Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to the Loop Marketing podcast, where we dive into the strategies, stories and shifts shaping the future of marketing. I'm your host, Elise Stieferman. And today we're exploring a topic that's both timeless and urgently relevant. Humanizing brand experiences. Especially in industries where that's often easier said than done.
And whether you're in B2B or healthcare or finance, you know that these spaces tend to default to features and functions and even jargon. But what happens when we shift from that product first to people first approach?
So to unpack this transformation from strategy to activation, I'm joined by two fantastic guests today. The first is Mike Lee, who is our senior strategy director at Monocle with, which is a brand experience powerhouse that helps organizations move from rigid institutional identity to something that's much more emotional, much more real. And then of course, Thomas o' Malley, who's our account supervisor here at Coegi. He brings the activation lens and helps make sure that brand strategy translates to real world impact through data and media.
So in this episode, we'll dig into what it actually means to humanize a brand and how to break out of traditional messaging traps, as well as how AI and personalization are rewriting the rules of brand empathy in a tech driven world.
So let's go ahead and jump right in. Would love to start by defining what a humanized experience really means. So, Mike, for you, what does it mean to humanize a brand in action?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. And it's something that at Monagle, we actually spend a lot of time thinking about. We've created a, a process called the humanizing Brand Experience, which really looks at how people experience brands across four primary lenses, sensorial, emotional, intellectual, and behavioral. I think so often people fall into the trap of thinking like, oh, a brand is identity. It's voice and tone. You might do the fun archetype exercise, but you lose sight of the people at the center of it. Who are those individuals that the brand is really built for? And it's not just the people walking through your doors or hitting your website. It's everybody that is a part of that brand, including your employees, including the community, including your customers and potential customers. And so by understanding how the brand needs to show up, how, how do you do more than simply, you know, create an image, but how do you bring that to life in your built environment? How do you bring that to light in every service experience? How do you bring that to life throughout kind of that, that whole living ecosystem of your brand and business?
And so when we think about what is a humanized brand. It's a brand that's designed to connect with people, where they're at, to resonate with them on the ways that people move through the world. Right. You hear something and it can trigger a memory, the way you feel when you walk into a building. All of these are elements of that brand experience.
And we need to approach it from a human first perspective, to not only understand it, but then to be able to effectively craft it to create the experiences that we want to drive those businesses forward.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: I think you said it beautifully, Mike. And I've seen a lot of the work that Monocles produced. And you really do an excellent job of putting really the human at the center of the experience. And it doesn't matter if it's a B2C brand, a B2B brand, a little bit of mixture of both. And at the end of the day, who we are talking to is an inherently human person who lives and breathes life outside of the office walls. And yet I feel like for B2B and healthcare and finance, there is still a tendency for people to really default to that product first messaging and then also take sort of that more rigid approach to how they think about marketing campaigns in general. So, Thomas, I know that we don't necessarily create creative or advertising in house, but we help bring those activations to life. So what would you say we should do in order to avoid that default of leaning into that traditional product first approach and instead, again, humanize the marketing experience?
[00:04:32] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the core things here is really to move away from that product first messaging that you're talking about, but with the idea that people aren't really buying just the product or the service, but really they're buying into the brands that we're representing. And I want to go back to something that you said, Mike. It's reaching people where they are.
That is how we can take a data driven approach in the media strategy to actually look at making these ads more relevant, help people feel that these conversations are more trustworthy and kind of humanize the brand because they're reaching people who, where they're interacting, they're reaching people where they're already comfortable. And with that in mind, we'll be able to kind of create a better experience overall for our teams.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and it's. It's tough, right? Like, I get it, whether you're working in a highly regulated environment, so whether, you know, health care, financial services, or you're in a very sales driven organization, you're sort of trained to think about product first. Like what do our, you know, what is our widget and what makes us slightly different than our competitors. The challenge is that that only lasts as long as somebody doesn't come along and do the exact same thing or do it better than you. But when you really think about the outcomes, right, what are you creating, what is that widget and those little things you do create for those individuals, whether it is you're in a B2B environment and it's how are you enabling a business to use your product or service to ultimately drive their business objectives or in highly regulated environments, what is it like? Take health care. That's a really tough one. There are so many regulations around that, whether it's HIPAA or protected health information that can make that environment very challenging.
