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The criteria for successful services brands

Leslie de Chernatony
Birmingham University Business School, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK, and

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Received November 2000 Accepted October 2001

Susan Segal-Horn
Open University Business School, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Keywords Services, Brands, Success, Organizational culture Abstract There are few valuable services brands, which may be due to the lack of services branding knowledge and the inappropriate use of product-based branding advice. To contribute to services branding knowledge the authors undertook a review of the services management and services branding literature and postulated a model of services branding. In-depth interviews with 28 leading-edge consultants showed the appropriateness of this model. The study found a need for ruthless clarity about positioning and the corporations genuinely felt values. Success is more likely when everyone internally believes in their brands values. When management behaviour is based on genuine conviction, shared values are more likely. Through shared values, there is a greater likelihood of commitment, internal loyalty, clearer brand understanding, and importantly, consistent brand delivery across all stakeholders. By viewing these factors within a systems perspective, greater services brand consistency can result.

1. Introduction In the services sector it is common to see rms following a monolithic branding strategy (Free, 1996). Yet, as services corporations extend their portfolios, they gain from the inherent brand equity of awareness and possibly goodwill, but dilute corporate associations and raise expectations about their new offering, which may not be appropriate. This may be one of the reasons why there are so few successful services brands (Kochan, 1996). One can only speculate, since in this sector, which accounts for over two-thirds of developed economies GDP (Lovelock et al., 1999), there is a paucity of published advice. By contrast, considerable guidance is available about strengthening product-based brands (e.g. Aaker, 1996). While there is much published about the differences between products and services (e.g. Shostack, 1977; Cunningham et al., 1997), this is of little value when seeking to successfully develop services brands. Building on earlier work (de Chernatony and Segal-Horn, 2001), we seek to show factors critical to the success of a services brand. The paper opens with a review of the relevant services management and services branding literature to understand the problem of developing successful services brands. It then considers inferences about the development of successful services brands by postulating a services branding model. We describe the research context of

European Journal of Marketing Vol. 37 No. 7/8, 2003 pp. 1095-1118 q MCB UP Limited 0309-0566 DOI 10.1108/03090560310477681

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in-depth interviews with 28 services branding consultants. We report our ndings derived from their perceptions of specic criteria that contribute to a successful services brand, noting the appropriateness of the postulated services branding model. Recommendations for developing successful services brands are discussed and the implications for the management of services brands are considered. 2. Literature review This brief literature review will discuss relevant insights from the services management and services branding literatures. 2.1 Services management Many writers regard the service encounter, the moment of interaction between the customer and the rm (Lovelock, 1988), also known as the moment of truth (see Normann, 1984) representing the dening issue in the management of service rms. Bitner et al. (1990, p. 71) argue that the service encounter frequently is the service rm from the customers point of view. Yet often front-line employees are not trained to understand customers and do not have discretion to ensure effective responses. Furthermore, customer-facing staff may be relatively poorly paid, resulting in low levels of motivation and responsibility (Bowen and Lawler, 1995). This can be disastrous for the services company and its brands. Products are easily copied by competitors; service is not. Since service depends on the culture of the organisation and the training and attitudes of its employees, it is more difcult to build and sustain successfully, but is more difcult to copy (Albrecht and Zemke, 1985; Doyle, 1989). Indeed, Doyle (1989, p. 87) stated that service is perhaps the most sustainable differential advantage in building successful brands. Heskett (1987) argued that service management practice could be of interest to a much broader audience. Some of the specic practices which he identied included: . close co-ordination of the marketing/operations relationship; . an ability to direct the service vision not just toward consumers, but to focus on staff responsible for delivering that vision; and . control of quality by means of shared organisational values. He saw this as part of an iterative and self-reinforcing process, necessary to the successful management of services and service organisations. The stages in this process are shown in Figure 1. Quinn and Paquette (1990) reported that such a self-reinforcing services management process which was demonstrably dependent on employee commitment required that service organisations be stood on their head, and the whole organisation needed to work for customer contact staff, in order to help them make the most of their service encounters with customers. For this

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Figure 1. The process of successful services management

reason, Gronroos (2000) argues that in service organisations the organisational pyramid must be turned upside down. Gilmore and Carson (1996) support this since they argued that a service organisation relies more heavily on its customer service management than does a product organisation. These arguments represent a development from Levitts (1972, 1976) argument for a production-line approach to service, stressing the need to increase productivity and technical intensity in service organisations. More recent writers on service management (Bowen and Lawler, 1995; Heskett, 1994; Bitner et al., 1990), while recognising the importance of services operational efciency, have shifted the emphasis toward matching efciencies with systems and procedures which enhance employee effectiveness. For example, Bowen and Lawler (1995) suggested that empowerment of front-line staff is a more protable approach than a production-line focus, because it emphasises the equal importance of both operational procedures and employees state of mind. These empowerment practices must include sufcient power, information and rewards. Lack of any of these hinders empowerment since employees do no not have the necessary means for exercising their discretion on the customers behalf. In summary, a set of related issues relevant to this research can be highlighted: . the centrality of the service encounter; . that the service vision is delivered to consumers by service employees;

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. .

the need for responsiveness in front-line staff; the mechanisms, such as empowerment, by which such responsiveness may be attained; and that effective service organisations may fruitfully be regarded as reverse hierarchies.

