What’s Your Brand Vibe
By Brian Searing.
I was driving down Main Street in Midway, Utah recently. The town name doesn’t describe just how special and quaint Midway is. Residents don’t refer to Midway as a town. Rather they call it a hamlet.
It is a hamlet. Nestled against the Wasatch Mountains in a bucolic valley.
The architecture, the vibe, and the serenity reveal its Swiss settler roots. Walking down Main Street feels a bit like strolling along a side road in Interlaken, Switzerland.
So, I was driving down Swiss-inspired Main Street in Midway when my eye caught a new feature at Café Galleria.
The café has added three “Alpenglobes” to its outdoor seating area right along Main Street. Passing consumers can’t help but notice—and thus salivate for—this unique dining experience... even on a snowy day.
What is an Alpenglobe?
These private shelters allow diners to enjoy outdoor dining year-round. Each Alpenglobe accommodates up to 8 guests and has built-in heating, air circulation, lighting, and are carefully sanitized between each use.
The functional features are important to make this experience successful—good food, attentive service, clean tables. But the real magic comes from the emotional and social features.
Diners sit in the Alpenglobes, noshing on yummy meals while enjoying pristine mountain views, stunning blue skies, and lively dinner conversation.
The Alpenglobes are 100% on-brand for the Swiss-inspired hamlet. Their design’s natural materials, clean lines, and appealing silhouette invoke a European vibe. Even the name of the dining shelters is on-brand!
In turn, the Alpenglobes enhance the restaurant’s brand because they more closely link the restaurant to the hamlet’s brand—to the hamlet’s vibe.
Brands Have a Vibe
Good or bad, hip or square, inviting or repellant, brands have a vibe.
FREE RESEARCH INSIGHT: Through proprietary research conducted by Stone Mantel about customer experiences, we have learned that Vibe, when used as a tool, can make a customer experience feel not just enjoyable, but also meaningful.
How do you define Vibe in the context of customer experience?
Vibe is the resonance you take from experiences and interactions.
Vibe is the underlying element of experience and exudes through everything the brand delivers—the atmosphere, the interpersonal connections, the values, even the emotions the brand team strives to generate in consumers when they engage with the brand’s places, products, and experiences.
If Vibe feels forced or inauthentic, it will detract from the meaning of the experience. Thus, Vibe needs to originate from a company's mission, purpose, and culture. Only then will it add meaning to customer experiences by lifting spirits and helping the brand stand out in the marketplace.
Cultivate a Brand Vibe, and You Cultivate a Meaningful Experience that has Premium Value
A good vibe creates a competitive advantage. Thus, the brand vibe needs to be cultivated and, like the look and voice, become an integral part of how consumers experience the essence of the brand. Brand vibes must fit with and extend the brand purpose.
A good vibe also allows the opportunity to charge a premium.
Think of brands with a distinct vibe.
Trader Joe’s
Apple
Peloton
Harley Davidson
Tesla
Now think of their price tags. (Well, maybe not Trader Joe’s—they are surprisingly reasonably priced.)
Even Café Galleria charges a $20 reservation fee just to book 90 minutes in one of its Alpenglobes. Consumers gladly pay for that authentic experience. And they tend to invite several friends along, which just bumps up the tab.
Why would consumers be willing to pay a premium? Because the experience has meaning. Vibe is just one tool that can be used to infuse meaning into a customer experience.
What’s Your Brand Vibe?
This is not an easy question to answer. Because the way you define your brand vibe may not align with the way your customers do. And when you weigh the two, the most important point of view is the customer’s perception of your brand vibe.
Some companies are blind when it comes to brand vibe—especially negative vibes.
Not 20 years ago, many convenience store chains were notorious for bad vibes. Dirty floors, dim fluorescent lighting, sour smells, filthy restrooms, sticky countertops. Customers patronized convenience stores not because they wanted to, but because they felt they had no other choice. They were shooing away the customers with just the brand vibe.
Enter convenience store chains like QuikTrip, Wawa, and Sheetz, which all made a concerted effort to clean up their acts—literally and figuratively. They designed an experience and a vibe where even picky moms would choose to enter the stores.
You can take control of your brand’s vibe.
Start by asking your customers…
What’s the vibe you feel when you walk inside our building, or consume our product, or use our app?
In what ways does that vibe enhance or diminish your customer experience?
When you think back on your experience with our brand, what’s the residual vibe that you feel?
If the responses hint at negativity—or even mediocrity—you’ve got some work to do.
The good news?
It’s reparable. And with the right customer experience design methodology, it can even shine... like the Alpenglobes.