Does the brand define the customer experience, or is the customer experience the brand? Your work may involve both, but you probably attack problems with a bias for one or the other.

Earlier this year I asked Josh Levine of Great Monday to simply describe the relationship between brand and experience, and I like what he said.

I went back and dug deeper with Josh to clear up the differences between how he described it and and the way I often see the relationships between brand and experience being practiced. What emerged was this illustrated question and answer, attempting to untangle brand and customer experience in just 9 minutes:

Untangling brand and customer experience, in 10 minutes or less from Brandon Schauer on Vimeo.

Of all the years of academic research spent understanding tribal affiliation, inclusion, identity and shared cohesion, it’s only recently that business has taken notice. That’s not to say commerce based tribes haven’t been around forever—they have—but until now they’ve formed organically, without the considered attempts of brand managers to leverage this platform.

THE HUNGRY TRIBE
Author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin has published extensively on the importance of leadership in forming strong tribal communities and brand guru, Marty Neumeier explains it this way: “Selling is pushing products at people, but brands pull people into tribes.”

Traditional marketing and brand managers have finally started to take note, but it appears to be no more than a latent response to a smarter, more educated consumer who is looking for more. Not more advertising…not more spam…not more widgets…and not more clutter. Consumers today are hungry for more meaning.

DON’T SHOOT THE CUSTOMER
Like firing a shotgun into a flock of geese, many marketers still assume that if they interrupt enough people enough times, at least some of them will pay attention. That may work but only until another product comes along that is better, sleeker or less expensive. When that happens (and it will), to regain the high ground you must launch another costly ad campaign. When companies compete on features, functions or price, they might as well just say it: “We don’t care enough to spend the time to understand what you find meaningful.” This near-term mindset is the status quo for organizations that believe indefensible products, inevitable commoditization and low levels of consumer engagement are the only market reality.

However, organizations that create value for the future customer first create a much more formidable barrier to competition. In this instance we’re talking about a considered effort to create platforms and artifacts that connect communities and facilitate the creation of a tribe. The marketing role needs to be fundamentally re-thought, to create a shift away from thinking like traditional brand managers, into a world where marketers become brand advocates and evangelists.
A BUSINESS IS BORN
What started as a small Summer ritual amongst a tight-knit community of artists on a Northern California beach has slowly grown into a full-fledged pop-up community and multi-million dollar festival. Burning Man now attracts nearly 50,000 people ranging from geeked-out yuppies to middle-aged hippies and every future primitive technophile in between. This diverse group of eclectic revelers share a desire to travel to Black Rock City, CA every August to contribute to the creation of a temporary city for radical self-expression and communal bonding.

This once informal bon-fire on the Beach in San Francisco not only built a social platform that brings people together over a common interest, but created a business platform that generates millions of dollars annually. Today Burning Man charges $200 a head and earned over $10 million in 2008 alone. Burning Man didn’t start as a business, but slow and steady cultivation of this Tribe has certainly made it one.

MORE THAN JUST A CAUSE
Yellow Livestrong bracelets can be seen on everybody from neighborhood kids to pro athletes. Even the President of the United States has worn one. What is it about this $1 dollar rubber band that generates brand awareness and unprecedented amounts of money for cancer research and Nike in such a short period of time?

Livestrong bracelets are more than just a receipt for your dollar. These bracelets have become a way for people to identify themselves as part of the club. They are a low stakes way to tell the world “I support Lance Armstrong in his fight against Cancer, because I too am an athlete who understands the importance of staying active.”

Lance, in partnership with NIKE, created a platform using these bracelets as a way of connecting people, with the ultimate goal of raising not only cancer awareness, but also money, and lots of it. Whether for profit or non-profit, to succeed in today’s marketplace, organizations need to create tribes—not for the money (though that’ll come), but for a purpose.

SELLING A LIFESTYLE
From the first Beetle, to the most recent GTI, Volkswagen has successfully built and sold great cars, but more impressive is it’s consistent ability to build tribal lifestyles through behavior. A recent viral video sponsored by VW received almost 4 million hits on YouTube in only one week. The video shows people will change their behavior if a truly fun option is available. (In this instance alost everyone choose not to take the escalator when a group of artists turns a steep flight of stairs into a larger-than-life piano.)

The ad has absolutely nothing to do with cars, yet contributes to their ability to sell more of them by accessing an emotional value held vehemently by the VW tribe: fun can make the world better. Volkswagen sells a lifestyle, and their tribe happily sees it’s value.

CONCLUSION
In a world where consumers own the brand, brand managers need to think more like brand advocates. They must take the initiative and become leaders by creating platforms and artifacts for communities to connect with one another, not just managing wordmarks. People are obsessed with connecting to others over shared interests, values and meaningful experiences— these people will find each other with or without your product or service, why not help?

I’d go further and say it’s a critical moment and that business must reconsider everyone in their brand ecosystem—employees included. The downturn has touched everyone, and no one will be left unchanged when we come out on the other end (whenever that may be). To create a sustainable business, isn’t it time we take into account our entire community, not just the people buying the products?

I think a lot about how I’ll see these new needs as they arise, and you should too. Now is when the next great success stories begin, not when the next boom finally arrives.

