The One Question To Ask Before Any Brand Decision

TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:

00:00 Building Brands From Customer Insight
01:14 Behavioral Science Meets Brand Strategy
04:15 Why Internal Messaging Falls Short
07:28 Emotions Drive Customer Decisions
09:33 Why Brand Names Need Strategy
13:19 What a Brand Truly Is
15:46 When CEOs Need Brand Help
18:06 Navigating Brands After Acquisitions
20:14 Simplify the Customer Experience
22:30 Why Customers Choose Easy Paths
25:37 Turning Insights Into Brand Desire
29:12 Always Ask Where Insights Are

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Kevin Perlmutter (00:00)

I would suggest that they ask, where are the insights? How would customers feel in that situation? They're thrilled with the brand right now, but it wasn't like a name out of a hat. If it's not rooted in customer insight, from a behavioral science perspective, it's highly ignorable.

Jeff Holman (00:15)

Welcome back everybody to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman. I'm with Intellectual Strategies, a law firm that can't tell you any of the secrets of our clients. So we bring in other experts who who either are CEOs that have been through, you know, pivotal moments or they work with CEOs who are navigating pivotal moments. And today we've got Kevin Perlmatter with us. Kevin, it great to have you here.

Kevin Perlmutter (00:38)

Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.

Jeff Holman (00:39)

Yeah, I'm very glad to have you. So so you're not the s y I mean, you might be a CEO of your own business, but not necessarily in the CEO role today.

Kevin Perlmutter (00:46)

Yeah, I work with a lot of CEOs category.

Jeff Holman (00:49)

Exactly, exactly. So I'm excited to talk with you. we talked briefly before this about, you know, some of the stuff you're doing, about the book you wrote. You can you can mention some of that stuff here to the to the audience. but I I think it's really interesting the field that you're in. This field of I mean, it's I don't know I'll let you correct me, but customer experience generally, but neuro neuroscience based research and stuff like that.

Kevin Perlmutter (01:14)

Yeah. beh my my core strength is behavioral science rooted brand strategy. It comes from a an understanding of neuroscience. I'm not a neuroscientist or a behavioral scientist, but I I have some mentors who who have taught me really well and I'm applying what they've taught me in very practical ways that anyone in marketing or branding or or the C suite can apply. and I help brands create stronger connections with the people who they want to reach.

And help them activate brand strategies rooted in behavioral science understanding and emotional insight.

Jeff Holman (01:47)

It seems like a fascinating field that I need to know more about, to be honest. Tell me how how

Kevin Perlmutter (01:52)

That's why learning every day, so

Jeff Holman (01:54)

Yeah. How long have you been doing this and how did you get into it?

Kevin Perlmutter (01:57)

Well, I've been working in the career of the career space of of advertising branding for decades, through over three decades. But I launched my company, Limbic Brand Evolution, in 2019. So just over seven years, I've been an entrepreneur and head of my own company and working independently as a consultancy for for brands. I started after a stint at a sonic branding music studio.

Where I led strategy innovation and research, and where I found and partnered with my behavioral science mentors who work at a neuroscience-based research company. And from them, I learned about I learned more about our brain than I learned any time previously in our cur in my career. I learned about our instinctive emotional responses, how much activity happens subconsciously, how our emotional motivations are the drivers of our decisions and our behaviors. And I started reflecting on all of my time.

At one of the largest global brand consultancies for a seven-year period, and for at for 16 years at ad agencies before that, working with large global brands. Some of the biggest companies were my clients and some of the biggest service providers were where I worked. And this idea of behavioral science and how the brain works rarely, if ever, came up. And it seemed to me in the late 2010s that it was operating in parallel to the way that marketers and brand leaders.

were trying to attract and retain customers. It occurred to me that traditional brand strategy and marketing was stuck in the past, in the persuasion era, and not taking advantage of a lot of information and newfound research capabilities in the behavioral science space.

Jeff Holman (03:39)

Well, well hel help put this in in context for our audience of scaling CEOs, building businesses, you know, breaking things and trying to fix what's been broken. So I I mean brand strategy, of course, I th they'll understand. I think some of the neuroscience and the, you know, the the I'm just gonna call it some of these leadership skills, right? That they're probably are studying in their off hours when they're not running their business.

