XVII. ...Ask the Right Questions

And you’ll get the right answers…I guarantee it.

Regardless of the business, any marketing effort boils down to two key elements: promise and performance.

The promise is what is said in the advertising.

The performance is how the product or service stacks up to what is promised.

Simple. Brutal. True.

“I. Guarantee. It.”

Huh?

I guarantee what, exactly? That the pants fit? Inner peace? When you really think, it didn’t take a creative genius to come up the slogan. The genius was in who said it—the CEO and founder—and how often. Week in, week out. No matter what the rest of the message was, all Men’s Wearhouse commercials ended with George Zimmer repeating, like gospel, “I guarantee it.” With an ad spend (in 1980s and 90s dollars) of over $40 million per year, the point was driven home very well, to say the least.

But after ten years of George saturating the airwaves with in-your-face screeds, by the mid-90s, we had a hunch that the message was wearing out its welcome. This strategic marketing decision was made by me, George, the head of Marketing, Jayme Maxwell, and the then-head of HR, Charlie Bresler (who later became President of MW stores). We were all very clear on the mission: time to put some meat on the bones of “I guarantee it.”

We reached out to several agencies in San Francisco with no caveats. All we said was simply: We want to improve the look and feel of MW commercials.

After a few weeks of interviews, we made the decision to hire a small firm called Red Ball Tiger (RBT). (Yes, their work was brilliant. Their name? Sounds like a failed energy drink. But we hired them anyway.) Why? Because in the process of interviewing them, we were impressed with their ability to ask questions, not pontificate, and not try to impress us with their work for other clients. It was that simple. By putting us on the spot about our company and its vision, they immediately made us feel comfortable with them. In other words, we followed our gut.

After hiring RBT, their first recommendation was to conduct a series of focus groups of MW customers and non-customers. We were trying to understand why those who shopped with us did, and why those who didn’t shop with us didn’t.

The results? Honestly, shocking.

We discovered—by asking the right questions—that MW was doing a better job at delivering than our promise suggested. Our customers were surprised at the quality of the MW experience—the quality of the merchandise, and the quality of the personnel in the stores. Our “non-customers” were wary of a company with the name “warehouse” and a CEO, who, let’s be honest, sounded like he was selling Camrys on a Sunday afternoon.

This was a terrific “problem” to have. We had a great business, but our own branding was getting in its own way. In a sense, our customers were saying, “Just what exactly do you guarantee?” It was this realization, along with a deep understanding of how men shop for clothing (think: caveman—hunt), that led one of the partners at RBT to nail it with a single insight: “What we need to do is transform George Zimmer from a suit salesman to a CEO.” And just like that, the newer and improved tagline was born by the other RBT partner:

“You’re going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.”

Same promise. New context, with clarity, confidence, and a little class. Well, a lot of class. Our production budget soared as we began to make commercials that improved everything. “Quality” became the watchword as the production of the spots took on a full-length motion picture feel, helping to make everyone look better. Not better than they actually were, just better than what the customer was used to seeing in MW commercials.

And guess what? The 50+ “other” people in the commercial (“other” as in not-George) were MW employees, flown in from all over the country for an all-expense-paid trip to LA! It was a small price to pay for what turned out to be a dramatic return on our investment as well as a bonding exercise for a bundle of MW employees.

This not-so-simple process catapulted sales at MW stores. Comp store sales (sales growth of existing stores over a certain period compared to the same period the previous year) increased by double digits for the first several months the commercials ran, and sales growth continued well after that. Comp store sales were the holy grail of metrics that Wall Street paid very close attention to, and the stock of MW soared.

So, hats off to the MW team for asking each other the right questions and making the bold, yet somewhat risky decision to dramatically change the advertising. And hats off to RBT for asking the right questions of us.

But the real moral of the story is this:

Whatever the business, present your true self and then exceed expectations.

Then ask questions. And keep asking.

What about you? Do you have a favorite brand that nails both promise and performance? Drop it in the comments.

TL;DR: Say who you really are—then exceed that. Once we aligned our image with the actual customer experience and gave people a reason to believe the guarantee, sales took off. Turns out, saying less and delivering more works.