Being a marketing guy, today I was reading an article on branding by Bill Horan (@bresslergroup) called “Brand Interactions: Trends and Strategies for Digital and Physical Products.” It is a short but very revealing article about the new ways in which consumers interact with brands.
In a nutshell, the author talks about how, in the past five years, the accelerated adoption of technology has transformed both product design and branding. Previously, a business created brand associations with its customers through “physical” elements like shape and form. They were strictly “visual”.
Today, however, there is much more to the product experience than visual design. There is now a “digital” aspect to the brand experience. Think of the Internet of Things (IoT): smart home appliances, devices you talk to, and so on. Due to the increase in technology, products are more sophisticated and therefore there is a whole new brand aspect when it comes to customer experience.
I really liked your description of “disruptive interactions”:
Disruptive interactions fundamentally change the way people interact in a space or with aspects of a product or service. When successful, these interactions become the new standard, leaving people wondering:Why hasn’t it always been like this?“
Bill used the example of Uber, AirBnB and Moen. Uber obviously disrupted the way people rent cars. AirBnB disrupted the way people travel. And Moen’s motion-sensitive faucet disrupted the way people turn on one of the most widely used appliances.
It made me think of the latest generation of online quoting systems now used by some custom plastic injection molders. They are interactive online systems to provide you with quick quotes for plastic injection molding projects. Simply upload your 3D CAD model, specify number of parts, plastic material, and other features, click Submit, and voila, you’ll get a quote for your plastic injection mold and parts. Some even provide the quote instantly. Some also provide the ability to add secondary processes to your parts, such as painting or chrome plating. And if you make any changes to your options, the quote instantly updates to reflect your changes. It couldn’t be faster or easier to get a quote.
Of course, it wasn’t always so quick and easy to get a quote. It used to take weeks of manual calculations to put together such a quote. It took spreadsheets and emails. But today, thanks to technology and huge databases of quotes from previous projects, the quoting process has been automated and everything is done online.
Why hasn’t it always been like this?
