Five Magical Proposition Development Ingredients – No.1 ‘Customer Inspired’ Clients

We know that clients seek to achieve greatness for their brands and to ensure their customers select and commit to them above all others. But many have told us that their brand positioning, propositions and offers lacked market impact and were not resonating with consumers anymore. The models they were using weren’t broken, but their ability to take them to new and interesting places were falling short of what they wanted.

And yet those working with us said the positioning and propositions we’d collaborated with them on were delivering better outcomes* for their business.

* By better outcomes we mean, ‘fulfill meaningful aspects of customer’s lives utilising (often existing) brand assets in a competitively and ultimately commercially advantageous way’.

With this in mind, we are publishing a series of blogs which identify what we believe are the five magical ingredients to successful proposition development.

Of course there is more than one way of arriving at a positioning or proposition. But we find that the conventional approaches fail to cut it anymore.

Lexden’s approach is quite unordinary because we start with the customer (which is not the same as saying you are customer-centric. That’s like saying you are a an Oscar winning actor when you really only achieved a round of applause at the village am-dram production of My Fair Lady). We figure out how to improve customers lives and that informs the ambition for the brand. This approach we find delivers cut-through outcomes because it rises above the market norms and brand ego starting points which often inhabit compelling potential.

To pursue that path is unordinary. But as we say, if you want a different outcome, try originating from a different starting point.

Lexden’s five magical proposition development ingredients 

1. Clients ‘inspired by customers’

2. Liberating ideation techniques

3. Expert insight synthesis and interpretation analysis

4. Sharp commercial and viability alertness

5. Energising approach with a ‘go-to-market’ attitude

We have found that a focus on less than all five will invariably result in a compromised potential. With commissions in Turkey, Iberia, Italy, France, Eastern Europe, Hong Kong as well as the UK completed this is a universally workable approach which inspires and empowers those we work with to arrive at better outcomes for their customers.

Each of the five key areas has it’s specific attributes which are the difference between success and compromise. And whilst we often talk about four of them, there is one which typically get’s less airtime. That is those visionary clients who are truly ‘customer inspired’.

Their belief in doing what will improve customers lives in turn motivates us. They are the ones prepared to stand by the customer. Restless until they can improve their customer’s lives through brand advantage. We find they are not only champions of customers, but that gives them a sharper understanding of the role the brand plays too. And with that comes appetite and ambition for compelling ‘reason to believe’ propositions. This is the perfect foundation for our collaborative approach and enables us to help clients start to understand the power of tapping into consumer’s emotional drivers (more on that in a later blog).

We know our approach isn’t for everyone. In fact if we don’t get a sense that we are working with brands that believe in putting customers at the heart of what they do, we rarely take the assignment.

Lexden launches the Unordinaires Club

To celebrate these individuals, we are launching  The Unordinaires Club. This is a club for Unoridnary Thinkers to meet, be inspired by brilliant  unordinary ideas from across the globe, learn new techniques and share their own approaches too.

We will also be interviewing those select individuals we believe have got the unordinary gene. So if you’ve taken an unbeaten path to achieve success for yourself, your business or your brand and developed propositions which have made people stand back and say, “I wish I’d thought of that”, we’d love to hear from you.

To decide upon our first candidate for our first interview I asked my 5 year old son to name someone who he thought went about their business in a different way to others and captured his imagination. I told him whoever he picked I would find and interview.

He picked Willy Wonka.

Now whilst undoubtedly a visionary unordinary thinker, there is a problem – one I didn’t want to draw my son’s attention to. So thinking for a way out I said that since he’d retired I didn’t know where I might find him.

The imagination of a five year old fixed that for me too! He told me to head off to America where I would find a small town, in which there would be a small house with a big stable and no roof. There I will find Mr. Wonka living with his new wife, Bibby and their three year old son James. So no way out. The first interview will be Willy Wonka.

Posted by Christopher Brooks

Lexden is a marketing strategy agency which creates unordinary propositions to motivate customers and deliver commercial advantage for brands. 

For more information on how we can help you, contact christopherbrooks@lexdengroup.com  or call us on M: +44 (0) 7968 316548.  And you can follow us on: LinkedIn Facebook or Twitter @consultingchris.