Episode 6 - Unlocking Brand Experience with Duncan Milne

In Ep. 6 of the Help Me Unlock podcast, Aditi chats with Duncan Milne, the founder and managing director of Grey Coffee, a brand and interior design agency. 

Together, they explore the intricacies of brand strategy and discuss various aspects of creating an engaging and seamless brand experience for customers. They address the challenges businesses face while building a brand, including maintaining consistency across digital and physical spaces in a fast-evolving hybrid world. 

Drawing from their firsthand experiences and challenges faced in their profession, Aditi and Duncan delve into the significance of connecting brand stories across all touchpoints in a way that resonates with customers. 

They also touch upon the crossover between physical and digital realms in brands, and emphasize that a seamless experience, rather than mere consistency, must be the end goal for businesses. They conclude by highlighting that the brand experience should be a reflection of a business's values and ethos.

If you’re building a brand, physical, digital, or hybrid, and created experiences for your customers within your brand universe, then this episode is a must-listen. 

Episode Highlights:

1. Definition of a Seamless Brand Experience

2. Impact of Brand Experiences

3. Humanizing the Brand

4. Challenges in Creating a Seamless Experience

5. Integrating Digital and Physical Spaces

6. Consistency and Cohesion

7. Building Local Awareness

8. The Impact on Business Growth

9. Creating a Positive Working Environment

10. Authenticity and Values


Connect with Duncan: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-milne/

Follow Grey Coffee, Duncan’s Brand-Meets-Interiors Agency: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greycoffee_uk/

Website: https://greycoffee.co.uk/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/greycoffee_uk/

Transcript

Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to episode six of the Help Me Unlock podcast. I'm your host, Aditi, and my guest today is Duncan Milne. Duncan is the founder and managing director of Grey Coffee, a pioneering brand and interior design agency focused on bringing together the power of great design, storytelling, immersive interiors, and remarkable customer experience. In this episode, Duncan, who is an experienced brand strategist, and I will delve into the world of brand strategy and what it takes to create a seamless brand experience tackling common brand building challenges such as integrating digital and physical spaces in an increasingly hybrid world to maintaining consistency across touch points. To create customer experiences that people love and come back for. We're going to get into it all. Without further ado, let's welcome Duncan Milne. Duncan, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.,

Speaker B: Thanks for having me, Aditi. It's always great to speak to you.,

Speaker A: It really is. I always say it's so fun when two brand strategists put their heads together and start talking about stuff. Sometimes it gets a little bit heated. But that's all on Bring. Bring the passion. Don't worry about it. My audience can handle it.,

Speaker B: No, I think it'll be good. It kind of reminds me of that whole idea when you get early adopters of tech, comparing why the latest iPhone has to be bought compared to the one that they've already got, and then they get this really intense kind of conversation around what they're so passionate about. So I think it'll be a really interesting one today.,

Speaker A: Absolutely. I will say that both of us are kind of we're on the same side of the branding philosophy, and I know we've talked so many times about seamless brand experiences and 360 brand experiences, but I am going to take a slightly skeptical seat okay. Here, because there's things that I've questioned over the years when I've been working with brand strategists, talking to brand strategists, and I want to put all of those questions to you and have your perspective on them because I think that's going to be interesting.,

Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. A lot of the points that you'll raise, I think, are really kind of valid thoughts that people will process and think and go through as well if they're in the space of wanting to consider some of these things.,

Speaker A: Absolutely. A lot of the things that I want to talk to you about today are also questions that I've been asked over the years when doing brand strategy. And though I do it in a different way to you do, I think a lot of people feel the same resistances when they're going into this journey. It's a big deal, and it can be a really big investment for a lot of businesses, depending on where they are or how large they want this exercise to be. So I've called this episode unlocking seamless brand experiences. So let's start with what exactly is a seamless brand experience. How do you define it?,

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. I think the easiest way to explain it is when you interact with a brand and everything just feels connected. It's like everything's been really well considered and everything's been really well thought out from the branding, the identity, the story, how they communicate, how that translates to an experience online, like when you're interacting with their website, how they thought about the navigational elements of the website. So how understanding how the user really is going to find their way. It extends as far as their social media and if they have in the space that we are, or if they have physical commercial spaces. Seamless brand experience, to me, is how you connect all of those things and not just connect them in terms of a branding philosophy, but connect them in a meaningful way to show that you really, really understand who your ideal customer is. So that when they do kind of connect with it, it feels seamless. Right? It's like nothing hasn't not been thought about. And it's that kind of attention to detail that really creates something that goes much further beyond a product or a service or an experience. It creates story, it creates feeling, and it creates something that people then, in a humanistic way, feel that they can identify values and things that they like and align with about that brand and therefore probably want to tell lots more people about it that they think would share similar interests. So, for me, I guess, to put it into a sentence, it's how you connect your brand story in a way that is meaningful across all of your customer touch points.,