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All these points have relevance to services branding, as will be explained in the analysis of our ndings. 2.2 Services branding A holistic brand image integrates entities such as values, colours, name, symbols, words and slogans. Berry et al. (1988) argued that once an organisation establishes a favourable brand image its main task is to ensure consistency. They further argued that since service companies often follow a monolithic branding strategy, consumers mentally group all the corporations portfolio together, expecting uniformity, thus management of brand consistency is even more important. Although there are differing interpretations of brand, it is not the denition which distinguishes product branding from services branding, but the executional strategy (de Chernatony and DallOlmo Riley, 1999). The interpretation of brands as a promise has been adopted by several writers (e.g. Ward et al., 1999; Ambler and Styles, 1996) and is particularly appropriate for services because of their characteristics of intangibility and heterogeneity. Ambler and Styles (1996, p. 10) dene a brand as:
. . . the promise of the bundle of attributes that someone buys . . . the attributes that make up a brand may be real or illusory, rational or emotional, tangible or invisible.

Although we can continue to regard services brands as clusters of functional and emotional values, nevertheless, because of their intangible nature, it is especially important to capitalise on clues associated with their physical evidence as a vehicle for communicating their values (Onkvisit and Shaw, 1989; Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996). When interpreting services brands as promises, marketers often draw heavily on the classical product branding model, emphasising raising customer expectations through advertising. For services, due to the centrality of the service encounter and its dependence on staff attitudes, it is difcult to ensure consistent standards to meet such raised expectations. Quality shortfalls or gaps may thus frequently occur. Zeithaml and Bitner (1996) identied ve quality gaps and stressed that, for these to be closed, a company-wide perspective and response was necessary. Classical product branding assumes an internal, quality controlled, value delivery system unseen by consumers. By contrast, the value delivery system for services brands is visible to consumers, who are active participants.

Gronroos (1990) explained how this problem can be turned into an opportunity. He argued that customers services quality perceptions consists of what they get (the technical outcome) and how they get it (the service process). In some cases branding activity has concentrated on the technical outcome (common in nancial services), as opposed to those who have focused on the service process (e.g. The Body Shop, a UK-based global retailer of personal care products), by recruiting staff whose values concur with the desired organisational culture and who are committed to behaving in a way associated with the brand promise. Emphasis on the service process (common in hotels, airlines) should encourage a consumer-focused culture within which staff interaction with consumers may be the basis of a strong services brand. Although Levitt (1976) proposed greater industrialisation of services processes, replacing human activities with technology, more recent research (Heskett, 1994; Free, 1999) argues against the wholesale replacement of staff by technology, believing that competitive advantage can be gained by staff being freed from routine tasks to concentrate on dealing with non-routine problems. A focus on technical outcomes can demotivate good staff and attract employees unable to respond to atypical customer requests. As Kotter and Heskett (1992) reported, there is a likelihood of better performance where the focus is on service processes which will include staff awareness of their organisations values. Understanding these values, and recognising their roles, reduces employee stress and increases commitment to delivering the service brand (Heskett, 1987). Indeed, one of the differences between services and product brands is that there are far more points of contact between services brands and stakeholders, necessitating more attention to a coherent communication strategy internally and externally. Part of the reason for services brands failing is that staff do not communicate a consistent message about their rms brand as they interact with a variety of stakeholders. Well-designed induction and training programmes do help create greater staff commitment, which is an important component in strong services brands (Farneld, 1999). Successful services brands therefore depend on good internal communication programmes (Cleaver, 1999) to support greater consistency in delivering the service experience, at whatever point the customers contact with the organisation occurs (Camp, 1996). Similarly, awareness of organisational culture and heritage helps managers identify principles that give the brand a genuine basis for a customer-valued positioning (Camp 1999). Managers, therefore, need to identify organisational principles from which a credible cluster of services brand values may emerge. Although consumers are beginning to understand some services brands, especially those which encourage the formation of relationships (Cleaver, 1999), the absence of strong services brands indicates these relationships are underdeveloped compared to product brands (Fournier, 1998). It may be helpful to summarise the main points from the literature review of relevance to this research. Brand consistency is particularly important due to

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the popularity of a monolithic branding strategy. Many services branding issues require a company-wide approach to their solution and implementation. Such issues include: . closing service quality gaps; . a focus on internal and external stakeholders, including staff; and . a need to monitor the whole service delivery process and the role of strong organisational values in motivating staff to deliver the services brand. Services brands remain under-developed. 2.3 Modelling services branding With the growth of the importance of the services sector, there has been a tendency to rely on branding models that were developed for product-based brands and this is one of the contributing factors to the relatively low number of valuable services brands (de Chernatony and McDonald, 1998). The execution of a services brand strategy needs more consideration because of factors such as the intangible nature of services, the variable perceived quality of a services brand which is reliant on all staff acting in the same way and the numerous interfaces through which customers interact with the services brand. Unlike product-based branding, the marketing department with its communications agency is not the critical determinant of the services brands personality and positioning. Instead, the customer-facing staff and their supporting colleagues have a greater impact on brand perceptions (Bitner et al., 1994). As such, brand building needs to be based on a bottom-up perspective such as an upside-down organisation pyramid, integrating all staff in the branding process. Developing a successful services brand draws on some of the principles of product-based branding, since the concept of a brand holds true between services and product markets (de Chernatony and DallOlmo Riley, 1999). A brand is a cluster of functional and emotional values which promise a particular experience. In the case of product-based brands the cluster of values can be tightly controlled by production, communication and distribution systems. While these are important in services branding, albeit more difcult to control, corporate culture plays a critical role through its potential to inuence staff behaviour. Just as the distinction has been drawn between product and services brands, it is worth reecting on the distinction between line brands and corporate brands. Line brands are individual services or product offerings, making a promise to consumers about a particular benet that does not primarily draw on the reputation of the corporation. By contrast, a corporate brand majors on the corporations identity to make a relevant and distinctive organisational promise to stakeholders (de Chernatony, 2001). This perspective on corporate brands echoes that of other writers (e.g. Balmer, 2001). Drawing on the literature, we postulate in Figure 2 the way that critical factors inuence the development of successful services brands. The process

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Figure 2. The criteria inuencing the success of services brands

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originates from the corporate culture, which denes the core values, and thereby encourages and endorses preferred forms of staff behaviour. This enables management to dene the services brands promise in terms of how functional and emotional values should be blended to position the brand and to grow its personality. By communicating information about the service vision, the brand promise and consumer expectations, staff can better understand their role as brand builder. This can be enhanced through training. Complementing this with highly co-ordinated service delivery systems, plus organisational processes (such as staff development) that encourage shared values, enhances the likelihood of a consistently executed services brand encounter. These key elements lie behind delivering to the consumer a match between the promised and perceived services brand, which, in turn, reinforces a holistic brand image on which greater consumer satisfaction depends. A long-term relationship of trust between the services brand and the consumer informs and reinforces the corporate culture in which the brand and the service delivery are embedded.

3. Research aim and methodology Starting from the premise that there are critical issues that should drive brand success, we sought to investigate the views of services branding consultants in order to increase knowledge about what makes a services brand successful. We focused on senior consultants advising clients globally about services branding, since they are at the forefront of application, have gained considerable knowledge and experience and are inuencing tomorrows services branding agenda. Our aim was to appreciate what senior branding consultants saw as being critical for a services brand to be successful in order to inform the development of a services branding model. We deliberately sought leading-edge consultants views because of the breadth of experience and the knowledge they have accumulated through regularly working on services branding projects. When starting this project there were no models published about services branding and thus we did not set out to test specic points, rather to surface the views of knowledge-rich experts. One of the aims of this research is to develop and then subsequently test a model of services branding, using a combination of the available services branding literature and this initial set of qualitative data. This paper presents the rst stage of our services branding model building. With such a paucity of literature on services branding, we wanted to unearth views about factors driving brand success, rather than how to implement critical factors. Interviewing services brand managers would have provided more detail about implementation, but because of their focus on a narrow range of brands, we would need to interview a larger number of managers to draw inferences about the generality of factors across markets. It should be recognised that the competitive advantage of consultants derives from

retaining their intellectual capital. Therefore a weakness inherent in this sample is the possibility that some might hold back information. Our research was exploratory in nature, seeking to elicit consultants views within their frames of reference, without imposing our preconceptions. The most appropriate method to achieve this was in-depth interviews (Jones, 1985; Gilmore and Carson, 1996). We identied consultancies in brand, advertising, design, marketing/management and market research, then either wrote to the chairman/managing director where we did not know the name of the most senior services branding consultant, or approached consultants directly. Although based around London, the respondents specialised in advising national and international clients on branding issues. Consultancies were selected for their high prole in the services branding press, frequent presence at branding conferences, books or papers written on the subject, or expert recommendation. We also interviewed a management journalist recognised for his visionary ideas about brand management. Details of the 28 interviews which were typically with chairmen, managing directors or directors are shown in Table I. A topic guide was developed and each interview was around an hour. The interviews were recorded, then transcribed. This paper discusses responses to the topic: What are the characteristics you associate with successful services brands? Respondents were encouraged to speak as much, or as little, as they wished about characteristics and issues. We only probed to seek clarication and to explore their comments further where more detail was required. Content analysis (Krippendorff, 1980) was conducted independently by both authors. Within the context of the research aim and following Miles and Hubermans (1994) framework, the two authors noted patterns and themes in the data, drew links with previous literature and identied categories relevant as criteria of success for services brands. The authors then compared their independent analyses and the concurrence score was calculated at 91 per cent. Inter-research differences were resolved through discussion and reference back to the transcriptions as suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994).
Type of consultancy Advertising Design Marketing/management Brand Market research Management journalist Total Number of interviews 9 5 5 4 4 1 28

