Recently, I’m reading more and more that we need to move from experiences to engagement. According to some folks, experiences are passive while engagements are active and therefore better. I believe that this notion is fundamentally flawed and suggests some confusion about what those two actually do. On its face, engagement doesn’t mean much. We can engage all day long, but does anything actually happen? The gold standard for engagement are still online communities and comment sections. Have you recently looked at a typical CNN comment section? Shouting, insults and hatemongering; everything but a thoughtful discourse. I’m certainly engaged, but I’m also stressed the hell out once I’m done. Of course, there are plenty of positive examples, like Coke’s amazing Chok! Chok! Chok! campaign in Hong Kong. But what made the campaign so successful? Was it engagement or experience? Probably both. People could have engaged by simply shaking their phone. But what made the campaign so successful was all the other stuff: Kids met with their friends to shake phones together. Families hosted parties leading up to the 10pm TV ads. And most importantly, it was a completely novel, well, experience. So, what exactly is an experience? In theory, it’s simply an event we encounter. But in reality, experiences are events that create emotional reactions, events that create memories. From a branding perspective, we can assume that, maybe with the exception of Ryanair, we all strive to create positive experiences. In other words, we are creating positive memories associated with our brand. In doing so, brands become active agents in people’s lives. On a philosophical level, this means a lot to me, since I usually care about the products I’m working on. Conveniently, it also means that people want to come back to your product. To sum things up, I’m not arguing that engagement is bad. Nope, it’s great! But in order to be effective, the engagement should be a positive experience. For me, the goal is always that customers walk away with a smile. It’s like the frosting on top of the cake. Or in my case, the oh so delicious spicy sauce on top of the chicken.
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Recently, I’m reading more and more that we need to move from experiences to engagement. According to some folks, experiences are passive while engagements are active and therefore better. I believe that this notion is fundamentally flawed and suggests some confusion about what those two actually do.

On its face, engagement doesn’t mean much. We can engage all day long, but does anything actually happen? The gold standard for engagement are still online communities and comment sections. Have you recently looked at a typical CNN comment section? Shouting, insults and hatemongering; everything but a thoughtful discourse. I’m certainly engaged, but I’m also stressed the hell out once I’m done. Of course, there are plenty of positive examples, like Coke’s amazing Chok! Chok! Chok! campaign in Hong Kong. But what made the campaign so successful? Was it engagement or experience? Probably both. People could have engaged by simply shaking their phone. But what made the campaign so successful was all the other stuff: Kids met with their friends to shake phones together. Families hosted parties leading up to the 10pm TV ads. And most importantly, it was a completely novel, well, experience.

So, what exactly is an experience? In theory, it’s simply an event we encounter. But in reality, experiences are events that create emotional reactions, events that create memories. From a branding perspective, we can assume that, maybe with the exception of Ryanair, we all strive to create positive experiences. In other words, we are creating positive memories associated with our brand. In doing so, brands become active agents in people’s lives. On a philosophical level, this means a lot to me, since I usually care about the products I’m working on. Conveniently, it also means that people want to come back to your product.

To sum things up, I’m not arguing that engagement is bad. Nope, it’s great! But in order to be effective, the engagement should be a positive experience. For me, the goal is always that customers walk away with a smile. It’s like the frosting on top of the cake. Or in my case, the oh so delicious spicy sauce on top of the chicken.

The other day I had to write down my favorite three brands. They are Muji, Nike and Tablet Hotels. It was not until I looked at the list, that I realized that all three are hardcore lifestyle brands. Which made we wonder – what is it about lifestyle brands? I think it all starts with the fact that I don’t really like stuff. It’s a well-known fact that experiences make you happier than products. A good lifestyle brand turns a mundane product into an experience. An object is no longer just an object, it becomes part of a narrative. Nike is king of this. Each product comes with its own universe and you feel awesome to be a part of it. From this perspective, a lifestyle brand is not just a fun marketing instrument. It actually allows products to make you a little bit happier. And that’s pretty damn amazing.
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The other day I had to write down my favorite three brands. They are Muji, Nike and Tablet Hotels. It was not until I looked at the list, that I realized that all three are hardcore lifestyle brands. Which made we wonder – what is it about lifestyle brands? I think it all starts with the fact that I don’t really like stuff. It’s a well-known fact that experiences make you happier than products. A good lifestyle brand turns a mundane product into an experience. An object is no longer just an object, it becomes part of a narrative. Nike is king of this. Each product comes with its own universe and you feel awesome to be a part of it. From this perspective, a lifestyle brand is not just a fun marketing instrument. It actually allows products to make you a little bit happier. And that’s pretty damn amazing.

DAPP Frankly, we started dapp for selfish reasons. Pablo was looking for an iPad case and I was looking for a new kitchen table. But somehow, we couldn’t find anything we liked. You essentially have three options: Modern and crappy made, well crafted and old-timey, or spend thousands of dollars. We started dapp to make modern, affordable, well crafted products. Modern goods made with traditional methods and materials. From humble beginnings in Pablo’s living room, we quickly grew into a travel inspired lifestyle brand. We made minimalist furniture from reclaimed Michigan barn wood, mid-century modern iPad cases from hand pressed Japanese chiyogami paper, and released records of rare international grooves. Dapp was acquired in 2012. Visit the current dapp website here. The Verge wrote a great review of our FlightPad iPad case. Read it here.
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DAPP

Frankly, we started dapp for selfish reasons. Pablo was looking for an iPad case and I was looking for a new kitchen table. But somehow, we couldn’t find anything we liked. You essentially have three options: Modern and crappy made, well crafted and old-timey, or spend thousands of dollars. We started dapp to make modern, affordable, well crafted products. Modern goods made with traditional methods and materials.

