Crafting Experiences: Uniting Rikyu’s Wisdom With Brand Experience Principles
Brand experience refers to all customer interactions and engagements with a brand, encompassing various brand channels, products, services, and encounters from the company website to unpacking its product. It involves following the user each time she comes into contact with the brand and ensuring that her experience is consistent and pleasant.
Beyond merely designing products or services, the designers or design team (along with the marketing department) must strive to create memorable, emotional, and immersive interactions with their customers. A compelling brand experience attracts and retains customers while reinforcing the brand promise.
Achieving this goal can be daunting but not impossible as long as designers follow specific principles. Recently, I attended a tea ceremony in the Japanese city of Kyoto, where I was introduced to Rikyu’s timeless wisdom. With fascination, I saw that such wisdom and insight could be applied to the principles of a compelling brand experience in the following ways.The Japanese Tea Ceremony, According to Tea Master Rikyu
The seven principles of Rikyu were developed by Sen no Rikyu, a revered tea master of the 16th century. Each principle encapsulates the essence of the Japanese tea ceremony, emphasizing not only the preparation of tea but also the creation of a harmonious, meaningful experience.During my own captivating tea ceremony experience, I gained valuable insights and a fresh perspective on how designers can help create meaningful connections between brands and their audiences, much as the tea ceremony has done for generations.Rule One: Making a Satisfying Bowl of Tea
The first principle of Rikyu goes right to the heart of the tea ceremony: preparing a satisfying bowl of tea.This deceptively simple principle reminds designers that everything we design for a brand should be able to provide a memorable experience for the final user. We should aim to go beyond simple brand and customer transactions and instead focus on crafting experiences through products and services.Examples:
- Airbnb,
- Duolingo.
Airbnb: Redefining Travel Through Experience
Compared to competitors like Booking.com, Airbnb has completely redefined the experience of travelling, adding a strong storytelling aspect.From the beginning, the brand has offered a way for travelers to truly immerse themselves in the culture and lifestyle of their destinations.Today, Airbnb’s website shows the brand offering the possibility of “living” in an extraordinary place, from cozy apartments to extravagant castles. We can see that their brand isn’t just about finding the right accommodation but also about creating enduring memories and stories.
Their services have been significantly updated in recent years, offering customers great flexibility to book in total safety from qualified hosts (called Superhosts) with homes that have been reviewed and reflect Airbnb quality standards.Takeaway: Aim to create experiences that stay with people long after they have interacted with your brand.
Duolingo: Language-Learning as a Playful Adventure
Language learning is often considered a daunting task, one that pushes us out of our comfort zones. But Duolingo, with its playful and gamified approach, is changing that perception.Their app has transformed language learning into a delightful adventure that anyone can join, even for just five minutes a day.By creating characters that team up with Duo (the owl mascot), Duolingo injects a sense of companionship and relatability into language learning, making it feel like taking a journey alongside a helpful friend.
Takeaway: Break down complex tasks into enjoyable, bite-sized experiences that improve the long-term experience.
Rule Two: Efficiently Laying the Charcoal for Boiling Water
As I took my place in the tea room, just opposite the tea master, he explained that charcoal plays an extremely important role in the ceremony. It must be precisely placed to encourage airflow, prevent the fire from extinguishing prematurely, and prepare tea at the perfect temperature.For designers, this translates into creating a comprehensive set of guidelines and rules that dictate how every brand element should look, feel, and behave.Much like the precise arrangement of charcoal, a well-designed brand system is the foundation of consistent and efficient brand representation that ensures harmony and coherence across every touchpoint.
This may seem obvious, but it is only in the last decade that technology companies have started creating elaborate and complete brand guidelines.Examples:
- IBM,
- Atlassian.
IBM: Consistency Breeds Loyalty and Recognisability
When we think about the connection between brand and technology, it’s natural to think immediately of Apple and Steve Jobs. So you could be surprised that in fact, IBM was one of the first tech companies to hire a professional graphic designer.Acclaimed graphic designer Paul Rand designed the iconic IBM logo in 1956. The collaboration between Paul Rand and the company went on for many years, becoming a benchmark for the integration of design principles into the corporate identity of a tech company.Even today, IBM’s design system Carbon is a testament to the power of simplicity and consistency. Focusing on clarity and functionality, IBM’s brand elements work seamlessly across a diverse range of products and services, including events and workplaces. The Carbon design system is also open source, meaning anyone can contribute to improving it.
Takeaway: A consistent and well-designed brand identity allows for organic growth and expansion without diluting the brand, reinforcing brand loyalty and recognition.
Atlassian: Guiding Future Decisions
Atlassian is a software company with a diverse product portfolio. Their design system promotes scalability and flexibility, while their brand elements are designed to adapt harmoniously across various Atlassian applications.
