Branded Experience(s)

My dad had been a customer of WaMu since he moved to California a few years ago, and since the Chase acquisition he’s now a customer of Chase.

I used to go into the WaMu branch semi-regularly to deposit money into his account (since all online resources seem to lack trans-institution transfers), and I never thought much about their interior spaces, other than the fact that they were all *very* un-banky- and I liked that.

This afternoon I walked into the same branch I’ve done most of these deposits in, and upon opening the door felt smacked in the face by a cold wave of CORPORATE. Dark wood cubes lined the room, with dark blue velvet ropes forming the line-labyrinth in the middle. A few dark-granite islands stood behind the line-y-rinth, and a looong counter with low-rising glass-paned windows along the side wall presented the teller gallery to next-in-line standees w/in the line-y-rinth. The whole space felt heavy and dark, and everyone wore identical dark Corporate Blue shirts.

The branch office had been transformed into a fully re-branded and on-brand Chase space- kudos to the design team, but what a crummy experience for punkrock me who loved the prior space. I never really thought about the prior space until that moment, and one of the tellers caught me scrunching-up my face in disapproval. The teller smiled and asked what was wrong- so I blurted-out “Eww, you guys look so corporate-y now!” He promptly laughed and commented that the prior space looked more like a cafe then like a bank- not as a judgement, but just as an observation. He was right, it did.

The prior space had been done with bright & yellow/orange toned lights, beechwood podiums, and a funky smattering of these conical standing-desk/teller stations across the room. It was whimsical and reminded me of Jordan Moser’s work- and for any bank to do that is ballsy as hell. That was WaMu’s brand, though- friendly, approachable, human. Chase conversely, likes being Serious and Trusted- but God forbid, human.

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about brand expressions through interactive patterns, or through more broadly crafted experiences online that affect every sense for the user- fully outside of individual aesthetic tools such as logos, colors, and typography.

My former ballet mistress used to walk around the studio when we’d all be hitting that ‘ohgawdmybodyhurts’ point, and she’d bellow “Ballet is NOT PINK!” I loved that statement, because it’s so true- Ballet is freakin’ gnarly, hard as hell, one of the most fully athletic things I’ve ever done… and making it look all delicate and petite, is a true artistry that only the toughest of athletes can pull off. Likewise, brands are not just about logos & colors. Organizations that present a brand as just a Thingbob or Service with a logo & a color slapped on, litter our sensory landscape with impressions as memorable as a pretty girl dancing traditional ballet steps, but with no athleticism or magic in her step, though wearing the requisite a tutu & pink tights.

Amazon it seems, made the biggest splash with their initial stab at this with contextual upsells & their recommendations engine. Yes, contextual advertising is a whole industry now and not at all about one brand or one product… but the way in which Amazon began weaving recommendations and contextual upsells it into it’s total user experience was very specific, and the backend recommendation engine has been very smartly tuned over the years. Their experience went to crap recently though, and I can’t make heads or tails of it anymore.

Flickr similarly introduced public-facing tagging concept to the world, and the tag-cloud that is oh-so-adorably 2006. Technologies (tagging, recommendations, gestural interfaces) gain a lot of lauding for the organizations & products that initially pioneered or showcased them (Amazon, Google, Flickr, wii, iPhone), but over time other organizations apply those same technologies to their products and the technology becomes ubiquitous across multiple brands. Gestural interfaces & touch-screens will almost always have an association with iPhones and Google will almost always be the Kleenex to AdSense/AdWords-ish systems, but those are binary technology/product associations- not experiences. They’re isms, not something special or emotional.

Experience as an expression of brand is much less cursory, typically more memorable, much less common in critical discourse, and frankly a lot more brain-hurty to both successfully endeavor upon and to figure out the total inter-weavings of, after the fact. Instances are less frequently documented and less obvious to identify- but that’s also part of why they’re great for branding and sort of magical when done *really* well. Branded experiences vs. catchy technologies or aesthetic cues also strengthen in their repeat impressions over time,

On websites or webapps it’s usually a lot of thought & care vested into developing interaction patterns and a voice through which the application guides the user- and the latter is most often a hybrid of copywriting and visual aesthetics. It’s a pain in the goddamn ass to do, but incredibly rewarding to experience when done well. It’s more often seen (imho) in architectural settings, particularly those which involved a design competition as a pre-project study or as a step in hiring. In those situations though, the brand is the space- and when the brand is around commerce or an idea, building an experience to reflect that brand through the participation users is a lofty goal that sadly so many business leaders just don’t see the value in. Short-term vs. long-term ROI, and quantifiable vs. qualitative value. Suits. I own one, and it’s for funerals. Wow, I’m getting jaded.

The opportunities to pepper fun little tricks and interactive gizmos across the development of sites & webapps today are ever increasing, and that also throws into the solution development mix the added imperative to not just slap ambient LED lighting below the overhead bins, or a chat application where weather and TV shows are ordinarily the sole user expectation for available functionality. Think! When tricks & glitter are thrown into an interface, they have to be done thoughtfully- and it’s more than a bit nauseating that so often they’re not.

Ok- I need to quit writing loftilly about all of this stuff, and just put my nose back to the grindstone to figure out how to save the online world, and just maybe how to meet my own expectations & hopes for creating immersive brand experiences in real, bonafide, commerce-driven(ish) applications.