Like how does how does this all fit together for for our audience with the th the way that you're doing things? Well

Kevin Perlmutter (04:15)

I'll give you a few things. a few things in mind coming to me randomly. So I'm just gonna say a few. One of the things is that what I find is that traditional ways of marketing and selling services is rooted in what company insiders want to say and sell and the product features and benefits that they believe are going to be most powerful in in in

in in selling. And in in in advertising and branding for decades, the common language are things like unique selling proposition and proof points and reasons to believe. And all of that language comes from when advertising was dominant, customer experience was not talked about, social media and the internet didn't exist. And and it it's rooted in selling and persuading. And what most CEOs and brand leaders don't know as well as their customers

Is why their customers are actually choosing their brand and staying with their brand. So one of the things it's very important for CEOs to know is if they're relying on internal conversations, internal product leaders to say why a product or service is is valuable to customers, but they're not getting any of that understanding directly from their customers who are buying from them already and loyal and coming back and

The reasons why people choose a brand are largely emotional and based on how it makes them feel and the experience that they have. And what I do with the company leaders that who I work with is I find out that information and I transform those emotional benefits and those feelings people want to have into the primary ways that companies attract and retain customers, as opposed to the features and benefits they're trying to prove to people that they that they need. So that's one area. That's one area.

The second thing that makes it very tangible for leaders is that brand should be a driver of business strategy. And you know, a lot of a lot of leaders believe that. There are also leaders that think that branding is arts and crafts and don't have a respect for the craft of branding and strategy as a driver of business strategy. And and the third thing I'll say is that customer insight is a a company leader's greatest competitive advantage.

Because if you have an understanding of what drives customers' decisions and behaviors, what they are looking to achieve in their life with and without your company, and what can help them be more successful, you can use that insight to align your team, your product and services team, your innovation team, your customer experience team, your marketing, what your CFO prioritizes in the budget for all of this stuff can be aligned around customer insight.

And if it's if there's not customer insight to guide the way, then you're basing it on other other factors that might not be in favor of what's going to drive your greatest sales.

Jeff Holman (07:11)

And that brings us, I think, back full circle to what you were saying at the beginning of this answer, which was which was essentially people are using internal factors to drive brand strategions as opposed to going out to the customer. So if they're

Kevin Perlmutter (07:28)

I'll I'm never going to say that the industry is not doing their best work and and thinking about the customer. I would never go as far as to say that, but I would say that in my experience, and given the dozens of people, hundreds of people that I've talked to and the clients I've worked with, I can tell you that by and large, brand leaders who aren't doing this kind of deep insights discovery work that I do are going about their marketing with less information than would would be valuable for them to know about.

And if they're not respecting the fact that understanding andor respecting the fact that emotional motivations, people's emotional motivations are the drivers of their decisions and their behaviors, then they're missing an opportunity to tap into those motivations and let people know, invite people into an experience you've already discovered that they crave.

Jeff Holman (08:18)

Yeah. No, I a a vivid example for me comes comes to mind. I I had a client, in fact, there's still a client. I won't name who they are. and and their c their brand name, ever since I started working with them, I'm like, what does this mean? Why are you called this? And they gave me this story about how it's a play on words and they switched some letters because one of the original founders who was with the company six years before they like it

It meant something to them, but I said, I said, is it working like like are you are you drawing people in? Is it helping with SEO? And it's not good for any of that stuff, and not that that's my my domain, but it it had this whole historical, you know, explanation that was completely internal to the company. Yeah. And and had they, you know, if they build a brand around that, if I can say it that way.

then then it would become valuable. But the way it was structured at the time, it was I think more of an impediment to the brand itself than it was helpful. And it was one hundred per one hundred percent devoid of of customer insight.

Kevin Perlmutter (09:33)

Exactly. I'm going to give you a quick story that is is on that track. I was working with a client a year or so ago, big retainer based relationship. We were doing lots of things. They have a portfolio of companies and they acquired a company in the middle of our situation. And they they acquired this company more as a competitive play as opposed to as opposed to like a strategic. They they really just the company was available. They didn't want a competitor to snap them up. It wasn't like they just wanted to capture that portion of the market.

