Best Buy named No. 2 retail brand – but …

News just in from Brandweek.com: Best Buy has been named first runner-up in Interbrand Design Forum’s first ever survey of the top 50 retail brands. Brandweek’s twist focuses ever-so-slightly more on Walmart’s ascension to the top spot, but this blog has chosen not to acknowledge that tiny, unimportant detail.

This all leads me to my latest head scratcher: Should Best Buy – or anyone else for that matter – want to be a member of a club that would promote Walmart as its brand standard-bearer? If the criteria used in the survey place Walmart atop the competition – and those criteria aren’t purely financial – are they really metrics against which you want to measure your business?

It will be well-documented here that Best Buy has its share of problems living up to all its brand promises. As an internal communications guy at Best Buy, it’s personal when customers leave a store unhappy and publish their dissatisfaction in online fora or blogs. I don’t blame them, of course. I wish we hadn’t — as a company, store or individual — fallen down on the job, if you will. When it happens, it means we have more work to do.

Back to the survey: Add to the presence of Walmart the inclusion of The Home Depot (you can read many an entry about my customer interactions at THD) in Interbrand’s top five and one really has to wonder how the survey goes about rating a brand.

When I think of a valuable brand, I think of things like product quality, customer service and a memorably positive experience. Walmart says (to me) cheap, shlocky, made-in-China merchandise, popular with the dimmest elements of American society. Yes, I’m playing with stereotypes … and euphemisms. I’m a blogger – I can do that.

The Interbrand rating assigns a high value for being consistent with what the brand promises customers. At Walmart, that’s the lowest price for a wide variety of stuff. Walmart doesn’t promise high quality merchandise or a positive shopping experience, just that the stuff you’ll find will cost you less than at any other store. The fact that turns out to be true in most cases indicates to Interbrand that Walmart has a good brand.

So the lesson is … Manage expectations?

That’s not how I think of a brand, and it’s certainly not where my mind goes as I try to think of ways to mobilize Best Buy’s employees to live up to the promises of the bright yellow tag. And it’s not where “You, Happier” (whatever you might think of that tagline) would push us either. The Interbrand ratings accord a high rating to brands that deliver on a tagline like, “You, Given What You’ve Been Promised and Nothing More, Consistently.”

It’s always nice to win a contest, and runner-up is almost as good (despite what Ricky Bobby says). But I think we need to focus on winning contests that measure what we want to measure. In the case of Best Buy, that metric is customers who are utterly delighted with their shopping experience and receive more value than they expected in the first place.

That requires a focus on exceeding expectations, not just meeting them.

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According to Interbrand, the best brands:

• have a clearly defined purpose,
• “surround the purchase with a relevant experience”
• “make good on the brand promise”
• and maintain a consistent brand quality and shopping experience over time.

Read Brandweek’s coverage

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