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Best Experience Brands 2013 A Global Study by Jack Morton Worldwide

Best Experience Brands

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Eighty percent of companies think their brands have superior experiences. Unfortunately, only eight percent of their customers agree. It’s time for brands to tackle the experience gap – the gap between how consumers want to experience brands, and what brands are actually doing. It’s not just a marketing imperative; it’s a business imperative. That’s why we’re proud to share our latest research looking at what drives the best brand experiences around the world. Best Experience Brands includes • Insights from a study of 4,000 consumers in the US, UK, Australia and China • Consumer stories of good and bad experiences, with particular focus on retail, automotive and insurance • The 5 principles of great brand experiences

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Page 1: Best Experience Brands

Best Experience Brands 2013A Global Study by Jack Morton Worldwide

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30-Second Summary

Experience has become a familiar business buzzword, widely used if casually understood. High-level executives and marketers alike agree that experience is an important area for investment—yet often lack the data and insight needed to make informed decisions.

To help fill that void, Jack Morton Worldwide has for the second time sponsored Best Experience Brands, a study that addresses the impact of experience on consumers in the US, UK, Australia and China. (For the earlier study, see Best Experience Brands 2011).

The research strongly endorses the view that the brands that will lead in the 21st century will be experience brands, because people are

•Morelikelytoconsiderbrandsthatpromise better experiences

•Morelikelytorecommendbrandsbasedon good experiences

•Willingtopaymoreforbrandstheyassociate with superior experiences

As in the earlier Best Experience Brands study, consumers were asked about the drivers of brand experience—good and bad—and about how these vary by industry. Through their opinions and stories, we get a clear picture of the most impactful ways brands can improve their experience. (Spoiler alert: they should start with their own people.)

Additional insights from the Best Experience Brands study may be requested by contacting Jack Morton.

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The experience gap / 4 About the study / 5 Key insights from the research / 6 5 best experience principles / 9 Stories of experience brands / 10 Experience drivers and opportunities / 14 3 steps to better brand experience / 20 Learn more / 21

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What’s inside

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The experience gapJosh McCall

I’m not here to declare, sky-is-falling style, that experience is a lost cause—far from it. Yes, the experience gap is a real and significant challenge. But for those marketers brave enough to take an honest look at how their experiences are performing—and ambitious enough to do something about it—there’s hope.

There’s also a return on investing in experience. Studies suggest people will reward brands that understand their experiences as differentiators and that invest accordingly. Forrester research, for example, reveals a correlation between good customer experiences and likelihood to recommend, repurchase and stay loyal to brands across 14 industry sectors.

For all these reasons—the importance of experience to customers, its connection to brand success, the gaps between expectation and delivery—we at Jack Morton continue to invest in research that helps clients understand not only why experience is valuable but how to make it better. This year’s Best Experience Brands study, like our earlier research, represents our commitment to providing data and insights that will help companies close that experience gap.

We believe in experience brands—and we aim to make more of them. I hope you’ll find the pages that follow not only interesting but useful to your experience planning. Let me know what you think, and look for more Best Experience Brands findings and studies in the months and years to come.

Josh McCall is Chairman & CEO of Jack Morton Worldwide

There’s an experience gap today.

Experience is important to customers—and so common sense suggests it must be to brands, too. But study after study reveals that brands just aren’t living up to customer expectations.

Some years ago, for example, Bain & Company surveyed customers of 362 companies. According to the Harvard Business Review, “Only 8% of them described their experiences as superior, yet 80% of the companies surveyed believe that the experience they have been providing is indeed superior.” From an 80% assumed superiority to 8% actual delivery: that’s some gap.

More recently, in 2012 Forrester asked customers to rank 154 large North American brands according to the strength of their experience. Only 8% fell into the “excellent” experience category. Almost two out of three (61%) offered experiences that customers considered “okay”, “poor” or “very poor”. Again, that reveals a big experience gap, with the majority of brands either failing to differentiate or disappointing customer expectations.

Only 8% of experiences are rated “excellent”.

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About the study

Best Experience Brands is based on a survey sponsored by Jack Morton Worldwide and conducted by DB5 in late 2012 (November 16-27). Respondents were aged 18 and older, and were equally distributed by gender, age and income. Findings are statistically significant at a 95% confidence level.

We spoke to 4,000 people in four markets:

• United States (1,000)• United Kingdom (1,000)• China (1,000)• Australia (1,000)

Survey respondents were provided the following definition:

Experience can include your interactions with the products, employees or people who represent the brand, anything you learn from that brand’s marketing, word-of-mouth, recommendations from your friends, colleagues or social media.