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Table I. Details of the sample

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4. Findings Recognising the limitations of tabulating qualitative ndings (Gordon and Langmaid, 1988), Table II provides an overview of the broad multi-mentioned themes. The two most frequently mentioned criteria for succeeding with services brands were having a focused position and consistency, followed by values and systems. These themes will each be discussed in turn. 4.4 Focused position As Trout and Rivkin (1996) argued, societies have become over-communicated, with consumers being overwhelmed with data. Differentiating, then choosing between competing brands is becoming more challenging for consumers (Dibb and Simkin, 1993; Shimp, 1997). To facilitate consumers choice processes, it has been argued that brands need to be positioned in the minds of prospects so they can instantly associate specic attributes (Ries and Trout, 1986). This recommendation was echoed by several consultants. For example:
Clarity is probably one of the key words in service brands about what the brand stands for in terms of the minds of the people that are buying it (design consultant).

Such clarity begins inside the organisation:

Clarity would be the rst thing a very clear view on the part of the owner, and therefore on the part of the customer, or potential customer, what the thing is for (brand consultant).

A seminal paper by Miller (1956) on limitations of peoples cognitive capabilities led to recommendations that communications about brands be kept simple. Although this was certainly echoed by the consultants using terms such as clarity, absolute focus, few words, clear interpretation and ruthlessly articulate, the further point that emerged very strongly for services brands was that this clear positioning must be understood by both consumers and staff. For successful services brands, consumers do not just interpret the brand from advertisements, but from all their contact points with the
Theme Focused position Consistency Values Systems Models Communication Innovation Relationships Emotion Added value Commitment Competitive advantage Frequency of mention by respondents 18 15 11 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 2

Table II. Themes associated with successful services brands

organisation taken as a whole. This idea of focus and clarity then implies that every interface with that organisation has delivered things in a very consistent way (design consultant). This necessitates service staff fully understanding what the brand is supposed to mean because it is so easy for things to vary you cant allow any tolerance (advertising consultant). A further implication of the limitation of peoples cognitive capabilities (Antonides and van Raaij, 1998) is the need to major on a low number of associations. One brand consultant used a low number of associations as a criteria for brand success, i.e. the consumer no longer asks if Direct Line (UK telephone insurer) is cheap or whether First Direct (UK 24 hour telephone banker) is available. Despite awareness that the positioning decision often means selecting those associations which are to be built on and emphasised and those associations which are to be removed or de-emphasised (Aaker and Shansby, 1982, p. 56), another brand consultant was critical of services brands trying to be everything to everyone they have tried not to exclude any images and not to exclude any features. Rossiter and Percy (1997) argued that crisp positioning statements should concentrate on associating a brand with a benet. This was illustrated by a brand consultant talking about helping grow a hotel brand though re-dening its positioning among staff as providing away from home experiences. Staff had earlier conceived their brand as being about room occupancy rates and capacity management so that the new positioning contributed to a new style of staff behaviour. Three consultants spoke about positioning services brands inside the minds of staff. Ensuring that staff understand the unique attributes of their brand makes them better able to support it. As a brand consultant said its much more important that the brand achieves reality within the minds of the people delivering it because they are the brand in the service domain. An advertising consultant spoke about the importance of clarifying what are we here to deliver and what makes us special, and placing this within a more strategic vision of the brand. After one such strategic analysis another advertising consultant spoke about effective implementation being dependent on the clarity of internally communicating the brand positioning. He observed: when you are talking to thousands of people they have to be able to understand what it is you want them to do. His consultancy uses a simple communications model consisting of a roof as the positioning and a maximum of four pillars which provide the broad themes the company is going to follow to implement the roof. Doyle (1998) claried a process which moves from segmentation to targeting to positioning to develop a focused strategy that might outperform competitors. Four consultants spoke about successful services brands having a clear idea about who your customers are and what their needs are (advertising consultant) so you can focus on these needs (management consultant). A