Speaker A: Right. I'm thinking, Duncan, about brands like Hollister, right? Where they create these spaces. And when you step into a shop, it's an experience, and when you step into their website, it's an experience. With brands like that, I kind of take the brand experience for granted. I'm like, yeah, I don't notice it. Right. But is the lack of a seamless brand experience something that's more jarring? Do you notice the lack of it more than you notice the presence of a thoughtful brand experience?,

Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. And it's usually because of reasons of annoyance. Right. So someone I spoke about the other day sorry, someone that is in my network that he is really passionate about Asian cooking and Asian food. Right. And he bought a bag of Asian snacks that he couldn't even get his hand into when the bag was opened. Right. And you just think, like, I mean, that is such a small thing. But that one brand that his first experience of, it was really bad. You know, he'll never buy that again, I expect. And you know, that's just a very small thing. Right. But it just makes you think, like, how could someone design that and not think about someone that is going to eat the product that's inside it. I mean, the product needs to be good and it needs to stand alone for itself. But there's lots of ways you can describe this. If you are a hospitality venue, for example, we will have all been in that position. When you walk into a space and you don't know what to do, and you walk towards a table and someone's like, no, don't sit down. But you're in this kind of like.,

Speaker A: Limited nobody told you? Yeah.,

Speaker B: And it's like you go to the bar and they're like, oh, we don't serve here at the bar. And it's like, well, hang on a minute, we've only just come into this space and there's nothing here that's helping us find our way or communicate to us what it is we need to do. I think you notice it more when it's just not being considered, right.,

Speaker A: It's not there. Yeah, absolutely. And I always in those situations, I'm like, it's not my fault there is no sign and it breaks it. It's not as if a great meal wouldn't turn that experience around. But it's just that you had the opportunity to start this off as a delightful experience and you didn't. So it's just that missed opportunity, I suppose, to start a relationship the right way.,

Speaker B: Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily have to be brands that are very business to consumer focused, it can be business to business as well. Right, so I constantly look at what we do in terms of how do we send our presentations, how can we make it really easy for them to receive our terms and conditions in a way that is not a document that has loads of tiny writing on it? And how do we make it easy for them to just sign that and get it back to us? And then that whole journey can always be reviewed in terms of what's the first thing we send them, what's the first thing they see? How is that received? What do they want to see at that point? And so it's like as a business, you can only understand these things if you understand the people and who it is you're talking to. Right. I remember we used to spend ages putting huge proposals together and then when you really would break it down, it's like, this person is busy, they really probably only want to know what it cost. What are we going to deliver for those fees that we're charging? How can we summarize this into one page that just says all of those things? That when they get it, they're not going to just ignore the rest of the presentation. And so it's like if you really look inward with detail, you can really start to pull a lot of things out that are going to make the whole experience a whole lot better. Like, why send the proposal back going in cold? Why don't we book a meeting with them to present it back to them. So it can be 20 minutes, it can be 30 minutes, but it's more personal. We can tackle objections there and then answer any questions they have. They don't have to come back to us, they don't have to write an email.,

Speaker A: Body language, which is all, it's great to be in the room. And now that the world is getting a little bit more back to physical, you have that opportunity. 

Speaker A: So you opened up something big for me there, Duncan, because I think when I think about brand experience, I don't really think about every touch point. Even though we say every touch point, right? And as marketeers, we talk about every touch point all the time, but really every touch point is a phone call. It is a presentation that you send out. It is what your invoice looks like. That became my latest insecurity. I was like, oh, I send out these ugly invoices from my accounting system and I spent so much time on brand design and go to market strategies and making things look really impressive for my clients. And I reached out to my designer this morning saying, can we just design an invoice, please? Just something that looks nice because it is every little touch point that creates that experience. Right. Which we don't think about. What are the touch points that people don't think about most often that you've kind of come across and been like, okay, let's fix that and that and that as well?,

