Creating a Digital-Centered Customer Experience

30 April 2015

#1NWebinar: User Experience & Brand

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Welcome

Ryan Schulz Director, Brand Planning

Kalev Peekna Managing Director, Strategy @kpeekna

Previously on

One North Webinars

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Brand-Planning Framework

Brand Idea:

Brand Persona:

Brand Strategy:

Communications Strategy:

Tactics:

Overall Customer Experience:

Essence and Purpose

Voice, Brand DNA, and Actions

Activating the persona in order to achieve an outcome

What we will say and when

Logistics of executing the strategy

The foundation of everything; the only thing that really matters

In order to create a fully formed brand experience, you must begin at the top and work down.

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Brand-Planning Framework

Brand Idea:

Brand Persona:

Brand Strategy:

Communications Strategy:

Tactics:

Overall Customer Experience:

Essence and Purpose

Voice, Brand DNA, and Actions

Activating the persona in order to achieve an outcome

What we will say and when

Logistics of executing the strategy

The foundation of everything; the only thing that really matters

Most organizations get easily distracted with the tactical aspects of marketing.

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Key Takeaways

•  Consider the entire framework.

•  Start at the top.

•  Create something that stakeholders can actually care about; find your big idea.

•  Beware of tactics that lack a strategy.

Today on

One North Webinars

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Do Brand & UX/UI Go Together?

Brand Strategy

•  Focused on identity & impressions

•  Conceptually driven

•  Differentiation!

•  Thinks UX/UI is “tactical”

UX/UI Strategy

•  Focused on interactions and behaviors

•  Data driven

•  Best practices!

•  Thinks brand is “ego-centric”

Ideas only matter when they are experienced beyond the level of impressions.

Best practices are by definition neither innovative nor differentiating.

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Different Disciplines, Same Goals

Brand Strategy and UX/UI Strategy are really just different disciplines aiming at the same goal – a good customer experience.

Brand Strategy

UX/UI Strategy

Customer Experience

UX/UI

Brand

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Brand & UX/UI Need Each Other

Brand Idea:

Brand Persona:

Brand Strategy:

Communications Strategy:

Tactics:

Overall Customer Experience:

Essence and Purpose

Voice, Brand DNA, and Actions

Activating the persona in order to achieve an outcome

What we will say and when

Logistics of executing the strategy

The foundation of everything; the only thing that really matters GOAL There is a lot in UX/UI strategy that is not brand-dependent. However, the customer experience is almost always improved when UX/UI is informed by a well-defined brand.

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Today

Today we’ll talk about how UX/UI strategy helps bring brand to life, and how core brand concepts help to inform, inspire, and improve strategy.

•  Case study: PwC

•  Where brand & UX/UI meet –  Context & Distribution –  Content Strategy –  Web UI –  Tone & Style

•  One more thing…

Such prize! WOW

very caffeine

slurp!

awake 4 u

many coffee amaze

so espresso

Case Study: PWC

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PWC

Brand Essence: Intelligent growth

Brand Promise: Helping clients create the value they are looking for.

Tagline: Building relationships, creating value

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•  A mark that was born to be digital

•  That works well in a variety of digital contexts

•  And is translated to the real world in unexpected ways

PWC

Translating PWC’s Brand:

CEO Survey

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PWC Annual Global CEO Survey •  Interviews conducted with 1300+

CEOs

•  Truly global: Geographic selection based on GDP

•  2015 was the 18th year of the survey

•  Deployed across many digital channels with careful attention to cadence and context.

•  Each discrete interaction is informed by and reinforces PWC’s brand platform.

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Pre-Launch In the run-up to the launch of the report, key PWC leaders will “tease” pieces of information on social channels like Twitter to help build interest.

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Launch at World Economic Forum The official launch of the report occurs at the WEF in Davos, Switzerland. Timing the campaign to this prestigious event lends the greatest possible impact to its release.

Not going to Davos? Did your spouse steal the private jet for the weekend?

You can always review the video and/or webcast and/or live blog.

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Introducing the Report to New Users Upon launch, PWC offers a quick 60-second overview to users who are new to the survey.

It shows careful handling of new vs. established relationships, a key pillar of their brand.

