April 28, 2010 7:49 pm “Try before you buy” is a brand ritual to live by

Kiehl’s opened its doors in the East Village over 150 years ago, and one of the brand rituals that started with the founder himself is still prominently pleasing customers today – product sampling.

At any customer’s request (often my own), Kiehl’s provides hand-mixed samples of any product. But it doesn’t stop there. Product samples are enough to last a customer for three days. It’s purposefully just enough to give the product a proper trial before buying an entire bottle. Not only is it a feel-good experience to walk out with a coveted freebie, it’s also a ritual that’s been ingrained in what it means to shop at Kiehl’s.

When the ritual of product sampling started over a century and a half ago, Kiehl’s motto quietly became “Try before you buy!” and it’s amazing that it’s still practiced today.

Sure, anyone can give out a prepackaged bit of moisturizer. But there’s something about a hand-packed vial of Kiehl’s that makes it all the more special. Plus, it makes spending $17 on a bottle of Creme de Corps just a liiiiittle bit easier to swallow.


April 27, 2010 2:08 am Vapiano says “fresh” without uttering a word

Seeing the name Vapiano on the fast-casual restaurant door immediately calls to mind an Italian kitchen with warm, savory dishes. Yet when you first walk into the German-born restaurant, one of the first things you’ll notice is a tiny little unexpected detail. The cooking and eating surfaces are adorned in potted herbs — no, not flowers, not wine displays, not shelves full of antipasto and crusty breads — just herbs. Fresh, minimalist, fragrant, potted herbs tastefully placed on the tables, the counters and the prep areas where chefs prepare your made-to-order meals.

Not only are the herbs there to tempt your senses of sight and smell, they’re also there to tempt your sense of taste. In Europe, where Vapiano calls home, diners are encouraged to pick herbs straight from the plants on their table to garnish the dish in front of them. Although US food laws do not allow such an amazing branded ritual (touch and smell, yes; eat, no), Vapiano locations in the US encourage their patrons to specify to their chef exactly “how they like their herbs.” Me? I’ll have the pesto pasta with extra oregano and a few basil leaves, please.

And the most amazing part? After a quick skim of their website and their menus, nowhere could I find the phrase “fresh herbs.” Without saying or typing a word, Vapiano successfully communicates in their stores exactly how fresh their foods are through simple branded rituals, visual messaging and by tapping the core of your human being — your five senses.


April 23, 2010 3:09 pm Sometimes it’s about the tiniest details

Cosi gives us flatbread samples. Starbucks calls their employees “baristas.” And Spice Market requires their female wait staff wear gold earrings.

Indian-inspired earrings. In yellow gold. Nothing else will do.

Spice Market is a restaurant in the heart of New York City’s Meatpacking District that focuses on Southeast Asian cuisine. But it’s not just the cuisine that makes it Southeast Asian. In addition to menu items like curried duck and chicken wings drizzled in sticky-sweet chile sauce, the restaurant decor is straight out of an Indian bazaar. And from a brand experience perspective, yellow gold earrings are the icing on the cake.

According to owner and founder Lois Freedman, “I’m very visual,” she says. “I’m involved in the look of a restaurant, down to the staff’s jewelry. At 66, I don’t allow it. At Spice Market, I want the women to wear Indian earrings, yellow gold. I have to be specific. Otherwise they could come in with turquoise ones from New Mexico!” (New York Magazine, “Spice Marketer” by Beth Landman)

And she’s right. The tiniest detail – down to the color and style of staffs’ earrings – has more of an impact on your customer’s brand experience than you’d think. It’s this type of attention to details and congruent messaging that help create a spot-on, in-sync brand experience


April 10, 2010 4:38 pm I love a silver spoon!

Iced coffee used to be just ice coffee until La Colombe. La Colombe is a Philadelphia based coffee chain that has taken the coffee house experience up another notch. (There are two locations in the city that I know of – one on Lafayette/Prince, the other is in Tribeca). All of their coffee products are outrageously good, but their iced coffee is downright sinful. Their house version of iced coffee comes with a shot of espresso added to their already robust regular coffee blend – making for an unforgettable taste experience (and quite the morning buzz!).

But beyond the amazingly good coffee, La Colombe stands apart for me in other ways. At Brand Synchronicity, we’re big on brand touchpoints and rituals. La Colombe’s use of extremely tasteful hand painted black and white china pottery creates a feeling of uniqueness, authenticity and artisinal craftsmanship (it’s a hard working touchpoint, trust me!).

But the real differentiator for me is their ritual of placing a little plate with a long handled silver spoon alongside your coffee so that you can actually stir your cream (they use half and half – yum) with an honest to goodness, real live spoon! It’s such a small detail, but makes such a big difference in the experience of “dressing” my coffee. Instead of making me use some flimsy plastic or wooden stick, I am actually treated to this incredible moment of decadence in which I am able to stir my perfect coffee with a perfectly sized silver spoon.