But it's also an incredibly personal and human experience. You know, the challenges and the moments that people have when they're moving into a healthcare environment, when they're seeking care, whether it is routine care, all the way to the highest acuity chronic health challenges, this is a very personal and human experience. And so there's an opportunity to resonate with that instead of just sort of that product first messaging or even in that B2B space, recognizing that these individuals that you're speaking to are humans that have their own desires and fears and challenges and that they're not just looking to fill an order, they're also trying to figure out how is this helping them advance in their career, what's in it for them when they're going through this? They're looking for partners that understand them, that speak their language, that see the picture that they're existing in, that understand their business realities. And all of those are opportunities to really create human connections as opposed to simply a product driven approach approach.
And you know, the best salespeople out there will tell you it's those relationships that actually have the most impact on driving success long term.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: And to me, another piece of that is really just making sure that you're crafting both your creative and the, the means of which you're reaching those audience members that fit them. The way that you speak to a mother who's looking for primary care in the healthcare industry is going to be so different than the way the, that you speak to someone who is looking for sports medicine. And to me, you have to be able to differentiate at the creative level. Absolutely. But also all the way up through the targeting and the overall strategy of the campaign. And your KPIs may change too, but at the end of the day, if you're not thinking it through it every step of the way, how do we make ourselves more relevant to the people we want to reach? We're not doing a very good job of.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I love that you said that. And what it makes me think about is, you know, we all spend our days making things that most people are actively trying to avoid. Right.
Even us. Like, how many times are you just trying to avoid advertising? But every now and then, something breaks through and really resonates with you. There's a value exchange there.
Maybe you're like, oh, my gosh, they totally get me. Or maybe it's like, wow, that was funny. I've never thought about it that way. Or maybe it brought a tear to your eye because it was an emotional story.
And it's always a human connection that makes it jump out. Right. It's connecting to one of those lenses or multiple of those lenses. You know, sensorial, emotional, intellectual, and behavioral.
And that's what's going to stick with you. That's what's going to drive that behavior as you go forward.
And it's like, I think so often we forget to do that, to spend the time to really think about that person. And who is the person that this is meant for and how are they going to experience it? What piece of glass are they going to experience it on? Where. Where are they in their day? And how is this going to not feel like they're just trying to, you know, look at me, but actually provide some type of value in that moment to them?
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, whether it's really engaging with the messaging through a video, you know, thinking about watching it to completion. We have to have a hook, and that hook is the value exchange.
Same thing. Thomas, you said we're going to have different KPIs depending on where we are in the consumer journey, with the audiences we're reaching, we better have a pretty good value exchange for asking somebody for their personal information so that they download a brochure or they fill out a form, things like that. And that is really a combination of finding that right person and combining it with that right message and doing that effectively.
That being said, I'm sure that everyone on the phone here has heard their fair share of jargon about how to approach a traditional brand strategy, especially in these more regulated or rigid spaces.
And we have words that we really resonate with, and we have words that we really don't. So I'd love to hear from each of you on this because I Feel like you would both have a hot take. But if there was one overused word or one overused phrase that we could just scrape for the vernacular of the marketing world, whether it's publications and articles we're reading, even our own internal language, what would that be for each of you?
[00:10:45] Speaker C: I think for me, like, the way I would approach it would be the idea of, like, innovative solutions. But as a, as a buzzword, obviously it's super important to be innovative and really think through how we're reaching and how we're setting up our campaigns. But to me, it's like, are you being innovative for the sake of saying you're being innovative, or are you being innovative to actually improve the lives of the people we're trying to interact with? To me, it's like, are you trying to bring, you know, chatgpt in just to say you're using it, or are you actually building a tool that will help your media campaigns become more successful? Are you, or, you know, if you're on the brand side, are you using, you know, an AI bot to have conversations to help people facilitate the website? And if you're doing that and it's being used to improve people's lives, that's fantastic. But if you're kind of just doing it to just do it, it can lose its value. And then we go back to what we were talking about before, where you don't have that authenticity. And authenticity is so key.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny because that's probably the word I would choose, right? Is authentic.
And it's not that, like, you're getting rid of the idea of being authentic, but I think the word like, authenticity, authentic, is overused because it's a crutch. Right?
