Published in The Attention Architect, a newsletter on LinkedIn, April 5, 2022

“They look like the perfect couple together,” my wife said, admiring her handiwork in setting up two of our single friends on a blind dinner date.

“They do!” I replied, a bit more skeptical. “But let’s see how they do once they get to the third fence.”

“That’s true,” my wife said, eyebrows raised, “That’s not an easy hurdle to get over, particularly with hardheaded guys like you!”

WHAT'S THE THIRD FENCE?

One of the most popular articles I’ve ever written had nothing to do with design, branding, or strategy but relationships. In the article, Why Some People Never Get Far in a Relationship, I outline three progressively steeper fences couples must overcome — attraction, personality, and values — to get their relationship on solid ground.

Although it’s tricky to get started, the attraction fence is the easiest hurdle to cross, but it’s not enough to sustain a long-term relationship. The next fence, personality, is where you start getting to know more about how your potential partner’s day to day habits (are they up earlier, or a night owl, messy or clean), what kind of movies they like to watch (comedy, drama, action, documentaries, or horror) and how they like to spend their free time (staying at home to make dinner or constantly going out to meet up with friends several nights a week).

We’ve all been through this “still getting to know each other” phase before. But when the relationship gets more serious, it’s the last fence, values, which can be the most challenging stage because it entails agreeing on the big issues like kids, family, in-laws, money, sex, and religion. Not surprisingly, this hurdle is where most relationships hit a wall and struggle to get over, which explains why you see many 3–5 year relationships end.

But if couples can work together to get over that last values hurdle, there is a much higher likelihood of long-term success. 

Knowing about these three fences upfront can help couples better understand their prism of feelings as they progress through different relationship stages. A similar phenomenon happens in the relationship between customers and brands, but I prefer to describe them as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Brand Impression Levels.

Like couples, these three impression levels get progressively more challenging as customers and brands get to know each other more, but they offer great promise if they can make it through all three.

PARADISE LOST

I once worked for a well-known university in a beautiful, scenic part of the country. When the students and parents arrived for their initial campus tour, their First Brand Impression of the school was overwhelmingly positive because of the spectacular natural scenery of the campus setting. It was so good that students and parents often couldn’t pay full attention to the tour guide or truly analyze the weight of the life-changing decision they were about to make because they were too mesmerized by the environment, and many decided to sign up for the school for the spot.

Many of you can probably relate to making the same kinds of immediate, if not impulsive, decisions with buying new cars, homes, furniture, clothes, vacation destinations, and even potential dating partners.

I recently got out of a difficult, 4-year relationship with a car lease that I fell head over heels with the vehicle on our first date (the 1st Brand Impression). I didn’t give the car a thorough test drive because I was too smitten with its exterior appearance. Although my wife warned me to take my time and think through the decision a bit longer, I put a ring on that lease contract right then and there in the showroom, and I ended up hating the driving experience every day after that.

Last month, I finally broke up with that vehicle. Despite the dealer’s incredible incentives to get me into another lease, I will never go out again with that automobile brand. While they had me at hello, they lost me on the highway, but none of their mind-numbing surveys ever got to the core issues of how miserable I was in the relationship. However, the moment they truly lost was during the service experience (the 3rd Impression). To say we didn’t get along well is an understatement, and, sadly, I had forgotten that some car relationships are fun to drive.

Before jumping into my next car lease relationship, I took my time doing my homework and going on many first dates. I read tons of reviews, talked with many of my friends, and took several long test driving dates before making any long-term commitments. And I’m happy to report I’m much happier with the new car relationship I have now. She’s the one for me long-term!

While I still love the exterior image of that old car (1st Impression), it was the interior experience of driving it (2nd Impression) every day, which was so un-fun, and work-like to endure. However, I didn’t realize the full extent of pain the car caused me until a more enjoyable-to-drive interior car experience came along.

The interior experience of driving a car brand is an apt analogy for thinking about brands and the university experience we discussed above. Although the students and parents loved how the university looked on the surface (1st Impression), they later discovered the school was not that much fun in terms of social activities or campus life during their first semester (2nd Impression). The school was serious, and there wasn’t much to do in the area, which is challenging at this early stage in a student’s life — where they’re away from home and don’t have any new friends yet in school.

But the relationship between many students and the university brand broke down during the values (3rd Impression) stage. 

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR BRAND STANDS FOR?

It was clear from the campus design that the school’s history had a religious background and origin story, but it didn’t appear to students on the surface that they would have to participate in or even agree with the rules of the religion. But the longer the students remained in the school, the more they learned about how the philosophy of that religious background influenced their decisions on professors, education programs, class topics, political views, and even down to the tiny details about whether alcohol was allowed inside the housing units of graduate students studying law or getting their MBA’s.

As one married student couple described it to us, “My husband and I couldn’t have a glass of wine on our anniversary night in our campus apartment without violating the school rules.” Added to this regulation was the immense annual tuition expense because it was a private school, and you get a doubting Thomas and a dissatisfied Marie.

Although we sometimes take it for granted, committing and moving to a university is like signing up for a 4–7 year lease, which can seem like a lifetime for young people. 

EVERY BRAND HAD INDECISION POINTS

No matter how great a brand might appear, every brand has what I refer to as brand indecision points.

These are the moments where the buyer, even the most loyal and supportive ones, have small doubts about their purchase, which is where the hidden fractures and cracks in the relationship start to appear.

Unfortunately, the university (and the car I leased previously) focused too much on “making the sale” in the first impression stage and not nearly enough time worrying about the next two impression levels because, in their mind, the buyer was already pregnant and switching colleges or car leases is not easy to do. But the fixation on making the sale and trapping customers into a commitment doesn’t bode well for the long-term customer satisfaction rate or a brand’s reputational value over the long haul.

As their consultant, my team and I didn’t want or expect the university to change its core values. Instead, we wanted them to be more transparent about their religious values with potential candidates in the 1st Impression phase. But this forthrightness made some department heads nervous — particularly the MBA program recruitment officer—because the MBA factory is the most profitable and cash side of universities. These programs fund all the others. 

The MBA program had many students coming through that assembly line each year, and, as the recruitment officer reminded us, he had a lot of empty seats to fill each year and avoided any aspects that might turn off candidates from signing up. But this intellectual dishonesty with students kept coming to bite them back later in alumni reviews, no different than it does in personal dating relationships or car leases.

My team and I showed the university how being more honest upfront would build far more loyalty, advocacy, and evangelists for their brand long term.

Admittedly, we’d have to work harder to find and attract that audience segment with similar values, but identifying prospects that care about the same things you care about is what makes great brands. 

THREE PIECES OF ADVICE

First of all, if you’re a potential customer/buyer considering a significant purchase, find out what those indecision points are upfront before making your big purchase commitment.

Secondly, if you’re a competitor regularly going up against a well-known brand, find out what those indecision points are for their customers—particularly those on the fence—and develop a solid counterpoint for why they should consider switching to your brand.

And thirdly, if you’re a leader in charge of managing a brand, make sure you know with clarity what your indecision points are. Own and celebrate them before your competitors exploit them. Next, break down your entire brand relationship into three impression levels to better understand how you perform in each stage. Be honest about where the relationship struggles the most — Do you have an attraction problem, personality issue, or a values alignment challenge? — and embark on a program to improve this aspect of your customer relationships.