Company Market Leadership via ABC Alignment: Archetype, Brand, Customer

How a company’s primary Archetype drives an authentic brand and the delivery of exceptional customer service and customer experiences

After being hired as a consultant and researching numerous companies, I have discovered the following as to why some achieve market leadership while others do not. What I have discovered is that market leading companies like Amazon, Intuit, American Express, Apple, Southwest Airlines, Wegmans, Gartner, Nielsen, Lego, Hallmark, Disney, etc., have all achieved a high degree of alignment between their ABCs – their organizational Archetype, their corporate Brand and their Customer presence. They are all authentically aligned, in-synch and balanced both internally through the experienced corporate culture as well as externally through the brand and customer experience. Through my experience with many companies and brands I have also found that when these items are misaligned or not balanced, there is a negative reaction to company by the employees, customers and stakeholders.

To draw an analogy to people you meet, ask yourself, if you have ever meet or run into someone who meets the following characteristics:

1) Is a self-proclaimed advocate for protecting against sexual harassment and then makes inappropriate glances or comments as an attractive person passes by?
2) Describes themselves as a person of tolerance and acceptance but speaks in a manner that is condescending or hurtful to others, etc.?
3) Maintains they are for protecting the environment, global warming, etc. but in practice they throw litter onto the sidewalk or out of their car window and have a older automobile that pollutes a great deal?

If you have, you might walk away saying the following:

“That was totally unexpected!”
“They are a phony, fake”
“That person was totally disingenuous, not authentic!”

Not surprisingly, the same thing happens upon interacting with inauthentic companies as follows:

1 The company states that their customers are their #1 focus yet their delivered customer service is horrible and totally frustrates their customers.
2 The company indicates that they are for the environment from a corporate culture perspective, but print many of their marketing and other materials on physical paper stock and is not recycling on a systemic and/or widespread basis.
3 The company’s advertisements are very funny, engaging and/or professional, yet customers are offended and upset when they interact with the company’s rude and apathetic customer service representatives.
4 The company states that their culture promotes employee work life balance, but as an employee, you hardly ever see you family due to crushing workloads.

As a customer or as an employee, you’re likely to have the same reflex as when you encounter an inauthentic person. You would probably react by registering your displeasure with the company and avoid the next interaction or defect from the company as soon as possible.  

In stark contrast, companies who are market leaders achieve what I call authentic ABC alignment. In this, there is perfect alignment and synergy between their ABCs as follows:
1) Archetype (company’s main personality, attributes)
2) Brand (projected company image (external) and reflected culture (internal))
3) Customer service and experience delivery (company attitude, manners, empathy, etc.)

The following chart illustrated this perfect ABC alignment:

Organizational Archetypes represents a company’s dominant personality types, sometimes driven disproportionally by the CEO or CxO team in the case of smaller companies. The organization’s archetype is the true identity and personality of the company, who they truly are, what makes them go from a strengths perspective, what shadows hold them back, etc. These archetype traits are hidden to an organization until revealed through the lens of analysis tools like “CultureTalk” (https://culturetalk.com/). Performing a “CultureTalk” Analysis applies a set of lenses to be able to clearly reveal, in 20/20 clarity, a set of a company’s main personality types. Below is a chart that reveals the 12 Archetypes that a company can align to as well as examples of companies that align to each Archetype.

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung used the word “archetype” to refer to the recurring patterns found in our universal stories. He identified the themes, symbols, and imagery as part of the human psyche. More recently, Dr. Carol Pearson built out Jung’s work with a body of research that examined archetypal attributes within organizations. CultureTalk, based on the work of Jung and Pearson, takes centuries of understanding and translates it for today’s business leaders. The result is a framework of 12 Archetypes that a company can align to in terms of its dominant personality type(s).

Organizationally, CultureTalk assessments answers the questions: What type of company are we, what do we stand for, what dominant traits represent the authentic company? There aren’t good or bad Organizational Archetypes, but each has a strength and shadow side that we need to understand in order to drive maximized organizational effectiveness.