You say like, oh, we've got to have authenticity instead of defining what that is. Right. So if you're talking going back to the mom looking for primary care, well, how do you create a message that's authentic? Like, you can't put that in the brief and then expect your creative team to come back with a message that's authentic. You have to, you have to outline this is her life, right? These are the moments that she's experiencing. She's, you know, like, getting the call from preschool and. And it's like, ah, not again. Like, I'm in the middle of the meeting and like, you know, the little one, like, bonked their head because they were climbing on that whatever. Right. But like, that, that's a really stressful moment. And so if you're trying to authentically connect with that you need to really understand that moment to do it. And I feel like too often people drop that word in. You know, drop the word authenticity or authentic in there, and then they stop. And it's like prompt to. You need to provide a whole lot more information right after that statement in order to really create effective advertising or effective brands.
But I think too often they get to the word. People get to the word authentic and sort of stop like, oh, I've done my job. I called that authentic.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: I think that's such a fantastic point. And as you know, you're looking at it, you know, saying authenticity, even the way that I brought it in was you. You can't just check a box and say, we are authentic. It's proving it every single step of the way. From the first conversation you have with a user or all the way to them, you know, leaving the actual appointment. Let's say it's. It's every step of the way. You have to continue to prove that you have their back and that you are authentically there for them in some way, form or fashion. And that's the value exchange that we're talking about.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's. It's really interesting because we all have these, like, you know, every agency has their workshops and their tools. I think, you know, everybody knows, like, the archetypes.
And so often you'll see like a brand like, oh, we are the explorer. They all want to be the hero. We know that. But like, oh, we're the explorer, we're the sage. And then they become so focused on that in their brand communications that they forget to actually be authentic, to actually be human. Because no human is one character. We are all complex. We are all multifaceted. We have great days and bad days, right? And it's. How do you show up as a human, humanly in those interactions?
Because that feels authentic. I think all of us have really great BS meters. When you're like, yeah, that's not right, right? When a brand is saying something that just. You're just like, that's not right.
And so to me, when you think about the idea of authenticity, it really, it means be human, right? React as a human would. Like, you are a person behind this. It's okay for some of that humanity to. To come out because it makes it real, right? People want to interact with real people, not just like these, you know, character in a story that is not authentic.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: And you brought up the topic of tools, Mike. Actually, I'd like to dive into that a little bit further because Again, the way Modigle approaches human, Human centricity in your approach is slightly different than the way Koegi does, because we're coming at it from two different angles. One's the brand message and that value. The other is making sure that we're reaching people and avoiding the biases, again, of thinking about an audience from that archetype sort of approach and then therefore losing out on narrowing our audience based off of our biases. So, Thomas, let's start with you.
When we're thinking about tools and research that we're diving into to uncover emotional insights and helping use that to fuel strategy, we. What are those? Where do you start?
[00:16:00] Speaker C: Personally, I mean, there are so many tools that we do have ready to go. I mean, but just to like, top line it, we use a multitude of demographic, behavioral research, ethnographic studies, and honestly, sentiment and social listening analysis. And ideally, what we're doing there is we're uncovering those deeper emotional insights that are. That are driving the people that we want to talk to. And then what we're able to say is, hey, we're not just making assumptions on what we're trying to say. We're not just making assumptions on what these people want to see or hear, but we're actually getting to the heart of what they need from our brand.
And the way that we do that obviously is more reflected in the strategy, but it's passing those insights over to Mike and his team so that they can kind of craft it in the brand strategy and the creative as well.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah, from, from our side, you know, we certainly have significant.
We. We have a full insights division. We actually run studies, so we run a big study in healthcare called the Humanizing Brand Experience. We have a similar one that we actually run that benchmarks financial services organizations throughout the country across all of those different lenses. You know, the emotional, intellectual, sensorial, behavioral, really diving into what are all of the pieces of that experience.
And then that allows us to benchmark every.
Virtually every healthcare major healthcare brand out there against each other per market to really understand what drives preference, what drives choice, what drives advocacy. And those are incredibly powerful directional tools. But I believe the most important tool that you can't forget is throughout all of that, is to actually talk to people, to use the qualitative sides, because quantitative is amazing. Like the trends it can uncover for you are incredible. But if you forget to do the qualitative piece and actually talk to people, you oftentimes miss that nuance. You miss that piece that makes it really real for them. You can see, like, oh, something's trending down in their perception of best people, which we know is a huge driver in healthcare understanding. What does that mean? Right? Are you talking about, like, oh, this is an experience that we're having with, like, you know, a certain, like, part of the experience is this, like, on arrival, like, we know parking drives everybody crazy, right, But. Or is this something that, like, something's wrong culturally at the organization and people don't feel welcome, but, like, you need to dive a little bit deeper and talk to people and hear their stories, because it's in those moments, or at least from my perspective as a strategist that. That you really find the gold. Like, those moments were like, oh, my gosh, that makes something amazing. I remember I was doing a. We were working on a campaign for a hospital system in the Chicagoland area, and we were. It was specifically focused on cardiology, and we were interviewing the doctor who was head of the cardiology program.
