By now, we all accept that we are living in a time of relentless, transcendental change and unparalleled complexity, driven mostly by technological disruption where many proven conventions that powered businesses for decades are in question. There is no business as usual. The laws of supply and demand are being rewritten.

Today, the difference between front-runners and also-rans isn’t technology. It’s creating a business that behaves differently in order to create meaningful customer relationships.

It’s truly an adapt-or-perish moment. Legacy brands and businesses have to work the hardest to keep up with this change—managing disruption from digitally native organizations as well as finding new ways to adapt to an evolving customer who demands better value and deeper meaning.

Technology, once the key driver of product and service differentiation, has now become an equalizer, enabling almost any business, service or product to be great, in far less time and with far fewer resources, forcing companies to have to differentiate on the basis of something else.

These companies, used to leading and owning their space through high volume “everything” have based their strategies on blanketing as much of the market as possible with a vast array of service and product options and line extensions to address as many audiences as possible (e.g., “How many toothpaste SKUs can we create?”).

But in this time of the empowered, discerning and often fickle customer, whether B2B or B2C, it’s no longer a game of shelf or screen space or reach, but rather knowing where to focus for maximum impact.

Businesses have an urgent need to re-evaluate traditional growth strategies and how they look at the customer. But we mean, really look to understand how to better serve them, not just sell them.

How do you change? Which business models do you protect and which do you discard? What to focus on first?

The necessary pivot for companies who seek relevance and growth in the post-disruption era is creating a business that behaves differently, one that doesn’t push products that don’t fulfill a purpose or ignores what customers need and what they want. That operates with surgical precision, seamlessly, offering the right products or services to the right customer and in a way that creates meaning and value.

One that thinks first about experiences, then transactions. That sees customer experience as the brand differentiator.

This is a big move. From marketing products to creating a meaningful relationships that put customers at the center. This will require organizations to rethink not just how they market outwards, but how they organize internally to allow themselves to put the customer first, not just what they have in inventory or in the R&D pipeline.

Customer experience is how your customers and clients perceive their interactions with your company.

It is an approach to creating business value that is considered by many to be the most powerful driver of new customer acquisition and retention. More than 80 percent of companies say they will compete mostly or completely on the basis of customer experience within two years, according to [Gartner’s Customer Experience in Marketing Survey](https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3812767). A [Walker study](https://www.walkerinfo.com/knowledge-center/featured-research-reports/customers-2020-a-progress-report) found that by the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.

Many businesses think they’re already delivering top-shelf CX. Yet, in a recent study by Bain that surveyed 362 firms, they found that 80 percent believed they already delivered a “superior experience” to their customers. But customers tell a different story. When asked about their own perceptions, they said that only eight percent of companies were really delivering. That huge gap is a tremendous opportunity. Closing it requires companies to rethink what clients and customers want and what they really need. Yes, back to the fundamental business drivers.

So instead of continuing to ask “What else can we sell people?” or “How can we get people to engage with our programs or messages?” businesses need to fully put themselves in the customer’s shoes and visualize what would make every aspect of their experience more enjoyable, valuable and meaningful. The question becomes: How do we deliver a single compelling customer story? Or, to quote the wise words of Tyrion Lannister: “What unites people? Armies? Gold? Flags? No. It’s stories. There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.”

What makes a lasting customer experience? A good customer experience has to mean something and evoke a feeling. The intended feeling. And this is where brand-led experiences come in.

Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics, talks about the difference between the *experiencing* self and the *remembering* self. The experiencing self lives in the present—the fast, intuitive, unconscious mode of thinking that focuses on how happy you are in the moment, living life rather than thinking about it. The remembering self is a storyteller, keeps score, etches memories and uses those memories to anticipate the future, it’s how we think about our experience. We make choices based on our remembering self. The in-between moments are lost to time without a trace.

But most interesting is this: what lingers for the remembering self are changes in the story, significant (especially intense) moments and the ending (yes, the last moment often determines how you remember the entire experience).

Now, transfer that *remembering* principle to brand experiences. A brand is, in essence, the vessel by which we aggregate and communicate the stories a company or product wants to tell us, as well as the principles that guide how the brand behaves internally & externally. **Brand-led experiences are the way to create long-lasting meaning that weaves moments together, supporting twists and turns in the story that people will remember, personalize and draw upon later. Without a brand as filter, they’re just unrelated experiences that will vanish as quickly as they came. Even if they were great.**

This means that to create lasting, real-world, real-human impact, we can’t look at experiences in isolation or as one-offs, but rather as a system of interactions that are connected to each other while also being able to stand alone. We shouldn’t just solve for “frictionless” or “joyful” or “omni-channel” at one moment in time. We want to understand where that experience fits within the broader network of interactions and how each moment contributes to the complete story.

