When was the last time you made an emotional connection? Was it with your child? A spouse? A parent? Were you empathizing with someone on television, or committing an act of road rage? Now, when was the last time you had this kind of connection with a brand? Is it something that you’re even aware of? What does it mean to have an emotional connection with a brand?
Last week I was asked to speak on a panel of User Experience experts here in Los Angeles. Our topic was Branding and User Experience. In my preparation for this panel, I started asking myself a few very important questions about my own consumer behavior. What emotional connections do I have with brands? How did User Experience play a role in this process?
To me, when I think of going for “coffee,” I automatically think of going to Starbucks. I can’t tell you why, or at what point this happened, but I do. When I think of “grocery shopping” I think of Whole Foods. Again, for no reason in particular, but I do. But what really started to bother me about this was the WHY? How had a generic concept, something like “going for coffee,” get transformed into “going to Starbucks?” Two words Experience Design.
Experience Design is “the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, and environments with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience and culturally relevant solutions, with less emphasis placed on increasing and improving functionality of the design.” In laymen’s terms, Starbucks has engineered an environment and experience so pleasing, that in my mind it is the ultimate coffee getting experience. This was kind of a mind-blowing leap for me. This happened without me conscious of the process.
In my digital-centric view of the world, I used to think of User Experience as what the user is experiencing in the digital realm. Is it on the web? On a mobile device? A kiosk? An intelligent billboard? The answer is yes, but also it is the visceral experience with brand itself. It’s the culmination of what the brand promise is, combined with the execution of the strategy we employee everyday for our clients.
The true “experience” comes from our capacity to extend our message beyond the brand’s function, and into the brand’s belief. Nick Platt, ECD in Los Angeles, gave me some insight into something called Brand Elasticity. The idea is we move the brand from “product” to “belief.” It’s the “ah ha” moment, the messaging strategy, the core of what converts a brand into something pervasive and industry changing.
Stephen Ruiz
Senior Experience Architect, Los Angeles
stephen.ruiz@rapp.com
Tags: Branding, RAPP, Stephen Ruiz, user experience
wow, this is just amazing and totally true, unconscious, but so real. very interesting point of view, thanks for posting it.
This is an extremely simplified view of things. You like Whole Foods and Starbucks because you go there regularly. For this, the research into store placement and brand messaging probably has a larger effect than the experience. Starbucks is, seamingly, on most corners of most cities in the US. You probably don’t live in a low-income neighborhood so Whole Foods is part of your daily travels as well. In addition, your friends have also helped you make these choices through their suggestions. There are shops in both categories where the “usability” is probably greater and neither (aside from the checkout lines at Whole Foods) has a significant use-case advantage vs the competition.
I have to disagree with you. The “experience” of the environment is precisely the reason that these two organizations have had that kind of impact on my consumer behavior. I will agree that the placement in specific neighborhoods does have a direct impact on where the stores are located, but that issue isn’t being addressed here.
As you have given the examples of Starbucks and Whole Foods, as far as branding is concern it only possible if the consumers has positive experience about your brand and it’s only possible if your branding campaign encouraged the consumers to enjoy your brand by which the consumers got positive image of it, then only he prefer to go and put in his/her mind of your brand. Otherwise, without a positive image brands doesn’t make any impact on consumers’ experience, even they know and remember your brand, very well. Hence, it’s very, very important to consider carefully about your branding and it’s positive image which must be last in the minds of consumer.
Muhammad. I agree with you that the “brand image” does have an impact on the experience, and what I’d like to clarify is that I already had a good perception of both brands before I had the “Experience.” So, the idea is that the extension of the brand (i.e. the brand elasticity) was a subconscious driving of my own personal consumer needs. Again, the core idea here is that I’ve begun to think of a brand being synonymous with a product. Coke is the best example of a branks that’s been able to do this in my opinion.
and that is why I thought Nick Platt was a very clever man.
and you ruiz, have a nice way of using simple words to get something across.
Belief is probably why we all will secretly cry at romantic comedies, scream for the hero in the goriest movie and why a sporting star star is a superhero.
This article is short, but incisive. It captures what makes Brand…a way of life.
This is qute short and tight. Experience Design is what is lost in the marketing scheme of most organisation especially in Nigeria. Efforts are concentrated on brand values and benefits without thinking of other cognitive factors that influence choice. With a well planned experience design, a brand can push itself into a state of brand lovemark against the competitor that offers far better product under a awry ambience.
This article should ttreat the subject extensively
Sometimes people need an escape. From family, friends, the economy, and more. When someone adventures to their “own” world, it is filled with their happiness. The experience from a brand can become that world, which will connect them to this emotion—happiness.
I think we have a bit of a chicken and egg thing going on here. You were aware of both brands, and of what they purported to offer, before you first visited them. You had already made some form of connection, one that was reinforced by your initial visit. But ‘going for coffee’ equates to Starbucks not because of an emotional connection, per se, but because you’ve reinforced your mental picture of “going for coffee” with images of your actual experience there.
What brands come to mind for more abstract notions like freedom or peace or family? It seems to me that emotional connections stem more from linkage with more abstract notions than from experiential ones.
