The Evolution of a Brand

by Scott JeffreySep 15, 2010

At the 2009 Retailing Smarter symposium, CEO Tony Hsieh broke down the evolution of the Zappos brand:

1999: Selection (of shoes)
2003: Customer Service
2005: Culture and Core Values as their Platform
2007: Personal Emotional Connection
2009: Delivering Happiness

Several key take-aways for smart business people:

1. A strong brand is constantly evolving, but not changing directions. This is critical. You probably don’t want or need to re-invent your brand, but you also can’t be stagnant. (It’s also interesting to see how a brand’s logo can evolve over time.)
2. Strong brands tend to move up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. Zappos continues to move in a more humanistic direction. They’ve always been about people, but now they are moving upward to a more meaningful connection with their customers and employees. Delivering happiness is a tall order, but simply holding that intention will create new opportunities to wow their customers and employees and lead to greater loyalty.

For anyone interested in the power of brand loyalty and how to build a business for the long-term, Zappos is an ideal company to study. Zappos demonstrates that many of the intangible qualities of business like values, culture and willingness are more important than many transactional-oriented executives care to believe. Otherwise, why would anyone care about a shoe e-tailer? And how could they grow by approximately 7,800% annually for the last nine years?

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