Experiential Branding

I have been attending a brand conclave over the last two days. The speaker was a professor at the Columbia Business School in NYC. He has been working in the area of ‘Experiential Branding/Marketing’ over the last 10-15 years & has worked with some of the major companies in the world (such as Vodafone, Skoda etc.) to re-design their brand platform – which essentially is their tag line or the one thing that the brand wants to stand for.

So what is ‘Experiential Branding’? It is trying to understand the way the end consumers lead their lives so you can fit your brand into their lives, rather than coming up with a brand that arbitrarily stands for some values that may or may not be relevant to the consumers. Experiential Branding also helps companies define their target segment more precisely, thereby enabling them to position their brand better. Apple, Nike, Starbucs, Abercrombie & Fitch, BMW Mini, Singapore Airlines, United Colors of Benetton, Skoda, Vodafone etc. are a few companies that have adopted the strategy of Experiential Branding successfully. Interesting stuff, I think I’ll write about them on my other blog.

But there IS something to be said about Indians. We are quite mannerless as a people. One of the worst things we do is not putting our cell phones in silent/vibrating mode while attending a lecture/meeting, when in a theatre etc. This is common courtesy that should be extended to the speaker as well as other members of the audience, and it’s not something we don’t know we should be doing. We know it, yet we don’t do it. And it’s really annoying. What’s worse is that people also take their calls in the middle of the lecture/movie and have a loud full-length conversation! It’s ridiculous! It’s so rude & disrespectful. It makes me really mad. I, for one, feel like going and slapping the person right across their face!

Anyway, let me now calm down and write about the interesting stuff I was talking about on my other blog :)