Speaker B: I think it's a good question. A lot of the time, I really do believe it's more of the intangible things that you don't necessarily see or hear, or more of the things you see here and touch, as opposed to things that you actually come into contact with. Right? So if we start with the most obvious ones in terms of things that you can design, you can build experience around, you've got your website, obviously, your newsletter blog, your commercial interior spaces, you have emails, you have social media profiles. They're like probably all of the things that you can manage. Right? But then where we start building these ideas around branding and ideas around personality, tone of voice, character, values, these kind of what we'd call intangible brand assets that do shape experience. And I don't think it's so much about understanding how you design something that is going to impact those things, but it's kind of the other way around. So understanding how those things impact your brand. So take the hospitality venue, for example. When you walk into that space, what are the first few things that we see? So, like, the pictures on the wall, for example, how can they connect to a story that is relevant to your brand, because pictures obviously tell us a lot more than words do. What does the music suggest about the place? Because that's going to create a vibe, right. What does the overall design of that interior space that starts to impact what you're seeing, what information you're taking in? You can then also look at what the staff are wearing, for example, their uniform that's going to tell part of a story, or it is going to connect back to a story, and then really how those staff interact with you, because that shapes much of your very first experience. And so if you are a brand that is trying to be high end luxury, for example, and build all these ideas around fine dining, then you'd expect that initial service and that initial interaction to be very formal and be very kind of considered and very precise in the way that it reflects the place that you're at. And again, for other brands, it's going to be different. If it's like a neighborhood or fast casual restaurant or it's a bar, or if you are a service business, for example, how does your tone of voice impact what you're doing? If you were a legal firm and your personality was very humorous and very jokey and very not serious, then you probably wouldn't take them very serious. Right. But it's those things that really start to, I think, humanize a brand and really start to impact. They really then should start to impact everything else. So understanding your brand and how it impacts your touch points all form the overall experience.,

Speaker A: Yeah. And the work you do, Duncan, you work across the physical and the digital realm for a brand, right. So you work with them to transform, essentially their spaces. You do a lot of work in the hospitality sector, but I know you've also taken on some interesting retail projects and then their websites and their digital touch points and social media and how all of that comes together as a seamless brand experience. What does that process look like? It just sounds so overwhelming to me to think, oh, my God, how do I take a restaurant and think of or even the other way around. Think of the website for a restaurant and then how that projects into a physical space. It's overwhelming for, I think, most people.,

Speaker B: Yeah, I guess it is. If you break down, though, like this idea of understanding the end user or the audience or your ideal customer, however you want to target it, what you start to realize is that each touch point or each one serves a different purpose. So the restaurant, for example, what do we take about the people coming into that space? They're hungry, they want to eat. They may have a booking, they may not have a booking. How can we accommodate as a brand, how can you accommodate their needs of what they want at that moment in time and still tell a good brand story, right? That's like the first challenge. And so what you're doing in the restaurant is going to be very different to what you're doing on your website, for example, because we've got a totally new dynamic there. People probably have more time to look through your site. Are they a new customer? Are they a returning customer? Those journeys are going to be different. If they're new, then like we say, how do we communicate into a way that's going to be meaningful to that person? Are they looking for bookings? Are they looking to just find out what it is they do? Are they looking for directions and how to find the restaurant? So what I think you find is if you break it down to start with, you can understand where the customer is at each part of the journey. But then what you have to really understand a layer above that is what does this brand do? What does it stand for in terms of what is that experience we want to create? What's the one really compelling thing that when customers think of us and our brand and our restaurant, that they put those two things together, this feeling or.,

Speaker A: This emotion or whatever it is.,

Speaker B: I know one of your questions is going to come up about this pizza guy, right? So if you're a guy that sells pizza, what is it that he's passionate about in terms of selling pizza? Is it like the process of making it? Is it how it makes people feel when they eat it? He believes he's got this really rich family story that he wants to tell people about his culture, his heritage, where he's come from, how this recipe has been part of his family for years. And so it's like you build the brand then based on these experiences and these stories that form from his story and to where he is now. And I think even as I don't want it always to be business to consumer focus, but even if you're a B to B business like us, it's like what is the story you want to tell? What is it you care about? Is it service? Is it attention to detail? Is it how you help people? What does purpose mean to you as a brand? So you have to have clarity on that in order to be able to start looking, to be able to design anything. A website, a newsletter, a brand identity, a brochure, restaurant space, a product packaging. And so for us, it has to start with the brand. And once we're really clear that everyone is really like, we're all really aligned on all the brand elements in terms of how we're going to then connect those dots, we can start to then build the story and narrative and break each one down across interior graphic design, digital, social media.,

Speaker A: I love know I start my process duncan and I typically work with brands that have all digital presence. So they don't have typically physical spaces. Some of them have offices, but they haven't gotten to the point where they're looking at connecting the physical experience and the digital because their offices are back end offices, operational spaces. Where I start with my clients is I spend the first week or two weeks maybe just boiling things down and distilling their brand essence, which is one or two words that maybe never show up anywhere in the brand. But it is just the feeling that people have when they step into your space, right? So when they read an article, they have the same feeling when they see a post from you, they have that feeling, and it's there all the time. And I feel like that's exactly what you kind of drill or boil down to first as well. And then from there, from that foundation, is where you start to design the space or you start to look at a website or the layout of a brochure and everything from there.,

