Author: Ethan Hanson, Experience Strategy Director
The future is begging for simplicity.
We’ve seen a wave of marketing and technology become one as data is infused into every aspect of our businesses and personal lives, with the expectation of personalization around each corner. We’ve witnessed the explosion of experiences as a catalyst for design thinking, user experience, sprints, and more.
We are now seeing the industry talk about brand and experience, but it’s often supported by a long list of what it means: brand design, brand ethos, nomenclature, messaging, positioning, design thinking, personalization, customer support, brand image, user experience, brand voice, optimization and more.
This long list reminds me one of Albert Einstein’s commons statements, “Genius is making complex ideas simple…” and causes me to consider and pause for a moment, ‘if brand experience were simplified what would that look like?’
The short list would simply include brand ‘vibe’ and ‘ease’ under the dome of brand experience.
BRAND EXPERIENCE
Brand experience is the life of an organization, it’s the emotional connection and interaction between a company and a consumer.
I suspect if you were to take a moment to consider the brands you use, there are only a few that come to mind you both have an emotional connection with and are easy to interact with. That’s because it’s hard. It takes key players in the organization and a clear focus to make it happen. Let’s look at the two imperatives of brand experience: vibe and ease.
CREATING A UNIFIED VIBE
Defining brand vibe
Brand vibe is the emotional connection created with a consumer through a series of interactions or a single event. The vibe developed does not happen accidently, it’s curated, thought through with buy-in from the top, and stretches across the organization.
Consider this – if your brand was a person, how would you describe their personality? If this is hard to do, there is a problem. Stories handed down are lost in time, but memories written can be shared for generations. Your brand vibe is no different. Committing it to paper and outlining your identity will bring to life something everyone can reference and reinforce. Without clear direction, teams and individuals begin to communicate who and what they believe the brand is.
Why is brand vibe important?
People remember what they feel more than the actual experience. According to Psychologist World, “…emotionally charged situations can lead us to create longer lasting memories of the event. When we are led to experience feelings of delight, anger or other states of mind, vivid recollections are often more possible than during everyday situations in which we feel little or no emotional attachment to an event.”
So let’s consider a few brands for a moment and what vibe they intend to elicit: