4 Ways to Build a Brand That Customers Will Love

Few brands can illicit a cult-like following from their customers like Moosejaw has. Customers of the cross-channel retailer of outdoor apparel and gear have been known to take pictures with their Moosejaw flags on the tops of mountains, on vacation and even on their wedding day. They send emails to Moosejaw telling it that they're sorry for buying from their competitors ("it was a one-time thing and I'll make it up to you") and that receiving the brand's emails are the highlight of their week. Pretty impressive stuff.

In the opening session of NEMOA's directXchange conference in Boston yesterday, Moosejaw's CEO Eoin Comerford discussed how his brand has cultivated this passionate customer base. He left attendees with four tips on how they can build a brand that customers will love (and in some cases hate). But first you have to define your brand, Comerford said. To do so, ask yourself the following five questions:

• What does your brand stand for?
• What does your brand stand against?
• How is your brand different from its three closest competitors?
• Would your customers list the same things?
• Would your employees list the same things?

Moosejaw's mission is to sell the best outdoor stuff and have the most fun while doing it, Comerford said. What it doesn't stand for: boring, expected marketing; selling based on price only; selling products they wouldn't buy themselves; hiring for skills ahead of culture; not having fun at work; and treating customers as checkbooks or idiots.

Moosejaw lives by the following four values, which are key to creating a culture that its customers (and employees) love:

1. Be notable. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to create a brand event, Comerford said. This extends from signage in your stores to phone calls with customer service reps to the boxes you ship your products in. Moosejaw's boxes are adorned with stickers and personal notes from the warehouse employees who fulfill the orders, for example.

2. Engage on a personal level. A brand is a relationship, Comerford said. No matter the channel, consumers want that relationship to be a personal one. Here a couple examples of how Moosejaw makes that a reality (in its own unique style): While monitoring Twitter for brand mentions — which all companies should be doing, Comerford advised — Moosejaw came upon a tweet from a student saying that she had lost her Moosejaw jacket and hat. Moosejaw sent her a tweet that it was going to replace the items, but with a twist. It was going to let its Twitter followers choose from one of three jackets that would be her replacement jacket. Not only did this strategy satisfy an upset customer — even though Moosejaw wasn't at fault at all — it also got the rest of the brand's Twitter's followers engaged in the process as well.

Another example of Moosejaw's personal relationship with its customers is its "breakup service." Moosejaw customers who are having a hard time getting up the courage to break up with their significant other can have the brand do it for them. Here's how it works: Customers send in the name and phone number of the person they want to break up with, along with three reasons why they want to break up. A Moosejaw representative then calls the person and gives them the news, softening it by saying some nice things about them before they hang up.

3. Take the long-term view. You have to be willing to sacrifice short-term sales for long-term gains, Comerford said. Moosejaw only send its customers two emails per week (it does send more during the holidays, he conceded), and one of those emails isn't sales oriented. It's just focused on building the brand without promoting any products, Comerford noted. The retailer also recently launched an augmented reality (AR) catalog, for which consumers can download a X-ray app to make the models' clothes disappear. So the very jackets and apparel that Moosejaw is selling are being made to disappear, and the retailer is perfectly fine with it. Here's why: it fits with the brand. And believe it or not, the app has helped Moosejaw sell more products. Since being launched in November 2011, the X-ray app has been downloaded over 1 million times, and the AR catalog saw a 4.1 percent response rate and a 37 percent increase in sales vs. the previous year's catalog.

4. Be willing to piss people off. You can't be everything to everybody, Comerford said. Moosejaw's recent "Best Places to Do It in Detroit" campaign (the company is headquartered in Detroit) upset a lot of the parents of its teenage customers. A "Bad-Ass Gear Sale" sign in the window of Moosejaw's Grosse Pointe, Mich. store upset local conservatives, causing the police to ask the store to take it down. Moosejaw compromised by blacking out "Ass" so it read "Bad- Gear Sale." In the end, Comerford said he liked the new sign better. Our rule is you can make people mad, you just can't make them sad, Comerford said. Oh, and don't mix politics and marketing. Moosejaw learned that the hard way, Comerford noted.