More than ever, brands need to be the filter for deploying and activating business strategy.  

At VSA, we call this network of moments the Meaningful Experience Model or MXM^TM^. It’s our way of envisioning and creating a blueprint that fully accounts for how interactions are connected, what long term effect they have on the business and how they help drive brand choice and brand love.

Rather than “fix” every touchpoint, this model allows us to identify which ones align closest to the brand promise and expectations. It enables us to assess the brand experience state through three lenses to diagnose where to focus: category expectations, customer requirements and brand promise, and use this to determine what to add, eliminate or improve.

The more we can understand what each brand interaction is meant to do, the better we can design these moments with intent. This not only helps create a clear and meaningful brand experience internally and externally, but it helps move the customer along the journey much more efficiently while creating value for the customer and driving choice and love for the brand.

And because all moments are not created equal, we see this network of interactions as an ecosystem of parts that consist of:

In an era of business transformation and technological complexity, traditional approaches to branding and marketing are being rewritten at record speed, replaced by investment in holistic, brand-led customer experiences.

Brand love ultimately comes from delivering meaning and value, told cohesively through a story with intentional moments that reflect – and connect with – what your customer needs and wants.

Anything else is a waste of your customer’s time—and of your brand’s budgets.

Winning the customer experience race

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Culture is the glue that binds us. As people, as ethnicities, as companies.

So naturally every company tries to “create” a culture that is (circle one or more): innovative / agile / compelling / inspirational / progressive…you get the idea. You’ve done it before. A common set of values, beliefs and behaviors that define a “way of being,” help drive a business forward and motivate people.

But honestly, how are you supposed to maintain a company’s culture when the very essence of culture that we have relied on over the past 2,000+ years — personal connection — has been taken away?

At the center of culture is people. So what happens when we’re no longer together, when we’re working alone, from home, connecting to each other through a screen that allows for limited, artificial moments of interaction? When we can’t show up and lead by physical example? When actions are not overt and can’t be shared and seen?

When digital communications that were meant to be a substitute for the real thing are the ONLY thing?

When we do Culture Transformation work we tell our clients “Culture is a process. It’s not an event or a moment in time.” Not a list of words on a page. Ok yes it has to be words on a page somewhere, but it only comes alive and resonates if realized consistently and credibly, every day, in every action. Either as deliberate acts that help nurture it or as spontaneous gestures of meaning and support. It’s a system and as such it has to be treated in a systematic way.

However given today’s circumstances you need to simplify. We’ve been focusing on three core pillars to maintain our culture:

Trust, shared rituals and meaningful connectivity.

Trust is the mother of all cultural glue. You can’t “offer it or promise it,” it can only be earned through transparency, respect and backing up your words with actions. It’s the pillar to all other aspirations of creating culture. In a time of unprecedented uncertainty, it’s your duty to offer a clear representation of reality — of the company’s views, actions and decisions, of even your personal fears. And more importantly, it’s your duty to put the interests of the people first. It’s hard to earn trust if people don’t feel you have their back.

Rituals and moments of surprise and delight create shared experiences and nurture a sense of belonging. At VSA we’ve done it in an amplified way to counter the physical absence.  Everything from virtual bingo to talent contests to dress up day to sending someone who needed extra care a bottle of wine. It hasn’t been scripted or forced — we just became even more sensitive to when it was needed. This requires you to be really tuned in to your teams. Sometimes you need to bring joy and levity to the group, other times support and empathy, other times clarity and leadership.

Meaningful connections, both big and small, are at the center of managing culture in absentia. And we’re being purposeful here about the word “meaningful.” This is about making a gigantic space, literally time on your calendar, to allow you to reach out to people. To ensure you know what’s going on with their families, to give someone some free time if you think they need a break, or to celebrate their achievements. But you have to mean it.

And here’s a little hint. Omissions count as much. If you forget to congratulate someone who aced a presentation or forget to check in if you heard their kids are sick, that leaves a hole. It just does. And it’s very hard to fill back. Times are sensitive. Today, hyper-sensitive might not be a strong enough way to describe how people feel. To describe all of us.