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Connecting Participants & Recipients Video has been an element in their content campaigns for many years. In addition to the overview videos, they also offer conversations with some of the CEOs who took the actual survey.

This adds depth and interest to the main content, and emphasizes the importance of PwC's relationships.

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Natively Digital Report The actual report is delivered digitally in a custom section of their main website. Users easily and naturally see ties to other PWC themes.

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Intelligent Interaction A natively digital content strategy also allows interactivity that is impossible in other media.

Users can "explore the data" with a variety of filters and controls, getting a unique (and personally relevant) cut that may not be available in a PDF.

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Exploiting the Echo Effect

The campaign does not stop at launch. PWC's corporate social channels market the survey extensively in the following weeks.

More surprisingly (and more effectively), leaders and partners at PWC actively distribute the survey or its key insights through their own online presences.

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PWC Survey: Branded UX Strategy

The PWC CEO Survey is an excellent case of “branded strategy.” Key elements that tie the two together include:

•  Context: Content is in the right places at the right time Social networks, event tie-in

•  Content Strategy: Type, format & length align to themes Videos of CEOs demonstrate relationships

•  Web UI: Interactivity proves brand claims Data interaction demonstrates intelligence and innovation

•  Tone & Style: Brand voice permeates entire campaign Professional & concise, but also excited & optimistic

Brand & UX/UI Strategy

Context Content Strategy

Web UI Tone & Style

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Context is Where User Meets Brand

Context is a multifaceted word, but it is ultimately about the art of placing your content in the right place, at the right time.

Think of it as Content Merchandising.*

* “Content Merchandising” idea blatantly stolen from my colleague, Jen Bullett. (Hi Max!)

Channel Time & Timing

Physical Place Arrangement People

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Creating the Right Context

The fundamental rule for context in UX/UI Strategy is to be where your users are. But that’s not always enough.

Consider:

Facebook Maturity Model (for “mature” professionals):

What are my kids up to?

Darn it. My mom found me.

I don’t remember this person at all.

That is indeed a very cute cat.

My friends are interesting.

Am I a bad person if I don’t like this?

My friends are boring.

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Users Have to be Ready for Interaction

No matter how much of your audience is on Facebook, they probably don’t want to see marketing content for professional services:

An effective digital context will align not just to the habits of your users, but also to the principles & qualities of your brand.

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Who Does Context Right: EY

Like many consulting firms, EY distributes its content in many channels. Each owned channel is appropriatly branded and targeted to key audiences:

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Who Does Context Right: EY Attention to context is especially apparent in how EY places content in non-owned platforms.

A native advertising partnership with Forbes provides EY with:

•  Right audience •  Right place •  Right time •  Right “company”

Brand & UX/UI Strategy

Context Content Strategy

Web UI Tone & Style

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Content Strategy: What We Mean “Content Strategy” is one of the least-well-defined terms in UX strategy today. In this presentation, we are focusing on these aspects of how you develop and deploy content to achieve specific goals:

Topic Length Format Source Timing

•  New issue

•  Update

•  Results

•  Analysis / research

•  People

•  Tweet

•  Note

•  Abstract / brief

•  Story

•  In-depth report

•  Copy

•  Conversation (social)

•  Graphic

•  Slideshow

•  Video

•  Data

•  Interaction

•  Firm

•  Group

•  Leader

•  Expert

•  Influencer

•  Morning update

•  Before/at/after event

•  Meeting material

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Content Strategy: Connection with Brand

The choices you make in your content strategy, whether overall or for a specific campaign, can elicit a range of experience-based brand associations.

CONTENT BRAND

engage inspire inform

challenge surprise amuse

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Content Strategy: The Visual Revolution

The desire to create strategic, experience-based associations is behind many predominant trends in content innovation:

New York Times

Information Graphics = Inform

TEDTALKS

“TED Video” = Inspire

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Content Strategy: Who Does It Well

Strategy& (formerly Booz & Co) offers multiple formats based not on industries or specific topic areas, but on how you want to consume and what value you are seeking:

Keeping me informed

Inspiring me

Research that helps me improve

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Content Strategy: Who Does It Well

Goldman Sachs – Social Impact Bonds

In this graphic, Goldman Sachs artfully intersects what are often presented as distinct pieces:

•  Information graphic – education/information

•  Social impact – corporate citizenship

•  Case study – evidence of expertise

Several key brand associations are expressed in a single, compelling piece.

