What It Takes to Build a Brand: The Savannah Bananas

The Savannah Bananas are a brand that hits marketing and customer experience out of the park. (This joke was low-hanging fruit and I simply had to take the opportunity.)

As I was reading the New York Times (scrolling TikTok) the other day, I came across this video of the Savannah Bananas owner and founder, Jesse Cole. He said, “You build your brand by the things you do for your customers.”

If you don’t want to click the link and watch the video, I’ll break it down for you – you’re welcome.

Jesse goes undercover at the Savannah Banana games.

He parks with the fans, stands in line with the fans, eats with the fans, and simply listens to what they’re saying to get a real-time understanding of the brand’s customer experience.  

He cares less about sales, profit, revenue, and pleasing shareholders. 

What he really wants to know is, how long are the lines, how quickly fans get into the ballpark, how long does it take them to get to their seat? These are the metrics that matter most to him. 

Stop doing what your customers hate, he states. It’s really that simple.

Taking care of the fans is their bottom line. 

I don’t know how this can be applied to your brand. But I think it’s easy for all of us to get caught up in the numbers when we’re measuring our success. 

However, success can also be determined in what we’re doing to take care of the clients who show up, spend their money on our services, and the value they receive as a result. 

There’s a Maya Angelou quote we’ve all heard that says, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

And I think this same goes for the brands we’re building. 

If you’ve ever been to a Savannah Bananas game (I highly recommend), you know that it’s hard to go through that experience in a bad mood. They have become masters of selling joy through high-energy entertainment. 

Find the metrics that matter to you and your business, then get busy chasing those.

Xo, The Salesgirls