Australian Consumers Value Brand Experience

The power of the brand experience is on the up with consumers in Australia and worldwide, as newest research shows that interactions with the brand are an important factor in purchase decisions.

This research strongly endorses the view that the leading brands of today and tomorrow will be those with an experience factor, because once the interactions are in place, these consumers are:

• More likely to consider these brands for purchase
• More likely to recommend these brands to others
• More willing to pay more for those brands

In this case, the experience factor was defined as “interactions with the products, employees or people who represent a brand, as well as anything learnt from that brand’s marketing, word-of-mouth, or recommendations from friends, colleagues, or social media.” So while this does cast a very wide net across what the brand can offer to create a consumer experience, where do the majority of brands fall?

A key outtake from the research for companies is what is being called “the experience gap.” An earlier report surveyed 362 companies, of which 80% described their experience offering as “superior.” Conversely, only 8% of consumers rated those same experiences in the superior bracket. A 2012 survey ranked 154 North American brands according to the strength of their experience, with over 60% of them falling in the realm of “Ok” to “Poor.” The key concern is that the experience gap is not being addressed, or even acknowledged.

There were also some interesting outtakes on consumer trends when it comes to brand experience. Working with Australian numbers only, consumers are 74% more likely to consider a brand if they know they’re going to have a great experience, though the cultural Australian parsimoniousness returns to the fore, with 49% of consumers agreeing that they would be willing to pay a premium price if they know they will have a great brand experience – down from the study average of 58% - although they return to the average with 84% of Australian consumers more likely to recommend a brand based on a great experience.

The report breaks down the report even further, looking at the specific demographics of brand experience. It shows that men are slightly more likely than women to have a higher consideration for brands, as well as being more likely to pay more based on good experiences. Conversely, women – known in some circles as the more “social consumer” – are significantly more likely to recommend brands based on experience (we’re looking at you, mummy-bloggers!).

So what does a good experience look like? We’ve broken it down into the five top principles:

1) Invite participation

Great brand experiences are design-driven: simple, accessible, easy, and inviting to the participant.

2) Build around users

Brand experience learned it from the web: people want their experiences to be relevant and feel customised to their needs. Even delivered at scale, experiences should “fit” the user.

3) Make it shareable

Experience sparks recommendation; experiences should be designed to tap into technology as well as our primal human desire to share.

4) Create community

Beyond fuelling recommendations and referrals, experiences should be designed to connect people around brands – to leverage the few to inspire the many.

5) Make it useful

It should go without saying – any experience should add value to people’s lives.

To sum it up in a sentence – good consumer experiences correlate to repurchase, loyalty and recommendation. To see the full report, click here.

What it means for us: Brand experience is part of the next frontier of retail. We have spoken before of the leaps and bounds that technology is playing in integrating into the purchase cycle – and the experiences therein –but technology is not in and of itself a primary connection tool for the consumer: it is still the brand experience. Unfortunately there is no magic brand-experience cure all for businesses: each type of business requires its own consumer experience to be successful. What the top businesses are doing is keeping an eye on their own brand experiences and those of their competitors – the top players in the field should be emulated and built on, not envied.