The servers actually hand wash every plate and spoon after you’ve used them which is a massive commitment to this ritual on their end – but no one can compete with this place in terms of creating such a significant slice of coffee heaven in the morning. (The fact that the servers are pleasant is a lovely added bonus.)

La Colombe has ruined me for iced coffee anywhere else. The coffee is amazing, the aesthetic is inspired, but their “silver spoon ritual” steals a piece of my heart every morning.


April 6, 2010 10:40 pm My favorite books

I’ve read LOTS of books on brain science and the psychology of the mind, but here’s a list of the ones that have been most influential to the formation of my ideas:

John Medina, Brain Rules

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

Gert Gigerenzer, Gut Feelings

Gerald Zaltman, How Customers Think

Antonio Damasimo, Descartes Error

Malcolm Gladwell, Blink

Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide

Health and Feldwick, 50 Years of Using the Wrong Model of TV Advertising

Robert Heath, The Hidden Power of Advertising

If you have others that you think should be added to the list, please let me know!


4:57 pm Did you know that…

  1. We’re not the rational beings we like to think we are. The truth is that our brains prefer not to think if they don’t have to, with as much as 90% of the information we use to make decisions coming from our subconscious mind.
  2. We’ve got a built in “credibility receptor” hard-wired into our brains. The amygdala sends warning signals when it detects suspicious behavior, just one of our many survival mechanisms designed to steer us clear of potential danger (or potentially unworthy brands!)
  3. There’s a distinct set of circuits in the brain that is responsible for telling stories about oneself and the world. Part of our biological evolution relies on storytelling (think cave drawings), meaning we are naturally predisposed to sharing real or fictional accounts of events with other people.
  4. Our brain strives for consistency, trying as hard as hard as it can to create order out of chaos. Congruence—a state of agreement or harmony—is the ultimate goal, thus explaining that pleasant feeling when things make sense and that “something isn’t right” feeling when we get when they don’t.
  5. Vision takes up about half of the brain’s resources. We’re pre-wired to process information first and foremost through sight, our eyes quite literally the windows to the world.
  6. Our other senses are directly linked to our feelings. Through hearing, smell, taste, and touch, we engage with our positive (or negative) emotions instantly and intuitively, making sensory stimuli a truly touchy-feely experience.
  7. Actions really do speak louder than words. Behavior is the key to learning and memory—the brain much prefers to take part in some activity rather than just being told about it.
  8. When it comes to retaining information, frequent bursts of information that require minimal attention work better than infrequent bursts that require high levels of attention (like Superbowl ads!) Repetition, and lots of it, pushes stimuli into automatic processing mode, making it more likely we’ll remember it.
  9. BONUS: Context is at least as important as content when it comes to processing information. How you say something matters more than what you say, in other words, the brain highly sensitive to associations, feelings, and relationships.

April 5, 2010 4:46 pm Megan on Mary van de Wiel’s Brand Lab Radio

Here’s a recording I did recently on Mary van de Wiel’s Brand Lab Radio.  To listen, click the icon below.

Megan Kent on Mary van de Wiel’s Brand Lab Radio

For Mary’s summary of our chat click here: www.zingyourbrand.com

I’ve also reprinted Mary’s write up here:

“It’s 73º and sunny here in Brooklyn New York and no better time that the present to tell you about the great radio interview I had with Megan Kent on NY Brand Lab Radio recently! You can hear the interview right now if you go to http://blogtalkradio.com/ny-brand-lab-radio.

FYI Next week, I will have my new RADIO link up on my web page with all the archived shows on http://zingyourbrand.com

Here’s an overview of my interview with Megan Kent:

Megan Kent, founder of www.BrandSynchronicity.com is a highly esteemed branding expert in the American advertising arena and author of her soon-to-be-published book, Get Your Brand in Sync. I loved having Megan on the show as my first guest, no less, talking about her revolutionary new marketing method for connecting with consumers in the 21C. In a nutshell, Megan says that there are seven essential steps to speaking the language of the brain.

If you can master these seven in-sync principles, and actually talk in a way that the brain LONGS FOR, then you’re on your way. Or as Megan puts it, “Create brands a brain can love.” Sounds easy, right?! Megan goes on to say, “Imagine creating an intuitively desirable brand without spending a dime on advertising? All you have to do is learn to talk to your audience the way their brains long to listen. It’s all about connecting before you’ve even said a word.”

Megan’s seven in-sync principles are:

  1. Authenticity
  2. Congruence
  3. Story
  4. Visual Messaging
  5. Senses
  6. Behaviors
  7. Repetition

Listen to Megan talk on NY Brand Lab Radio and you’ll be able to hear Megan go through each principle and describe in detail – just how the brain works, what it longs for (and craves for) and how to make the art of neuroscience work for you, in your marketing efforts. Here’s that link again: http://blogtalkradio.com/ny-brand-lab-radio.

Enjoy!



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