Brand and Deliver –

Laurie Tucker of FedEx on what it takes to build one of the world’s most recognizable brands—and why she’s a fan of promotional products.

Behind one of the world’s most recognizable and powerful brands is an equally mesmerizing marketing dynamo and chief brand champion who has dedicated her career to honing and upholding the FedEx promise.

When Laurie A. Tucker joined FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee, as a financial analyst in 1978, she was fresh out of college and the company was in its fifth year and growing quickly—it had just been listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol FDX.

During the past 31 years, Tucker has worked her way up through the organization, first in finance, then tackling sales, technology, marketing, customer service, operations and supply chain management. In her current position as senior vice president of FedEx Corporate Marketing, she develops the strategy for sponsorship marketing programs and is responsible for innovation and development, retail product and promotion, business alliances, customer experience management, brand management and advertising.

Not surprisingly, her successes in these various roles have earned her many honors—she’s a four-time winner of the prestigious FedEx Five Star award, the first recipient of the FedEx Services Diversity Champion Award, recognized as a “Woman of Achievement” by the Women’s Project of New York, and was named one of PINK magazine’s 2009 Top Women in Business and one of BtoB magazine’s Best Marketers for 2009.

PPB met with Tucker recently to find out how she and her team have built such a powerful brand and what we can all learn from her experience.

PPB: In this day and age, “brand” is a bit of a buzz word. How do you define brand as it relates to FedEx?

Tucker: One of the key challenges in brand management is that a brand must have a certain element of constancy while still being relevant.

From a customer perspective, a brand is thought of in terms of what they see—our visual brand, what they hear from us—how we speak to customers, and certainly how we express ourselves in the behavior of our employees. We’re very fortunate to have one of the most recognized brands in the world, so our team members have a lot of pride, to the point of even being protective of our brand image. We have a brand promise that must be delivered consistently since FedEx stands for peace of mind.

At FedEx, the brand is really the sum of our values, a compass that even in the absence of specific direction or policy we know the right thing to do. Our people are able to engage and identify with our brand emotionally.

Our brand is the strategic backbone for everything we do as a company. We have a personal branding class and a question I’ll ask as a warm-up to the audience is: If I say the word FedEx, what one word immediately comes into your mind? What I hear shouted back at me is the word “reliable.” That is our core attribute—being reliable, as well as committed, connected and innovative, to name a few. We live these brand attributes out every day.

PPB: What do you think are the keys to creating a sustainable brand?

Tucker: Consistency. The brand promise must match what we say and do. Customers are really smart, and they figure out quickly whether you are advertising or whether you’re living a promise.

Likewise, we have developed a brand personality. When you think about FedEx, a smile should come to your face because of your attachment to a company you trust, that understands the pressure you’re under every day and as a result, is there to deliver. When we advertise, our approach is often fun, showing business situations that are humorous, but that illustrate the challenges and complexities of doing business. Our current tag line, “We Understand,” seeks to connect our brand promise with the needs of our customers.

PPB: What role does social media play in the overall FedEx brand strategy?

Tucker: Social media, obviously, is a new channel and it’s another channel. While still relatively new, marketers must participate in social media just as we play in traditional media or direct communication. We’re looking at the types of social media our customers are using. We’re also experimenting with dialogue directly with our customers, whether engaging our customers through fedex.com or our call centers. And then we must determine where our messages are most relevant.

For example, we have a FedEx Office blog that we call “Out Of Office,” which allows users to share their experiences using FedEx Office. We’ve also produced a humorous, yet descriptive, You Tube series that illustrates FedEx services, and with up to 10 minutes per video, we were able to make it interesting, fun and viral.

We recognize there’s tremendous power in social media and have begun some exciting programs in these new channels.

PPB: What do you think are the most important considerations when rolling out a new brand?

Tucker: Fundamentally, what is your commitment to your core values for this new company or new product? What does the company stand for and how do you convey those core values? A brand is really the window to the soul of the company. The one word or two words or icon that represents that brand can say so much. It must hold up over time. I think when you start a new brand, you have to set realistic expectations so the promise can be kept from day one.

Our brand is over 35 years old, and we’ve had a long time to establish that trust and relationship. But it’s interesting—when we’ve acquired new companies and made the decision to brand them, it’s always top of mind for us that our brand means something to our customers—that the FedEx commitment to reliability will be expressed in this new company or product.

PPB: Given the incredible advances in technology over the past 20 years, how does FedEx incorporate emerging technologies into the marketing process?

Tucker: If you think about how technologies have allowed us to market in different ways, marketing is much more granular, specific and targeted. Companies that are smart—and FedEx is considered to be one of the smart companies—are listening to customers and taking note of how they prefer to be contacted and their emerging needs. Technologies are allowing us to direct our message in the channels our customers prefer.

Technology has become an enabler, allowing us to meet customers’ demands and giving us a more informed relationship with an individual customer.

Fedex.com is the big front door to FedEx, and when you step into fedex.com, you don’t just step into shipping, you step into this very rich, informational environment—an environment that allows you to interact with FedEx to receive proactive information. And if you were to click on FedEx Office, you’d find a business associate who can help you with your specific business needs.

