Storytelling - Make Complex Transactions Simple

Complex business transaction happen all the time, there are always plenty of lawyers and board meetings to tie everything off, but what about the customer you aim to serve? Where was he/she/they in the process. Allowing a talented marketing team to lead from the front of compllex transactions (let's say a Joint Venture between Fortune 500 firms) will not only help guide the path to the finish line, but ensure that you will succeed. Doubtful? This article presents one method where early and continued engagement from marketing leadership will help ensure the JV is properly aligned, and set up to create a sustained competitive advantage in the marketplace.

First, let's define success: A successful JV will: 1) expand an OEM’s reach into markets and support the long-term growth strategy, 2) accomplish brand expansion and new customer engagement without suffering the associated distractions for its design team and management, and 3) do so without sacrificing brand identity. There are several issues to address before embarking on a joint venture – regardless of the form it takes. The most critical of these is the selection of the right joint venture partner: one who can bring the right resources, experience, brand and culture.

01 Brand Early & Brand Often

In the art of global business, Joint Ventures are a mechanism to tie firms together to create new and important value in the marketplace. There are plenty of great stories that tell the successful JV journey: Sony Ericson, Dow-Corning & Hisun-Pfizer are a few that show us what good likes like. These companies got it right. When a JV discussion gains tractions and a partner is identified, start with a clear understanding of the target market and customer need you are satisfying with the new offering from the JV. By the second date, ask the question: If this goes forward, how will we communicate the marriage? As the courtship continues, seek to understand the strategic logic operating in each organization. On what basis does each firm complete and win – Brand? Low-cost offer? Economies of scale? Some combination of each?

Most likely each firm will have a blend of the above that drives their operating logic and culture. To succeed, a JV must clarify the important logic drivers for the JV over and above the profit potential. If your own business logic is correctly aligned with delighting high priority customers, then you should seek JV partners who also at least also admit the importance of a customer orientation. Many years ago, Ted Levitt said it best “there can be no corporate strategy that is not in some fashion a marketing strategy.” Because of the inextricable link between understanding customer needs and then serving them better than the competition, marketing must be part of any JV strategy. Brand is critical to the logic of marketing and must be discussed early. Centering early JV discussions in brand logic will help the parties understand each other, better define the mission of the JV and the markets they hope to serve.

02 Create a Story that Feels like Home.

To make simple the complex path of a global, B2B JV, refine your story as if it were a fable to be told by a master storyteller, someone like Aesop. In The Lion and the Mouse, Aesop took the complex issues of difference, adversity, and teamwork and delivers them using humble incidents to teach great truths. Aesop? Is he relevant today? Absolutely. Remember this article is about B2B JVs. Our customers like new things, but ultimately they are afraid of anything that is too new. All. Customers. Crave. Familiarity. The story you tell this segment of the public should have some newness to create buzz, but must be rooted in well disguised familiarity. Start with the familiar elements in each brand and then sketch out the story the JV will tell to the market. This is a great way to ascertain if the ensuing negotiations will result in a win-win combination. To do this, marketers need to beat lawyers to the table, engage leadership and not give up their seats until the deal is ready to be inked. Unifying the JV team through a solidified, cohesive brand story and communications plan is vital to show the team’s unity, combined strength and purpose.

03 Go Deep into Brand & Business Architecture.

Compare each firm’s brand and product architecture. Ask the question: What is our investment stance in our product market? Understand the possible effects of each component on the new product and marketing mix of the JV because of potential changes in the business environment as a result of the recombination of components. In areas of overlap that seem lumpy, work through initial strategies to shore up disparities and re-enforce the best parts of the combined brand. Identify areas where developing a clear, concise and consistent message across all channels may be challenge, and discuss countermeasures. Discuss whether you will leverage both existing brands or develop a new brand for the JV. Careful evaluation here may lead to adjustments in the marketing architecture itself and may open up new avenues of other possibilities as a by-product.

04 Position the JV.

Draft a positioning statement for the JV. The “what we wish our customers to believe about us compared to our competitors” is a great practice for the JV partners to work together prior to executing the deal. This step requires some heavy lifting as you must work together to define the markets you compete in, decide what to promise customers, seek to understand if customers will believe you, and then discuss how to deliver and maintain the JVs position. Importantly, this discussion will help you identify if your JV team has the skills, resources, and credibility to deliver on the promises implied by an effective position. This is where you must answer the question whether you will leverage both existing brands or develop a new brand for the JV. This is the one of the most difficult, softer, yet important decisions given the JV decision makers’ self-image and the health of the independent brands.

05 Craft the Global, Omni-Channel Story:

Once the team has a deep understanding for the value you hope to create, then build alignment around a congruent brand story that is simple, differentiated, and easily retold. With a positioning statement that both parties agree to, develop a conceptual roadmap to execute on your story with learning needs identified based on pre-deal gaps. The roadmap discussion should consider new iterations in trade dress that will be necessary to show customers your unified position and identity. Tag lines, image attributes, proof points, colorways and key messages by audience should all be put on the table early.

Although global standardization and digital plays an ever increasing role, do not be afraid to tap into the roots of diversity, and local human passions. As Gucharan Das pointed out in 1993 (shortly after the World Wide Web went live the world): “winners in the new borderless economy will be the brands and companies that make the best use of the richness of experience from geographical diversity.” Consider each firm’s approach to using agencies to lever up the story you are about to tell. Allow agency partners to show you they understand the brand’s core elements and clearly define how they will help your customers trade their loyalty and cash for the comfort and delight they discover in your brand promise.

06 Tell the Story.

In our ever complex and connected world brand stories that make emotional connections with customers usually win. The advantage of a fable like The Lion and the Mouse is that it is a simple story that deals with, teamwork, difference and adversity with simple metaphors that appeal to the emotional side of our brain. This appeal allows the story to be retold with ease. Is the story around your proposed JV one that Aesop would tell? Does it resonate with simplicity? Does it stick? As Derek Thompson points out in his book Hit Makers, “The world is complex. But all meaning comes from wise simplification.”

Conclusion.

Although the reporting structures and legal wickets of your transaction may seem rife with complexity, the story you tell about moving two brands together should be simple, unique, and easily retold. With an early, deep and collective dive into the marketing components of merging entities your team will hopefully land on a compelling brand narrative and high-level communications strategy long before the JV is put into action in the marketplace. With this foundation in place, the teams who actually execute under the JV umbrella will start the journey with purpose, cohesion and intent. Discipline around this process will ensure that the JV remains on a steady glide path to create value in the marketplace.