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design consultant was cautious about taking segmentation data at face value as an individual has a variety of roles father one minute, DIY person another minute and a leisure person another minute. For him, services brands thrive when they are able to encompass a target market which exhibits a variety of lifestyles. Ultimately, a powerful brand positioning, argued a brand consultant, must overcome inertia to switch people from competing brands. As markets mature and competition grows, it becomes more difcult to identify attractive brand positionings (Hooley et al., 1998). Interestingly, two consultancies had moved beyond the concept of positioning. An advertising consultant spoke about philosophy as a bigger concept than the positioning of a brand. Thus some service brands represent a point of view, or philosophy that allows them to develop into other areas which are consistent with that philosophy. He argued that Orange (international mobile telephony) stands for more than just a positioning in mobile telephones, it has challenger qualities. A brightness and newness is associated with it that would allow it to make a credible extension into banking or other utility services where it would offer a different, and welcomed view in a market of complacent players. A marketing consultant drew the distinction between positioning and revelation. While positioning depends on consumer research to identify attractive positions, he was critical about the superciality of corporate assessments of their capability to deliver the positioning and the naivety of their assumptions that marketing departments could change the internal structures of the rm and the behaviour of all staff. By contrast, in revelation, research is undertaken focusing on the original genetics of the business to ascertain what there is in your people, in the way they behave, what it is about your product/service that you can use branding to make more apparent to your market place. The example was given of an established Dutch bank seeking to develop a brand identity. Its history was that of a co-operative bank which helped farmers invest their capital after each harvest. This origin revealed a culture of staff having time to serve and advise customers. Having rediscovered this point of cultural difference, work was undertaken to develop a visual identity around the theme of having more time for customers. While some authors stress the importance of brand building which majors on unique cultures (e.g. Mitchell, 1997; Ind, 1998; de Chernatony, 1999) the concept of revelation is but one technique which places the emphasis on internal issues. 4.1.1. Issues arising from the theme of focused position.The ndings in section 4.1 suggest a number of issues in support of the importance of a focused position. A focused position will be demonstrated by a short, concise statement based on the brand being associated with a restricted number of benets as, for example, in the model of a roof (positioning) supported by four pillars (themes). The selected benets must be clearly communicated to both staff and consumers.

In terms of positioning, services brands must use clarity of focus to attract customers from competitor brands. Indeed, successful services brands often move beyond positioning to encompass a philosophy which the service brand embodies. Such an underlying philosophy must contain or reveal the genuine cultural attributes of the organisation (revelation) and then be reproduced to both consumers and staff. Successful services brands thus evolve from a unique culture which is revealed both in the brand and in the attitude and behaviour of staff as they represent the brand to consumers. 4.2 Consistency Consistency was seen as being almost as important as focused positioning in successful services brands. As many others have observed (e.g. Lovelock et al., 1999) services marketing presents the challenge of variable quality arising from dependency on staff behaviour and consumer/staff interactions. This was mentioned by eight consultants, and is summarised by an advertising consultant:
The single most important and most difcult factor is achieving some kind of consistency in the experience that consumers have of the brand.

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Later we explore themes for ensuring consistent staff behaviour, but it is worth considering the views of two consultants. Both argued that consistency could be encouraged through systems. For example, the way the UK telephone insurance company First Direct uses IT to get representatives to ask, in almost a mechanical manner, a few questions to help locate the callers details on their database. Once conrmed, the support of the database facilitates a more personal interaction. When developing support systems for staff, the organisation needs to consider how these can be implemented across all points of customer contact. The example was given of a holiday companys representatives who are well recruited, trained and motivated, but within two weeks of arriving in a resort, their behaviour lapsed because there was no support system. Brands succeed through consistency of approach across all stakeholders, not just consumers (Kapferer, 1997). To illustrate this, an advertising consultant contrasted the consistent values of a successful mobile telephone brand with the inconsistent brand values of a bank. The mobile telephone brand was able to sustain coherence whether dealing with ecological, staff or consumer issues, while the bank had totally different styles of staff behaviour between its overdraft services and mortgage services, despite consumer perception that these were the same brand. That is an example of one of the most common service quality gaps (Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996) which occurs when expectations created by corporate communications are not met by staff behaviour. Unsurprisingly, six of the consultants spoke about the need for greater consistency between

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communications about the services brand and staff behaviour. As a market research consultant stated:
Their ability to deliver what they say they are going to deliver . . . that consistency is one of the attributes of a successful services brand.

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Walt Disney (American global media and leisure company) was cited as being successful because of the way they walk the talk (advertising consultant). A design consultant praised the consistency between communication and staff behaviour at First Direct, noting:
. . . if an envelope falls through the door, the feel, style and logo are all consistent and then you get consistency reinforced in the phone call.

Consistency also needs to extend to integrated marketing communications (e.g. Duncan and Moriarty, 1997; Kendall, 1999) and two consultants spoke about this need for consistency within the promotions mix. For example, a design consultant spoke about airline travellers picking up messages about an airline through many points of contact and the need to ensure a consistent brand narrative. While the majority of comments about consistency related to internally managed aspects of staff behaviour and communication, two consultants argued that successful services brands are those that achieve consistent perceptions among consumers. A market research consultant spoke about Critical mass sufcient people believing the same kind of things about the brand and another market research consultant spoke about everyone has the same impression, a consistency of impressions about what the brand stands for. Models exist to assess consumers brand perceptions (e.g. Cowley, 1991; Aaker, 1996; Hart and Murphy, 1998; Keller, 1998) from which managers can devise strategies to enhance consistency. 4.2.1. Issues arising from the theme of consistency. The discussion in section 4.2 suggests successful services brands depend heavily on achieving consistency in all stakeholders perceptions and experiences of the brand. We stress stakeholders, not just consumers, since the consumers experience is dependent on consistency of understanding throughout the whole chain of activities in the organisation. As a result of this, successful services brands have systems designed to encourage consistency between the brands values and staff behaviour, as well as consistency between external and internal communication and staff behaviour. 4.3 Values The third most important theme about successful services brands is that they grow from organisations which have a clear view about their values, in particular a culture which is focused on doing the right things for the customer (management journalist). The relationship between values and behaviour is well documented (Reynolds and Gutman, 1988; Buchanan and