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Key insights from the researchLiz Bigham

These findings are consistent with earlier research—ours and others’—that correlates better brand experiences to loyalty and satisfaction. In 2011, people told us that overall experience with a brand is the single biggest factor driving purchase (60%). In 2012, Forrester research correlated good customer experiences and likelihood to repurchase and stay loyal to brands across 14 industry sectors.

If eight out of ten people said they’d be more likely to consider your brand based on experience, wouldn’t you invest in making your experience the best in your industry?

And if six out of ten people said they’d even be willing to pay more for your product based on offering a better experience, wouldn’t you make that investment a top strategic priority for your organization? Well, get ready: experience is a determining factor for how people feel about and behave toward brands.

According to the results of our latest Best Experience Brands research, that’s exactly what people all around the world think about brands and the experiences they offer. Better experiences correlate to higher consideration and premium pricing:

• Overeightintenpeople(80.4%)aremorelikely to consider brands with differentiated experiences (fig.1).

• Nearlysixoutoften(58.1%)willgosofar as to pay more for brands with those superior experiences (fig.2).

Fig.1 I’m more likely to consider a brand if I know I will have a great experience (percent agreeing)

Fig.2I’m willing to pay a premium price if I know that I will have a great experience (percent agreeing)

US

78.7%

UK

74.9%

AUS

74.2%

China

93.8%

Overall

80.4%

US

60.6%

UK

58.4%

AUS

49.5%

China

63.7%

Overall

58.1%

Good customer experiences correlate to repurchase, loyalty and recommendation

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Some groups, however, are markedly more influenced than others (fig. 3-4). These include people aged 25-34, the age group that is consistently most likely to consider, recommend or pay a premium price based on a better brand experience. The biggest generational divide, in fact, occurs between these older Millennials and their Baby Boom-era parents (consumers 45+) over their willingness to pay a premium for experience: older Millennials are 16 percentage points more likely than their parents’ generation to pay more for brands that offer great experiences.

Better experiences also drive the most powerful form of advertising: personal recommendation.

The research reinforces that great experiences fuel the most highly trusted form of advertising around: word of mouth. Almost nine out of ten people (87%) say they are morely likely to recommend a brand based on a superior experience.

Again, the Best Experience Brands findings parallel earlier findings connecting experience and word of mouth. In 2012, for example, our New Realities study found that 79% of people will only advocate brands following great personal experiences—meaning that for them, experience isn’t just a spark to recommendation; it’s a prerequisite.

Experience influences everyone—but especially older Millennials and consumers in China.

On the face of it, the promise of a better experience is influential across all demographic groups. Regardless of age, gender or geography, all groups are positively influenced by superior brand experiences.

Experience isn’t just a spark to recommendation; it’s a prerequisite.

Fig. 3 I’m more likely to recommend a brand if I’ve had a great experience (% agreeing)

US

87.6%

UK

85.5%

AUS

84.1%

China

90.9%

Overall

87%

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Men are slightly more likely than women tohave higher consideration, and significantly more likely to pay more based on experience. Conversely, women—ever the social consumers—are significantly more likely to recommend brands based on experience.

Consumers in China are without fail more likely than all others to be influenced by experience. Over nine in ten Chinese consumers surveyed (93.8%) are more likely to consider brands based on experience (versus an overall average of 80.4% worldwide); and over nine in ten Chinese consumers (90.9%) are more likely to recommend brands based on experience (versus an overall average of 87% worldwide) (figs.1-2).

Fig.4 Demographics of experience

I’m more likely to recommend a brand if I’ve had a great experience

I’m more likely to consider a brand if I know I will have a great experience

I’m willing to pay a premium price if I know that I will have a great experience

18-24 25-34 35-44 45+GenderAge

All

85.1% 89.8%

81.4% 86.5%

61.8% 66.7%

87.0% 87.4%

80.4% 82.8%

58.1% 61.5%

88.5% 88.6% 84.6%

79.6% 85.7% 73.7%

55.1% 62.0% 50.4%

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5 best experience principles

4. Create community.Beyond fueling recommendations and referrals, experiences should be designed to connect people around brands—to leverage the few to inspire the many.

5. Make it useful. It should go without saying: any experience should add value to people’s lives.

Best Experience Brands definitively demonstrates that experience matters to consumers—but what constitutes a great experience?

Looking at qualitative inputs from this and earlier studies, as well as years of best practices by leading experience brands, we believe that great brand experiences follow five core principles—across all kinds of audiences, touchpoints and media:

1. Invite participation.Great brand experiences are design-driven: simple, accessible, easy and inviting to the participant.