Speaker B: Exactly. And the key thing, I think, to understand is that for us, and I know I've mentioned this before to you, it's not about consistently applying that brand to everything. For us, it's about consistently weaving that story and that brand narrative through everything, but only where relevant, right? I heard a fantastic speaker recently who talked about how they designed these really elaborate menus for the restaurant that told really compelling story and really brand aligned. You wouldn't find anyone with a branding background finding fault with these menus, right? But what they failed to do to start with is that they failed to understand the user intent at that point in terms of, like, as I'm sure, like, you and me, we get into a restaurant, we want to eat, we don't want to read a story, right? So show me what's on the menu and find a better way to build in the brand narrative, whether that's in some of the special dishes that are on the menu, that can tell more, like connect more of that brand story. And that's the thing. It needs to be relevant in the same way that when you land on the website, the brand part needs to be relevant again when it comes to and so it's not about consistency of implementation of brand guidelines. Don't get me wrong, you do need brand guidelines to build structure for a brand. But the key thing for us is I would much rather you understand the audience so that when you put whatever your home page is, when you capture the attention of who you want to be speaking to, they lean in towards the screen because they want to read more. They feel compelled, like, these guys really understand me.,

Speaker A: They get me. Yeah.,

Speaker B: And so the brand part is more considered, in my opinion, as opposed to more identity driven in terms of its consistency.,

Speaker A: I love that it's not basically about just painting everything with the same brand brush, right. It's thoughtfully applying those guidelines that you put together to weave that into an experience. Is it different to build a seamless 360 brand experience for a digital brand? And does it matter, actually, is my question, because digital brands are I mean, their website is everything, and then they have all of these other touch points, social media, and maybe once in a while they get on a call with you to say, hey, your credit card payment failed. Does this seamless brand experience matter so much for those organizations?,

Speaker B: Yeah, I believe it does. If you think of it as a digital experience, digital experiences can be really great. If you find a website and it's really easy to navigate and you can find what it is you want, you can put it in the cart. There's nothing more infuriating than ecommerce site that you can't check out, for example, or it's really slow. I mean, that's such basic thing, right? But you'd expect nowadays, if I find a website that is so painfully slow, then it's not going to have my time or attention because I'll move on to their competitor. And so, again, I think it comes back to how do you make that experience relevant for the people that are turning up? So this idea again, so I'm going to talk about audiences a lot today, but are these customers, new customers? What proportion of these customers coming back? If you're digital returning customers, how will their journeys different? Or maybe not understanding how we wouldn't question it. Like, how do we make those journeys different? But how can we improve those journeys? If you're a new customer returning to your site or a returning customer coming to your site and really trying to just look at it not as people that work and represent the business, but look at it as if we were one of those individuals coming back, right. So I do believe digital experience is relevant because if you connect the dots well enough, again, there are plenty of touch points on a website that you can build really great brand stories and create really great moments that think about it as some of the narrative that you get in your order emails. So let's say you did place an order for a website and there's a real creative piece of copywriting that makes the email confirmation stand out, that makes you then want to share that or tell someone about it. All of these things can really impact rather than just blend in and be like a utility. Like, oh, yeah, I just ordered that thing and the order went through and I probably won't even think about it again. Do you know I what mean but there must be a reason to make a more compelling, engaging kind of experience.,

Speaker A: Experience, yeah, absolutely. Do you know what this is making me think about, though, Duncan? I feel like it's not as if organizations don't have or business owners don't have an awareness of how much these touch points impact the customer experience. But I think maybe the approach is a little bit fragmented because I think organizations bring in like UX and CX specialists, or they might have a copywriter who's writing out all the emails and the brand strategist, or the brand designer never even looks at those touch points. And so they've put together this brand story and these brand guidelines and all of that that lives in this beautiful document somewhere. But then the people who are actually implementing the touch point itself might not be connected to that. And I'm guessing that is a bit of a disconnect and that leads to you've done the job. Right, but not entirely.,

Speaker B: This is a really big problem, and this is a really big challenge for a lot of businesses. Because think about it as an organization. At the minute. It's like you go through the brand piece and you then have this branding pitch deck that you talk about and that sits somewhere, probably in a Google Drive that very rarely gets looked at by any employee other than maybe someone that might be in creative or marketing. Yeah, move forward and the website will have been done either prior to that branding dot being done, or it's now been done after the implementation of that kind of brand deck. And so the website gets updated. And all of this takes quite a while for businesses to do, like whether you're a small business or a medium business, everyone has to go through this same process. Right? So then any of your other assets get updated after that, and all of which, again, this time is kind of passing. And then what you get is maybe after about 1224, even 36 months, you have a business that has a brand deck that's maybe two or three years old that's never really been referred to other than for implementing some of these things. The website was up to date, but up to date as of the time when that brand deck was done. And everything else is a result of the business priorities at that time. So it's a new product. So everything's been into this product. The look and feel has been evolved a bit, the tone of voice has been evolved a bit, and it's a really good fit for that product, but then no one ever steps back and goes, but how's this going to fit with all of our other legacy bits? And so this is where you end up in this position with really outdated brand deck and then lots of other things that now don't connect because they've only been really developed in isolation, which you would expect because as product teams and as marketing teams, you're really only focused on your bit. Exactly.,

