What has your brand created for me lately?

Every once in a while a product comes along that sells itself. (Think of Apple's iPhone. All you had to do was hold it and you were sold right?) And sometimes there are brands that transform customers into admirers, followers or even advocates. (I'm told once you drive a Ferrarri you never go back to a Volkswagen. Or once you own a Leica you’ll sell your Nikon etc.)

But for companies who fight the tough fight, trying to gain market share by convincing prospects of a superior brand, features, benefits or better differentiated solutions, there might be hope.

Increasingly brands can provide something that is useful, usable and desirable to the customer that does not happen to be either their product, services or solutions.

Think of these examples:

1. Nike sells shoes and clothing. And with “Nike +” they also provide a utility platform that allows runners to connect socially.

2. BF Goodrich sells tires but recently created a social community called “Nation of Go” the heart of which is the Web site and App that allow drivers to share, contribute and create their favorite driving tours.

3. Hasbro needs to sell “Monopoly City Edition” game sets and creates a 3D Monopoly inspired online game attached to Google Maps and Google Earth that allows users to compete for big prizes.

4. Nokia sells phones among other things.They created a mobile App called Nokia Money to do basic financial transactions through their mobile device.

You get the idea.

Think of it like this. Marketers have always given stuff to customers and prospects to keep them interested in their brands. And it used to be good enough to offer a coupon, a whitepaper or more recently watch a video of a white paper as a means of connection. But now brands need to try harder to become more customer-centric and connect in more meaningful ways. We need to be asking: “What do my customers need, want and desire? What would make their jobs easier, their lives more fulfilled and maybe more fun?”

Combining that customer insight with creative and engaging solutions, is the key to creating usable, useful and desirable experiences that ignite your customers and your brand. Activity like that keeps your brand alive and well considered for the slam dunk purchase.

User-centered Design Comes of Age

Useful, usable and desirable.  Those are the buzz words of utility. And they are amazingly relevant. If your company's product or service doesn't fulfill on those three tenants, you are in jeopardy of becoming, well quite frankly, irrelevant, not used and not needed. As marketing and advertising change gears from a model of disruption and intrusion to a model of audiences choosing the who, what, where and when to engage a brand, the agencies that are versed in user-centric design strategies are the ones that feel at home in this landscape. These tenants are no secret to digital agencies who have worked over the last decade. To us, it has always been about user-centric design. Our products have always been subject to precise scrutiny, usability tests, human factors and user analysis. In many ways digital designers share many commonalities with architects, designers of cars, furniture, products and software. Our products are built for people to experience something meaningful and help achieve user goals.

So how do you start moving to a user-centric approach for marketing, product and services development? Simple. Make understanding your user's/customer's goals, and their needs a top priority. Drive hard to mine the user insight needed to create great experiences. 

Time, priority and money are the roadblocks. User research is the intangible marketing spend that is seemingly unnecessary to the end deliverable. Companies will say" "We know our customers...we did research years ago...but our audience is simple and hasn't changed in years...our customers are complex their is no way we could understand them entirely...or...there are too many audiences we'd never get through the research".

But not spending time on user research and analysis is a critical mistake. It is like trying to design a chair without understanding who will be sitting in it or creating software without considering who's computer it will be installed on. Innovation occurs when user's challenges are understood, new solutions are explored and the selected  solutions become successful and critical for the end audience's achievement of their goal. And any user research is better than none. In many cases focusing on key audiences will inherently take care of the seconday audience needs and additionally there are many ways to get at user needs and goals that are agile and still provide relevance and meaning to a project.

Advertising is obviously changing. It is no longer satisfying for consumers to merely receive brand messages to inform their decisions. Brands must now create two-way experiences that are useful, usable and desirable in the achievement of user's goals. Where those user goals align with a brand's business objective is the marketing sweet spot.

You want innovation? Start with the understanding of your customer's needs, goals and desires. And then unleash a creative agency on ways to excite, delight and solve those customer challenges and passions.