Why Brand Managers Should Pay Attention To Usability
Brand Management & Common Practices
A lot of brand management time often goes on a few things:
- Use of logos
- Use of colours
- Use of fonts
- Use of photographs
- Consistency
This is understandable - it’s usually the brief brand managers are handed from above. Not to mention the fact that most brand terminology is around this: “image”, “projection”, “identity”, “recognition”…
Your Brand & The Feelings It Evokes
Your brand is the feelings people associate with you. Logos, colours, fonts, et cetera can be used to conjur up those emotions. Some of those emotions will be based on cultural heritage - for example, blocky red capital text feels like ‘danger’ or ‘urgency’. But, most of the emotions your customers/prospects feel will be based on their past experiences with your company. They see your logo &, subconsciously, it conjurs up the feelings of the marathon you sponsored, the 30 minutes on hold on the phone, the quality of your packaging, the smell of your store, all in one. What that means is (to simplify hugely): the more positive experiences they have, the better your brand perception.
Telling vs Showing vs Involvement
There’s an old proverb - sometimes attributed to Ben Franklin - along the lines of:
Tell me & I’ll forget
Show me & I may remember
Involve me & I’ll learn
Most people would agree that it’s true. Tell me how to play basketball - I’m not going to win any championships. Show me & I might be able to dribble a few feet. But put me in a couple of practice games & I’ll definitely pick it up after a while.
The same is true with your brand. Tell your customers you’re reliable, hard-working, efficient, and you’re not too far ahead of your competitors. Show them what you can do, illustrate it with slick ads & ‘closely aligned’ charity events, and you may be ‘top of mind’ next time they’re in the market. But work with them in an easy manner, help them find what they need, work with them in a positive way, and you’re building up great brand equity.
Why ‘Usability’ Is Actually A Strong Brand Concern
A visit to your website is worth much more than an ad impression or a sales call. The visitor has physically sought you out, and has come to the site looking for something.
What that means is two things:
- Your website leaves a deep ‘experiential’ impression on them
- By making that a positive impression you are building positive equity into your brand
Hopefully your site will leave an impression visually. Hopefully your visitor will be able to find what they want. But, in using your site, they are actively ‘involved’ in your brand. If a page is slow, you don’t just look slow, you feel slow. If your site is tough to navigate, you feel clunky & difficult. If your keyword search doesn’t help me, you are stupid. You are involving your customers, but are you teaching them good things or bad things about your brand?
As someone with an interest in projecting a positive brand, it’s not just your responsibility to make sure the images & text you put out achieve that; It’s also essential to make sure your site presents a positive experience & one that matches your brand objectives.
Adrian Palacios said,
August 17, 2007 @ 10:46 am
This week BBDO Worldwide CEO Andrew Robertson was quoted in a Reuters story; he explained that to keep a consumer’s attention “you’ve got to create stuff that is sufficiently compelling for them to choose to spend time with it.”
Moreover, I feel that with the internet, especially within the context of social media, we have a chance to lead a consumer through an experience that will be much more effective than magazine ads or 30-second spots (click here for my long-winded development of this thought) as long as it’s executed properly.
Are there any specific websites you think leave a great “experiential” impression? One that is aesthetically pleasing buts also takes advantage of the opportunity to involve the consumer in a way that is compelling/memorable?
daniel said,
August 17, 2007 @ 2:45 pm
hi, Adrian, how are you?
A few websites that spring to the top of my mind are ocado.com, nikeid.com & bluenile.com . Ocado & Bluenile are very simple, but the experience feels so great that you want to share it. Ocado is a particularly nice example: it’s a supermarket.
I don’t think aesthetics are necessarily a part of it. For example, I don’t think bluenile looks that great, but the functionality of their ‘diamond finder’ is so fun that - even though it’s a topic you may not care about - you’ll play around with it, learn something about diamonds, try & find the best balance of carat/cut/color/price & end up feeling warmth for the brand. The first time I used it, I probably told 10 or 20 people about it & got a few “wow this is amazing” emails back later. How many of those people - when it comes to the one or two times in their life when they might consider buying a diamond ring - will return to bluenile?
I read a blog post recently asking “why didn’t nikon build flickr?” - imagine what that would have done for their brand.
Thanks a lot for your comment & for the link to your post.
daniel
Ted Goas said,
September 1, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
Hiya Daniel
True, a site should work before it looks good. But aesthetics can be important to users, if only on a subliminal level. An organization with branded advertising can create lasting impressions on users.
For instance, despite thinking eBay’s site and logo use ugly colors, they maintain a consistent feel throughout their pages, emails, and ads. If I see an ad that’s bright yellow, red, blue, and green, I know it’s eBay before even reading it.
I think this is something we’re presently trying to achieve with our company.