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so this is maybe crude or a little bit simple minded. So I've got my brand deck and I've got my brand story now. And as a business, I've done my work on setting the foundation for this brand, right? Now, let's say I'm one of those people that open it up every week and look at it, okay? Isn't it just a matter of kind of making sure that every touch point has that brand incorporated? Because new stuff is going to come up every day for my business, right? So I can't afford to go to an agency every day. So can't I just sit down with that brand egg and just make sure that I color everything with that brush?,

Speaker B: Yeah. I love this question. And when I saw this question for our chat today, it really made me laugh a bit because I know you will have seen a lot of brand decks, from very good brand decks to very average ones in the most basic form. Would you agree with me that in a brand deck you have maybe like a primary color and a few secondary colors? There's some kind of usage rules about how you can use the logo in logo situation and not this situation, that situation. And then if you're lucky, there might be some bits around some of the more brand strategy pieces in terms of values and stuff like that, but they can range from being very good to.,

Speaker A: Very awful typefaces, maybe.,

Speaker B: Yeah, some bits on fonts. So what I want to imagine for a minute is if you humanize this idea of a brand deck and I say, right, aditi. Every day you have to represent the brand, right? You would have maybe the choice of a jumper or a top that you can wear in one primary color. And then you put a couple of other secondary colors along. You put your name badge on the right font, do you mean?,

Speaker A: Yeah.,

Speaker B: And what you would get is just this very repeatable guide, if you like. But if you turned up every day in that jumper, same name tag, same two colors, where's the personality, where's the character, where's all the other bits that come with the brand that is going to get become unique to your essence and your DNA, right? So I was just like, yeah, you could take a website and put the brand guidelines on that and you could take product packaging and put the guidelines on that. But the reality is it's not like that. In the same way that if you go out to an event, you'll want to dress up, you'll want to wear something that's appropriate, that fits the narrative of what you're going to. Right. In the same way that if you're having a chill day at home, it's going to be different. But the one common thing as people, we have our own personalities and we have our own character traits and everything else. And I think as businesses and as brands, it's. No different. We need to build personality. We need to build what you care about and what's important to you and what you like and what you don't like. And yeah, an identity system that is repeatable. We need that to build structure and to build things that people will recognize. But the reality is we need a lot more than that, than just this kind of cookie cutter. Like, it's that color, that font and that logo, and it's the same again, right?,

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm thinking about it now because it's like the navigation of a stiff corporate website versus the navigation of a really fun, I don't know, agency, right? And they feel different. And that is personality. That's not just brand guidelines or colors. That is feel and experience. And they've really thought about how this lands for the user and that's how the agency website delivers something that is immersive, something that you step into as opposed to the corporate website that's probably like, okay, blue and white and gray, that's our brand colorism. So let's just make sure the tenor is blue.,

Speaker B: Yeah. The thing this brought me back to is by far one of my favorite tasks, which I'll share with you, in that people very often, I think people in business, we get very absorbed in what the logo looks like and the typeface and all these kind of things that are not real metrics of brand, but they are just identity. And they are look and feel. If you try and get someone to think about what's the character of your brand and you'll be familiar with these whole ideas of archetypes and everything like that. It's not very easy for someone that's not in the creative. Space to go, oh, look at a brand like NORTH FACE or look at a brand like Disney, or look at a brand like Coca Cola. And they're, like, bursting with personality and all these things. But again, it's so unrelatable to them that they can start translating that or communicating that in a way to you that will help to strengthen the brand. What we do is we build this kind of scenario where it's like your brand is a person and that person, whether it's a man or a female, is going to turn up to a dinner party. Start describing to me what would they wear? How would they walk into the room? Do they burst in full of confidence, like waving to people? Or are they a bit more subtle in their approach and they make their way in and slowly start mingling with people? Describe to me what they're wearing. Do they wear something really outlandish? Do they wear something that's going to fit in with everything else? Are they a bit more refined but understated in their approach? How do they treat people? How do they talk to people? How do they talk to the people that ask them if they'd like a drink? And really quickly, you can start to, then you could describe your brand as.,