2. Build around users.Brand experience learned it from the web: people want their experiences to be relevant and feel customized to their needs. Even delivered at scale, experiences should “fit” the user.

3. Make it shareable.Experience sparks recommendation; experiences should be designed to tap into technology as well as our primal human desire to share.

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Stories of experience brands

Following are direct quotes from some of the 4,000 participants in the Best Experience Brands study in answer to open-ended questions about “great brand experiences” as well as “truly bad experiences”. We asked people to tell both about their shopping experiences (how they were treated by brands as they shopped) and their customer experiences (how they were treated after they bought). Some trends emerge from the thousands of verbatim descriptions.

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Honesty andtransparencyare valued

1

“[The] benefits of the product are exaggerated during purchase, but claim settlement is complicated and slow… We [had a] very bad experience and will hardly choose this company again.”(China – Insurance experience)

“The rep greeted [me] warmly from the door. The rep was very attentive to my needs… asked [me] a lot of questions and answered all of mine…. The rep called me weeks after I purchased my phone to see if my service and phone [were] working correctly.”(US – Retail experience)

“The sales staff were knowledgeable and helpful [in] understanding my needs and aspirations. They were also prepared to provide better prices and throw in extras. A great and pleasant experience.”(Australia – Automotive experience)

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“One dealer in particular inquired more about my personal needs to help look for what I really needed. He showed me the features and benefits of each car. Asked if overall price or monthly payment was more important. Took me for a test drive and also told me I could return it no questions asked in 30 days”(US – Automotive experience)

“Treated me with respect and talked to me (not my husband) when I was buying a car.”(US – Automotive experience)

“As I was shopping online with them I messaged customer service for some help and they were able to advise me on everything I needed.”(UK – Insurance experience)

“When they put your name and number into a computer system and you have a different person calling you back every day for weeks, it’s rude and completely impersonal”(US – Insurance experience)

Individual treatment and respect are expected

2

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“Above and beyond” experiences are remembered (so are their opposites)

“I was kept fully informed throughout the sales process and my wife even received a large bunch of flowers on delivery day.”(UK – Automotive experience)

“I was in the show room looking at the vehicles and no one would approach me. So as I walked past a desk I took down the phone number. Then I called the number to get [the salesperson’s] attention... You should have seen his face when I waved to him.”(US – Automotive experience)

“She sent me a thank you card mentioning something I had said while I was there. She actually listened.”(US – Retail experience)

3

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Experience drivers and opportunities

Focusing on the shopping experience and the customer experience reflects another experience gap: in this instance, between the extent to which consumers highlight these as the brand interactions that have the highest value for them, and the frequency with which consumers cite dissatisfaction with how brands actually perform during shopping and after purchase. For consumers, these are clear areas of priority and need.

In the current report, we focused on the shopping experience and the customer experience and asked consumers to identify the strongest drivers of success and satisfaction (fig.5). Although these drivers varied across the three industry sectors we studied (automotive, retail, insurance), key trends emerge.

“Brand experience” isn’t a moment in time; it’s a state of mind. Experience brands work to build sales and loyalty at moments in time and through relationships over time—inspiring people both opportunistically and holistically.

Brands that have strong experiences strive to understand experience as an ongoing commitment, and to think holistically across the varied journeys their people—customers, partners and employees—have with their brands. Often, they must assess hundreds of touchpoints within a given area of experience; a study by FedEx identified 200 individual customer touchpoints, and John Deere Financial identified 529.

Building on earlier insights from the 2011 report, in the current study we sought to add depth to our understanding of experience within two distinct phases of experience:

•Theshoppingexperience—interactionswithabrand when a person is in market and assessing different options.

•Thecustomerexperience—interactionswithabrand when a person has already purchased the product or brand.

“Brand experience” isn’t a moment in time; it’s a state of mind.

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Fig.5 Brand experience drivers by sector

Shopping Experience: Stated Drivers

Customer Experience: Stated Drivers

Automotive

Automotive

Retail

Retail

Insurance

Insurance

Gives you opportunities to test drive their cars at the dealership

Offers discounted maintenance

Offers you free delivery or shipping

Customer service staff who treat you well

Sales staff who understand your needs

Customer service staff who treat you well

Sales staff who treat you well

Customer service and maintenance staff who treat you well

Sales staff who treat you well

Offers customer loyalty rewards and incentives

Offers to match or beat competitors’ pricing

Customer service staff who understand your needs

Sales staff who can tell you about products and pricing

Customer service and maintenance staff that understand your needs

Gives you opportunities to try out products

Customer service staff who understand your needs

Sales staff who treat you well

Offers discounted pricing on additional policies and coverage

Allows you to return a car if you’re not satisfied

Sends you information about caring for your car

Sales staff who understand your needs

Offers discounted maintenance for your purchases

Sales staff who educate you about the best coverage for you

Sends you customer rewards and incentives

Sales staff who understand your needs

Sends you customer rewards

Sales staff who tell you about products and pricing

Does something special to make you feel rewarded

Sales staff who tell you about products and pricing

Sends you information about new offers

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reveals that brands still have the opportunity to do better—a lot better. Judging by one factor, the degree to which people perceive their experiences to be unique, brands are not breaking through.