Huczynski, 1997). In the services branding context the consultants referred to values driving behaviour in two separate ways: rst as a point of difference, stimulating a unique style of staff behaviour; second as a source of motivation for staff. However, while some spoke about developing values that excite staff to deliver above and beyond the call of duty stuff because they are passionate and believe in the organisation (design consultant), others were more cynical as in: a lot of stuff about living the brand and values and culture is actually manipulative (management journalist). Some (e.g. de Chernatony, 1999; Thomson, 1998) have argued for more emphasis on internal branding to enable staff to understand and be committed to delivering their brands values. To succeed, though, it is important to have commitment throughout the organisation. As a management journalist observed, often the board itself hasnt adopted these ways. Its not living the brand, its expecting staff to live the brand. So its all phoney and of course people can see through it immediately. This links back to our discussion of the need for consistency in section 4.2. Several routes were suggested for capitalising on brand values to motivate and encourage consistent staff behaviour. An advertising consultant noted that there are problems with this living the brand thing as its got a slight totalitarian edge you know, you will think this, your values will be this. Instead he suggested not to ask your staff to live the brand, but to act it. The Disney organisation was given as an example of this where one knows its honest acting. Such an approach has proved successful for several organisations, but building on the comments about revelation in section 4.1, we believe that when another competitor appears with values that are not supercially enacted, but are genuinely espoused by staff, this will undermine established players. Two consultants provided further criticism of the acting strategy. An advertising consultant argued there are service brands that have a genuine set of brand values and those that have a set of brand guidelines. Managers therefore need to spend time evaluating whether their brand values are supercial, since only deeper conviction can enable behaviour, innovation and brand communication to evolve. Another advertising consultant argued that strong brands are based not simply on good business principles, but a set of personal convictions (see the comments in section 4.1 from a different consultant concerning philosophy brands). Echoing Collins and Porras (1996), he argued that businesses based on convictions are more successful than those solely driven by prot. An advertising consultant felt successful services brands are more likely when staff are recruited who are passionate about service and join a culture where this passion is embedded. In his opinion this is sufciently important that you need a passion rst and then the process if youve got the process and no passion, youre done for. He and a management journalist both felt that

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a driving passion from the founder or senior managers encourages staff to reect this in their behaviour. What has emerged from the consultants is that staff are critical in services branding and by recruiting staff whose values are broadly aligned with the brand, there is a greater likelihood of succeeding. As a design consultant explained, sustaining a competitive advantage through staff will necessitate strategies to encourage them to want to stay with the rm as internal loyalty will be a big issue for services brands in the future. Many service organisations are addressing this need through continuous training and staff development programmes. 4.3.1. Issues arising from the theme of values. Successful services brands are characterised by organisations with core values which are deeply embedded. When these values are enacted with conviction by the organisations management, they are more likely to result in genuine staff conviction. Once again, staff attitudes and behaviour are shown to be critical for successful services brands. A deep, rather than supercial, service culture is more likely to avoid the potential pitfalls of cynicism in living the brands values. 4.4 Systems The issue of systems was mentioned earlier when we considered the importance of consistency. Not surprisingly, therefore, the consultants comments about the broad theme of systems are mainly concerned with insights into how they contribute to ensuring consistency. Partly as a result of the signicant growth in the services sector, many rms have systems that once were suitable, but are now less effective (Hammer and Champy, 1993; Mitchell, 1997). One brand consultant argued that some rms are reluctant to change or even review their systems. With their systems being stuck in the mud, their brands will be undermined and overtaken by those more receptive to new business systems. As a management consultant argued, information technology has a huge role to play in services brands . . . unfortunately a lot of people dont understand how they can use IT. Part of the problem, suggested an advertising consultant, is that too few have articulated a system that recognised what matters and deliver on it. Good supporting systems which increase efciency will soon be hygiene factors (market research consultants) which are necessary, simply to remain competitive. What will be a differentiating factor is the extent to which staff understand the nature of their brand and appreciate their role and the systems role in supporting it. This was made clear by a brand consultant who indicated cases where emphasis had been placed, not on the supporting systems, but on supporting staff to enact the brands values in their interactions with consumers. This reinforces, once again, the need for service brands to be supported by upside-down organisational pyramids.

