Experience Precedes Branding

Found this nice description of the counter-intuitive nature of branding. Many people assume that branding is top down…that with a solid brand concept you can sell more widgets and your customers will have a better user experience. There are even claims like Don Norman’s “attractive things work better”. 

But I don’t buy it. Or, rather, I think that if on some level attractive things work better the effect is so small to be meaningless. The reality we live with is that our personal experience affects us way more than the message or branding activity of others…so much so that any ideas we might have about branding are most decidedly based on our own experience with something. 

Geoffrey James sums this up nicely, using the juxtaposition of a successful and unsuccessful Apple product: 

“The only way to create brand preference (and command a higher margin per unit sale) is to offer a better customer experience. That’s the main lesson that we can learn from Apple. When Apple creates a great customer experience, its products fly off the shelves. (Think iPod.) When Apple creates a mediocre customer experience, its products die on the vine. (Think Apple TV.) In other words, the Apple brand reflects the customer experience, not the brand marketing. While Apple’s marketing efforts can help bring some attention to the company’s products (good or bad), the buying preference (i.e. brand) proceeds directly from the customer experience.”

In other words, experience precedes branding. If you have the choice to invest more time/money into your user experience or some branding campaign, choose the user experience every time. 

Did you like that post? You'll love these.

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