Median uniqueness for the specific brands surveyed by category (fig. 6) is as low as 29% (in the insurance sector). Even in the sector where brands score the highest levels of uniqueness—retail—about half of the time brands aren’t differentiated from their competitors. In every instance, brands’ experiences are perceived to be slightly more unique during shopping versus after purchase, suggesting an opportunity for brands to stand out with customers by truly focusing on how they’re engaged even after they buy, whether through special incentives, regular added-value engagement or timely information.

Judging by how people rank brands’ performance against key experience drivers (fig. 7), the gap between expectations and actual performance remains a significant challenge. In a limited number of instances, people agree that brands actually meet core requirements—for example, consumers are relatively satisfied that most car

The most important driver of experience can be summed up in a single word: people.

Across sectors, the experience drivers that consumers say matter are most often connected to staff and service—both as they are shopping and after they become customers of a brand. People-related drivers are the highest ranked category of driver in every sector and at every stage of shopping and customer experience, with a single exception: during the automotive shopping experience, people place a huge value on factors connected to trying out the product.

The clear emphasis on people as experience drivers also comes through in participant verbatims. When we asked for open-ended stories of great experiences, people and service were cited 37% of the time, unprompted, more than any other factor. People are also behind bad experiences: 42% of all industries and over half (51%) of the unprompted stories consumers told us about bad retail experiences stemmed from poor service.

The biggest opportunity for brands is still differentiating based on experience.

As in earlier studies, Best Experience Brands

brands do a good job of providing opportunities to test drive and informative staff interactions in dealerships. Yet in most other instances, across all geographies, sectors and demographics, more often than not consumers still rate brands’ performance as falling short of expectations.

Fig.6 How differentiated are brand experiences?

Cars

Cars

Retail

Retail

Insurance

InsuranceUnique Shopping Experience

Average

Average

Median

Median

Unique Customer Experience

29%

29%

33%

34%

40%

46%

43%

51%

39%

39%

46%

48%

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Fig.7 Experience drivers: expectations vs. performance

Automotive

Shopping Experience

Rank RankDriver DriverPerformance Performance

Customer Experience

4 Allows you to return a car if you’re not satisfied 21.0% 5 Sends you customer rewards 18.0%

11 Does something special to get your attention 23.0%

9 Allows you do comparison test drives of their cars and their competitors’ cars 25.0%

7 Offers you incentives to recommend your car to friends and family 21.0%

8 People you know recommend the brand to you 28.0%

10 Invites you to special events 24.0%

5 Sales staff who understand your needs 36.0%

8 Offers incentives to test drive newer models 25.0%

2 Sales staff who treat you well 45.0%

6 Educates you about fuel efficiency and environmental impact 30.0%

13 Provides mobile/digital tools to help you compare offers 21.0% 13 Gives you mobile tools/apps to recommend your car to your friends and family 19.0%

12 Invites you to special events 24.0%

12 Offers new mobile tools/apps that enhance your driving experience 20.0%

7 Sends you discount offers 25.0%

11 Does something special to get your attention 21.0%

10 Gives you opportunities to test drive their cars at locations other than the dealership 29.0%

1 Offers discounted maintenance 25.0%

6 Speaks to you about fuel efficiency and environmental impact 37.0%

9 Invites you to special events where you can test drive newer models 26.0%

3 Sales staff who can tell you about products and pricing 53.0%

4 Sends you information about caring for your car 31.0%

1 Gives you opportunities to test drive their cars at the dealership 57.0%

3 Customer service and maintenance staff that understand your needs 37.0%

2 Customer service and maintenance staff who treat you well 41.0%

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Fig.7 Experience drivers: expectations vs. performance