During these past weeks, when so much has been at stake, those are the few things that have truly mattered, that have kept us sane as a team and actually brought us even closer together and allowed us to continue to do great work in the process.

It’s the art of marrying people’s dreams and beliefs with your company’s and finding a way to dance together through this difficult time. And when it’s over we’ll all be that much stronger. Together.

Be well.

Creating virtual culture in a virtual world

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The COVID-19 global pandemic has created seismic shifts within our culture for individuals and companies alike. In mid-March, VSA decided to start tracking and predicting sociological changes in this global crisis. The goal of this study was not to **report on the obvious and immediate shifts** in spend, lifestyle, and habits brought on by social distancing in response to the COVID-19 outbreak — we see those as ephemeral, reactive symptoms. Instead, we wanted to understand how our **individual lenses may be shifting** through the collective experience of this pandemic, and hypothesize its implications for the future.

We used a social listening tool to analyze tens of millions of digital posts (December to April) as well as dozens of industry reports released within the first month of social distancing (March to early April) to identify the tectonic patterns of behavioral and perceptual shifts happening through the varied experiences of Americans.

COVID-19 Behavioral and Perceptual Shifts metrics

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At the macro level, we found the largest topic was ‘Government Handling’ which was mostly attributed to a growing distrust of government and institutional leaders. In that thread of conversations, we also saw a desire and an expectation for companies to play a larger role in helping and supporting people in not only combatting the virus, but also adapting to a new way of life.

COVID-19 Behavioral and Perceptual Shifts statistics

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And although we are all coping in various ways, there were several universal shifts that we are all experiencing to some degree that have the potential to fundamentally shape our post-COVID reality:

- We are rapidly **adapting to new constraints** with the help of brands that have taken on expanded roles in our lives, including figuring out how to create a new ‘normal’ with less physical proximity in our social interactions, reacting to an increased reliance on technology and devices, and living with an inability to plan for the future.
- We are **imbuing new meaning to the words ‘valuable,’ ‘essential,’ and ‘necessary’** in the context of quarantine, shifting power and importance to populations and products previously overlooked.
- We are less trusting of large institutions, and more reliant on community-level organization, with our level of **trust correlated to perceived brand selflessness.**

As we think about the future of our business and our clients’ businesses, we see this as a tremendous opportunity for companies to play **more meaningful and potentially new roles in customers’ and employees’ lives** as important conduits to the new ‘normal.’ A massive global disruption is ripe for rapid innovation and brands that rise to the occasion can and will emerge stronger and more valuable to daily life than they were before.

Our report details how companies must disrupt their own businesses by redefining:

- **The value** you deliver
- **How** your value is delivered
- **Who** are your most valuable customers and stakeholders

We are already seeing a new class of brands forming: quick service restaurants hosting virtual parties with high-profile celebrity programming, technology companies known for charging fees and overages providing free services to all customers, and delivery services creating coalitions with their competitors to keep restaurants in business. These leaders are rising to the top through their ability to be nimble, responsive and selfless to exceed expectations in meeting their customers’ changing needs.

When we work with companies, we break out their response capacity into two categories: operational agility and strategic adaptability. As defined by [Gary Hamel](http://www.garyhamel.com/), operational agility implies an ability to respond quickly to shifts in demand or customer preference within the boundaries of an existing business model. Strategic adaptability, by contrast, refers to a company’s capacity to reconfigure its underlying business concept by dramatically rethinking the existing business model. This includes massive alterations of key structures — everything from its core mission to its pricing model to even the basic way in which it produces products and services.

This crisis has become a true test of both a company’s operational and strategic agility. As businesses undergo immense change, it can be tempting to limit strategy to just keeping up with the surface-level demands of the present. Our data-driven framework creates a game-plan to move companies beyond just playing defense (with reactions tied solely to the here and now), to curating a strong offense position within the competitive market. By utilizing these tools, companies can meet marketplace changes with agility, and set their business up for a stronger, more resilient future.

[Read the white paper here](https://s3.amazonaws.com/vsapartners.com-assets/COVID-19-Behavioral-and-Perceptual-Shifts_VSA_e655593bc6.pdf).