And, like, everybody in the room was crying as he was talking because he was talking about, like, every day when he gets up, how personal he takes his responsibility, and he talks about how, you know, he's getting ready to leave to go to work, and he's thinking about the person who's packing their bag to come in for surgery and the fear that they feel in that moment and how he felt how, like, this just immense responsibility to that. And so he tried to bring that into every interaction with his patients. And. And we were like, oh, my gosh, that is so incredible. We actually ended up building a whole campaign around that.
But it was something that we would never have gotten out of quant. We knew how they ranked, we knew what their outcomes were, but it was the qualitative moment, those stories where you just found this, like, real emotion, this real powerful entry point that allowed us to make the outcomes, that allowed us to make those other stats so much more meaningful because we could put this real human wrapper around.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: And, you know, I know our teams have worked together on a few different brands, including in these kind of more B2B healthcare sort of spaces.
I'd love to hear from both of you because, Thomas, you help handle the account side from Coagi. And then, Mike, I know that you've been integral in building out strategy for multiple Monocle brands, but can you share an example of where Monocle and Kwegi have come together to maybe help a brand shift towards more of a human centric identity and how we were able to complement each other in making that happen?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Do you want to go first.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: Tawith, I am happy to go first.
So I think of our work with MSU Healthcare.
I know on your side, we had a multitude of creatives that were developed to kind of show the different options and availabilities that MSU wanted to put forth. But they were patient stories. They weren't just like stereotypical, here's the service line, here's how you make appointments. They were focused on both a video aspect, but of course also images that showed the human element of what set them apart. And they had names that were these people that had an entire patient backstory that were really powerful, but also just made it feel so real.
And to me, one of the things that we were able to do with that as we were able not just to say, hey, let's put them all out there, but let's actually take a test and see what is resonating. Because that's the key of all this, is finding, especially in regulated industries, it's finding what the emotional level is that is resonating with our audience. And you know, thankfully, like partners like y' all, you know, we don't have to worry. That emotion can bring risk. And I know some brands often fear, but like, we were able to put that emotion out there and actually say, hey, let's look at this and let's test which creatives were performing the best. And you know, on my side, digging into the analytics side, that led to a rise in overall number of appointments scheduled. But then we also took it a step further and were able to make an analysis that those appointment check ins were also on the rise. So for me, it was a story that was start to finish. It was development of the creative and then tweaking the campaign to focus on those assets that resonated the best the entire time. We used a brand lift study to say, hey, this is where your audience is seeing the most lift, especially with that younger audience. We did have, you know, a couple of different assets running, but it was that younger audience that we really wanted to tap into that when they saw their type of human, if you will, another young person, another young family represented on the page, they got interested, they clicked, they made the appointment.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a great. I really do enjoy that campaign. And the line was, our mission starts with you and it's Y O U. Not just, you know, to play on university, but the stories we told. Like Kya, who was a Michigan State University volleyball player who had hurt her shoulder. Like, you know, this is something that was like her life at that moment. And how the system was actually able to help her recover and come back to that. But it puts into context, like, those human stories, like you were saying, like, that enable people to see not just the stats, like, oh, okay, you have great outcomes, but just to really feel it and understand what that means for someone that they could know, right? Like, oh, I may not know, Kaya, but I certainly have friends that. That could. Feels very much like. And all of a sudden, it makes that moment, that decision of where am I going for care feel very real and very like human, you know? And so, yeah, I think that was a fantastic example of where we've partnered together to really humanize a brand, bring that brand to life through storytelling that connects on not just the emotional level, but, like that sensorial level, that intellectual level, ultimately driving the behavior that we need and that we can track and optimize it against which, as you were saying, Thomas, it's that really seeing which one's performing, where are we getting the most traction, and then using that to drive those business objectives.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: And you would have never uncovered those stories which, going back to like, needing to talk to the patient, needing to talk to people. And there's rarely something that is more powerful than a strong testimonial saying, I was in this position, MSU Healthcare, or whatever brand it is made my life easier. And feeling that trust inherently come through. And it's not just words on a page. It's someone speaking from the heart about their experience.