Retail

Shopping Experience

Rank RankDriver DriverPerformance Performance

Customer Experience

11 Invites you to special events 21.0% 8 Rewards you for telling friends and family about your shopping experience 17.0%

9 Offers unexpected in-store experiences 23.0%

13 Provides mobile/digital tools to enhance your shopping experience 26.0%

6 Sends you information about caring for your purchases 21.0%

10 Does something special to get your attention 27.0%

5 Does something special to make you feel rewarded 22.0%

6 Offers you incentives to buy in a particular place, for example in-store or online 32.0%

12 Offers new mobile tools/apps that enhance your product experience 23.0%

5 Sales staff who tell you about products and pricing 35.0%

2 Offers customer loyalty rewards and incentives 25.0%

3 Gives you opportunities to try out products 23.0% 7 Offers incentives to try out newer items 19.0%

12 Provides mobile/digital tools to help you compare offers 24.0% 4 Offers discounted maintenance for your purchases 20.0%

1 Offers you free delivery or shipping 27.0%

10 Invites you to special events 21.0%

4 Sales staff who understand your needs 31.0%

13 Gives you mobile tools/apps to share your experience with your friends and family 22.0%

8 People you know recommend the retail company to you 33.0%

11 Does something special to get your attention 24.0%

7 Sends you information about upcoming sales 36.0%

9 Creates a customer profile to make shopping with them easier and faster 29.0%

2 Sales staff who treat you well 38.0%

3 Customer service staff who understand your needs 31.0%

1 Customer service staff who treat you well 37.0%

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Fig.7 Experience drivers: expectations vs. performance

Insurance

Shopping Experience

Rank RankDriver DriverPerformance Performance

Customer Experience

10 Invites you to special events 16.0%

13 Invites you to special events where you can learn and be educated 16.0%

6 Does something special to make you feel rewarded 19.0%

7 Rewards you for telling friends and family about the company 19.0%

12 Provides mobile/digital tools to educate you about financial planning 19.0%

4 Sends you customer rewards and incentives 20.0%

9 Does something special to get your attention 20.0%

11 Provides mobile/digital tools to educate you about being a smarter owner/renter 20.0%

8 Offers new mobile/digital tools/apps that help you access your policy information 22.0%

5 Sends you information about new offers 32.0%

3 Offers discounted pricing on additional policies and coverage 33.0%

2 Customer service staff who understand your needs 34.0%

1 Customer service staff who treat you well 36.0%

14 Invites you to events where you can learn and be educated 17.0%

13 Provides mobile/digital tools to educate you about being a smarter owner/renter 21.0%

11 Does something special to get your attention 22.0%

12 Provides mobile/digital tools to help you compare offers 22.0%

8 People you know recommend the brand to you 23.0%

10 Gives you information about competing brands 23.0%

2 Offers to match or beat competitors’ pricing 25.0%

6 Sends you discount offers 25.0%

7 Gives you side-by-side comparison of their policies with their competitors’ 25.0%

9 Gives you a strong understanding of what it would be like to be there customer 27.0%

1 Sales staff who understand your needs 33.0%

4 Sales staff who educate you about the best coverage for you 33.0%

3 Sales staff who treat you well 37.0%

5 Sales staff who tell you about products and pricing 42.0% 42.0%

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3 steps to better brand experience

It’s clear: brands need to raise their game when it comes to brand experience. Across geographies, categories, categories and customer groups, brands can and must do better.

Regardless of a brand’s stage of experience development, a simple three-step approach applies:

1. Map the overall brand experience. Assess all the touchpoints that add up to brand experience to understand gaps, white spaces and areas for improvement. From a customer journey perspective, this is an invaluable step toward “plugging the holes” at which people defect or get distracted.

2. Improve existing experiences.Do the work of elevating existing experiences, with particular attention on drivers with the highest levels of impact, like customer-facing staff, partners and other people that represent the brand.

3. Invent and innovate.With so few truly differentiated experiences, brands have a huge opportunity to stand out and be special. Look at the tremendously low current performance scores for the extra, discretionary experiences brands create—and take advantage of that white space.

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/21The C-Suite Project

Contact: Liz Bigham, SVP, Director of Brand MarketingE: [email protected]: +1 212 401 7212

Read our blog at blog.jackmorton.comFollow us on twitter @jackmortonVisit us online at jackmorton.com

About Jack MortonJack Morton Worldwide is a global brand experience agency with offices on five continents. Our agency culture promotes breakthrough ideas about how experiences connect brands and people – in-person, online, at retail and through the power of digital and word of mouth. We work with both BtoC and BtoB clients to create powerful and effective experiences that engage customers and consumers, launch products, align employees and build strong experience brands. Ranked at the top of our field, we earned over 50 awards for creativity, execution and effectiveness last year. Jack Morton is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE: IPG).

© Jack Morton Worldwide 2013

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