This adaptability ensures a unified brand experience while accommodating the unique characteristics of each product. It serves as a compass, helping designers navigate the vast landscape of possibilities and ensuring that each design decision made for each Atlassian product aligns with the brand’s essence.Takeaway: A strong design foundation serves as an invaluable guide as brands evolve and expand their offering through more different products and services.
Rule 3: Providing Warmth in Winter and Coolness in Summer
In the art of the Japanese tea ceremony, the provision of warmth in winter and coolness in summer is a delicate balance, attuned to the emotional and physical states of the participants. This is well-reflected in the tea room’s decoration, and the tea served, depending on the hour and the season, in a bowl chosen by the tea master.When I attended the tea ceremony, the room was decorated to reflect the spring season. The sweet was also inspired by the blooming cherry blossoms, which were pink and light green. The door to the garden was left open so that we could appreciate the scent of fresh blossoms in the gentle spring breeze.In the design world, this rule translates into the profound understanding and adaptation of experiences to align with customers’ ever-changing needs and emotional states throughout their journey.Understanding the natural flow of emotions during the user journey allows brands to create responsive experiences that feel personal.Examples:
- Nike,
- Netflix.
Nike: Versatility in Style and Experience
Nike, better than any other brand leader in sportswear, exemplifies mastery in tailoring brand experiences.The brand recognizes that customers engage with their products across diverse activities.For this reason, Nike offers a wide range of products, sometimes presented with mini-websites and beautiful campaigns, each with its own distinct style and purpose.Takeaway: By catering to their users’ varied tastes and needs, brands can tailor experiences to individual preferences and emotions, fostering a deeper connection and resonance.
Netflix: Personalised Home Entertainment
Netflix has deftly pioneered the use of advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence to tailor its content recommendations. These are not only based on geographic location but individual user preferences.The platform dynamically adjusts preview images and trailers, aiming to match each user’s unique taste.Their latest update includes Dynamic Sizzle Reel, short personalized clips of upcoming shows that offer each member a unique and effective experience.
It is worth noting, however, that while Netflix puts effort into yielding greater engagement and enjoyment for their members, the subjective nature of taste can sometimes lead to surprises, where a preview may align perfectly with an individual user’s taste, yet the show itself varies in style.Takeaway: When customizing experiences, designers should create an interplay between familiarity and novelty, tailoring content to individual tastes while respecting the user’s need for both comfort and discovery.
Rule 4: Arranging Flowers as Though They Were in the Field
As I stepped into the tea room, there was a sense of harmony and tranquillity infused by nature forming part of the interior environment.The flowers were meticulously arranged in a pot as though plucked directly from the field at that very moment. According to Rikyu’s principles, their composition should be an ode to nature’s simplicity and authenticity.For designers, this rule echoes the importance of using aesthetics to create a visually captivating brand experience that authentically reflects the brand’s values and mission.The aesthetic choices in design can convey a brand’s essence, creating a harmonious and truthful representation of the brand and its services.It is important to remember, however, that a visually appealing brand experience is not just about aesthetics alone, but using them to create an emotional and truthful connection with the audience.
Examples:
- Kerrygold,
- WWF.
Kerrygold: Forging Memorable Narratives
The Kerrygold “Magic Pantry” website is testament to the art of visual storytelling, following the brand’s mission to spread authentic Irish recipes and stories from Ireland and its farms.
Through a captivating storytelling game, users explore a recipe or storybook, pick a favorite dish based on their meal, and choose their assistant.In a perfect story fashion, with a good amount of personalization, users then learn how to cook their chosen recipes using Kerrygold products.This immersive experience showcases the excellence of Kerrygold’s products and conveys the brand’s commitment to quality and authenticity, while the storybook confers the idea of passing family traditions across the world (so common in the past!)Takeaway: Through visuals, designers need to be authentic, reflecting the truth about the brand. This truthfulness enhances the credibility of the brand’s narrative and establishes deeper user connections.
WWF: Enhancing Memorability Through Beauty and Truth
WWF employs visual storytelling to raise awareness about environmental issues and species in danger of extinction. Their campaign websites always present a beautiful and immersive visual journey that authentically communicates the urgency of their mission.While these two websites are grounded in the universal act of eating, WWF prompts users to reflect on their habits’ profound impact on the environment.Both websites ingeniously guide users to think about food consumption in more detail, fostering a journey toward mindful eating that respects both species and the environment.The websites adopt a quiz-like approach for users to reflect on and reassess their food consumption patterns, fostering a journey toward mindful eating that respects both species and the environment.Beyond individual insights, the interactive nature of these platforms encourages users to extend their newfound knowledge to their friends, amplifying awareness of crucial topics such as food consumption, CO2 emissions, and sustainable alternatives.Takeaway: By infusing elements of discovery and self-reflection, designers can help brands promote their values and missions while empowering their users to become ambassadors for change.