Branding and Experience, Part 2

by guest blogger Ehren Cheung

5 Reasons Why Branding and Experience are the Same

This is the second installment of a two-part article. Read Branding and Experience, Part 1.

4. Culture and Expectations

When people take public transit – what do they want? Do they expect better service or do they expect crowds? Public transit users all have the expectation that it is crowded, so the TTC improves upon that image by increasing the number of buses per route. How do these customers treat one another? How do people use your service or product? Do all of these small elements combine to create a good experience? It’s an equation of negatives and positives / pros and cons.

Photo courtesy of Robert Ewart

A prime example would be when we walk into a store and try to avoid that annoying sales representative, or when we are looking for something and a customer service rep patiently waits for us to figure out what we want. Perhaps we’re trying to check out a product and a bunch of people are standing in the way chatting. These are all facets of a much bigger and broader picture. Understanding that there are always points of contact that your organization does not have control over, where can you begin to improve your customer’s experience? This could be air conditioning, cleaner buses, greater environmental friendliness.

The TTC has attempted to address security issues by placing closed-circuit cameras all over the place and has helpfully increased the awareness of the next bus or subway station by introducing automated announcements. Of course some elements that have been introduced had been forced by the Human Rights Commission. The funny thing is that announcements don’t only help the visually-impaired because commuters find them helpful as they no longer need to keep looking out the train window to determine what station it is. Prior to the automated announcements, no one was sure if their stop was coming up — especially if it were crowded and the bus driver wasn’t being particularly articulate in his or her announcements.

Improvements such as the above help address issues not necessarily directly related to getting from point A to B, yet when put together — provides a fundamental part of the greater experience.

5. Perception and Design

A number of years ago — the TTC had some horribly designed ads. That wasn’t the most horrible by far. It always looked like someone “designed” something in Microsoft Word and sent it to the printer. That said, some of their ads are still horribly designed. I think someone finally had the right idea and brought in a designer to provide a more consistent and professional appearance to the presentation of TTC brochures and posters. We don’t need to go over why design is so important. It ties into the customer experience and the exchange of value. Just think of products you purchase these days, how vital its design really is, and how it influences your perception of value.

So what now?

These five separate but intertwined elements illustrate that branding isn’t really branding and marketing isn’t really marketing. The outcome out of all of these “marketing” initiatives is a multi-layered and faceted, multi-directional channel of communication that influences all aspects of the individual’s sensory, emotions, and memory-association. This is one’s experience. The TTC may have introduced subway trains with greater space, but the irony is commuters associate the greater train space with smaller seat space.

Labour strikes are just as tied into the TTC’s image as the crowds of riders who use the city’s transit services. The TTC can post as many public service announcements as they want about the great work that the TTC and its workers perform, but just like the typical branding and advertisement — there is little for any individual to correlate with their experience. There is no context. We know on a basic level that good people run the TTC but that does not mean poor service levels are acceptable. It is only when individuals experience service levels that meet or exceed their expectations that perception begins to change, as do expectations, culture, and ultimately the overall message that is shared.

Looking at the public transit as an example of customer experience is fascinating because it forces us to acknowledge that there are forces beyond our control. Sometimes it is government policy while other times it is the metropolitan culture. For any product, it can be a similar set of external or internal forces; but the customer is almost always a constant within the equation. Provided that a business has an effective product and does not offend large masses of people; focusing on improving the experience of the customer — which amusingly, is the element that any business organization has the most influence over — will lead to the much sought after branding.

Ehren is an avid web worker. Currently working as the internet fundraising coordinator for the Heart and Stroke Foundation (formerly an online marketing specialist for the book industry), he spends his nights tinkering with online media. One can find his musings at www.onelittlecog.com and share in his joy of road trips at just.gettingsidetracked.com.