It was match day and not an ordinary one at that. Bayern Munich was scheduled to play in the final of the 2012/13 UEFA Champions League. This information was part of the briefing by the pilot of a Lufthansa flight that I was in. What stuck me was the use of ‘my team’ in the way he announced this. He promised to update us about match result later as well. That day his team won and I guess the team of many in the plane too because there was a loud cheer.
Match days on twitter tend to be interesting. Many people in the stream refer to a particular team as ‘us’ or ‘we’. Now if this was someone in europe referring to their favourite club teams it would almost be normal. It may be unusual for some to see people in India referring to European club teams as ‘us’. Perhaps it is not surprising either. These clubs have become global brands with merchandising and activities that extend well beyond their region and the league’s season.
The Riera Blanca area in Barcelona is home to FC Barcelona. The Mobile World Congress is a big part of the Barcelona experience but equally there is quite a bit of FC Barcelona in there as well. You check in at a hotel and they will tell you about tickets that can be purchased on your behalf. They will talk about their team but equally talk about the history and team musuem too.
This contrasts to how some of the new teams are referred here in the social stream. More people still talk about a city’s team in third person. First the cricket and soon after hockey, football, badminton, kabaddi and basketball leagues have started. Perhaps there will be more as well. Do you remember any of the players that represent these teams? Some cricketers maybe but others? If you live in Mumbai, are you an Indian, Master or Magician team supporter. The likely hypothesis is that it’s all a blur. The player, the team and sport are not quite connected with the city they represent.
Engagement with the league, it’s teams and players is linked to the actual days of the tournament. Yes one will see matches, remember an episode for a day or two and then there is the next match to consider. Maybe take part in some contests online or enjoy the game in the company of friends at an eating establishment. Players change every year and are signed on for astronomical accounts. Sporting expertise aside, they have little resonance with the brand name. The same world famous cricketer could have navigated 4 or 5 teams in as many years. So, do the citizens of Delhi, Mumbai or Calcutta think of them as ‘my team’ ? Not really. Its great viewing but not necessarily great brand resonance. Maybe most of the Indian leagues are young and there is much more work to be done.
So what’s the connection with the city?
Naming is emotive and the brand would have several ingredients that can be considered when one thinks about the future. These could be location and community, spirit, governance and more. Let’s say there are 3 teams that represent a city. Is there a common characteristic that connects the 3 teams to each other?
1. Does a city know the teams that represent it in various sports leagues?
2. How does the city connect with the teams? Do the know their players?
3. What’s the experience for a fan of the city?
4. What’s the engagement during the season?
5. What’s the experience after the season. Have these teams embraced the culture and the ongoing conversation of the city.
6. Whether it is CSR or cause marketing, most teams have linked to some cause. Maybe there is an opportunity to make it more credible and part of the engagement with the city.
What’s in it for the brands?
While I am not an expert on brand valuations, but I do believe that the customer experience is what really matters in building a long lasting brand. How does one value a team of a young league? By the value of its players or by the business they generate? or something else? I read an article on team valuations, and I quote it here.
The Forbes Fab 40 consists of the 10 most valuable sports brands in each of four categories–businesses, events, teams and athletes. How do you place a value on a brand? For sports business brands, this means quantifying the amount the business would fetch in an arms length transaction in excess of what a comparable rival would be worth.
The team needs to win and that ensures full stadiums. There is also the business aspect. It needs to be a viable venture. It needs to increase it’s fan base, build a community and identify sources of engagement and revenue. Conventional wisdom says that there are four ways a sports team can make money: tickets, sponsorships, merchandising, and licensing. Sometimes people might add player trading and prize money.
Perhaps one could also start to imagine new sources of revenue from the majority who do not go to watch games and love their sport. The elements of a sports team and its ecosystem have four main components and connecting these elements in fresh ways can create opportunity for sustainable business growth.

In Summary, the experience framework would need to touch upon :
Clarity – Other than being the licensee of a city name, what does the team stand for? How are they linked to the city buzz? What do they offer a fan?
Conversations – The leagues need to get people talking about their sport in an active sort of way. Participating not just in entertainment centres and social media alone but in sports grounds, active lifestyles and more.
Connected – Thinking about the experience of a fan- On ground, Other venues, digital platforms and more.
Causes – Can the team do more for the cause they represent?
Capability – This is more a part of the team’s ability to win! But the fan should feel that they are part of a worthy team of their city.

