Identity and Experience
by Randall McCarley
September 7th, 2006
What does identity have to do with experience?
I’ve been reading Waiting for Your Cat to Bark and the last bit I read talks about the experience economy.
Today the experience of the product or service - the experience of the exchange itself - defines delight and ultimately spells success or failure for the business and the brand.
I have to agree. But there’s an even bigger part to this and that is your business has two identities! The first is the pecieved identity that your potential customers have of your business that is mainly made up of your branding, PR and buzz.
The second is the experienced identity that your actual customers develop by purchasing from you and using your product or service.
Very rarely do these two identities match. And that is a problem.
If you spend hundreds thousands of dollars promoting one identity, don’t you want that identity to be the reality as well as the perception?
Many businesses fail to carry their branding through the entire customer cycle. Others lose their identity to the identity of their most valueable assets - their emplyees.
Watch out for this. You can use the branding checklist to ensure your printed and digital items reinforce the same message. Constant training will keep your employees on track. It may cost more on the back-end but losing the value of your carefuly crafted identity in the experience will cost even more.
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