Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2012 | Page 44
Grow Market Lead
42
Connecting
with
customers
By Jack Mackey
Music to their Shears
Rock the Cut promotion pairs Supercuts stylists
with “indie” bands
C
heryl and Joey Robinson
operate 35 Supercuts locations in the Los Angeles
area. Cheryl represents their
company, Sapphire Ventures, on the board
of the Supercuts Franchise Association
(SFA). Together, they led the production
of a terrific SFA conference to introduce
“Rock the Cut,” a new marketing campaign that touches Supercuts’ customers
in multiple ways.
By now, you’ve probably been exposed
to Supercuts TV spots that pair indie bands
like Vintage Trouble with Supercuts employees. Candid rehearsal shots and live
concert footage are mixed in with images
of band members interacting with stylists
at Supercuts. “You have a pride in the way
you step out into public, especially when
you have a good haircut,” says Ty Taylor,
Vintage Trouble’s front man, in one of
the 60-second spots. “You’re going to
leave looking like a rock star,” promises
Supercuts hairdresser Diana.
Supercuts is working to connect with
customers by affiliating with some of
the hottest emerging artists, including
Vintage Trouble, DJ Ken Loi, Laura
Bell Bundy, and Gold Motel—all part of
Supercuts’ Artist Ambassador Program.
More than 600 local and regional bands
and artists are involved in the program.
What does that mean to customers of
Supercuts?
Gabriel Beltrone from Adweek explains. “The featured bands are tasked
with promoting the brand on major social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr,
Foursquare, and Pinterest.” Collectively this social media effort touches
4 million loyal fans of the artists with
the goal of transferring some of that
loyalty to Supercuts and “molding fundamentally countercultural artists into
a small army of corporate endorsers,”
Franchiseupdate Iss u e III, 2 0 1 2
according to Beltrone.
Check out the music discovery and
social media website (rockthecut.supercuts.com) to see the wide range of
free cuts of downloadable new music.
The music, and the website, are also
promoted through iHeartRadio and
through tie-ins with ESPN X Games
and Live Nation. The campaign parallels the musicians’ passion for music
with the artistry and level of attention
that Supercuts offers. This strikes me
as a stroke of genius!
Jerry Conner is a member of the account team from Element 79, an agency
in Chicago, who works with the SFA.
While he is justifiably proud of the agency
work, he made a profound observation:
“After all of the advertising, the promotions, the social media, and the other
out-of-salon enticements, the brand is
ultimately delivered in the salon. Making
the customer experience the best that it
can be is the holy grail.”
To put it another way, you can market
all you like, but people believe what they
experience. And they believe what their
friends experience. And they even believe
what strangers say online about what they
experienced. So if a Supercuts stylist can
go beyond providing a great haircut and
bring the Rock the Cut experience to life
in the salon, there will be many customers who will become promoters of the
Supercuts brand because of how they
were treated. And those fans who leave
not just looking good but feeling good
about themselves and about being part
of a countercultural movement—which
let’s admit, we all remember that feeling
from our youth—will use social media to
chime in and talk about why they think
Supercuts is so cool.
Of course, people don’t talk about
ordinary experiences. People only talk
about what is remarkable. With fresh
music from 600 indie bands playing in
their salons and on Internet radio, Supercuts has ensured that they will have
a steady supply of music that is new and
different and special and exciting. They
are creating the environment and the
musical context to deliver on the brand
promise in each salon.
So it has to be an exciting time to be
a stylist at Supercuts. They are the ones
charged with delivering the Rock the
Cut experience in their salons. And they
are the ones who are featured in the ads,
right along with the indie band members.
They are the co-stars of the Rock the Cut
campaign. They have to feel excited, feel
some sense of ownership in this updated
version of the brand promise. When you
give your employees a sense of purpose
that is bigger than the tasks they perform,
you unleash a new level of engagement
across your organization.
Imagine what happens when a customer
comes into a Supercuts now. They see the
posters of their favorite new bands, hear
the music playing on Internet radio, and
they are greeted by stylists that they have
heard the band members rave about on the
TV spots. What a great starting position
from which to connect with customers
by saying, “Welcome to Supercuts!” n
Jack Mackey is vice president and chief
evangelist for SMG, a worldwide customer
experience management firm that improves
performance for multi-unit companies. Request a complimentary copy of Five Things
We Learned from Talking to 500 Million
People at www.smg.com/research.