And then, Thomas, I mean, even thinking back to, like, a brand lift study that requires human input on ads, that they have seen, what they remember, how they felt about it. And I think bringing those two pieces together again, the qualitative and the quantitative are critical to building out a holistic strategy that really takes into account the multifaceted elements of marketing.
That being said, I'm going to pivot slightly. I have to talk about the world of technology and specifically AI and personalization, Right?
So we're talking a lot about humanizing a brand.
Placing AI in the center obviously takes out the human in it. And so what we've always said is, you know, yes, there is power in AI and using it as a tool to get us brainstorming or get us down the path. But it inherently has to be paired with human intelligence to make it powerful.
But I'm sure both of you have really strong opinions on how is technology and specifically AI and using that to build impersonalization, shaping, or potentially challenging brand humanization. So, Mike, would you like to kick us off on that?
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. It's really interesting because fundamentally it does make our job a lot easier in that on the strategy side, first thing we do is just this massive assimilation of information, really understanding the business, understanding all the different moving parts, understanding a category.
And so I have found that AI can be an incredibly powerful thought partner to help just get through all of that information and synthesize it and really figure out like, okay, what are the key themes? What are the things that we need to be paying attention to? So from that perspective, I love AI.
Certainly you can go in and you can say, write me a brief or write me a campaign concept and AI will happily do that. Which can be an interesting way to break like the white page, which is so hard sometimes just to get your thoughts going.
But at the end of the day, even though it's pulling from, you know, this massive amount of information, it's not human. And you can, you'll read things, you'll be like, that doesn't, that doesn't feel right. That's not human. Right. So it's a great starting point, It's a great head start. But to me, it doesn't replace that absolute need to talk to people to make sure that you are infusing the humanity into it. It is this sort of like movement towards the middle. If everybody uses AI and to create their campaigns and, and we just get into this world where everything's AI driven, well, then all of a sudden things are going to start feeling very similar.
I worked with an executive creative director at a previous agency and I just loved how he talked about Great Creative because we had these debates and conversations all the time. But he had this analogy and he said, you know, great creative is like a great standup comic.
They say a joke, it's funny because first everybody knows it's true. You recognize the setup, but then they say it in a way that makes you think like, I've never thought of it like that. Right. Or wow, it's really clever. I love the way you said that. And if you really just look at what most of stand up comedy is, it's that AI isn't. AI is going to give you the like the consensus look, not the really unique, like, human of seeing that, not that like stand up comic way. And to me, that's where like humans have a real strong part to play in strategy, in creative is bringing that perspective that makes you be like, huh? I'd never thought of it that way, but that feels really true to me.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: What about you, Thomas? I know that you've probably got some strong opinions on this, having worked with an agency that's pretty strong into the automated technology world. But then we have people like you who are helping set the strategic vision.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
I do want to say one thing as far as Mike's analogy with the comedian, I think that is a fantastic analogy. And one thing that it literally just triggered this thought is the other part to me that's so big is delivery, a comedian's delivery. And for me, that's where I come in, is Mike. You can write the jokes, you can be that person, the comedic side that writes the jokes, that thinks of the content.
But for me, I have to be the one to help you deliver it. And where we're delivering it is where we're going to have that genuine human connection. It can't just fall flat. That's my job, is to make sure what you're saying is not going to fall flat. And for me, looking at how AI helps with that, it can help streamline that experience. Like for me, automation in AI is so powerful where we're, we can use it to improve our inventory scores, look at creative from a starting point and try and improve it on the outset with just eye tracking and things like that. But what it cannot do to your point is it can't feel empathy. It can't find that emotional intelligence. And that to me is the most important, important part. Because anyone can look at an AI video, an AI ad, whatever it may be, and you know it's AI because something in your brain says this, this is not quite right. And when you see some of those AI generated copy lines, those AI generated articles, you feel that lack of emotional intelligence because at the core of it, it's looking at the facts and just the facts, and there for streamlining and making data driven solutions, it can play a part in that. But when it comes to what we're talking about really facing humanity, it, it's gotta have that emotional intelligence. And I know I keep going back to that word, but like that's where we come in and that's where we can be the drivers. Whereas, you know, AI can serve as our navigator.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
You know, it's, it makes me think about how I remember when social media was just blowing up, you know, and this was like 2010, and at agencies we were like trying to figure out like, well, how do we do this social media thing? Like, what's this Facebook thing?
