Brands are increasingly focused on their overall emotional impact, and for good reason: we’re more inundated than ever with constant appeals to our attention and funds. Having a positive emotion attached to a memory of your brand or product is one of the most important goals to pursue in any form of marketing. That’s nothing new, really—iconic brands like Coca-Cola have been utilizing this philosophy for decades.
What is new (newer, at least) is our diverse array of ways to consume these branding experiences, and in shorter and shorter bursts. One implication of this shift is that you have many more small opportunities to create pain or pleasure. We can broadly refer to all of this as “content”, and it deserves frequent consideration. No doubt, I find this to be important, so I talk about it a lot.
A major component of being a full-time user experience designer is spending hours upon hours in the ‘shoes’ of the intended audience, so I naturally find myself analyzing content everywhere I go—it’s pretty similar to how, since I was a baseball umpire for seven years, I can’t see a game without focusing heavily on the umpires. The only issue is that the overwhelming majority of content I observe is either a missed opportunity or just plain thoughtless and bad for the brand. Negativity creeps in.
Since it’s really easy for me to complain and tell you what not to do, I thought it would be a good exercise to share content that I found to be excellent. I’ll be publishing short, easy-to-read posts with a single piece of content that serves as a good example of being thoughtful, appropriate, high-quality, and enjoyable. You can always feel free to participate by suggesting content in the comments section. I hope this series serves you by celebrating excellence and encouraging you to build better content.