Brand & UX/UI Strategy

Context Content Strategy

Web UI Tone & Style

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Web UI: More Than Best Practices As a discipline, UX/UI for the web relies heavily on best practices:

Best practices are good things. However, by definition, they won’t get you to “new,” “innovative” or “different.”

5 ± 2 items

“F” pattern layout

strong calls-to-action

follow, don’t lead the user

test and learn

establish a hierarchy

looks alike, works alike use contrast

don’t fear whitespace

make it touchable

consistency. consistency. consistency.

beware of metaphors

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Web UI: Who Does It Well

EY, 5 Minutes http://5minutes.ey.com/

•  Curated selection

•  Broken into 5-minute “chunks”

•  UI maximized for copy/visual scanning

•  Integrates into your regular information consumption

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Web UI: Who Does It Well

Debevoise & Plimpton www.debevoise.com

Even with a well-defined hierarchy, Debevoise’s homepage has more content than “best practices” might dictate.

But the UI is informed by specific brand goals:

•  Activity – show that we are busy

•  Unexpected – surprise with work outside “typical” cases

•  Connected – reveal our deep relationships with innovative businesses

Brand & UX/UI Strategy

Context Content Strategy

Web UI Tone & Style

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Prize Time!

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A Quick Contest about Style

Calling all ex-English majors.

Here are the rules:

•  We’ll show 3 excerpts from books you read should have read in high school.

•  We’ll reveal the author of two of them. Guess the author of the third.

•  Submit your guess along with a question about this webinar in the webinar chat function.

•  First correct guess (with a question!) wins a $25 Starbucks gift card. Extra $10 if you guess the book correctly.

Know the Author?

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What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen…

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Know the Author?

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It was very hot and bright, and the houses looked sharply white. We turned out onto the Gran Via.

“Oh Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed, suddenly pressing Brett against me.

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Know the Author?

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

A. Charles Dickens

B. Henry James

C. Jane Austen

D. Mark Twain

Tone & Style: Why It’s Important

Most marketers know tone & style for copy & imagery are important. UX/UI Strategy adds another level to this concern.

The more our content is shared and distributed, the less we can rely on visual systems (logo, color, type) to create brand associations.

Web

Our Blog

Social

Re-share

Mention

Share

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“Brand Fade”: PWC

Brand has to be present in the content itself, or it’s easily lost:

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Tone & Style: Who Does it Well

Acapo:

•  Dual-language: English & Norwegian.

•  Clear. Concise.

•  Interrogative.

•  Curious about you.

•  Excited to work.

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Acapo: Service Description Service descriptions have a consistent structure and align to the brand tone. Interrogative style demonstrates that they understand the client’s perspective.

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Acapo: News Item News items, even those about firm case studies, are firmly focused on the client’s perspective.

This item starts not with the “win,” but with the core theme that makes the win important.

Acapo’s involvement only comes in at the end.

Wrap-Up

UX/UI

Brand

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Brand & UX/UI Need Each Other

Brand Idea:

Brand Persona:

Brand Strategy:

Communications Strategy:

Tactics:

Overall Customer Experience:

Essence and Purpose

Voice, Brand DNA, and Actions

Activating the persona in order to achieve an outcome

What we will say and when

Logistics of executing the strategy

The foundation of everything; the only thing that really matters GOAL

CONTEXT • CONTENT STRATEGY • WEB UI • TONE & STYLE

Next time on

One North Webinars

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May 20, 2015 – 11 AM EDT / 10 AM CDT

Nate Denton Managing Director, Creative Services

Creating a Digital-Centered Customer Experience: Branded Expression Systems

20 May 2015 Webinar: 10 AM Central

http://www.onenorth.com/blog/post/1nwebinar-creating-a-digital-centered-customer-experience-branded-expression-systems

Q&A / Discussion

Prize Time!

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Know the Author?

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

A. Charles Dickens

B. Henry James

C. Jane Austen

D. Mark Twain

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R U a #Winner?