About this post:
Dave Perks dives into our philosophy of experience design and how we apply it to work we do.
Experience Design: It's not what you say. It's how you think.
As many ad agencies around the country experience budget-driven difficulties, we are fortunate to be working with some incredible clients on some very exciting projects. Sure, we're not a traditional ad agency in any sense, in fact, we're almost positive that's why we're doing well right now.
Our capabilities extend beyond much of what the agencies of today (or yesterday, depending on how you look at it) offer. What makes us different is that we find innovative ways to let the actual customer experience drive the message. And that means that if the experiences our clients offer aren't the best they could be, our first order of business is to help them create something awesome, THEN tell people about it. Not the other way around. After all, nothing kills a bad product faster than great advertising. We call it experience design.
So what is experience design?
Our approach with every client is to find the stories that must be told. We go looking for them by taking part in the experience ourselves.
But this is only half of what needs to happen. Next, we have to find the people who want to enjoy the experience for themselves. Broad demographics are a start.
• College-educated
• Household income: $75K +
• Male
• Interested in outdoors, family activities, and adventurous
But really, that's it, a start. That bulleted list provides no insight into this "person" other than he is a relatively successful family man who likes being outside. The question is, how can we personalize this?
Find the people who matter
There are millions of men in the world who would fall into a category such as this, but how many of them have shared an experience with our client? And what about the people who may not fit into this demographic? After all, ad agencies speak in terms of "Preferred Demographics" right? We believe the other audiences are equally important because everyone talks about the things they like and don't like.
So, how many of them enjoyed it? Or not? What do they tell other people about the experience? Will they come back for more?
Putting it all together
Once we're familiar with the experience and talked to others who are, as well, it's time to formulate a message. By talking to people from multiple audiences, we get a ton of insights that we can then use to strategically communicate with other people. The message can be told in any number of ways, what's critical is telling it in a way that each audience will be open to it.
This means customizing (not changing) the story for each audience and talking directly to them whenever possible. This is where we throw the doors open to possibility. Once we know your audiences, we'll create and execute a communications plan that will carry your brand to the people you care about.
I think I’d come back for more…. and I know that I’d give your subjects a heads-up that they’ll be totally overwhelmed with the interest they get from this sort of production.
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Posted by Steven on 03/09/09 at 8:06AM