December 1
Brand as a Service, circa 1900: The Michelin Guide
It’s been a busy summer, which transitioned into a busy fall. The Thanksgiving break gave me an opportunity to chip away at the stack of New Yorker magazines that have accumulated on my nightstand. John Colapinto’s “Lunch with M,” from the November 23, 2009 edition, in which he tags along with a reviewer for the New York edition of the Michelin Guide, got me thinking about how brands should be thinking of themselves as as service:
Automobiles were still a rarity on roads in France. The brothers had the idea that a guidebook to hotels in the French countryside would encourage people to climb into a car (equipped with Michelin tires) and hit the open road. The first edition, published in 1900, was a five-hundred-and-seventy-five-page alphabetical listing of towns throughout France and the distances between them, with recommendations for hotels and places to refuel, and instructions on how to change a flat.
At Molecular we are passionate about helping brands provide real, valuable, sustainable service to their consumers. As the Michelin Guide proves, this isn’t a new concept at all. And it seems to have worked out pretty well for them:
Michelin has grown into one of the most successful multinational corporations in the world, a company more than three times the size of Goodyear.
I’ve come up with the following four components that I believe are necessary for a brand to execute a successful service:
- Deep value: Automobile owners needed a way to find out where to go and how to get there. Michelin provided this for free (initially). The few motorists at the time were given a valuable asset to plan trips, and to maintain their vehicle, and to find reliably good food on the road. As more motorists took to the road, Michelin added the three-star system to denote exceptional cooking. Taking to the road seemed safer with the Guide.
- Sustainable value: In the preface to the first edition of the guide, André Michelin wrote: ”This work comes out with the century; it will last as long.” There are now other guides, including the survey-based Zagat guide and the crowdsourced Yelp, but chefs in Europe still live by – and die by - the Michelin Guide. A few years ago, the Guide launched in the United States (in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco)
- Edge Business: Michelin’s core competency is in producing high quality tires. The Michelin Guide complemented that business by providing its consumers a reason to drive – it lives at the edge of Michelin’s brand proposition, as opposed to the center.
- Openness: You don’t need to drive around on Michelin tires to use the guide.
I’m curious to hear what you think – what else makes a brand service-oriented?