And the the lawyers ran into the chief marketing officer's office and said, We need a name for the company. I'm like, and and I of course I get a call. We need a name for the company in four days. I'm like, What are you talking about? A name for the company in four. She's like, Well, the lawyers were acquiring this thing and the contracts. And I said, So have them pick a legal entity name from anywhere they want, but you don't want a brand name in four days. Because, well, we don't really don't care about the company that much. We're just acquiring it. We're taking it off the off the market. We're gonna I said, No.

You're buying a company that's going to have products and services and you're going to want to generate sales from it. You need a name that has story, that has meaning, that's going to drive sales, that drives marketing. That name is going to become a logo and that's been going to become a visual identity, and there's going to be messaging around it. And if you if you just want to buy a company and stick it in the ground, then do whatever you want. You don't need my help. But if you want to do

Jeff Holman (10:59)

If it's customer face.

Kevin Perlmutter (11:00)

Actually

have a brand that's going to attract and engage customers and help you earn back your investment, then tell them to pick a legal entity name for the contract and we'll come up with a brand name in the in the right course of time. And I'll bring on my visual identity designer and we will create a visual identity and we will launch a brand properly in two to three months. And and and she made it happen and she she got it through and we did that. And it was, it's, you know, they're thrilled with the brand right now, but

It wasn't like a name out of a hat three day project.

Jeff Holman (11:33)

Well and it might have become more of an asset now because of the rebranding and and the the strategic alignment. If you I mean, if you're gonna have if you're gonna have a customer facing company, probably don't let the lawyers name it, right?

Kevin Perlmutter (11:46)

Exactly. And in fact in fact, stand up to the lawyers when it comes time to to say, we need to do this right from a from a brand and marketing perspective. Yeah, absolutely.

Jeff Holman (11:57)

And and that comes back down to this whole strategic alignment. I I I love talking strategy. I have a a definition I use that w that really is around alignment more than say competitive advantage, although that's a factor, right? one of the things though that I want to bring up, because you mentioned this or or maybe I was I was connecting dots as you were explaining things. I I I was at a an e commerce conference just yesterday, moderating a panel.

I showed up a little bit early and I listened to the the prior presenter talk about what they were doing. And he said he said something that that really stood out to me, and that was effectively this. let's see, you have a brand when you have a community. And basically saying you don't have a brand really until you have a community. Now, I don't know that you'll agree with that statement completely, but it it reinforced for me the alignment between brand and other communities.

things happening in the business. A brand is not just a standalone sit in the corner, you know, a set of colors and and shapes and words, right? It is you you are trying to align it with the broader goals in the business, which oftentimes in some form or another revolves around getting customers, getting traction, building a community, whatever you want to call it, right? What are your thoughts on that?

Kevin Perlmutter (13:19)

I'm gonna agree with part of it. I I'm not sure about the community piece. I think that is a part of it. but the criteria for me isn't community. The criteria for me is a brand is i is is what your what the entirety of your company's existence and experience means to people. Okay. And and how it feels to them.

So it is the multiple parts that come together. Your brand is not just your logo. Your brand is not just your messaging. Your brand are your values. Your brand are what you do in the market that has to do with you know how you show up in the world, how you support or don't support certain causes. Your brand is the totality of what people experience and feel as a result of their interactions with you. And that's gonna be mean different things to different people.

Jeff Holman (14:11)

Yeah. And I guess not not everybody is looking for the collective customer community experience.