Behavioral and perceptual shifts from COVID-19

COVID-19 Behavioral & Perceptual Shifts booklet

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VSA’s Chief Strategy Officer Ariadna Navarro was recently featured on the Crypto Current podcast as a guest speaker. Ari and Crypto Current’s host Richard Carthon dove deep into how to create breakthrough Web3 brands—particularly in cryptocurrency. Topics include Ari’s cryptocurrency “Alice in Wonderland” origin story, the markers of fanatic communities, ethical mandates for cryptocurrency and trading companies operating today, and how to grow audiences through human-centered design. 

Check out the video below, or [click here to listen](https://crypto-current.co/ariadna-navarro-vsa-partners-creating-breakthrough-web3-brands/). 

Ariadna Navarro Guest Speaker on Crypto Current Podcast

Headshot of Ariadna Navarro alongside Crypto Current banner

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VSA’s Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro was recently a guest on the JUST Branding podcast, co-hosted by Jacob Cass and Matt Davies. 

In this episode, Ari tackles the rise of “blands”—a category of brands that while claiming to offer a completely unique product, adopt an almost uniform visual identity and voice.

[Check out the episode here](https://justcreative.com/blands-vs-brands/) or below to hear more about what a bland is, why blands became so popular, and how companies that once embraced the blands can create a stronger, longer-lasting brand legacy. 



Ariadna Navarro Is Guest Speaker on JUST Branding Podcast

Compilation image of Jacob Cass, Ariadna Navarro, and Matt Davies' headshots

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VSA’s Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro was recently a guest on the podcast Rockstar CMO FM, hosted by Ian Truscott. 

Ari and Ian examined how the role brands are expected to play in society has shifted: as the institutions that once acted as moral compasses failed or ceased to command respect, society has increasingly turned to corporations to provide the same level of ethical guidance we once expected from religions, governments, and educational centers. 

In fact, some brands even command a cult-like status not unlike a religion, with passionate communities rallying around a charismatic business leader. 

Ari and Ian discussed how brands can embrace this newfound role as purpose-providers with responsibility and credibility, and how embracing brand as a business asset can help brands build purposeful growth throughout their entire ecosystems and successfully articulate their offerings to consumers. 

[Check out the link here to listen! ](https://rockstarcmo.com/139-the-hola-to-opportunities-ariadna-navarro-of-vsa-partners-and-storytelling-over-a-cocktail-episode/) Ari and Ian's interview begins at 00:27:25. 


Ariadna Navarro Guest on Rockstar CMO FM

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Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro recently appeared on “The Unified Brand Podcast,” hosted by Chris Outlaw. 

During the show, Ari shared how brands can increase their Moments of Impact® (MOIs) by investing in the brand interactions that matter, and using their brand as a filter to decide which moments have the greatest significance for brand recognition and loyalty. 

[Click here to listen to the full episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unified-brand-branding-podcast/id1515780484), and thanks to Chris Outlaw and The Unified Brand Podcast for having Ari on. 

Ariadna Navarro Appears on The Unified Brand Podcast

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VSA’s Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro was recently featured on the podcast The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. 

During the episode, Ari chatted with host Josh Elledge about why she believes in the power of brand, the difference between the brand problems of start-ups and the brand problems of large corporations, and how she leads projects from the philosophy “every business problem is a human problem.” 

[Click here to listen to the episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1600-practical-solutions-to-thorny-problems-with-vsa/id1394227396?i=1000620158016), and thanks to Josh for having Ari on the show. 


Ariadna Navarro Appears on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast

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Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro recently appeared on the On Brand podcast, hosted by Nick Westergaard. Ari and Nick discussed the importance of seeing brand as a business asset, how too much A/B testing can ruin a customer experience, and VSA’s process for turning brand differentiation into a tangible human experience. 

Check out the episode [here](https://www.nickwestergaard.com/connecting-brand-to-growth-with-ariadna-navarro/). 

Connecting Brand to Growth

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AdForum recently interviewed VSA's Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro to get her thoughts on the future of AI and creativity, and how companies can set ethical, responsible guardrails around the technology.

Check out an excerpt below, or click [here](https://www.adforum.com/interviews/ai-tools-still-rely-on-creativity-more-than-they-threaten-to-replace-it-ariadna-navarro-vsa-partners ) to read the full interview. 

#### Does your agency encourage or deter the use of AI in your work? If applicable, how does your team integrate these tools into the creative process?

It’s a little of both right now. We encourage everyone to use it, but with guardrails and guidelines to keep the work honest, human, and original. At the moment, AI is best suited to things like exploration, evaluation, and experimentation. It can reliably accelerate existing processes — from research and analysis to idea generation and content creation — but it’s equally susceptible to misinformation, redundancies, and both legal and ethical issues that we’re only beginning to understand. 

