How to Stand Out? Try Authenticity

Take a cue from Starbucks and Anthropologie and get to know your customers on an intimate basis. That's the only way to cut through the noise

By Sohrab Vossoughi

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Umpqua Bank

Story Tools

• post a comment
• e-mail this story
• print this story
• order a reprint
• suggest a story
• digg this
• save to del.icio.us

Executives ask one question on an almost weekly basis: "How can I differentiate my company in the marketplace?" My reply to every president, chief executive officer, or vice-president of marketing is always the same: "Why do you want to be different?" We are swimming in an overabundance of products and services. "Different" is no longer a differentiator. What is? Creating an authentic relationship with your customers.

Authenticity in business is a distinctly 21st century concept made relevant by a confluence of factors. The public's trust of businesses and institutions is in steep decline. Consumers' media savvy has pulled back the wizard's curtain on insincere marketing ploys that are only surface-sexy. Reality TV and online personae and avatars have redefined our sense of reality, bringing the question of what is real into mainstream dialogue. And advances in manufacturing and technology have made available a proliferation of product and service offerings from around the globe, overwhelming consumers with options. The Internet has also empowered those consumers to create an unprecedented peer network that critiques companies and allows users to find exactly the product they want.

Consumers seek meaning and a brand they can trust. They are busy at work on Web 2.0 platforms creating ways to cut through the noise in search of products and services that resonate with integrity and transparency; in a word, authenticity. That quest for authenticity is a call to action for any company intending to be relevant in the 21st century.

Step Back and Consider Your Brand

As the marketplace has shifted, so too must design. A single, beautifully designed product is nothing more than a beautiful object without the focused intent of a company that has taken the time to understand three things: the deep-seated desires of its customers, its own DNA, and the sweet spot where the two overlap.

What is the right approach for innovation chiefs to take? First, take a step back before introducing just another product. Decide who is your true tribe and what makes the most sense for those customers and your company at a particular time. Push the pause button, dig deeper, and reconsider what it would take to make your customers truly love who you are as a brand.

Back in 2001, Umpqua, a regional bank in Oregon founded to provide loggers and farmers a banking alternative, approached Ziba, my design company, to help redefine the banking experience. Instead of getting to work designing right away, we had to discover what banking meant to Umpqua's customers. What were their attitudes about banking in general? How did community banks like Umpqua, with its 65 branches, fit into that picture? How did large commercial banks fit into that same picture? With the convenience of online banking and ATMs, what would motivate customers to go into a bank in the first place?

Customers Crave Personal Service

Next, Umpqua had to understand its own culture. What did Umpqua believe in? What was it good at? What did it stand for? What could it stand for?

After researching these questions thoroughly, Umpqua found its customers were craving intimacy. They were tired of the impersonal service they received from regular banks and suspicious of financial institutions in general. While other banks were competing with a convenience strategy centered around the Internet and ATMs, Umpqua identified an opportunity to provide customers with a "slow banking" experience that was both inspirational and encouraging. This translated into comfort and personal service—a hotel/retail metaphor with a modern-craftsman aesthetic.

The result was a flagship store in Portland's Pearl District that delivered an unprecedented banking experience tailored to the specific needs of Umpqua's customers and the unique expression of Umpqua's DNA. It also happened to make Umpqua a lot of money. The first week the store was open in April, 2003, it generated $1 million in deposits.