Kevin Perlmutter (14:16)

I don't think I mean community is part of it. Brands brands are built in and for and by communities. And brands have commu some brands have communities, but I I think a I think community is a piece of it. And what your community feels about your brand and how your community experiences your brand and what they say about your brand, it affects your brand and becomes what your brand is. But to me, brand is an intangible

feeling and collection of experiences that people have. And it's also a a marker on is it for me? Is it not for me? Will I return? Will I not return? Is it enhancing my life? Is it degrading my life? It's it's these decision points. And the totality of everything that comes together determines for individuals whether or not that is a brand for them or a brand not for them. And those those feelings that we have

Aren't necessarily rational thoughts. They are instinctive emotional responses. A behavioral science principle that is foundational to two, there's there's two ideas that are foundational. One is a famous quote by Maya Angelou that everybody is familiar with, which is people won't remember what you said, they won't remember what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. Right. The behavioral science principle that corresponds to that is called approach avoidance motivation theory, which is that we gravitate toward the things that make us feel good.

And we instinctively pull away from the things that make us feel bad.

Jeff Holman (15:46)

Where do you see this coming into play when when you talk with CEOs? Like what what are the typical, I'm gonna call them flags or or I don't know if they're milestones or markers. What what does a CEO run into right before they say, I gotta get somebody like Kevin to come help me with this?

Kevin Perlmutter (16:05)

I think there are a few things. You know, one is some they're they're struggling with the numbers. They're not happy with sales. They don't they don't believe that their brand, their product, their offering, whatever they're selling is getting the attraction and attention that they would think it deserves. Okay. sometimes there's an event, you know, whether it's we're launching something new, there's a new product, there's a new service, we're merging, we're co branding, we're acquiring, whatever, whatever that event is.

Sometimes they're they're bored with what the brand, you know, how the brand it's hope

Jeff Holman (16:39)

I need something new.

Kevin Perlmutter (16:42)

hopefully that boredom is a result of poor results, not just I'm tired of this even though it's going well. one of my greatest beliefs is that when I walk into a situation with an organization, I want to understand what's going well from the inside perspective and from the customer perspective and what is not going well.

And I want to retain equity that is working and carry it forward. And I want to renew and reinvigorate with with new things that be could could become brand equity. So the the idea of walking just flat out walking away from something just because someone's bored is not a good idea, but understanding what's working and what's not working is is always a great place to start.

Jeff Holman (17:23)

Yeah, I g I guess there are some really like major milestones that that stand out, right? I've got a client right now who's who's looking at an acquisition of another client in the space, smaller company, but maybe a tenth or a fifth of the size or whatever, and they're saying, Hey, we're gonna bring them in, and they're having those conversations to say, well, it's a different brand. Both companies have existing products out in the market, serving, we'll call them overlapping overlapping target market segments.

And and I'm I'm sure and I know that they're going through questions saying, Should we bring them in, fold them in, rebrand them under our brand? Should we should we keep them a separate brand and start to create kind of a house of brands? Like I mean how

Kevin Perlmutter (18:06)

situations

a lot. I I I get pulled into those situations. And those are things that those are evaluations that that I've been part of making for many years based on insight, you know, what what are the business objectives of what you're doing? what are the equities on both sides that we should be aware of? What are the customer experiences and customer insights on both sides? What is what does the future state look like? And what's the migration plan to get there? Those are all things that I help companies navigate.

And I do it not from the, you know, like a lot of times an acquisition is made, the paper is signed, and then everybody looks around and goes, Well, what's the future of the brands? And I'm I'm, you know, there there are a lot of people like me who would say, Well, probably should have thought about that before we sign the documents so that there's some guide rails for where we're going. But you know, when you do these things, you have to think about what it's gonna be like for the outside customer. You have to think about the portfolio architecture.

And how are people going to be able to navigate it seamlessly and find what they're looking for? If there are overlapping things on both sides, how do you bring them together in the best ways possible? And if there are new entities, how do they fit with everything else that's there? What should be master branded? What should be endorsed? What should be independent and maybe off to the side as a business that doesn't get promoted with the core business? There's lots of decisions like that that need to be made. And

The end result is they all should add up to something. they they should all be pillars of the strategy for the company and its objectives, but it should also simultaneously be presented to customers in a way that helps make it easier for them to navigate and understand what they can get from this company and how how they can easily access it.

Jeff Holman (19:51)

There any simplifying principles that you would that you would kind of jump toward or share with a team when they're going through this exercise? I'm sure there's a lot of case by case stuff, but I'm just I'm just wondering like, is it so much case by case that you really just have to be in the middle of it before you can actually make any progress? Or are there some guiding principles that CEOs and their team should know about?

