Amid all the issues surrounding air travel over the holidays, one thing that makes flying worth considering is safety. We do not need to place safety on our list of holiday air travel woes, a list that is already extensive.
Yet, just before Thanksgiving, the press reported on new and improved safety elements from Boeing. If you recall, and who possibly wants to while actually sitting on a Boeing-manufactured plane, Boeing had several serious – and fatal – incidents that highlighted lapses in safety.
For a while, Boeing had an executive slate that put profits over people. It was Boeing’s era of Anorexia Industriosa. Anorexia Industriosa is when businesses are put on a starvation diet, cutting costs the way some diet programs cut calories. Anorexia Industriosa is a cost-cutting disease.
Anorexia Industriosa is dangerously detrimental to brand health. At Boeing, the CEO and senior managers fell in love with cost management over brand management. The Boeing focus was on cost-cutting, which does not create real sustainable value. Furthermore, businesses cannot cut their brands on the way to enduring profitable growth. At some point, there are no more costs to cut. Cutting costs chokes off resources for investing in a brand’s future potential.
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As we learned, the Boeing cost-cutting affected safety protocols. After a door blew off an airplane in mid-flight, Boeing began making changes. But, not quickly. The Boeing safety agenda was fully articulated in 2024. Just now, there are changes to the plan.
When a brand gets into trouble, focusing only on reducing costs rather than increasing brand value is death-wish marketing. Cost reductions show up immediately in quarterly reports and on balance sheets. There is no question that eliminating waste and improving productivity are continuing challenges and important for maintaining brand-business health. But cost-cutting alone only takes you so far. Brands need plans, people, and actions that deliver high-quality revenue growth, leading to enduring, profitable growth.
When we talk about safety, we are essentially speaking about brand quality. Brand quality – or the diminishment of quality – is not just a Boeing problem. Many brands today have quality issues; just type “recalls” into Google.
The key predictor of quality is predictability. Not variance.
Boeing’s website states that Boeing’s “… values and behaviors define how we will work together to fulfill our mission to connect, protect, and explore our world and beyond. We hold ourselves accountable by making them part of everything we do, including how we manage performance and develop our people. “
First and foremost is safety and quality. Boeing says it will protect. Boeing states, “Safety is the foundation of everything we do, and we deliver quality at every step, every time. How we think and act each day keeps our people and those who rely on us safe. We take responsibility for our mission to design, build, and service complex products with precision and sound decision-making.
- Keep people safe
- Respect the consequences
- Speak up”
Notice the words “every time.” This means that Boeing promises predictability. A brand promise is a promise that if you buy this brand, you will have this relevant, differentiated experience… delivered time and again. The brand experience will be predictable.
Somewhere along the line, Boeing lost its maniacal focus on quality. There were many instances of inconsistent delivery of Boeing’s brand promise. When a brand is inconsistent in the delivery of its brand promise, quality and trust diminish.
What is quality?
Quality is not what we promise. Quality is not what we intend to make. There is only one definition of quality, and it is not defined by us. Customers define quality as what they receive and perceive. This is the only reality.
Consistently living up to expectations is how a brand becomes a trusted, quality brand.
Why is this important?
When customers select a brand, they perceive and assess quality based on their experience and how that experience meets their expectations. Making a brand promise creates an expectation of a specific, relevant, differentiated experience. Consistently delivering that expected experience is the definition of quality. Building quality builds trust. Building trust builds brand power.
Every brand, including Boeing, must be on an ongoing quest for quality. This quest for quality means quality people, quality results, quality experiences, quality attitudes, quality behaviors, quality profits. This allows a brand to attract and retain high-quality people who deliver premium branded experiences that customers love.
Many brands have size as their strategic growth engine. This is good. Size can be a competitive advantage. Boeing is big. But for enduring profitable growth, the brand goal must be not just to be bigger, but to be better. Better than competitors. Better than the brand was yesterday. Better and better every day, every product, every service, everywhere.
Every brand must commit to building a true passion for delivering a quality customer experience to every customer every time.
Here is some very good news!
Quality does not cost money. Quality makes money. As the quality guru Phillip Crosby said, “Quality is not an investment in the future; it is a present-day cost of doing business.” Quality does not increase costs; it reduces costs. Quality does not cut into profits; it increases profitability.
As CEO of GE, the legendary Jack Welch said that quality reduces costs. How? Quality leads to increased customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to increased customer loyalty, reduced price sensitivity, higher repeat purchases, more sales, and better profits.
My addition to this thinking: delivering a relevant, differentiated, high-quality brand experience to every customer, every time, does not cost money; it makes money. Failing to consistently live up to a brand’s promises costs money. It costs a lot of money if the brand does not live up to its brand promise. Viz Boeing.
Ed Deming was another quality guru. Doctor Deming was a remarkable statistician. He was a census consultant to General Douglas MacArthur after Japan’s defeat in WWII. Doctor Deming had a radical view about quality. His view was … “Build quality in, don’t test it out…” If you want to really understand the power of Dr. Deming’s quality constructs, just think about Toyota, Lexus, Honda. While in Japan, Dr. Deming educated Japan’s engineers and scientists on quality control.
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In the US, we tend to believe quality control is all about a testing and inspection system. We believe it is an evaluation tool. A checklist. I once went on a quality audit with IHG, the huge hotel chain. There was a list of over 3000 items to be checked off, leading to either a good or a bad quality score.
A checklist is not quality; it is physical and technical compliance. Of course, physical and technical compliance are important. But quality is so much more than this. Ed Deming said quality control is not a department. Quality control is an organizational commitment. Quality control is not someone else’s responsibility. Quality control is everyone’s responsibility. Ed Deming said that every employee is responsible for quality. But, ultimately, customers determine quality in use; customers do not care about audits and inspections. Customers care about and expect a quality, safe experience.
Doctor Deming had high standards. His objectives were 100% customer satisfaction and zero defects; zero variability from expectation.
No matter which definition of quality you choose, and there are many,
- Conformance to requirements and customer specifications (Crosby).
- The extent to which a product successfully serves the purpose of the user (Juran).
- Efficient production of the quality that the market expects (Deming).
- Quality is not what the supplier puts in; it is what the customer gets out (Drucker).
The essence of quality is to promise what you can deliver and deliver what you promise. Make a relevant, differentiated promise and deliver consistently. The data show that superior quality pays.
Customers deserve to receive what you promised. Quality is an ongoing quest. If quality is not ingrained in an organization, it will never happen.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable at pivotal moments of change. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
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