The Innovation Diaries

Your perception of a brand is formulated through all the small interactions you have with it everyday. So how would your opinion of your local shop change if you approached to find it’s delivery van splayed across it’s own disabled parking bays? Each and every small gesture builds our relationship with a given company or product, and it only takes on bad experience to taint our viewpoint on a company forever.

Checking out Kanye West’s blog recently (the fr-fr-freshest RSS feed for the worldwide trendwatching squad) I came across a new touchless remote control from Bang & Olufsen, who are friends of ours. After being wowed by the video demo, I thought I’d pop in to my local B&O store to have a try for myself. Here’s the exchange;

Me: “Hello, how are you? I saw a cool new remote you guys made on the internet yesterday”
B&O Salesman: [holding up standard small Bang & Olufsen remote] “Oh right you mean this”
Me: “No, it was a strange metallic ring that lights up as you put your hand in it”
B&O Salesman: “No, we don’t make anything like that”
Me: “Yes you do, I saw it on the net”
B&O: [getting slightly irate] “No we definitely do not”
Me: “OK, sure. Goodbye!”

In that short exchange, my entire perception of the brand had changed. A salesman for a technology company that not only didn’t know the innovative gadgets that were being created by his company, but he didn’t even care? Why not ask me “Ah, where did you see it? Perhaps I could check it out and ask someone for you?” - but instead, the cold shoulder. They are the very definition of an aspirational brand - as a youngster, I would salivate looking at the Beosound 9000 in our local department store, and grew up thinking that eventually I would deck my house out with their beautiful technology. And now, after a wholly negative, shrift, sub-30 second experience, that intrinsic yearning may be lost forever. Surely there must be some way for Bang & Olufsen to take the passion we know they put into their innovation process and design ethic to filter through to their retail experience …