Kevin Perlmutter (20:14)

Yeah, there are definitely some guiding principles. I mean, one is you if we're talking about portfolio architecture and bringing together components, one of them one of them would be doing this from memory. One one of them would be don't focus on your org chart. Focus on what's easier for customers to navigate. So I don't you know, like I've been in I've been in situations where I was in a situation a year two years ago.

Where I I was working with an organization. They had multiple brands. those brands were really product offerings, but they called them brands. They gave them logos. They had a building and the building had four sides. And if they launched another product, they wouldn't have enough room for the fifth logo. You know, that kind of a thing. Yeah. And I entered a I ent after doing a lot of insights discovery, I entered a room with three business unit presidents and a CEO and had to look at them all and say,

I think you'd be better off with one brand and product lines and reorganizing your customer experience, not based on your org chart, but based on how your customers can navigate more easily, because your business unit and your business unit serves the same customers and you're sending them to different places for different customer experiences for different parts of your offering. And it's not, it's not good. And it's not giving you room to grow within your portfolio. It's giving you room to grow.

Like a tree with new branches that people can't reach. So that's one that's one principle for sure. so making it easier for people to navigate on the outside is a core thing. And then simplification is always important. and thinking about how people want to feel is always important. You know, that's that is a core principle. How do people want to feel when they interact with your brand? And, you know, if

If it's if you can assume that they don't wanna feel confused, they don't wanna feel frustrated, they don't wanna feel like they don't know you don't want them to feel like they they know you for one thing, but not everything you have to offer if it's relevant to them. you know, those things need to be fixed.

Jeff Holman (22:25)

Okay. Is that part of the neuroscience side of it or or does neuroscience go into something different?

Kevin Perlmutter (22:30)

There are some neuro and behavioral science principles baked into there. For instance, you know, we we we gravitate toward things that make us feel good. We we are most likely to choose the path of least resistance. And when things are complicated and frustrating, we have a tendency to walk away.

Jeff Holman (22:48)

And you're talking from the customer perspective right now, just not not this is not the team perspective. Like, integrating these are going to be hard, so let's just not do it. That's that's the wrong

Kevin Perlmutter (22:57)

I'm talking about the customer. I I often bring people to the customer perspective. Like I I really care about what you think is right, but how about how would customers feel in that situation is is a is the where I go. I I actually help my my clients, especially the the CEOs that I work with, feel comfortable with direction based on customer insight. It's it's their greatest competitive advantage to have that customer insight. So if we bring it in, I was once working with a brand.

And we came up with a brand strategy. So there are two bookends to the brand strategies that I create. One is at the conclusion of Insights Discovery, which is what I call the shared emotional motivation. And the shared emotional motivation is what both the brand and its potential customers are in the world doing and trying to achieve individually and hopefully together. And then the other bookend is the brand idea or the tagline. And the tagline is that beacon for attracting and retaining customers.

But it's also that that beacon internally for how to deliver services to customers. And taglines have a lot of different shapes and sizes in the industry. A lot of them are about us statements or cliche jargon like human potential optimized, or you know, we are the blank experts or something. But when I develop a tagline or a brand idea for one of my clients.

It meets certain criteria, which is it must be a benefit and an invitation. You must be inviting somebody into an experience. So examples are that I've that I've created for my clients are things like yours to discover for a performing arts center, be supply chain invincible for a SaaS-based platform that does inventory management. a material difference for a for a product that

is a is a highly durable and bulletproof material that we want manufacturers to bring into their into their products as an ingredient brand. And material difference signals to them that you need to check this out because it's different than anything you've ever experienced and and materially different. And you know, so there there's things like that.

Jeff Holman (25:12)

It

seems like what you're doing is you're you're adding layers into this. So it's not a one sided statement or logo. It's it's two sided. You're like, we wanna like like great if we can appeal to the customer insights, but what if what if we can at the same time, you know, other side of the same coin also be a motivator for the term the the team internally, right? And and we can s serve both of those.