Speaker A: A person and quite quickly grasping that image or that personality that's in their heads that it's hard to yeah, because I've had clients who've looked at the archetype wheel and it's like, I don't know, I can't fit into any of these personalities. And then we'd have this conversation, but I've never had it this way and this is such a great way to do it. So I'm going to try this out.,

Speaker B: I would I think it's really good because you can start to pose more challenging questions then, because I always like to say, what would you say that people wouldn't like? What would you do? Or is it because we're always so conscious to try and make a product fit right. Or we want to blend in or whatever, and it's like, no, but really what we want to try and find is what is it that you could say at that event, in that situation sorry, that someone might disagree with, or something that what could someone say that you would really agree with? It could be about purpose, it could be about sustainability, it could be about the clothes you're wearing. It could be about a particular topic. But what you really then start to dive into is what is this person or this brand? What do they value in this situation? Is it how they're treated? Is it how others speak to them? You really start to build something that you can picture. You could picture someone in that event right. And that is their brand.,

Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. That's given me quite a bit to think about. Okay, let's talk a little bit about consistent brand experiences. Or not consistent seamless. Right. Because like you said, it isn't about being consistent, it's about creating a seamless experience. Why is this a challenge for so many businesses? Or why do we often get stuck? Because I know I get stuck as well thinking about or at some point I'm just like, who cares? As long as it works, I'm just going to go with it and launch it. So, yeah, why do we get stuck and why is it a challenge for so many businesses?,

Speaker B: I think it's a good question. The first thing to address is I think, like any business, we all need some form of proof of concept first, right? And so that's why we are very product orientated or we are very service orientated, and that's completely normal. I think any business that is growing or any business that is finding their way, it would be very difficult to come into this world, launch everything, be connected, everything be really aligned, because the reality is it just didn't happen like that. But where I think the challenge is, is that for those people that have ambitions that are to grow and to build, to get to a point where their business is expanding and connecting with more people, then that's where you do start to look at things and think, right, does our brand name fit with our website? And do the way we communicate on our website align with how we produce content for social media, for example? And then does the experience that they get there, is it consistent with what we're trying to produce in a physical space? I think what it comes more to is that there comes a point where you want to expand and your business is on an upward trajectory, but as the business owner, you start to notice yourself like, oh, well, actually our product is really good, but our brand doesn't necessarily sit up to our product. Or we've done this, this and this, which is all working really well, but why are we still struggling on this point here? And so a good example would that would be like social media, we've built a good audience that seems to understand us and what we put out resonates and we think that translates well to our website, but we struggle to create a compelling experience in store that kind of resonates with those things. So I think it really comes to where you are as a business and also what your ambitions are. If you're doing well and you're happy with your website, it converts business, you're happy with the content you produce, you feel like everything aligns quite well and is cohesive in its approach, then you're probably doing a pretty good job, so don't overthink it. But what I find is there's usually a little bit of disconnect and it's generally because they haven't had the time to consider those ideas around brand that are going to help them connect above and beyond their service level or product level.,

Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds to me as if it almost comes down to mindfulness and just being mindful of the customer experience and how they are feeling, how they experience buying your product or being nurtured along your funnels. Like you said, it's not going to be perfect from the get go. Or maybe you launched a minimal viable product and you got out there and there's this popular idea of launching dirty right now. It's like just launch. Don't worry about perfecting every aspect of this or building beautiful landing pages, just go live. But then once you've done that, and once people are buying and they're finding value in what it is that you sell or do, then slowly let that experience come together. Because it is overwhelming, I think, to think about every touch point of your business. It's taken me four years to think about my invoices, right. And I never had a thought about it up until a couple of days ago. So it's one of those things it just kind of comes together slowly. But I'm thinking I thought about, yeah, people that work with me.,

Speaker B: You've got to prioritize, haven't you?,

Speaker A: Yeah.,

Speaker B: Having a nice looking invoice, I would say is a nice to have as opposed to a need to have. And so as business owners, we have to prioritize what are the key things that are going to help on a business level initially and then you can work through some of the risking comes a good example for us. And just to show that not everyone's perfect, right. So in quarter one of this year, we've started producing more video content. And that video content is pretty good in terms of that video content is pretty good in terms of the messaging that it's saying and how we're talking about things. But it's probably not at the standard we want in terms of its production level and its quality. But at the minute, can we spend way more time on the media production and quality? Or is it a case of getting it out there, getting it seen and see if people engage with it and if it resonates with them and how we can improve it to then build it from there?,

