It’s one of Home Depot’s most heartwarming TV spots.
A little boy dreams up a fantasy tree house that he wants his dad to build for him. Dad, apparently not the handiest guy in the world, is afraid he’ll blow it and disappoint his son.
But thankfully, a helpful Home Depot associate leads Dad to the saws, nails and lumber he needs and explains the construction step by step.
Result: Dad creates the ultimate treetop hideaway. And his grateful son falls asleep in it, reassured that Dad is, indeed, “a genius.”
With ads like this and with Home Depot’s new tagline – “You can do it. We can help.” – it seems the company is trying to claim customer service as a primary component of its brand. But is this marketing message setting a brand expectation that the real guys in orange aprons just can’t meet?
Nothing against Home Depot, mind you. It has its strengths. Prices. Selection. Sheer size. But let’s face it: Customer service is inconsistent at best. If you were to walk into a Home Depot expecting to get all of the materials and advice you need to build a treehouse, what are the odds that the store would meet that expectation?
We have no doubt that the average home-improvement customer likes the idea of helpful customer service. And based on that, Home Depot’s marketing team may have decided that customer service should be part of the company’s brand. That’s fine, as long as the emphasis on customer service doesn’t begin and end with its ad campaign.
For a brand-building effort to succeed, the brand position has to be based in reality. A brand can’t be a gimmick cooked up by slick marketing gurus. It has to reflect the real experiences people will have with the company.
That’s not to say that a brand can never claim anything that isn’t 100-percent true right now. A brand position can also include the company’s aspirations – qualities that may be partially evident today, but which eventually will be replicated in every part of the company.
Here’s the catch. If a brand is based on aspirations, it’s up to the company’s leadership to do something to bring those aspirations to life. That may require changes in recruiting, training, compensation and operations. The good thing is, when a company pinpoints its ideal brand position, then uses that ideal as a guide for every decision it makes, you’ve got the potential for an incredibly strong brand.
So if Home Depot has decided that customer service is its new priority, that’s great – so long as it’s backing up that new brand promise with initiatives that will bring the service ideal closer to reality. That means no associates pointing you to the plumbing. They must walk you there.
If you want to know where your brand is going but you’re not sure where to start, see how POV helps companies uncover their brands by developing a Brand Framework. Our new white paper (16k PDF) outlines our method and gets you on the road to understanding what’s really important about your brand.