Kevin Perlmutter (25:37)

That is where was going with it. So it's so much about simplifying decisions for people by focusing on the insights that we know will motivate people to want to be involved. And and and that that keeps coming back around. So yeah. So the the main the main thing that CEOs really should be considering is what is it that they need to know about their customers that they don't already know?

And how do people want to feel? Because those those ways that when you make people feel that way, when you help people feel that way, then they're more likely to instinctively, instinctively gravitate toward what you have to offer. It feels like it was designed with them in mind. It ignites interest, sparks desire. And they they go to check it out. I'm never gonna tell a CEO that a tagline is gonna is gonna help them, you know, land a sale, especially in a B2B environment.

But it will spark interest. It will help people ask questions and get involved and and then start to do that rational thinking. But if it's if it's wallpaper, if it's jargon, if it's if it's meaningless, if it's not rooted in customer insight, from a behavioral science perspective, it's highly ignorable.

Jeff Holman (26:54)

Yeah. Well and and it strikes me that I mean, this is in a sense an extension of lean startup principles, you know, foundational. If you believe in them, you know, validate, validate, validate your problem before you ever launch your business, right? You get the customer input before you design your product offering. And and you know, supposedly if we do that consistently, we'll hit the winners more consistently. Yeah.

Kevin Perlmutter (27:21)

Strategy before tactics, right? You know, you have to and the strategy needs to be rooted in insight. I see strategy. You gave a dish of a definition of strategy earlier. My definition is the foundation of a future that has yet to unfold.

Jeff Holman (27:35)

Seems like the word alignment needs to be in there somewhere too. The foundation because that's that's where it's really what you're talking about is is either discovering or, you know, creating alignment between your customers and and your business, which when we say it that way, it seems like, well, what business wouldn't succeed if there's alignment between the two of those? Willing customer and a willing and a willing service provider or product offering, you know, product provider. that sounds like a winner right there.

Kevin Perlmutter (28:04)

Absolutely. The more you know about your customers and the more you address what you've learned, the more it's personally relevant and the more it becomes instinctively interesting and desirable.

Jeff Holman (28:14)

Yeah. Well if people wanted to if people wanted to hear more, 'cause I I I'm I'm certain there are hours and hours more of you know, more depth to this conversation than we

Kevin Perlmutter (28:21)

Hours and hours and pages and pages, right?

Jeff Holman (28:24)

exactly. Including including pages of your book, your book Brand Desire, right?

Kevin Perlmutter (28:28)

Anybody want

brand desire, spark customer interest using emotional insight. And if anybody wants to learn more about me or that, maybe the simplest place to go is branddesirebook.com. It's a page on my company website, information about my book, but other pages you could link to talk about my brand consulting practice and courses that I'm delivering and other things.

Jeff Holman (28:53)

I

love that. And and if we were to leave our our audience of CEOs, you know, navigating these pivotal moments in their business, what's a question that you would want them to be asking themselves, either about, you know, their branding or about neuroscience or about anything else? What what was that question you would leave with them? I would

Kevin Perlmutter (29:12)

Would I would suggest that they ask, where are the insights? When we're making these decisions, where are the customer insights? And if there are customer insights driving these decisions, that's wonderful. But if it's not rooted in customer insight, maybe send someone back to go get some before the decision is finalized.

Jeff Holman (29:32)

Love that. Probably something I can do in my business a little bit more. As attorneys, we t we tend to think that we know it all and we bring the answers to the customers. But in fact, we probably have a lot of opportunities to to discover and and utilize customer insights more in our in on in the business side of our professional practice.

Kevin Perlmutter (29:51)

I think we all do.

Jeff Holman (29:52)

Yeah. Kevin, it's been it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you today, hearing some of your insights and stories and experiences. Thanks so much for coming on to the breakout CEO.

Kevin Perlmutter (30:02)

Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.

Jeff Holman (30:04)

It's been great. And for our audience, thanks again for joining us on another episode of the Breakout CEO Podcast. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e commerce, and tech companies to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives and confidence.

Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.

Kevin Perlmutter (30:40)

Mm-hmm.

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