The passing of J.D. Salinger a few weeks back took me back to my high school days when we were forced to read his classic novel, The Catcher in the Rye,  featuring Holden Caulfield, the teenage protagonist who explores the phoniness and inauthenticity of New York City and  the elite prep school circle from which he has been expelled. The book was one of the first novels to draw me in and help me realize that the best story-telling is more than skin deep. Its message still resonates today. So what can companies who are looking to create authentic brand experiences learn from the 17-year-old Holden?

• Tell Your Story in Your Own Voice. J.D. Salinger’s book was controversial because for the first time an authentic teenage voice was echoing the truths we all thought about but were afraid to reveal.  A famous Holden quote: “It’s funny.  All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.” When companies speak to us, are they talking above us, below us – or right to our heart?  When a company’s brand speaks to our heartfelt experiences, without patronizing or pontificating, it resonates.

• Phoniness Will Be Outed. Holden made a mission of exposing phony people. In the age of social media, the brand experience is more exposed than ever, with every customer being an online Holden Caulfield, ready to out the mis-aligned brand. Case in point, Comast’s customer service issues were exposed by a customer with a handycam witnessing a cable installer asleep on his couch. He uploaded it to YouTube and it became the customer experience case study for the newly empowered dissatisfied consumer. Four years and 1.4 million views later, Comcast has learned a hard lesson.

• Every Customer Counts. Holden’s vision was to be the “Catcher in the Rye”, saving children as they walked over the cliff, one at a time. Sometimes companies get so overwhelmed by the nature of Customer Experience Management, they lose site that even one customer can mean the world. What if every company aimed at improving the customer experience simply told their employees to have one goal: Retain and wow just one customer every day. That customer would tell ten others, and so on.

The Catcher in the Rye once had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the nation and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools. The book remains widely read with total worldwide sales over 65 million. Perhaps the book’s authentic voice and simplicity will soon be taught as essential branding strategy in corporations everywhere. Well, maybe not. But a few tips from an authentic classic couldn’t hurt.

Two major wars are underway, and I’m not talking about Afghanistan or Iraq. Rather, these two wars are for hearts, eyeballs and wallets of the American consumer. Battle One is taking place in strip malls throughout the land, with Wal-Mart facing off against Target. Battle Two is taking place online, with Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch taking on search juggernaut Google.

Battle One: Fighting Over the Frugal Soccer Mom

Before the Great Recession reared its ugly head, Wal-Mart and Target seemed to co-exist fairly nicely. While both retailers went after thrifty consumers, Wal-Mart concentrated on price, a blue-collar feel, and friendly greeters for its brand positioning. Target went slightly up-market, a little more hip and urban with slightly better brand names. The giants seemed to have carved out their niches until the hip, fashionista Target-shopping mom became the frugalista mom.

As BusinessWeek’s Michelle Collins writes, Target’s target demographic had shifted under the weight of the Recession – Target’s working mom cared less about “thigh-high boots than the price of milk”. So the battle is on, with Target sliding “down market” and Walmart climbing “upmarket” with a revamp of its brand and store experience. What is especially interesting to watch is Target’s effort to launch more grocery products at select locations in a super “hyper-local” way – very regional but completely integrated marketing and customer experience strategies.

Who will win? Soccer moms will dictate that, but my bet is on Walmart, as long as they don’t go too far up-market and lose their base. The value shopper may be here to stay and I think “Expect More, Pay Less” will never be out of style.

Battle Two: Ads, Eyeballs and Applications

Google and Microsoft are coming out swinging. This war is bloody and is being fought on two fronts: Content and Applications. The content conflict first. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is calling for rebellion against Google’s lock on searchable content by throwing all of his content into Bing, Microsoft’s supposed Google-killer. In doing so, Murdoch hopes to re-enforce a “pay wall” strategy that will bolster his revenues and place content producers back in control of their creations. Problem is, Murdoch needs Google, whether he likes it or not – 26% of the WSJ online traffic comes from Google. In this day and age, anyone that doesn’t want to play in Google’s sandbox will feel it in their web traffic reports. Content producers would be better off thinking through a tiered value strategy for consumers that took advantage of Google’s traffic, rather than trying to cut off the flow from search engine giant. When your name becomes a verb for searching online, it’s hard to mess with you.

On the second front, Google is becoming a thorn in Microsoft’s side by introducing free online applications erodiing Microsoft’s once-thought dominance in the software world.  Google has launched major campaigns all year long, including Going Google, to target businesses and convince them to drop Microsoft Office for Google Apps. Google says that more than 2 million businesses, schools and organizations have signed up to use the various combinations of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and the other Google Apps.  That may not immediately put a dent in Microsoft’s $20 billion desktop software business, but it has prompted Microsoft to come out with it’s own online free version of Office, closely tied in with its desktop version.

The ultimate winners in this battle will be the company that focuses more intently on the customer experience. Making applications “feature relevant” rather than feature rich will be the hallmark of success.

Parting Shots

Underlying the battle between Walmart-Target and Google-Microsoft is a battle for the hearts and minds of customers who have long been taught during the heady ’80s and ’90s that you can have something for nothing. Low prices and a quality shopping experience and great user-friendly software that you don’t have to pay for along with free content online, anytime, anywhere.  Companies must re-open negotiations with their customers to determine the new value exchange for their goods and services. The companies who do this best, will be those that thrive in the post-Great Recession era.