In other words, AI is an exciting, new option in our toolkit, but it’s nowhere near a replacement for any of the ways we work yet.

#### How does the accessibility of these tools affect the way it is used?

The accessibility factor is core to AI’s success. It’s incredibly rare for a tool to possess both the low barriers to entry and the near-infinite possibilities that AI represents. The open format and widespread availability of this generation’s AI tools have given them access to an unheard-of volume of perspectives, permutations, and information that’s driving its rapid evolution, but that also comes with increasing risk.

While the exponential growth and innovation of these nascent phases is exciting, it’s also why we can’t afford to lose any more ground in understanding and safeguarding against the dangers and threats it could pose.

Click [here](https://www.adforum.com/interviews/ai-tools-still-rely-on-creativity-more-than-they-threaten-to-replace-it-ariadna-navarro-vsa-partners ) to continue reading. 


AI in Advertising 

Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro was recently featured on MarketScale, discussing her views on how businesses can move forward with integrating AI into their operations in an ethical and sustainable way. 

Ari outlines her approach with four pillars: transparency, boundaries, accountability, and education. 

Transparency means that clients need to know how it’s being used. However you’re using AI, and whatever business you’re in, ensure your partners are informed. 

Boundaries entails outlining what AI can and cannot do or be used for. Despite the hype, it’s not the end-all-be-all solution to absolutely everything. 

Accountability is the next pillar. What governance is in place for your use of AI? What are the checks and balances on the output before it becomes external-facing? 

And finally, education—education to empower employees to learn how to use the different platforms, as well as to understand some of the consequences of poorly-managed AI. 

Click [this link](https://marketscale.com/industries/software-and-technology/what-are-the-main-ethical-considerations-in-the-development-and-implementation-of-ai-systems/) to watch the interview. 

Building Ethical, Accountable AI Business Practices 

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Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro recently shared her thoughts on building breakthrough brands in a piece published on MarTech Series. Ari explores the importance of truly differentiated brand experiences, the cyclical nature of brand-consumer relationships, and how even product-driven, tech companies need strong branding to truly stand out. 

Check out an excerpt below, or click [here](https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/guest-authors/conviction-and-persistence-the-foundation-of-breakthrough-brands/) to read the full article. 

No matter how innovative your product or service is, or how niche of an industry your business operates in, it’s excruciating to find differentiation these days … and it’s a never-ending chase. The acceleration of a perpetually changing future has made it all that much more critical to sharpen the most important tool you have for standing out from your competitors: your brand.

Before digging deeper into how a brand is built, it’s crucial to first understand what we mean when we say “brand.” While many people (even some in our industry) conflate brand with advertising or the products they sell, those are only pieces of what you do that make up the larger idea of who you are. Put simply, a brand is the most compelling articulation of your business strategy—a clarification of what you stand for, and the basis of your relationship with customers. Note the word “compelling.” It has to be true, relevant and differentiated.

#### From bland to brand
Using the Silicon Valley startup landscape as an example, you can see the effects of using product as a brand (PaaB™). Technology is not a differentiator anymore; it’s an equalizer. Although tech-driven, business-model innovation is great, it has to come with the development of brand. Think about how many times you’ve heard a business described as “the Uber of X” or “the Warby Parker of Y.” Just as quickly as those household names upended industries, they were engulfed in a sea of copycats all sporting minimal, templatized UX; clean, muted design; and a familiarly witty, human tone. When ideas are only new for a moment and products are easily imitated, “disruption” becomes more of a category than a way of standing out.

#### What do you stand for?
To avoid fights on features and performance comparisons, it’s up to brands to create a more authentic connection with customers, building relationships and loyalty over time. That’s what I call a “better human experience.”  It’s a pursuit to create value for all stakeholders—employees, customers, investors, clients. But how do you commit to standing for something in an ever-changing landscape? It starts with conviction—fighting the urge to follow every trend or to say something broad enough to appeal to everyone, and instead find what’s true to you and relevant to your audiences. Identifying that sweet spot is what makes the connection between a brand and a customer resemble any other human relationship. For the same reasons love isn’t eroded by a single argument, customers stick by brands that stay true to the values that attracted them in the first place.

Continue reading by clicking [here](https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/guest-authors/conviction-and-persistence-the-foundation-of-breakthrough-brands/). 



Ariadna Navarro

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