For example, we targeted some specific industries that we know are big users of FedEx Office. Through our experiences with those particular industries, we know what those customers use most often and the kinds of tools they need. We’ve built templates and a toolkit on the FedEx Office web site that our customers can use to create their own posters, brochures, letters, business cards, etc., then upload them, print them online, and get their printed materials back very quickly. We’re taking advantage of the internet in new and exciting ways.

PPB: How are you hearing back from your customers?

Tucker: A lot of the work we’ve done to interact with our customers enables them to respond to us about their preferences. We simply ask them, “What are your preferred channels of communication? Would you rather receive a text or an e-mail? Are you primarily a domestic shipper, international or both? Will you use our freight services? Would you like to have more information on FedEx Office?”

As customers fill out their profiles, we send them communication that is specific to what they requested. We also determine whether that customer is opening those messages, whether they’re interacting and transacting with us as a result. As we begin to measure, we learn more about the effectiveness of the communication.

PPB: How does FedEx view the use of promotional products?

Tucker: Any company that’s proud of its brand and has a very prominent brand is going to take advantage of branding promotional items. FedEx is certainly no exception. We’ve been using promotional products for 35 years, and we’re very aware of how much our customers enjoy and appreciate getting various useful or attractive promotional items from FedEx.

We feature everything from our FedEx No. 11 race car to more practical items, perhaps a jump drive or travel items. And we have, of course, our company store. Our biggest problem isn’t what to put in the store—it’s what not to put in the store. Customers seem to really love to wear our logo or have our logo somewhere visible in their offices, which we view as a reminder of that brand promise.

PPB: What role do promotional products play in the FedEx branding efforts?

Tucker: Our company store is not just for the external audience, but very much for the internal as well as our team members take great pride in our FedEx brand. We love wearing our logo and we love having hats, pens or some item on our desk. FedEx team members are huge users of our promotional products. We’re not just relying on our packaging and aircraft as reminders of the brand—we take advantage of using promotional products as reminders of our sports sponsorships, event launches, etc.

Organizations and departments take advantage of promotional products to recognize team members’ initiatives. These recognition items that carry a logo are motivational and a morale booster.

PPB: What’s a recent example of how promotional products were used to reinforce the FedEx brand?

Tucker: We have a wonderful program in our marketing organization that we call “People First.” One of our People First work streams is around sustainability. These work streams are team member-led, so the employees wanted to create one around sustainability. They set out to help our organizations and departments cut down on waste and find ways to express our commitment to the environment. One of their recommendations was to remove Styrofoam cups from our break rooms.

They proposed to create a FedEx People First reusable cup to emphasize the idea of “I’m committed to keeping our environment green.” Everyone was issued a cup, which became so popular and interesting that our branding group thought we should begin offering “green” stainless steel water bottles and coffee mugs in our company store. The cup was an eco-friendly way for us to show our team members and customers that we’re seriously committed to sustainability while building brand awareness. Who would have thought that such a small promotional item would have become a source of pride that supports our company culture and values?

PPB: What is your biggest challenge when selecting, purchasing or using promotional products?

Tucker: The biggest challenge is how much money we have to spend. If money were no object, the biggest challenge would be making sure we have promotional products that are going to meet the objectives of that particular program. If the objective is to introduce new products, what’s the tie in? How does it support the message and is it something that’s sustainable? There’s nothing worse than getting a promotional product and you look at it and think, “Why did they bother?” I don’t ever want that reaction to a FedEx promotional product.

Our promotional products come out of our marketing area—most often out of our brand group. We have brand guidelines that all the marketers around the world use to ensure consistency of standards wherever we are.

We use several different business associates who help us create and brand these items. For instance, a current campaign is running on fedex.com. You’ll see a banner there that says “Think FedEx First.” We designed specific merchandise to support it—items that are useful and will remind customers of FedEx when they use them. An agency was used to help us develop those products, and we have a distributor who helps us consolidate our merchandise.

PPB: Do you have a favorite product in your personal possession—perhaps on your desk or in your purse—and if so, will you tell me about it?

Tucker: We have the FedEx Envelope notebook sold in the company store and provided to our salespeople to give to customers. Now I see them everywhere!

In the case of the higher-end promotional product, I’ve seen clever uses of products like an Apple iPod or Apple iTouch, on which you can actually pre-record your own message.

PPB: Any other favorite promotional product that’s not a FedEx product?

Tucker: One of my favorites was given out by a magazine that we’ve supported over the years that has now become an online publication called PINK. Because it’s a women’s magazine that’s very smart and clever, they gave out a little computer case—not terribly expensive—but a really functional laptop case.

PPB: What tips do you have for our readers on creating a brand that really connects to their customers?

Tucker: First, understand who you serve. Who are your targeted customers? Start to build your business by targeting your specific customers and seek to fulfill their needs—what do they value? Build your core values to match those of your target customers.

Before you do much promoting, you should ensure that you are delivering on the promise, whether that is low price, high quality, reliability or access, and do it consistently. It’s that level of consistency that builds up loyalty and respect among customers, leading to revenue growth.

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