When you stay at a Double Tree hotel, you get freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
When you go to a Disney theme park, you are treated to clean facilities and clean-cut, personable staff.
When you shop at Nordstrom’s you expect superior customer service.
These are all examples of intangible branding. They are examples of a brand expressing itself through characteristics that are qualifiable, not quantifiable. As I mentioned in previous posts, your brand can have a look and it can have a sound. But when it comes right down to it, it is how your brand feels that usually ends up being the most important.
For example, when you think of these brands, what do you feel?
- Nascar
- Pepperidge Farms
- McDonald’s
- Disney
- Apple
You may not be familiar enough with all of them to have an associated feeling, but I’m sure at least one of those brands communicates with you on an almost subconscious level. When I think if Pepperidge Farms, I get a warm, homey feeling inside. Disney makes me feel like a kid again. And Apple is just plain cool.
How do these brands accomplish this emotional feat? They do it by incorporating intangibles into their brand. Intangibles such as:
- quality of products
- quality of service
- innovation
- cleanliness
- attitudes
What intangibles can you fit into your brand?
I know this can be difficult to do sometimes. I know I struggle with it for my business at times. But I know that at its core, my business mission is to help creative professionals build businesses they love, that they are passionate about, that they would keep working on even if they weren’t earning money for it.
I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say about your experiences with branding in your business. So leave a comment and, as a community, we can help each other build phenomenal brands for our businesses!
Additional Reading On This Topic:
- What is Brand Experience, and Why Does It Matter? Acquia
- 10 ways to improve customer experience (CX) Qualtrics
- ROI of Customer Experience By Jennifer Rice
- Your Brand is Defined by the Customer Experience, Not the Slogan Posted by Doug Meacham
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