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

As an illustration, the Creator Archetype above is described in the graphic below is focused on “the creation of things, ideas, approaches, experiences, art work and solutions” and is well represented by the very familiar and popular company Lego. Below is a more detailed description of the main characteristics (strengths) of this Creator Archetype.

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

Lego is in perfect alignment and balance with this Archetype, driven by invention, creation, designing, dreaming, etc.

The shadows of a creator Archetype company like Lego are as follows:

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk.

The full list of strengths and shadows of a creator Archetype company like Lego are as follows:

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

It is important that a company’s Brand image be in authentic alignment with their main Archetypes, otherwise they are striving to portray an image that is out of alignment with their main personality type – trying to portray as something they are inherently not, being inauthentic to the world. This brand image is manifested in two different dimensions as follows:

1) Outside the company: The image that is being presented to the world, it stakeholders, employees, customers, etc.
2) Inside the company: The image reflected via its experienced company culture

In order to be an authentic company, it is important for a company to have its brand in alignment with its dominant Archetypes, otherwise they are portraying themselves as something they are not truly comfortable with, something they are not, being inauthentic to their main personality types and strengths.
 

Continuing the Lego example, we see perfect and authentic alignment with their main archetype and their brand messaging.

Source: https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/lego-group

The Lego Brand supports driving of innovation and creativity to their customer base which encourages the creator individual archetypes. For the public to be comfortable with the brand they have to be truly and heartfelt dedicated toward driving the creativity and the passions of their customer’s creator archetypes.

Source: https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/lego-group/the-lego-brand

The C stands for the manner in which a company delivers its Customer service and Customer experiences. Continuing with the previous Lego Creator Archetype, here is a customer service example of how the Lego Customer Brand and Culture is driving an equally consistent and authentic creator customer experience.

Here is a letter sent to Lego by a 7 year old boy named Luka who is a Lego customer regarding him losing one of his Lego figures.

Source: “https://beloved-brands.com/2016/06/18/lego-letter”

Here is the skillfully crafted reply to Luka, written in a manner that is completely in alignment with and, appealing to, Luka’s creator archetype.

Source: “https://beloved-brands.com/2016/06/18/lego-letter”

The article from Beloved Brands, where this information was sourced from, notes:

“For Lego, in the world of social media, this type of story does wonders for continuing the magic of their brand. And it’s a great example of going above and beyond. What I like in the letter is how they please the boy, but also give a solid wink to the parent who is likely the bigger target of this letter. The dad ended up tweeting about the story, lots of viral hits and then picked up in the mainstream media including TV and newspapers in the UK, US, and Canada. And now millions are reading about this story (including you right now.)”

Equally important as the exceptional “surprise and delight” customer service going viral and generating a great deal of positive company and brand buzz, is that the tone and manner in which the customer service letter is written. The letter was masterfully crafted to be in perfect alignment with the organization’s primary Creator archetype, but simultaneously encourages and supports the customer’s (Luka’s) creator Archetype.

Here are additional examples of authentic alignment between an organization’s primary archetype and their brand and/or customer service and experience delivery;

1) When interacting with Disney, we expect authentic customer interactions to deliver magical and exciting customer experiences due to their primary organizational archetype being a Magician.

The above service guidelines could have been written in the typical boring manner like many other company directives as follows:

1) We will make eye contact and smile when encountering any of our guests.
2) We will welcome each Disney guest with the following greeting “xxxx” upon meeting them.
3) Etc., etc.

Disney instead wrote these in a way to communicate the service standard, but did so in a way consistent with the Magician Archetype by illustrating the Magic of the Disney characters and how they bring magical experiences to the children who visit their venues.

The service guideline that illustrates the consistency with Magician Archetype the best above is #6. This service guideline specifically references the delivery a “magical guest experience” and reinforces the concept that Disney delivers magic (as you would expect from a Magician Archetype) via both their company brand and through their customer delivered experiences.

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

2) When interacting with Wegmans food markets, we would expect all branding and employee/customer communications to be authentically in alignment with the Everyperson archetype. Indeed their values reflect this and even display the words in the values “every person”.

