Guest writer Carl Griffith is a design thinker, passionate about brand and marketing. He’s returning to WIT as a delegate after a couple of years’ absence.
Carl Griffith
As I look forward to re-acquainting myself with WIT (I’ve not been for a few years), I’m reflecting on my previous involvement with the event. I remember some of the inspirational, amusing and wonderfully unusual speakers.
I also remember an evening one year on Club Street with plenty of drink and some fine food courtesy of Brand Karma. I remember those things and more to varying degrees but it’s the overall energy and persona that defines WIT that resonate with me most.
What WIT does is land brand promises through experiences.
As we move from a brand-centric world towards a customer-centric way of communicating and doing our business, we are all becoming increasingly less interested in brands telling us that they have this thing or they deliver on that promise – they just need to make good on those claims in the way they deliver those experience through their products or services.
I was sitting at a coffee place the other day that promised ‘artisan’ tea and ‘gourmet’ sandwiches. Apart from my having a problem with both these words, I’d rather they just served me good tea and sandwiches. Wouldn’t that be better?
Maybe talk about the importance (or not) of social media will be part of WIT this year. There may be a session on MarTech and more ramblings about big data – what is it and is it any good or even useful? What about marketing automation? All good stuff of course. But now, more than ever, your marketing, your brand promises and your company’s values need to be delivered to me (preferably in a customised and personalised way – but that’s another post!) through the way I experience everything about you. Don’t tell me how good you are – land that promise in experience after experience.
Don’t, for example, just tell me that ‘booking is now easier than ever’ – fix your website UX/UI and give me a mobile application that actually addresses my needs as a mobile consumer and doesn’t merely replicate and re-purpose website functionality.
Don’t just tell me that you ‘understand my holiday needs’ – take a look at my browsing history on your site, my previous bookings with you, the rest of my digital foot print (where you’re allowed) and then send me and show me stuff that I might be interested in.
Don’t tell me that ‘every guest is important’ – make me feel important.
I feel like I’ve been banging on about this for years but it seems sometimes that after the surge of ‘consumer experience talk’ 10 years ago, some people seem to have forgotten. It’s really important.
A good test of this to think how you’d describe WIT to someone – think about that for a second. See. Told you so.
See you next week.
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