4.4.1. Issues arising from the theme of systems. In the short term, successful services brands will be associated with rms that install appropriate supporting systems for staff. However, that is a necessary but not a sufcient condition for successful services brands. In the longer term, success will come through staff fully understanding the nature of their brand and being able to support it through consistent styles of behaviour. Therefore, while services brands need supporting systems, allowing staff to rapidly communicate with each other, and which provide customer-facing staff with up-to-date information, consistent delivery of the services brand also depends on understanding the nature of their brand. Systems therefore support the technical outcome but do not replace the services branding process. 4.5 Other themes Several other themes emerged although at lower levels of frequency. Some consultancies have models to help develop their clients services brands. Unfortunately, their details were withheld, due to their commercial value. Having good internal and external communication was mentioned by some as important, although as a market research consultant stated: but its consistency which is the most important thing. That suggests it is consistency between internal and external communication that was the overriding consideration. The call to action was also made by a management consultant arguing:The business goes into some kind of misconception that because it is talking about the brand and because it has sort of understood the philosophy, that it is nished and theres no change required. His point was that theres this apparent illusion of activity, whereas beneath the surface nothing has changed. Thus there is a need to monitor the impact of communication on actual changes in behaviour and help staff recognise areas where change is sought. Adding value through innovative ideas was seen as a way of strengthening services brands. As the consultants noted, this did not have to be a quantum leap, but rather incremental enhancements such as people holding an umbrella as you go to your car when its raining (management consultant), However, as a design consultant noted, to be effective the innovation should also be accompanied by new forms of staff behaviour so that by doing something in a different way, that is stimulating and enjoyable, theyll start to think and throw out different thoughts. In this way staff contribute to the continuous cycle of services innovation. Three consultants spoke about the quality of the relationship between the brand and consumers as being important. One specic theme emphasised by a management consultant was the need for a continued relationship throughout the extended consumption chain of the services brand (e.g. holiday, restaurant, ight) managing the customer relationship through both negative and

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positive experiences. This multi-faceted perspective on relationships was also discussed by the other two consultants. A brand consultant explained, successful services brands are a bit like your ship and they moor you to their quay with lots of rope but if there are a number of bonds its more difcult for the competitor to cut one. To his mind, having a portfolio of brands offers more ways of developing relationships. An advertising consultant argued quality of relationship rst and foremost because it is intangible there is not a kind of product performance reinforcement going on. Using a current consulting project, he spoke about how the services brand relationship is based on a series of factors such as staff behaviour, the rms stance on certain issues and consumers perceptions of each. Such perceptions can be the basis of emotional characteristics for a brand, what makes people feel good, according to one advertising consultant. Services brands were seen as no different to product brands when it comes to the importance of having emotional characteristics. One contributor to brand success, argued a design consultant, is managing the emotion evoked by the brand at each point of contact with consumers. For services brands, managing emotional characteristics is a blend of what you do and how you do it (advertising consultant) so that successful brands have both worked out how to do it and then trains, motivates and tells its staff how to do it. It is widely accepted that all successful brands are based on a competitive advantage (de Chernatony and McDonald, 1998). Two consultants spoke about some basis of distinctiveness which is sustained over time and the brand can lever. For successful services brands the insight that is emerging is of company-wide commitment as such a source of distinctiveness and potential advantage. As a brand consultant explained, its not just designing a logo, but rather gaining the commitment among all staff, rst to understand the brand and then to support it. Reinforcing this, a design consultant commented the biggest challenge is within the internal audience to believe in the purpose of this organisation to deliver the attitude. 4.5.1. Issues arising from other themes. In these further themes it is noteworthy that staff contribution is mentioned in relation to each element. In managing the link between internal and external communication; in contributing to the continuous cycle of services innovation; in managing the relationship throughout the extended consumption chain of the services brand; in managing the emotion evoked by the brand at each point of contact with consumers; staff behaviour is paramount within each element. Successful services brands are therefore characterised by a company-wide commitment to ensuring that the emotional relationship across all points of consumer contact is consistent. Company-wide commitment is needed to achieve consistency between the communications for a successful services brand and the nature of the brand, with internal communication explaining, encouraging and reinforcing appropriate staff behaviour.

4.6 Modelling the criteria inuencing the success of services brands The interviews with the brand consultants provide support for the services branding model postulated in Figure 2. Many of their comments reected the criteria that are shown in this model. However, some additional points may be noted. The literature suggested to us that corporate culture is a critical issue because of the way that it denes values and thereby affects staff behaviour. What had been overlooked was the importance of a culture which encourages innovation and thus a style of behaviour that can adapt to brand innovations. Furthermore, as organisations plan for growth through services brand innovation, the systems supporting and delivering the brand need up-grading. Assuming that existing support systems are sufcient for a rms evolving ve and too focused on short term cost savings. brand appears to be na The model in Figure 2 did not explicitly refer to the services brands competitive advantage resulting from its added value. This important factor would best t into the domain Dene the brand promise. It was clear from the interviews that the consultants have models which enable them to dene their clients brand promises, but due to their proprietary nature, they were not prepared to discuss these. Such models would doubtless capitalise on the services brands competitive advantage and would specify how the brand adds value to the consumers experience. Researchers and managers employing our model should make explicit, within their brand promise, how this builds on the brands competitive advantage. 5. Discussion and managerial implications For services rms seeking to improve consumer perceptions of their brand and enhance their successful management, this study has generated implications based on insights from leading-edge consultants. The key themes strongly reect the major points reviewed from the literature, in particular those points emphasised in the service management literature concerning the service encounter, the motivation of staff and the marketing/operations interface. This study has integrated this dispersed literature and shown its application in services branding. Furthermore, the study has proposed a model for services branding, which reects the numerous themes mentioned in the literature and has been augmented by the consultants. The most frequently mentioned theme associated with successful services brands is a focused position with a well-specied, but limited number of selected benets. Focused position was strongly linked with communication, to ensure comprehension among both staff and consumers. Clarity of focus can provide a key competitive tool to attract customers from competitors brands. At its best, clarity of focus will move beyond simple positioning of the services brand and be derived from revelation. Revelation of the genuine cultural attributes of the organisation should be what the services brand is built on. In

