A brand’s imagery sets our expectation and anticipation; the experience, day-in day-out, determines the reality. So why do so many brands overlook this simple truth? Forrest Gump’s mother knew precisely.

David Williams, CEO of How to Experience, considers the importance of brand advertising against detailed experience design. Will customers promote your brand? It all depends on how they feel about their various interactions — and how memorable they are….

Tried and tested: ‘Stupid’ arrogant brands.

As Forrest Gump’s mother famously advised: “Stupid is as Stupid does”. And that, unfortunately, is true of many brands today. Recently, the National Consumer Council published the findings from an 18-month study of 2000 consumers that talked about the “stupid” brands it had discovered. According to that study, stupid brands share the following characteristics. They:

• Make inflated expectations and broken promises
• Sell, sell, sell
• Are sneaky and dishonest
• Are impersonal and robotic
• Are incompetent and ineffectual.

We’re no longer the stiff upper-lip, uncomplaining nation. We’re five times more likely to tell someone about a bad experience than a good one. In a recent survey, 77% of those questioned said they thought web journals (blogs) were a useful way to get insights into the products or services they should buy*. We’re starting to trust unknown individuals more than brands themselves. And we’re voting with our feet and our wallets. A Research International study showed that customers of brands that delivered functionally and emotionally compared to “stupid” brands that did neither would get nearly 3 times higher indexed loyalty rates; 5 times higher cross-sell rates and up to 9 times the up-sell rates.

Brands are short-cuts for consumers. They indicate what can be expected. How a customer feels about a brand is shaped by what they perceive the brand to be, what they hear about the brand, and what they remember from the interactions they may have with it. This has a direct impact on how committed they are – and what they do. What customers say fundamentally affects what other prospects think and believe. It either supports or conflicts with our brand promise. The greater the dissonance between what others say and what the brand claims, the more the brand is weakened.

Anticipating, Experiencing & Remembering

There are three stages to any brand experience:

• Anticipating: what the customer perceives the brand to stand for and expects to happen when they interact with it
• Experiencing: what actually happens
• Remembering: what the customer remembers after the interaction

The wise marketer, however, knows this isn’t linear - it’s cyclical. Each subsequent experience shapes your perception of what to expect next. And First Impressions count. Get it wrong upfront and it’s going to be hard to recover…

Great advertisers know that changing attitudes is hard. It requires sustained persistency. That’s why most advertising appeals to consumer’s desires. And that’s the nub: if a brand can get customer attitudes entrenched through consistent experience, they’ll be difficult for competitors to challenge.

Research shows that although companies spend 80% of their resources on influencing Perception, it is Recollection that creates the highest customer loyalty.

So one of the real challenges is to design brand experiences in a way that makes them truly memorable. Of course, creative advertising plays a role - but only if great brand experience design backs it up.

Product and Service Brands are different

Traditionally, brand managers have received the majority of their training focusing on product brands. With a product, barring a new formulation, the customer experience remains constant: it is the advertising, packaging promotion and imagery that varies. Indeed, studies show that today differentiation is more likely to be achieved by alteringsensory and perceptual factors. Consumers therefore tend to judge product brands impressionistically.

With service brands, the user experience can vary dramatically from one week - indeed one minute - to the next. Here, it’s the consistency, expectation and delight experienced in the delivery of a service which is the greatest determinant of a brand’s appeal - not conventional marketing imagery. Hence consumers tend to judge service brands experientially.

Powerful service brands (take Amazon or Google as examples) can grow without conventional advertising support, but great advertising alone would rarely compensate for appalling service. Certainly some of the great success stories for service brands recently, such as Tesco, have been based on incremental service enhancements, where advertising simply amplifies the effect. Indeed, the hallmark of a great service brand is one where promotion comes naturally from its staff because they are proud: they are advocates for its products and services.

Great Brands come in all shapes and sizes

When it comes to characterising a good brand experience, size is not necessarily synonymous with success. Far from it; many niche brands, by differentiating their offering, punch well above their weight. Broadly, there are three different types of branded experience - and, usually, they’re driven by very different types of organisations.

Operationally brilliant

This is about people who love process. They are concerned with aligning resources, streamlining and optimising the supply chain. This delivers a core of reliability and reassurance - anything above this is pleasurable. The experience is about sustaining everyday life - reliability in an increasingly unreliable world. The company culture is typically one of control. Examples: Tesco, Richer Sounds, FedEx.

Customer intimate

This is about people who love people. The experience focuses on involving customers to deliver what they really want: it satisfies unique needs by virtue of (apparently) special relationships with the customer. The company culture is typically collaborative. Examples: H2X (that’s us!), Four Seasons, Ten UK, lastminute.com

Product leaders

This is about people who love things. They continually push performance boundaries with relentless effort and innovation to deliver anticipation and excitement. The company culture usually centres on developing competence. Examples: Intel, Dyson, Apple, Audi, Bang and Olufsen.

Bang & Olufsen and Richer Sounds.

Great brands - but different-experiences.

Selling electrical audio goods through retail stores as well as online, both brands enjoy passionate support from customers and employees. So both are great branded experiences - but each is very different.

