Cultivating the Brand Experience

It is no secret that users today do not have time to waste. Customers want it faster, easier, cheaper. What does that mean for brands? How do brands reach their target audience and engage them beyond their adblock? It all lies in the brand experience.

A brand experience is best articulated by revealing its location. A brand experience lies at the intersection point between a brand’s ambition or purpose and the customer experience or perception of that ambition.

A brand has many hurdles to surpass to effectively cross over the trust barrier and nurture user relations. Before embarking on the road to brand trust and loyalty, brand experience must pave the way. The experience begins by taking a human-centric approach. A brand that is looking to accurately position itself in its market must look through the customer lens of desirability. This lens explores how users interact with current brands and identify certain norms.

Trend research is extremely helpful during the process of planting and arranging your brand. Your findings must be used to validate against your brand ambition and communicate your unique, authentic brand value. Brand value or traits serve as the foundation to guide the brand experience and bridge the gap between delivery and strategy.

The general clientele that we serve are companies who are struggling to adapt to the new digital wave. In fact, a majority of our clients that find themselves at our doorstep are there because they have witnessed competitors new, successful marketing strategies and want to compete.

A common trend that our agency comes across is the remnants of traditional marketing in a foreign landscape. Traditional marketing introduced brands in insincere, fluffy, exaggerated language and brand voices. Today's landscape is oversaturated, if not bombarded, with ads and branded messages. As a result, consumers have built up an awareness of phony content that is religiously written off. New, fresh-faced start-up companies are killing the game because they thoroughly understand their audience and their pain points whereas older, legacy brands are observing the marketing transformation from afar and scratching their heads.

The diagnosis and treatment for those suffering from traditional marketing fever? Rebrand. Although a rebrand is a notoriously dreaded project, it is absolutely crucial for companies that are looking to nurture their legacy and remain competitive for years to come.

Another commonality we run into is the shared misconception of what a rebrand is. Many people see a rebrand as the replacement of a logo or a color palette; however, a rebrand is far from just the enhancement of functional elements that can be measured by transactions and traffic. Rebrands are risky because they embody something that we can’t see at first. Rebrand KPI’s are vastly different as they include the retention of long term brand awareness.

Whether you are rebranding or launching a brand, a sure fire way to ensure success in your market and intended audience lies in the crafted brand experience. It can be difficult to articulate a brand experience that you yourself and your team have yet to experience, but the brand traits, values, and pillars serve as the building blocks for the brand’s vision.

Let’s dive further into the possibilities of a brand experience. Take a brand that suggests itself as a joke or in a joking manner, like Harry’s. Harry’s brand traits and positioning stem from goofy content and a funny brand tone. These traits create a core for the brand to further expand, providing a clear steer for creativity as far as colors, language, interaction, etc. You can envision the brand experience through something as simple as a gesture. The experience strategy communicates brand pillars to further cultivate personal customer relations.

Inherently, with any rebrand, you need to make the brand future facing, but still comfortable for loyal users. You must move the dial somewhere, but finding the balance is the true test to ultimately determine the success of the rebrand.

In a world where choice is becoming more of a factor for customers, the need to differentiate is becoming more and more of a factor along with cost. A tangible brand experience must acknowledge and incorporate real-world output. Although taking a CX position in commoditized industries can be challenging, consumer-centric approaches and tactics have proven to be successful in today’s digital market climate.