Healthy Conversations
Imagining & Creating New Value For Health Brands & Consumers

I was in Atlanta for a long weekend. A couple blocks away from my hotel was one of my favorite places to visit, a Whole Foods. I love the sights, colors, smells, products, stories and merchandising.

So I just stopped by their website, which I haven’t been to in a while. And front and center there’s a new iPhone recipes app. It lets you filter by:

• categories such as budget, cooking with kids and quick and easy
• target special diets, including gluten-free, lowfat and vegetarian/vegan
• find recipes that use ingredients you already have via a search feature

You can also use the store locator to find the Whole Foods Market locations near you, or search by ZIP code.

What’s cool about this is that Whole Foods lets you create your own
Personal Brand Application (PBA) that travels with you wherever you are. It’s a virtual assistant that delivers unique value to customers 24/7.

My takeaway about their PBA:

• Brand actions speak louder than words. And this application helps customers do things, and achieve things, that they couldn’t do on their own.
• The benefits that the PBA provides extends Whole Foods value beyond other “grocer brands” to that of a healthy lifestyle brand.
• Given this, Whole Foods now has “permission” to explore even more ways to deliver value to customers in the future.
• I’ve written a lot about trust, and how it’s one of the most enduring and important competitive advantages a brand will own into the future. The PBA is an inherent trust-builder, as Whole Foods now becomes integral to helping people live healthier lives.

So how can you create your own PBA to engage and empower customers? How can you think creatively about providing value to customers beyond others in ways that move both customers, and your brand, forward?