Brand Interactions Are the Future: But Are Interaction Designers Part of Your Agency?

"Call them information architects, experience designers or Jack or Jane -- they are the design geeks who love to sweat the details. They care about "micro-interactions" and toil away at the building blocks of what actually results in a "lovemark" in the end. We love to use applications that help us do things like plan vacations, find old friends and share our passions with the world. The ad industry has made a big mistake in the past by thinking technology was for geeks. Technology, in fact, is a love affair."

Read The Full Article at Advertising Age (Digital Next)

Comments

[David Blum]

Great post David - I've been preaching the same thing at BSSP for almost 2 years now...

[Gina Couper]

Exactly! Had a similar epiphany on Twitter earlier this week. BTW, thanks David for all your beautiful, insightful graphics. Have been following you quietly for a long time. And now on Twitter :-) @juicygina

[Paula Thornton]

I have had to concede that emotion is a relevant element in our designs, but "stimulate the senses" is a bit over the top. "Pissing people off" is a stimulation of the senses, but not a desired goal.

[Paula Thornton]

Dave: Also BIG thanks for making sure the model included a qualifier "DIGITAL Experience Design". Love models that are 'sound'.

[Graham Hill]

David

Great article and very influential no doubt.

But you have to ask where ad agencies have been in the past few years. 'Hiding in the Weeds?', to quote an Eagles song.

The interaction design you describe so well is nothing other than the 'customer touchpoint design' that has been alive and well since being started by Lou Carbone in 1994. That's right, 14 years ago. There is now a huge following for customer experience management, as it is more commonly known, particularly in the more customer-focussed parts of the business world.

I posted on 'What Exactly is Customer Experience Management' recently over at the CustomerThink blog.
http://www.customerthink.com/blog/what_exactly_customer_experience_management

I guess it sometimes takes the product-focussed parts of the world, e.g. ad agencies, a while to catch up.

Keep up the great work.

Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager

Further Reading on Customer Experience Management:

Bernd Schmitt
1. Experiential Marketing
2. Customer Experience Management
The Ex Group

Colin Shaw
1. Building Great Customer Experiences
2. Revolutionise Youe Customer Experience
3. The DNA of Customer Experience
Beyond Philosophy

Lou Carbone
Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again
Experience Engineering
Carbone also works with IBM too.

Shaun Smith & Joe Wheeler
1. Uncommon Practice
2. Managing the Customer Experience
3. See. Feel. Think. Do.
(Smith) Shaun Smith + Co
(Wheeler) The Forum Corporation

Michael Dunn
Building the Brand-Driven Business
Prophet

[Suffian]

Thanks, David! Your post pretty much validates my work at Proximity Malaysia for the past year and a half. I've always believed that it's the small things that make the experience whole. From blog buttons to post-purchase "Thank You!" e-mails. I wish more people in ad agencies would think like you do.