not driven by this value. It must always be at the leading edge,
pushing at the boundaries and, most importantly, be seen to be
doing so. The brand definition of such businesses will be appro-
priately innovative and entrepreneurial.
Customer intimacy is the desire and the ability to identify with
specific customer needs, and to match products and services
accordingly. What distinguishes the customer-intimate business
is its stated determination to develop close customer relation-
ships, and to act on the resultant knowledge at all levels of its
operation. It will probably have a wide menu of products and
services, and the ability to mix and match these to suit individ-
ual customer requirements – or perhaps it will go further than
this and offer a totally bespoke service.
Many B2B and service brands will aim to put this value at the
heart of their brand definition. The upside is that it enables them
to project an image of personalised service. A potential downside
could be that an apparent claim to be able to do anything is non-
credible. This requires careful brand management. The
customer-intimate driver should not lead you down an unfo-
cused road. Rather, think of it as intimacy within clearly defined
boundaries, boundaries set as a result of your business strategy
and your approach to market segmentation (see Chapter 10).
Brand strategy – the brand in context
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65
Microsoft
The pace of innovation achieved by Microsoft is amazing, the
downside being that you can sometimes feel out of date as soon
as you carry its latest product out of the store (which puts me way
out of date: rephrase that last comment – as you download their
latest product…). The Microsoft brand represents innovation and
state of the art, and is perhaps happy that it also represents a
small element of risk. Brands that push at the boundaries will
occasionally make mistakes; it’s almost expected by the customer.
When there are doubts (and much publicity) about a new version
of Windows, sales just keep on rising. It would seem that a lot of
us want to be part of that leading edge, bugs and all.