This is supposed to be the age of transparency, empathy and connectedness. Can we please agree on what the real brand is?
Advertising is photo enhanced. Situations are all about perfect locations, beautiful happy moments or scary ones depending on product category. Advertising success invariably is shown as looking down upon someone else. Deviousness instead of playfulness gets you to the perfect family plan. All in the name of creative license. Fair enough.
You are after all an informed customer, making informed choices about your favourite brands. Yet you wonder about the intent of the brand?
Brand celebrities ask people to trust them. It’s known they don’t use the products they promote. They just hold them in their hands. So what if the customers lose health, money, feel vulnerable due to the dubious benefits of the product. There is always the exclamation mark in small print or spoken in faster language that saves everyone. Due diligence by the celebrity is rarely important. You are told customers understand that the celeb is play acting and it helps in sales. The big tick in sales is all that matters. Not what happens later. The mis-sold house, insurance or health product, the bad service is not something that concerns the celebrity. The marketing game is on.
You are told that the reputation management tools take care of customer concerns and everything is fine.
Shaving brands tell you how to treat women by shaving more. Yet are conspicuously silent on the biggest issues of the day. There is a perfectly better way to talk family products and plans. Devious methods is not one of them.
You are told that privacy is gone and that if you did not pay for the product you are the product.
You wonder about your data and your favourite brands desperate attempts to monetize your transactions even further. And even more desperate attempts to protect their corporate data. You wonder, did you have a choice. Would you like a choice? Then you wonder about products that you purchased, the price that you paid was it worth it.
According to the paradox of choice the customer will always be dissatisfied. Because of you see.. Choices!
You know that answer and yet you don’t want to say it. The choices are not that many.
Why are we focused on dystopian means and methods? Link baits, deviousness, hacking and so on. Where is the leadership that is focused on positive means and directions. Increasingly brands will need to engage with society, discuss policy with stakeholders and customers. If the brand wants people to trust them, then some methods need to change, because you see, trust means BEING REAL.
So, what’s the real brand? What does it really stand for?

In an earlier era, lighting was a much simpler affair. One went and purchased fixtures once. Light bulbs and tube lights were replenished, as and when needed, typically at the local electrical fittings store. The entire house had a similar lighting schema.
Things are different now.
Now, people experiment with lights. Lighting schemas for each room may differ, maybe it’s colour, maybe it’s the technology or maybe it is the visual impact of the room that they want to enhance.
The projects are not one off but instead an ongoing experiment with aesthetics and beauty in their lives. The brand experience then is about experiences over a lifetime of interactions.
Whether the customer is redesigning an existing space or working on enhancing a new one, the broad path remains largely along research, store visits and purchases. Perhaps in some cases there is an implementation partner (architect, interior designer, contractor) who is an interface. In the spirit of our times, the customer has choice. But does each choice offer an experience that helps the customers with what they set out to achieve? To create the perfect well lit room!
Brand choices in conjunction with services like Houzz provide customers many options to explore. What’s interesting is how things are noted for later reference. The photo of an interesting lamp, technology checklists, the link of an interesting site, the price details sourced from a friend, contact numbers of key people to contact may all make their way to Evernote, Pinterest and similar services. A quick mobile search for directions and the store to find the perfect lighting solution is invariably found. The ease of accessibility, parking options certainly make their way into conversations when shortlisting stores.
There are questions and expectations as the store visits commence. The customer wants an opportunity to discuss the big idea they have. Someone to guide them with tool kits that help make better decisions. One may not know the latest industry jargon but one certainly knows the importance of making a wise decision. Instead as with all technology products, one get informed by way of jargon.
We learnt the following on speaking to some customers :

• In many conversations on this topic, a repeating theme was the not so well lit lighting store. The customer walks-in to a store with lights mostly switched off. Perhaps there was an effort to save light but then there are sensors that can easily remedy the situation.
• One’s then faced with wall to wall fixtures. Do the excessive number of products without any visual segregation hinder or aid decision making or solution seeking? The book, Paradox of Choice comes to mind.
• Company websites that could certainly be improved upon in terms of information, standards and toolkits

And yet lighting is a very exciting space.

• While one wants to make one’s home bright with the right lights, one wants to be smart too. The right fixtures, technology that consumes less energy are the core basics of smart. What one may want to explore is the ability to link lights with sensors, link it to the smart phone and aim for even better energy management. Concepts like Hue, Nest, Homekit are in the minds of the customers. Would you get these experiences at your current store? What would need to change?
• Smart is good but solar and alternative energy is certainly on the agenda of a few progressive customers. Finding information, experts, products and proof of concepts are very hard to come by. At the moment, it’s tough to find information on solar power backups like UPS/ Inverters.
• Finally the partners, the people who help with ideas and implementation.
  What should they know?
  How can they be trained?
  How can the smart lighting project be an exercise in co-creation with the customer?
  What’s the digital toolkit for all this?

There is a lot more to do when lighting up someone’s place. The opportunity to make a difference starts now.