Bang & Olufsen levers the top-end nature of the product and sound experience. With stores featuring minimalist design and a cushioned sound room, nothing can detract from the audio excellence. “The Bang & Olufsen shop is where you can experience the craftsmanship and pleasure that characterise our products, with no obligation for you other than to watch, listen, and be inspired.” The product is King.

Richer Sounds, meanwhile, achieves one of the highest sales per square foot with a ‘cheap and cheerful’ approach. “Our stores pile bargains high and don't have fancy shop fittings so we keep our overheads down and pass on those savings to you.”Their passionate staff create a buzz in the store and ring bells when sales are made. Operational Excellence is King.

Understanding a marketplace, playing to strengths, and amplifying these through merchandising, physical design and people delivers a resonant experience. For both brands there is integrity not dissonance. The brand is what the brand does.

Mind the Gap! Promise and Delivery

Clearly what you promise and what your brand actually delivers should match. But all too often, they don’t. If there’s a Gap, customers soon realise they’re being deceived. They don’t stay customers for long.

A successful brand aligns its promise with its organisational capability and the people who have to deliver it. The culture and the set of brand experience principles and behaviours all match.

Expectations are key. They’re shaped not just by what we promise, nor by what others in the category are delivering (many customers often don’t experience the service from others in the category) but by the best companies in other categories. First Direct sets the standard in telephone dialogue, Tesco with ‘one in front’ queue management, Amazon in personalisation on-line. So there are three gaps here. One is against what we expect from the brand based on the specific promise that was made (and our past experience of delivery); the next against what we expect from the category; and lastly, what we expect generally.

How can I make a brand memorable?

Gaining notoriety for the right reasons? That’s the million dollar question. I like to look to the West End, Broadway and Hollywood for inspiration here. The previews, posters and reviews build excitement and anticipation. On the performance day, just as with all experiences, you need to deliver the basics — the core category needs. It needs to be easy to collect the tickets. You shouldn’t have to queue too long to get to your seats. It should be easy to get a drink at the interval. Of course the play should be delivered seamlessly and with conviction. In some categories delivery is so poor just doing the basics consistently is enough! Patrick Barwise and Sean Meahan described this as “Simply Better”, in the book of the same name. Great plays and brands both have a signature experience. Something everyone talks about - the thing that the “brand” is known for. In ‘Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang’ it’s the car actually flying…. in ‘The Lion King’ it’s the animals walking within the audience. Great brands have their own signature, too. At TGI Fridays it’s the humour and individuality of the servers and their attire. With Mini, it’s the ‘mini adventure’ that accompanies all interactions.

Daring to be different.

Doing something that is truly different and being seen to be the first to do it is the next thing that can create an unforgettably positive experience. Dell did this when it enabled customisation of PCs; Tesco, when it launched its Club Card; Amazon when it started next day delivery and access to thousands of titles with recommendations; Virgin Atlantic when it started its limo service for its Upper Class passengers. The common denominator is reaching a consumer need around the use of the product as well as meeting the core product needs itself. But it’s not just about big things. A memorable experience is also about all the small details. The hotel concierge that remembers your name, the restaurant that remembers which table you like, the service engineer that takes their shoes off as they enter your home, the contact centre that actually follows up to ensure that your issue was resolved. But it’s all too easy to leave these things to chance…..unless you hardwire them into “the way we do things around here”.

Making it happen

Great brands define the emotional outcomes required, the behaviours that will deliver them and the brand voice (tone and language) in which they should be delivered. Defining these is one thing. Getting the brand (and organisation) to deliver them is something else.

So who is setting these outcomes and ensuring that the brand does what we expect it to? Let’s return to our theatre analogy. Behind every great play is a great Director, interpreting the concept and ensuring that everything about the performance is true to the original idea. But like all great productions, many people are involved. It’s not just the marketers producing the brochure or the actors delivering the play on the night. It’s everyone - from the lighting technician to the caterer - who deliver the true brand experience. Often it’s the merchandising that creates the recollection and the margin! So the whole production team needs to be galvanised behind the purpose and organised to deliver. Nothing must be left to chance.

Sharing ownership lets everyone deliver more. “Life's a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you're gonna get.” Once again, Forrest’s mother has a point. In large organisations, much of the spend and control is in the hands of service, sales and product directorates. It is not the direct influence of marketing. How does the wise marketer engage the rest of the organisation to influence the brand delivery?

The key is not about telling or “sheep dipping”; instead, it’s about truly engaging and co-creating. Almost all staff want to do the right thing and, given the right encouragement and guidance, they will come up with the right answer. And if they’ve come up with it, they are much more likely to own the implementation plan.

By involving all who shape your brand, you can leave ‘stupid’ competitors behind forever. Your organisation can be proud of what your brand is and does.

*Source: Hostaway, Sept 26 2005: http://www.hostway.co.uk/about_us/pressreleases/hw.pr.26-09-05.pdf

David Williams is the CEO of How to Experience (H2X), an experience consultancy. H2X open up organisations so they know where, and how, to deliver the intentional experiences that will make a lasting difference to customers, channels, and employees. H2X provide the experience to add value and build revenue. David passionately believes that it is people and teams that make the difference in any transformation. Company: How to Experience