It is how brands make consumers feel that is really important

I love this quote:

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will not forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

For me, brand organisations should care most about how consumers feel about their brand. To do that the have to do something special. It takes planning and alignment of the whole organisation around all consumer touchpoints.

It not just about glossy TV ads. It not just about having a clever social media activity. It not just about a slick service department. It is about all these touchpoints working together and making consumers feel really good about every interaction with the brand.

Brands need to deliver experiences that WOW. 

Check out Zappos, who do this really well. Alternatively check out this presentation.

Consumers will remember a brand experience more readily than a load of brand facts

In my first Brand Experience Matters post in 2008 I wrote:

“A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer”.

So, what shapes consumer perceptions?
A load of stuff will shape their perceptions but a key driver of it will be their experiences of a brand. It is each and every brand experience that shapes what the brand is in the mind of consumer.Since I started writing about brand experiences in 2008 I have been trying to find a good articulation of the power of experiences...."

I read an interesting post by Steve Davies's about content marketing (Skiddmark) in which he says this about experiences:

"We remember experiences more readily than facts, because experiences are more likely to be related to other experiences through one or more sensory triggers – the smell of a classic car reminds us of our childhood, the winding road in Jaguar’s F-TYPE video triggers memories of a favourite drive."

I like it. 

This for me helps highlight why brand organisations need to place more focus on delivering brand experiences that delight consumers not just making a load of brand promises (claims, reasons to believe, 'facts', or whatever..) that are likely to be at best forgotten and at worst not believed.