen can be very theatrical… Where there's no aristocratic class, the tastemaker sitting at your side telling you 'Yes, do that. No, not that way,' can be very powerful." (Donald Albrecht, New Hotels for Global Nomads, as quoted in the New York Times, 12/12/04)

WOW'ers can be modest. Jim Riddick, proprietor of The Cypress Inn, offers a small Four Diamond Award Bed & Breakfast Inn whose purpose is to "nourish the body and soul". Located in the little town of Conway, South Carolina, he has achieved national recognition, without the hype or notoriety.

WOW'ers need an acting troupe of wow'ers, the people who actually 'perform the play'. These actors aren't called that because it makes good copy. The best WOW environments recognize the contrived nature of the interaction in which the promise of a brand is either 'put across' or broken by an associate who is untrained, uncaring or in the wrong 'role'. As the noted PhD Social Anthropologist Erving Goffman observed, "It is the act of acting that, in the end, differentiates memorable experiences from ordinary human activity." (Erving Goffman, celebrated PhD and social anthropologist)

WOW requires personal connection between guest and associate, often the worst paid and least appreciated employee. Brands aren't just clever ads and creatively scripted personas. Business people wonder where WOW goes wrong, most often it's here: "To win brand loyalty companies need to establish strong emotional bonds with their guests, moreover this builds one transaction at a time, involving face-to-face contacts. A brand… has a face of the people who interact in the marketplace," says John Fleming of the Gallup Organization. (New York Times, 12/7/04, Sanda Blakeslee 'Say the Right Name and They Light Up')

Where is WOW?

It is not driven by logic, nor is it understood rationally, but scientists have now proven WOW resides in the brain. "… but those who indicated an extremely strong attachment to the (brand) … showed a distinct pattern: three areas of the brain, the orbitofrontal cortex, the temporal pole and the amygdala — lit up brightly. All are associated with visual memory and emotion. The most brand addicted subjects showed the greatest activation in the amygdala, the sensory gateway to the emotions." (New York Times, 12/7/04, Sanda Blakeslee, 'Say the Right Name and They Light Up')

It can be in one small bed and breakfast or in thousands of locations.

There is obvious economic benefit. "The Gallup studied consumers with varying degrees of brand loyalty… the result? Successful brands can invade the brain's most intimate emotional centers and drive behavior. If a company could turn 5% more of its guests into loyalists with hooks into their amygdalas profits would increase 25–100% a consumer…" (New York Times, 12/7/04, Sandra Blakeslee, 'Say the Right Name and They Light Up')

It has its roots in a deep understanding of human nature. "The reality is that, as an adult, you only change your behavior from a significant emotional experience… You've got to nourish them on a daily basis — you have to heal the wounds of being on the battlefield daily. Otherwise, they'll forget the real reasons they are there." (Leonardo Inghilleri, former Corporate VP for Human Resources for Ritz Carlton, quoted from Harvard Business School Case Study, revised 7/02)

And How To WOW

For Whole Foods…	It's Temptation by design
Candy Island	To dip fresh strawberries in a flowing chocolate fountain for$1.59 each
Lamar Street Greens	Sit among the organic produce and have a salad handmade for you with a glass of Chardonnay
Fifth Avenue Seafood	A version of Seattle's Pike Place Market with 150 fresh seafood items
Whole Body	A massage therapist works out the kinks in 25 minutes with deep tissue massage for $50

(more from the same article in the front page of the Money Section of USA Today, March 9th, by Bruce Horowitz)

For Starbucks, its, "We're in the business of creating an experience that goes well beyond the coffee. It's the relationship we have with our customers, the environment, the music, the entire setting." (from an interview with Howard Schulz, Chairman of Starbucks, Boston Globe, April 18, 2004)

For noted humorist, Sam Levinson talking about the legendary 2nd Avenue Deli in New York it's, "the highly inexact alchemy of traditional, instinctual Jewish cooking as handed down by word of Mothers… You have to feel what the food calls for and add that imprecise pinch, dab, smear, drop or blip." (Sam Levinson, quoted in The Saturday Review, 3/1/80)

How To WOW? Orchestrate a Theatrical Retail Experience

The New York Times recently reported that Marriott had announced they were going to do business differently, leaving behind the days of cookie cutter design, "to a new emphasis on aesthetics and personalization."