A couple months into an already beat up 2009, and things are looking grim. What’s a creative entrepreneur to do? Earlier this year I chaired a panel for the AIGA called Design Through the Downturn, and the discussion surfaced some big ideas about the challenges—and opportunities—this new economy brings.

Opportunities? Yup, a number of people at the event observed that demand for creative services like design isn’t down, its just different.

There’s many ways demand will be different in the next few years, but here’s the one that might affect the creative businesses more than any other: a shift from artifacts to solutions.

Designing artifacts solutions

Businesses are strapped for cash and axing most items that don’t directly contribute to the bottom line. First on the target list is inevitably “cost-centers” like marketing. I’m not the first to say there’s going to be a lot less work like catalogues, events, and posters this year, but I might be the first to follow with a little good news. Businesses are facing an onslaught of new, unconventional challenges and they’re uncertain how they’ll solve them, or who they can turn to for help. This is where creatives can step up and step in.

Designers are experts in creating new solutions for unique problems, which is what business needs right now. Want proof that business is looking to design for help? Over the past ten years creative agency IDEO has seen tremendous success shifting from a product- to solution-focused agency. Their clients consistently come seeking right-brain solutions to challenges traditionally assigned to the MBAs.

Let me be clear, I don’t mean to stop designing as we know it. As a matter of fact quite the opposite. I believe many of the solutions to this deluge of dilemmas may in fact require design artifacts like campaigns or events—the difference is that in the new economy the design will start much earlier with the solutions.

So how can you begin turning the tide, and making the most of changing industry?

1. BECOME YOUR OWN CLIENT

Start practicing today. Any companies in the business section that could use a little push in a new direction? You don’t need permission—start generating ideas. What about identifying challenges in your own work, life, or community that might be improved with a little right-brain thinking?

2. BUILD ON WHAT YOU HAVE

You’ve already have their trust, now add value to your existing client relationships. During your next project (or even before) put in some overtime and over deliver on a new idea—demonstrate what you are capable of, and the next time around you might get asked to do just that.

3. TALK ABOUT DESIGN AS THE HOW, NOT THE WHAT

You’d never want to give up your bread and butter, but you may want to put a new item on the menu. Reconsider previous work, and reframe how you talk about it. What problem did you solve? What business result did it achieve? Play up the strategy (the how) and play down the artifact (the what). Start showing the work you want.

4. GO WITH WHAT YOU KNOW

Target new clients, but go for what you know. Pick an industry or company you know and identify the problems you can solve. Done work for tech firms? Know a little bit about telecom? Are museums your thing? Whatever your focus, make sure you’re familiar with the company or industry—you won’t be as lost when you begin, and it’ll help build credibility with potential clients.

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Business and the marketplace are changing at an rapid pace. Just because no one is certain of the future, doesn’t mean there isn’t enormous potential. What’s a creative entrepreneur to do? What we’ve always done: see the opportunity and design a solution.

Josh

If you’ve got an example or two of how demand is trending different let us know with a comment below.

1) Defer judgment

Don’t dismiss any ideas.

Any idea is a good idea, no matter how crazy.
Nothing can kill the spirit of a brainstorm quicker than judging ideas before they have a chance to gain legs.

2) Encourage wild ideas

Embrace the most out-of-the-box notions because they can be the key to solutions.
The whole point of brainstorming is coming up with new and creative ideas.

3) Build on the ideas of others

No “buts”, only “ands.”

Sometimes people say crazy and bizarre things, like “make it on Mars”, but there is some element of truth in it. When you build on the ideas of others, you might bring those crazy ideas back down to earth and make them real innovations.

4) Stay focused on the topic

Always keep the discussion on target.
Otherwise you can diverge beyond the scope of what you’re trying to design for.

5) One conversation at a time

No interrupting, no dismissing, no disrespect, no rudeness.
Let people have their say.

6) Be visual

Use yellow, red and blue markers to write on big 30-inch by 25-inch Post-its that are put on a wall.
Nothing gets an idea across faster than drawing it. Doesn’t matter how terrible of a sketcher you are.

7) Go for quantity

Aim for as many new ideas as possible. In a good session, up to 100 ideas are generated in 60 minutes.
Crank the ideas out quickly.

******

We (at least we ‘strategic designers’) all take these rules to be true. This week’s Economist says: “Brainstorming is a rather dramatic name for a semi-structured business meeting whose chief purpose is to come up with new ideas for business improvement. It is loosely based on belief in a sort of psychological synergy: that a creative meeting can throw out something more than the sum of its parts, more than the sum of the ideas in the participants’ heads.”

Apparently brainstorming was “popularised as a management technique in the early 1940s by Alex Osborn, an American advertising executive” which is interesting since European designers fled the war and arrived in America at the same time: graphic design hit a free market economy and, blam!, we all get to shop for $35 Michael Graves teapots at Target toda and there are more design students today than we can employ in the next 20 years.

Well, I’ll admit that I was completely surprised by the following research published in The Economist this week: “The results of brainstorming … have frequently been deemed inadequate…. Research has suggested that individuals working on their own generally come up with more original and higher-quality ideas.” Groups may come up with more ideas but the quality isn’t as good.

Read The Economist’s article here.