Speaker A: Yeah, and you got started with video and that's a big deal in itself, of itself. And then slowly you're going to evolve into increasing production value as well, which yeah. So I think a step by step approach, just being mindful of how every piece is landing and being at peace with the fact that it's okay if not everything looks perfect right now, eventually you're going to get there. Seems like a good way to kind of go about building it. And sometimes you don't have the resources, right. It's expensive to really build like a 360 brand experience and think about every touch point. It's either time expensive or you've got to put down some money on the table to make it happen and get the right resources on board to do it. So, yeah, I suppose it's a choice that you make. Okay, let's talk about the pizza guy because you mentioned him a little bit ago. So I was thinking about this little pizza place that I used to go to in Dubai and just down the road and tiny little place. Okay. And I don't think he ever thought about brand, right. Or I mean, maybe like a nephew designed his signboard for him and at that point the nephew might have been like, you need a logo. And the place was called Red Tomato and there was the Red Tomato on the signboard. And I was thinking, I mean, the pizza was phenomenal, right? And I don't know if I ever cared like that. They didn't have a brand experience per se, but I'm guessing there was a brand experience happening at some level, right? Because we went back over and over and of course it was good pizza is good pizza. But does it matter for a place like that? Is the pizza going to taste better if there's a story behind it?,

Speaker B: This is again, one of my favorite questions because I think so much of it is based on what he wants to do with his business. Right. So he's got probably good local awareness that he sells amazing pizza. I mean, you're already an advocate of that and you're saying how good it is you're telling the story. Right. So does brand experience impact that? Like you say, there is a brand experience happening there, but where I like to well, there's a couple of things. If he wanted to expand his brand and become not just a single operator and a multi site operator, then you'd like to think that he could build a story that is going to shape a consistent experience to what you've experienced there and be able to replicate that elsewhere. Right. So the story is consistent, he starts to open multiple sites and more and more people talk about it, the story travels wider, the brand gets more awareness, et cetera, et cetera. So in that situation it definitely is important. Right. Because we need to be able to capture the essence, as you call it, in that first sight, and to be able to replicate that, we need to be able to understand why are so many people compelled to this little pizza shop. Right?,

Speaker A: Right.,

Speaker B: You can also look at it another way. Like if he only made a select amount of pizza, the amount of demand that would create for the people wanting to come and eat it, because if you queued up, people would queue up, I expect, for this pizza if he said, I'm only going to sell pizza between twelve and 03:00 rather than being open all day. Right, yeah. Again, that would change the dynamic of the brand experience. I'm not suggesting he'd want to do that, but think about it from a story perspective. You want to be in line for something that potentially you'll be told you can't have because it's going to make you want it more. Right? Yeah. In the same way that if you could buy luxury item off Amazon, I mean, it wouldn't be a luxury item. Right. Because it's too accessible. You want to be able to find it, you want to know more about the story you want to be told, like, oh, you're going to be put on a waitlist for this amount of time. So brand experience is important, but I think if you were to actually break down all the things so, like, what it's like when you first walk in, how he would speak to you, the different kind of choices. There wouldn't be necessarily a designed brand experience there. But there definitely is something there, because obviously he's got a good story, right, and a great product.,

Speaker A: Do you know what? I've seen the owner a couple of times, but I've never even spoken to him. I don't even think he spoke English. Right. Italian guy, like big Italian guy, the typical the person you want to see making your pizza. Basically they had like this wood fire oven thing, that clay oven thing that was in the shop. And so there was an experience there that like you said, it's probably not designed or not strategically designed by a brand strategist, but there was some intention there and he created something. And I bet if he told the story, his pizza would taste better. There's something about if you read like, okay, this guy has been making pizza for 30 years in Italy and then moved to Dubai and then started making pizza. And you imagine that I think that becomes a part of the experience. And I suppose there are certain things in my life that I buy from places where I don't care about the experience and there are certain things that I really care about the experience for. Right. And so if I was going to maybe the pizza place, and even if it was a hole in the wall, but I went to it kind of growing up, right? I ate pizza there growing up. I've got my own story, my own brand story around it. And so I don't care if they always remained a hole in the wall. So I suppose you have a business that there's two sides to a brand experience, right. There is the creator of the brand experience and then there's the receiver. And sometimes the receiver is just not looking for it, I suppose.,

Speaker B: Yeah. And the reality is it isn't for everyone. And we're quite okay with that because do you know what, some people just are great storytellers and they have an obsessive level to detail and they know exactly how they want things to be and they've got a very clear vision. But all of those things we're describing, there are like all your kind of key attributes of a brand strategist or a brand. Right. So what I would say is it's for those businesses that can see maybe how they can better utilize brand story to shape brand experience is a good way to look at mean. There's a brand in London called Dishum spelled D-I-S-H-O-O-M. They've recreated these Irani cafes from this nostalgic period of the. I'd say like the in India. Right. And they are so obsessed with story and how to use story as part of their branding and the interior design of the spaces, that they can only open one restaurant a year because it takes them so long to make sure every little detail has been connected. When I walk past their restaurant anywhere in London, across the UK, there is literally people queuing up because they will spend two to 3 hours in a queue to visit that place, to eat.