From humble beginnings in Pablo’s living room, we quickly grew into a travel inspired lifestyle brand. We made minimalist furniture from reclaimed Michigan barn wood, mid-century modern iPad cases from hand pressed Japanese chiyogami paper, and released records of rare international grooves.

Dapp was acquired in 2012. Visit the current dapp website here. The Verge wrote a great review of our FlightPad iPad case. Read it here.

A quick update to last week’s post about the fancy Starbucks drive thru in Denver. Looks like Tokyo got more lucky. This Starbucks is truly amazing. It’s super exciting to see how global cooperations take on the local. Obviously, things will get even more exiting (and difficult) once this local feeds back into the cooperation and pops up somewhere else on planet earth. But that’s a discussion for another day. For more global local goodness, check out this Harvard Business Review article about McDonald’s local menu.
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A quick update to last week’s post about the fancy Starbucks drive thru in Denver. Looks like Tokyo got more lucky. This Starbucks is truly amazing. It’s super exciting to see how global cooperations take on the local. Obviously, things will get even more exiting (and difficult) once this local feeds back into the cooperation and pops up somewhere else on planet earth. But that’s a discussion for another day.

For more global local goodness, check out this Harvard Business Review article about McDonald’s local menu.

Source: fastcodesign.com

One of the first things you’ll learn in Business School is that brilliant ideas never come out of nowhere. Instead they build on stuff that’s already out there, add new insights, ideas and viewpoints. As for many in design community, Dieter Rams, the legendary industrial designer for Braun, always had a special place in my heart. Oddly enough, I never realized how much his design influenced Apple. When I discovered this graphic at the wonderful Startups, This Is How Design Works I spent a good 30 minutes staring at it in disbelieve! In hindsight, it only makes sense that the company with the greatest industrial design of our age borrows from the greatest industrial designer of all time. Either way, this graphic is quite brilliant and gets even better when we add his own words: “We designers, we don’t work in a vacuum. We need business people. We are not the fine artists we are often confused with. Today you find few companies that take design seriously, as I see it.” Well Dieter, we are certainly hard at work to change that!
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One of the first things you’ll learn in Business School is that brilliant ideas never come out of nowhere. Instead they build on stuff that’s already out there, add new insights, ideas and viewpoints. As for many in design community, Dieter Rams, the legendary industrial designer for Braun, always had a special place in my heart.

Oddly enough, I never realized how much his design influenced Apple. When I discovered this graphic at the wonderful Startups, This Is How Design Works I spent a good 30 minutes staring at it in disbelieve! In hindsight, it only makes sense that the company with the greatest industrial design of our age borrows from the greatest industrial designer of all time. Either way, this graphic is quite brilliant and gets even better when we add his own words: “We designers, we don’t work in a vacuum. We need business people. We are not the fine artists we are often confused with. Today you find few companies that take design seriously, as I see it.” Well Dieter, we are certainly hard at work to change that!

Source: startupsthisishowdesignworks.com

This post occupies a weird space between gross and absolutely amazing. The Taiwanese carrier EVA decided to convert parts of its fleet into Hello Kitty Air. They seriously converted everything from the truck that taxis planes down the runway to the sugar packs. Even the inflight meals, as in the food itself, are Hello Kittified. The attention to detail is just staggering! I always said that it’s my dream to rebrand an airline. This is certainly not what I had in mind. But I cannot help but secretly in love it! And honestly, who knew that Hello Kitty “is five apples tall and weighs three apples?”
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This post occupies a weird space between gross and absolutely amazing. The Taiwanese carrier EVA decided to convert parts of its fleet into Hello Kitty Air. They seriously converted everything from the truck that taxis planes down the runway to the sugar packs. Even the inflight meals, as in the food itself, are Hello Kittified. The attention to detail is just staggering! I always said that it’s my dream to rebrand an airline. This is certainly not what I had in mind. But I cannot help but secretly in love it! And honestly, who knew that Hello Kitty “is five apples tall and weighs three apples?”

I’m seriously obsessed with Everplaces, a new website that allows you to collect places you like. I travel a lot and love to eat at hole in the wall places. Problem with hole in walls: They tend to be in random places and sport nondescript names. Chances that you ever find that place again are pretty slim. Everplaces solves that problem in the most elegant way. Simply add a place via their website. Next time you are in a city, use the iPhone app to look up your places. It’s all location sensitive so you can get directions to the closest place. Not only is everything beautifully designed, but Everplaces really takes advantage of the different platforms. The app is not just a copy of the website but serves a different purpose and both compliment each other. I find this ecosystem approach super exciting and hope that we start seeing more similarly well thought out systems.
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I’m seriously obsessed with Everplaces, a new website that allows you to collect places you like. I travel a lot and love to eat at hole in the wall places. Problem with hole in walls: They tend to be in random places and sport nondescript names. Chances that you ever find that place again are pretty slim. Everplaces solves that problem in the most elegant way. Simply add a place via their website. Next time you are in a city, use the iPhone app to look up your places. It’s all location sensitive so you can get directions to the closest place. Not only is everything beautifully designed, but Everplaces really takes advantage of the different platforms. The app is not just a copy of the website but serves a different purpose and both compliment each other. I find this ecosystem approach super exciting and hope that we start seeing more similarly well thought out systems.