Source: “https://www.wegmans.com/about-us/company-overview”

Source: “https://thezebra.org/2020/06/01/wegmans-is-increasing-their-hours-of-operation-as-they-adapt-to-phase-i”

This employee communication from CEO Colleen Wegman is also in perfect alignment with the Everyperson archetype with the above telltale words “all of you”, “trying time for everyone”, “people – our suppliers, employees, customers, community partners -…”, “every one of you”. Again, Wegmans is a great example where they have perfect ABC alignment, authenticity.

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

3) When calling Nielsen or Gartner for B2B expert research or insights, we expect the brand and customer experience to be highly insightful, informed, based on analytical research – all characteristics of the Sage organizational Archetype.

Source: https://www.gartner.com/en/products

https://www.gartner.com/en/products

https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/about-us/

Both Gartner and Nielsen also demonstrate that they are authentic to their archetype and maintain ABC alignment and authenticity.

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

4) When interacting with the Apple Brand, we would expect the customer interactions to be reflective of a culture that is about inventing new and radically different/innovative products and experiences by challenging the status quo. These innovative and inventive characteristics are all telltale signs of the Revolutionary organizational Archetype.

Source: https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/about.html

Source: https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/about.html

The way Apple has reflected the Revolutionary Archetype is via its release of new and innovative products we previously thought weren’t possible. It started with the Apple I and Apple II computers and went onto the LaserWriter, the iPod, the iTunes Store, iPhone, ipad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, etc. The release of these was accomplished with total alignment to their Brand and to the customer experience standards.  

Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-origins-an-oral-history-from-inside-the-loop/

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

5) Hallmark, per their culture statement, believes that “care” and creating an “emotionally connected world” are the driving forces behind their delivered customer experiences and are the passions of the Lover Archetype.

Source: “https://corporate.hallmark.com/about/hallmark-cards-company/”

Source: “https://corporate.hallmark.com/culture/hallmark-family/”

Above Graphic courtesy of CultureTalk

What all of this demonstrates is the rule of customer service cultural archetype delivery, stated as follows:

Once you have determined your corporate Archetype via a tool like CultureTalk, the best way to ensure that both your brand and customer experience is in alignment is by direct measurement. For this measurement, I recommend a solution category called “Experience Management Measurement”. This enables companies to measure the experience for brand-products as well as the customer. One market leading tool I have encountered and recommend highly is Qualtrics (https://www.qualtrics.com/). Qualtrics was Named #1 Leader in Experience Management Measurement in Industry-Leading Product Rankings*. Qualtrics can assist you in the measurement of both brand and customer alignment by simply querying both your market and customers on their perceptions on brand and customer authenticity, perceived consistency, etc.

*Source: https://www.qualtrics.com/news/qualtrics-named-1-leader-in-experience-management-in-industry-leading-product-ranking/

Summary/Conclusion:

Just like successful people who are inherently highly consistent and authentic: values, personality, interests, actions, manners, spoken language, etc., the same consistency-authenticity driven success applies to companies. Companies that drive a totally consistent and authentic market presence tend to achieve ABC alignment: Archetype, Brand messaging, and Customer presence.

Without ABC alignment, the company appears to be disingenuous to the public and to their customers – trying to be something they are not per their primary Archetype. Only those achieving perfect alignment become market leaders as in our examples of Lego, Gartner, Nielsen, Disney, Apple, Wegmans, Hallmark, etc.

If your organization is seeking experienced assistance in deploying legendary levels of culturally aligned customer service, then give me a call or e-mail me at 518-339-5857 or stevenjeffes@gmail.com. I have also recently become a certified CultureTalk consultant, ready to help your company transform into a high performing and market leading (legendary) customer focused culture http://www.legendarycx.com

Lastly, this is just one article of over 50 articles I have written on customer strategy, customer experience, CRM, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for Fortune 500 companies. In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 107,000 world-wide and was just named one of the top 100 CRM blogs on the planet by Feedspot, alongside Salesforce.com, Infor, Microsoft, SAS, etc. – Reference this informative site here: https://blog.feedspot.com/crm_blogs/