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this way the brand captures the link between market position and organisational values. It is the channel by which the genuine values and culture of the organisation are demonstrated externally to consumers and internally to staff. The services brand should be the vehicle for consistency between the external and the internal, as well as understandings shared by both consumers and staff. Consistency was the second most frequently mentioned critical theme. It must extend to encompass the experience of the brand by all stakeholders, not just consumers. There must be common perceptions of the brand among all stakeholders. Staff are especially critical stakeholders since brand consistency is dependent on understanding of the brand throughout the organisation. Successful services brands are more likely from organisations whose systems are designed to encourage consistency between the brands values and staff behaviour, as well as consistency between external and internal stakeholders. Values was the third most frequently mentioned critical theme. Managers are encouraged to avoid a cynical manipulation of organisational values but instead to represent core values in their own behaviour. Other themes which emerged, such as emotion and commitment, reinforce the message that organisations with supercial core values, cynically manipulated by management, are unlikely to encourage genuine staff conviction. Once again, staff attitudes and behaviour are shown to be critical for successful services brands. However, the point that is being stressed here is the responsibility of managers in creating an organisational culture where management commitment precedes staff commitment. The view that emerged was that systems were a necessary, but not sufcient, condition for success. While systems that allow staff to rapidly communicate with each other, and provide customer-facing staff with up-to-date information are fundamental, systems alone will not deliver successful services brands. That depends on consistent behaviour in meeting the expectations of the service brand through the responses of service staff. In considering the remaining themes arising such as communication, relationships, emotion and added value, staff contribution recurs as an important part of each theme as, for example, in managing the link between internal and external communication. The model of services branding enables a pan-company perspective to be adopted. Each of the factors surfaced from the literature, and from the consultants, should not be viewed in isolation. Rather they should be considered as part of an interacting system which, when co-ordinated, is likely to engender more coherently integrated services brands and greater consistency in the services brand encounter. Focusing on some of the criteria in isolation may be regarded as entry-level good marketing practice, but when

conceived and planned through the interacting system model of services branding, a stronger services brand should result. To summarise, a number of critical factors stand out. There is a need for ruthless clarity, not just about the positioning of the brand, but equally about the genuine values within the organisation that the brand represents. Such organisational values must be reected in people believing the same kinds of things about the brand. Shared values are more likely to arise when management behaviour is based on genuine conviction, which should result in commitment, internal loyalty, a clearly understood internal brand and the ability to deliver a consistent approach across stakeholders. It is clear that staff are crucial in services branding and that staff commitment has to precede consumer commitment. Other studies (Bitner et al., 1990) have emphasised the importance of staff knowledge for the constructive interaction of staff and customers. Managers have the ability to inuence the level of knowledge available to customer-facing staff; therefore systems must be designed primarily as staff enablers. Front-line service staff have a disproportionate impact on consumers experiences of services brands. Managers, in turn, have a disproportionately large role in ensuring that knowledge, training, systems and commitment are in place to enable staff to deliver the services brand values to all the organisations stakeholders. 6. Conclusions Our study deepens knowledge and understanding of the factors affecting successful services brands. Unlike previous research that has concentrated on differences between product brands and services brands, we have identied themes specic to services brands. Our results surfaced three criteria of importance in the success of services brands: (1) focused position; (2) consistency; and (3) values. Furthermore, our study has enabled a services branding model to be proposed which integrates the various criteria for success within a systems prospective. As this model illustrates, what has emerged both from the theory and the interviews, is an underlying theme that growing and managing successful services brands is value-dependent and service encounter-dependent, because services brands are relation-based both internally and externally. The results are theoretically fruitful in suggesting hypotheses that could be tested in future research. For example, the relative importance of these three key success criteria could be tested in a variety of service industries differing in their balance of service characteristics, such as the mix of tangible to intangible components. Different groupings of criteria are likely to result for service

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industries such as professional services in which service interactions along the chain of consumption are especially complex and long-term. We focused on leading-edge consultants to access their rich knowledge of successful services branding principles. A future study could interview services brand managers to surface insights about best practices implementing these principles. Another direction for future research would concentrate on the key theme of consistency and identify more precisely the relationships between the human and non-human elements involved in achieving consistency in support of services brands in different services contexts.

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