Stop Listening to the Customer Try Hearing Your Brand Instead

Don't let the customer get between you and building a strong valued brand

If you want to stand out from the crowd, develop a clear and consistent brand voice, and ultimately build a fruitful business – listen to your brand. Stop Listening to the Customer offers insights into how consumers are driving homogeneity in brands and shares the proven strategies you can implement to amplify your own position in the world. 

The customer is not always right. In fact, our obsession with the customer risks devaluing brands by making them generic and forgettable. Brands have become too consumer-led, where they are driven by journey-mapping, customer-centric design, and an excessive focus on consumer-driven data. Instead try redressing the balance, and be brand-led, where brands and businesses can truly become unique, interesting and highly profitable.

 Multi-award-winning brand strategist and consumer psychologist Adam Ferrier shares his contrary approach to building a strong brand in Stop Listening to the Customer. Backed by science, real-world examples and extensive industry experience, Ferrier explores the dangers of listening to the consumer too much, shares lessons from successful businesses who prioritise their brand, and reveals the brand-building secrets of their success. With insights from Jules Lund, Lisa Ronson, John Newcomb, Rory Sutherland, and many more, this invaluable book will enable you to:

• Avoid the pitfalls of drowning in customer data
• Establish a strong, brand-led business
• Develop a unique brand by embracing and leveraging your weaknesses
• Define your brand
• Get your customers to invest into you

Stop Listening to the Customer is ideal for those looking to grow their brands and businesses by defeating consumer-driven mediocrity, standing out from the crowd, and listening their own brand.

Adam Ferrier is a multi-award-winning advertising creative, founder of the agency Thinkerbell and confestival s p a c e, a leading Australian consumer psychologist and creative strategist, a regular guest on Sunrise, The Project, and Gruen, and a renowned keynote speaker. He didn't listen to the customer when he wrote this book.

Dedications and thanks ix

Preface: getting from awkward to awesome xi

Introduction xv

1 Stop the consumer obsession 1

2 Consumers lie 13

3 Listening to the consumer eliminates value 29

4 Listening to the consumer makes your business homogeneous 47

5 They who hear their brand 65

6 Create the category 81

7 Define the brand 89

8 Gonzo marketing 1: Fire the CEO 111

9 Gonzo marketing 2: Put the customer second 123

10 Embracing the negative 133

11 Creating weakness 151

12 Ask what your consumer can do for you 165

13 The closing argument 173

Appendix: The ‘how cool are you’ questionnaire 177

About the authors 181

Endnotes 183

Index 189