Speaker A: To step into that. Yeah. And it's not just food in that case, they have created something that you're stepping into. Yeah, I get that it isn't for everyone, but the people who do take it seriously, I mean, I think there's a huge competitive advantage to just putting that thought into it. Do you think a brand experience reflects on a business's values and a business owner's values?,

Speaker B: It's a good question. I think it has to, because the experience and story, in my opinion, should all connect. So if you say that you value people and you build this brand that is very inclusive, and you build an experience that kind of aligns with these values, people will start to see that in your story, in the way that you do stuff, in the way that you act. And so, yeah, I do believe that the values for me should underpin everything, whether it be your story or your essence or your DNA. It doesn't have to be plastered over everything. This whole idea, again, that we have to put these values up on the wall. But I think you'll see it in the way that the brand communicates, the way it acts, the way it shapes these experiences. They should align.,

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it made me think of an organization that I stepped into once where they had their values plastered everywhere, right. Like literally the whole space. The space was beautiful. It was really well done and thought of and all of that, but they literally had like on every step that you climbed on, the white space between the stairs basically had their values plastered there, and then there was a wall that had their values and it was just everywhere. And yet the organization had people that were so unhappy and that it didn't look like they imbibed or lived those values.,

Speaker B: Exactly.,

Speaker A: And so I suppose even if it does reflect what is theoretically your set of values, whether or not I think the customer experience or the brand experience comes only when it is an authentic representation of what you stand for and what you believe in 100%.,

Speaker B: Yeah, I'd agree with that.,

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. I'm going to ask you one last question, Duncan, before I let you go back to your day. What has been your biggest insight over twelve years that you've been doing this on your own? What has been your biggest insight about creating seamless brand experiences?

Speaker B: Wow, that is the ultimate question. I think it's just the impact. The impact it can have on your business is phenomenal. Right. And it's really hard to get. I think people on board try and speak to an MD of a company about Brennan strategy. They don't want to know. People in marketing will get it. So I think it really comes down to I think it's understanding that having a cohesive brand creates so much impact on so many levels. And that's why I'm so passionate about this, because if you can get the people that work within the business thinking with a brand and a kind of experience led mindset, it means you create a working environment and culture that's good for the people that's in the business. So it impacts the people that are working in it because they understand it. They want to be part of the story. They want to develop it. Right. The impact of that is that you then have a really group of super passionate people that want to put the customer at the center of everything that their brand does. And so all of their touch points, all of their interiors, all of their digital, all of their social really thinks about the customer. And so that has a huge impact not only on the customer experience, but it has a massive impact on the business. Because if the customer feels like they've been heard, they're going to go from being a new customer to a returning customer and they're going to start building loyalty to the brand that they tell others about. So the impact of, I guess this whole idea of what's the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway is just all of this impact creates better businesses. It creates better experiences for the customer. It creates brands that actually care about their customers. It creates stories and experiences that customers want to share with others and tell other people about their amazing experiences they've had. And obviously, the knock on effect of all of that is that it impacts the growth of the business, which is ultimately why people hired us in the first place, right? Because they do want to grow, they do want to expand. And so that little ecosystem, it just makes everything better for everyone. It makes it better for the business owner, for the customer, and for the people that work in the business.,

Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. I love that. And I think what you captured over there is something that so many of us in this line of work really struggle to get across to our clients, right. That it's not, I know what you're paying me for is this deliverable is like getting this piece done, but the impact of it is going to last for such a long time and done right. If, as a customer, they are as invested in it as you are in making that change happen and creating a grassroots level change for that business in the way that it shows up and in the way that it builds those relationships, the impact is just.,

Speaker B: Love it.,

Speaker A: I love that. Thank you so much, Duncan, for being here. This has been super valuable, as always, for me.,

Speaker B: No worries. Thanks for having me. 

Speaker A: And that wraps up our enlightening conversation with Duncan Milne. I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the world of branding, storytelling, and creating unforgettable brand experiences. Stay tuned for more episodes of the Help Me Unlock podcast. We do guest episodes once a week and I release a solo episode, a blog, reading or sharing some thoughts and ideas around the world of organic marketing, content marketing, showing up on LinkedIn, and building your coaching or consulting business. If you'd like to learn more about what I do, how I do and who I do it for. Then jump on over to my website. Adityjn.com. It's been a pleasure hosting this conversation for you. I hope you've loved it, and I can't wait to bring you more.