Message in a bottle

Another great post over at Confessions of a Brand Evangelist. Aaron has again captured the essence of experience in his observations about shampoo.

In this over crowded consumer goods arena, how are companies differentiating? Not by delivering a product that is simply better at cleaning (its primary purpose). Instead, they are focusing on niche needs, and experiences they want the customer to have. They are attempting to do this through branding. As Eric at ICE recently posted about his experience with a certain after shave label, the experience extends beyond the design of the packaging - it extends to how the customer actually uses the product. And based upon their worldview, what are they able to be when they use this product.

The philosophy of being is a cousin of the experience movement, and it is becoming a larger part of our conversation with experience prospects. I hope to spend some time articulating this relationship in further detail in the near future. However, simply stated; we don't buy things to have them, we buy them to be something...

Ok, I can't get the song out of my head now... "I'm sending an SOS to the world, I hope that someone gets my, message in a bottle - yeah..."