Hey Fringers,

Welcome to the first edition of The Fringe.

First, why the name? As the world of sameness and copycats proliferates, it’s even more important to stand out. And the best way to stand out is through being on the fringe of things. The fringe of experience (the result of what you do for others). The fringe of experiments (how you get to those experiences). The fringe of technology (what you use to get there).

In the end, this newsletter is all about helping you stand out. That’s it. It’s a noisy, cluttered world out there, and people are drowning in comms hell, so how are you establishing connections with your audience in meaningful ways?

This is the power of experience, specifically creating a brand experience (BX) that gets people talking (in a good way). Because great BX gets you more word of mouth (the reigning champ of all acquisition channels) and should lead to more sales (the goal of business).

So every week in this newsletter, we’ll share the latest ideas, news, and mini-breakdowns featuring remarkable campaigns, products, and companies. Our goal is to educate and inspire you to drive differentiated results and grow through BX.

But before we get into everyday affairs, let’s start with some foundational concepts: What is brand experience?

Brand Experience (BX)

Brand experience is the totality of every interaction and touchpoint with the brand. You want to get a hold of it before others do, because whether or not you define what your brand is, it will be defined — by someone else, if not you or your team.

And that’s the trick, right? Because a brand is really what other people think and feel about you. But if you don’t do your part in defining what you want people to think and feel, then you’re leaving it up to the masses to decide what you’re really about.

Your brand strategy, which is really your comms and experience strategy, is to get people to associate a few key terms with your brand. Your brand associations should be a deliberate positioning choice on your side. I remember talking to Martin Lindstrom and he said:

The Xs

To get to that one word, you have to create a differentiated brand experience (BX). And BX is a culmination of all the other Xs. There are five core Xs that influence how people perceive your brand:

1. Media/Marketing Experience (MX)

2. User Experience (UX)

3. Customer Experience (CX)

4. Data Experience (DX)

5. Employee Experience (EX)

Media/Marketing Experience (MX)

This is how your brand communicates with your target audience through various media channels and marketing campaigns. The messages, the visual elements, and the consistency of the brand's voice across all channels make up MX. A well-executed media and marketing strategy should build awareness and develop an emotional connection with the audience.

User Experience (UX)

UX focuses on the usability, accessibility, and overall experience of customers as they interact with your website, platform, or product. This includes website design, navigation, and how easy it is to find and purchase products. This also includes the actual product experience, from the unboxing to and its usability and ease of use. A great UX leads to more satisfaction, more loyalty, and more non-incentivized recommendations (the holy grail).

Customer Experience (CX)

CX is what happens after people become a customer. It considers order management, after-sales support, and overall satisfaction with the products and services. A great CX can turn bad situations into good, create brand advocates, who are more likely to recommend the brand to others (yes!).

Data Experience (DX)

DX is about how a brand uses customer data to create more personalized and tailored experiences — everyone needs to do more of this. This includes using analytics to segment customers, deliver targeted promotions, and make product recommendations based on browsing history or previous purchases. DX can also be something to share with people.

Think Spotify’s end of year campaign, where they send people interesting insights about their listening behaviors over the year.

DX is also about the shift to privacy and control over your own data. There’s a lot to explore here as we move to a cookieless almost-here future.

Employee Experience (EX)

EX is how employees perceive their work environment & company culture. Positive employee experiences creates its own flywheel of goodwill — not just impacting one another, but spreading the love to your customers, too.

Employees are proud to work for a company that takes care of them. Add in a strong brand identity and your team is more likely to have great interactions with customers — and partners, and vendors, and… you get the point.

Bottom line: take care of your people, they will do the rest.

Final tidbits:

From Nielsen: Rising Shopper Expectations

The “good enough” from yesterday are today’s table-stakes. From Nielsen, here are the expectations of your typical online shopper. Each theme speaks for itself:

• Convenience: They expect the physical and online worlds to blend seamlessly.

• Speed: Finding products fast, fast shipping, fast response times, etc.

• Assurance: Secure sites, secure data. Also a part of DX.

• Accuracy: Ship & delivery times, real user reviews, updated pricing.

• Options: Payment options, trials, support through SMS, etc.

• Experience: Surprise add-ons, digital-physical experiences, etc.

It’s on Prime

Here’s an ad spot for Amazon Prime from Wieden-Kennedy to inspire you to make the most of your “shortcomings”:

Tweet of the week:

Talk soon.

Paul