Seamless Brands

This week’s lectures were delivered by a guest lecturer who spoke to us about seamless brands, and the most important thing to take from the lecture was that a brand is about the experience from beginning to end, and making it as easy and quick as possible for the consumer is what it is all about.

The smallest of things such as error message can have an impact on the consumer, and personalised/funny ones can make the experience much more amusing for the person surfing the internet, for example http://www.limpfish.com/notfound.html ^[1]. An error message can convey what the brand is about; it creates dialogue between the brand and the consumer. Another small details that makes the difference is things such as Wimbledon, with the branded serviettes, it all adds to the experience of being at Wimbledon.

With the digital world fast expanding brands must find more and more ways of becoming integrated into their customers everyday lives. The digital touchpoints must be recognised as “seamless engagement opportunities that can keep customers connected to a brand story throughout the day” (Martin and Todorov 2010 p61)[2]

The experience as mentioned above is an attitude of how information is conveyed – “information manipulation”. Even if an experience has not happened yet, there is a need to think in a holistic way.

The reading this week was on innovation and about creating aesthetically pleasing products. Alessi particularly interested me, in the fact that they work on the theory that people buy products and not meanings (Verganti 2009)[3], and they moved against the dominant aesthetic standards, and Verganti assumed that there must be an innovation process, however, once in a specialist company; he found that the innovation process did not exist. Alessi also work on the theory that people buy products that they have an emotional attachment to. Jawahar and Maheswari (2009) agree with this and state that there is a synergy between the loyalty of a brand, and having an emotional attachment[4].

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[1] Barton, D., 2010. Limpfish.com. US. Available from: http://www.limpfish.com/notfound.html. [Accessed 25 February 2011].

[2] Martin, K., and Todorov, I., 2010. How will digital platforms be harnessed in 2010, and how will they change the way people interact with brands? Journal of Interactive Advertising, 10 (2), 61 – 66.

[3] Verganti , R., 2009. Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovation What Things Mean. Harvard Business Press, Boston, Massachusetts.

[4] Jawahar, D., and Maheswari, R., 2009. Service Perception: Emotional Attachment As a Mediator of the Relationship Between Service Performance and Emotional Brand. ICFAI Journal of Marketing Management, 8 (2), 7-22.