"The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reported on a test of whether people felt greater happiness from ''experiential purchases' or 'material purchases.' In almost all cases, Subjects preferred experiences to goods, ''The good life,' the authors wrote, 'may be better lived by doing things than by having things.''' (Virginia Postrel, The New York Times, September 9, 2004)

Interest in the 'look and feel' of something used to be seen as a focus on surface, an indulgence in puffery and superficiality. In the early to mid 20th Century, futurists envisioned a world where design was homogenized and 'sameness' celebrated. How surprised they would be to find a culture where individual expression is de rigeur, customization of product and service almost mandatory and a longing for the past's authenticity demanded as long as it works perfectly. An age, as Sam Hill says, of "Faux Authenticity". And that's a good thing. No one wants to get swallowed up into the great Black Hole known as Average American Cultural Norms. We want it to seem as real as we remember, but we want it to work perfectly.

Further, in the Experience Era, smart brands look to customize. We want it to allow our own signature to emblazon it. Take a look at the Scion made by Toyota. It's 'build your own design' has hit a nerve. Here's what its website says, "Self-expression recommended. We know you're out there and we know that you're showing us some love. Here's our chance to give some props to the online Scion community. Browse this list of links to find out what other Scion owners are saying and see what they're doing to their rides too. Or, build a site for yourself and be an active participant in the culture. Either way, here's a good place for you to start."

Go further into the site and you'll the dozens of blogs and personal Scion websites that have been created by current users. Just another 'Tribe' created out of whole cloth to join their brethren at Harley.

The How of WOW: Orchestrate a Memorable Experience.

Create a Story

• It's the step by step narrative of the ideal guest experience with your resort.
• It incorporates both your key value as fuel and the distinctive elements of the brand so that every moment communicates who you are and what you stand for in an indelible way.
• It reinforces what the customer already feels and likes about your brand.

Orchestrate the Components: The 10 'P's in a Play

1. The Play: Your branded story is envisioned and written as an ideal guest experience, 5-sense driven, consistent with your values and including your WOWs.
2. The Promise: Your key value is identified and used as both the fuel and criteria sieve to drive all decisions.
3. The Place: Your location and building is assessed: how will each 'Zone' play both its functional role and its branded role in supporting the Play and Promise.
4. The People: Your guest's real purpose in choosing you, you actor's understanding of and belief in your story, your vendor's support and your key value are aligned.
5. The Production Elements: Your distinctive, brand WOWs are identified, highlighted and celebrated.
6. The Props: The actual equipment, furnishings and fixtures that play a key part in moving the story forward are selected based on their impact on the show, the actor's performance and the guest's perception of their 'added value'.
7. The Price: You determine worth based on the quality of the experience, not just the service and product. In effect, you look to charge admission.
8. The Promotion:The communication of the brand story in all its forms is orchestrated, coordinated and focused representing the experience and the brand/story so that it reiterates and supports the guest's perceptions. Everything 'is of a piece.'
9. The Press: The buzz, scripted or not, is orchestrated to generate local impact first both inside the 4 walls and within the trading area.
10. The Performance Reviews & Prizes: Pre-shift and post-shift meetings, rewards as a regular 'rite' and recognition of the right behaviors are instituted on a daily basis. It becomes ingrained into the culture.

So there is a method to the Method. The theatrical model is not just a glib metaphor, but a means to transform the merely tangible to the transcendent. If a brand is greater than the sum of its service, products and ambiance, where else but the theater can you find a way to take those elements and elevate them into an indelible memory, one impervious to the onslaught of commercials, connectivity and competition? WOW is Remarkable. WOW is ShowTime, Baby.

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I've had the fun of being published in a variety of publications in the last two months. Click here and you can take a look at the articles. You can also visit the publications yourself and see what other wisdom is out there to raise the bar and make you better:

Publications

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Have any questions about this issue? Please feel free to email me at rick@remarkablebranding.com, or call me at 617-547-5123 or 617-335-1011. I'll do my best to help you out.

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We combine theater technique, classic marketing skill and operations know-how to create a profitable, "WOW" guest experience.

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Seminars: Now, for a little shameless self promotion. Looking for a high- energy speaker, capable of personalizing a presentation to meet your needs?

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Click through to HPI, a company with which I'm affiliated. I think you may find its perspective on Hospitality compelling, and many of its articles on the lodging business on the mark.

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"It's Showtime Baby, & And You're The Show!," gets published regularly and concentrates on concrete ways you can take advantage of the emerging "Experience Era".

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