Thanks, Tom, for the thoughtful piece.

My point, which might have been garbled along the way, is that if you want to GROW, you're going to have to get talked about, because you probably can't invest enough in interruption, in jingles, in real estate, etc., to get the growth you used to be able to get.

Amazon IS remarkable. Maybe not to you, but to millions who refer people there ever day. Same with netflix. And the last time I visited a neighborhood like yours, I did in fact ask where to get lunch and someone told me about that great sandwich shop. Zingerman's, for example, grows and thrives in Ann Arbor, while the ordinary, boring, safe places have sort of faded away.

No, it's not a spotlight in which EVERYONE from Oprah to Mashable is jumping up and down. It's grassroots word of mouth that makes businesses grow.

My 2 cents, anyway.

Tom,

I always love your thought provoking articles. I may be missing something here, but I see things a little differently. I feel that when you go into Panera Bread and you take out your Sony Vaio (if you ever do this) you are making a remark – maybe not in words but in actions. Now, since no one has asked for your opinion and you are not a celebrity (outside the marketing world that is), this may go unnoticed by most. But imagine if twelve people in Panera Bread all whipped out their Sony Vaio all at the same time. That would be a powerful remark without saying a word!

Granted, Press N’ Seal does not have a distinguishing feature that can be recognized across a crowded room like a laptop or running shoes. But I think there is another type of remark that’s going on here. There is a remark that happens within our own brains each time we buy or use a product. You probably wouldn’t continue to buy Press N’ Seal if it wasn’t worthy of an internal remark. Or maybe you would, but Press N’ Seal just wouldn’t last as long if no one thought much about it or there were other better options out there.

Which brings me to my last point. Average stuff does get talked about as you mentioned. However, usually average stuff gets average remarks (both in breadth and depth). There’s a big difference between “my accountant is okay ” and “my account is the best! She just saved me thousands of dollars!” Even if I never talk to anyone else about her or put a bumper sticker of her company on my car, I have solidified in my own brain that she’s great and I am more willing to stick with her in the long run and buy more of her services.

But I think it does comes down to companies that want to do more than just survive need to have humans talking to other humans about their product or service. You and I may not be the ones shouting from the rooftops about many products, but so many other people are.

I still think your idea on brands and expectations and how they make us feel is dead on. How we feel at least affects our internal remarks if not our outward remarks.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the thoughts Bill and Steve. Bill, I love the idea of a remark within our own heads - our internal remarks. As a matter of fact, when I speak about the customer experience, I emphasize the cognitive experience of the customer over the external experience. And having an unending focus on delivering value and helping customers achieve is certainly *not* about being average. It is about being empathetic and innovative. If you call that remarkable, than I'm with you. :)

And Steve, I certainly agree with making everything you do in business - and in life - the best that it can be. But best is not the path to long-term marketplace success. Being other-focused is. For example, you may decide to open a Purple Cow sandwich shop, but if you can't get people to go out of their way to get to it or pay a price premium for the added value, then all the word-of-mouth in the word won't matter. Value is in the eye of the beholders, and their perception of value is what matters.

For example, take a look at the more colorful Target's recent performance woes in the face of the impending recession. Customers expect lower prices at brown cow Wal-Mart, so they're shifting more of their discount shopping dollars there. The point of my article is simply this: Don't get caught up in all of the hype. Stay totally focused on improving the lives of your customers by uniquely adding value with your products, services, and communication.

Bravos, Tom!

Feelings are powerful, they linger. Feelings have nothing to do with logic, the imperfect, irrational perception rules. Long after people have forgotten about the particulars of a brand experience, the banal details of a transaction, they will still recall how they felt. How, as you suggest, we made them to feel. In this context it's not as important what you say, as it is critically important what they hear and how that makes them feel.

My sense is Seth's notion of remarkable actually does work to amazing advantage but it is so rare. For example, how remarkable can a hotel lobby be? The lobby at Steve Wynn's Las Vegas property is the goods, a one-of-a-kind, a real-world purple cow. Steve has created (perhaps) the first hotel lobby people don't simply look at, gawk at or marvel at (and they do) but want to be photographed in as well - it's that beautiful. That lobby is one of many reasons we "feel" great about our stays at Wynn.

Enjoy your blog and writings. I would have made this shorter but I didn't have the time.