But it quickly led to a lot of hand wringing and kind of pontificating in the agency world. And one of the things that people talked about was the good enough revolution. So we were coming from a world where everything had to be perfect. The art direction on every spot, every out of home board, every print ad was so meticulously thought out and, and quickly we found ourself in a world where content was consumable. It lasted six seconds and was gone. And it just this constant stream of content in that, that standard for what good content was fell. It went from is this perfect? To is this good enough? Is it just gonna, is it gonna occupy someone for the two or three seconds on their scroll, right? Is it gonna make. Get them to maybe do the next thing?
But that thing that I think we lost is exactly what you're talking about. Kind of that, that humanness, that emotional intelligence that all of a sudden dropped away. So AI for making like just massive amounts of content for scrolling. Awesome, right? But if you really want to have that thing that jumps off the page, that, that hero content that harkens back, you know, maybe I'm an old guy or whatever and I kind of look fondly on like, you know, when, when content wasn't so consumable or when it wasn't so transient, but, you know, things actually lasted a little bit.
That's where I think that emotional intelligence really lives. Because when you think about some of the most powerful advertising you've seen, it's because it made you feel a certain way. Maybe it made you laugh, made you cry, whatever it was, but it stuck with you. You know, when you think about how much content you consume in a day, nothing sticks with you, right? Very, very few things stick with you.
So to me, it's that, that emotional intelligence, that humanized brand experience where you can create those moments that just you don't forget, you know, and has to.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: Stick with you for the right reasons.
There, there are some ads out there that stick with you for the wrong reasons. I mean, whether it's like an audio branding, it's like will not leave your brain and maybe that's a good thing. But it's also like I have that good brand experience because now I can't get this out of my head, or it's memorable for the right reasons. And I like what you said, Mike, about going beyond good enough. I mean, that's the whole reason why we're having conversations like this today. And that's why I have.
You are both experts in this space and would love to wrap up just for you to share a piece of advice, a singular piece of advice that you would give teams who are being tasked with going beyond good enough and helping bring brand values truly to life through these different channels, the many different channels that we have at our fingers. Tips today.
What did you say to them? So, Thomas, I'd love to hear from you.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: First, I would say stay intentional.
Every touch point that we are looking at, whether that's the human side or the digital side, deciding where our ads can run, they should all reinforce our brand's values and the humanity that drives that brand. There should not be a moment where you're like taking that good enough approach, where you're saying, we need to serve impressions, let's just put them here. It should always really enforce the brand's values and whatever those values are. That's something that we can have a conversation on at the very forefront, but at the long and short of it, we're always laddering up to that. And whether it's a story that we're telling, a conversion that we're driving, whatever it is, we will always hold those values as our North Star of where we're going.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: I love that. What about you, Mike?
[00:35:18] Speaker B: I'm going to practice. Yes. And. Right.
And I've spent a lot of time. I think we spend a lot of time at Monagle studying people, behavioral psychology and heuristics and really understanding why we do things. And there's something that. There's the peak end rule, which is really thinking about those hallmark experiences. Yes. Everything has to live up to those values, but there has to be a moment that is designed to stick with people. Right. So let's say you have a hundred hours to spend on something. I would send 60 hours on making sure you get to all of the North Star and then spend 40 on one thing. How do you make this moment shine? How do you make this the thing that people are going to remember and they're going to talk to you. Talk about. Right. That hallmark experience. It can be really big or it can be really small or anything in between, but those are those moments that jump out. Like, if everything's just really good, then nothing is memorable. Right. But it felt really good in an incredible. And then really good. You'll talk about the incredible thing. You know, I tell this story. I've never worked with this brand.
It's. So this is not. Not a client I worked on, but years ago. Celestial Seasonings Tea. Do you guys know the tea company Celestial Seasonings? They're peppermint tea. And it's weird because they don't have. They don't have strings. Right. They're just these, like, squares that you have to stick.
And I bought some Peppermint Celestial Seasonings. Tea looks like any other box on the shelf.
And when you got. When I got home and I opened it up, inside there was a commemorative tin, kind of like an Altoids tin. That was the design of the COVID And you could put your tea in it. And it was so much easier to actually get the tea out of that tin than like, opening the box and unrolling the wax paper.
And it felt like, oh, my gosh, like, this is amazing.
This wasn't a promotional thing. Like, I wasn't like a cereal box. Like, get the toy inside. Right. It was something that. It was just a pure surprise and delight moment. But somebody had spent enough time to really understand, like, great product. What are those little things that bother people about this, the experience of this product, and how can we give them something that really makes a difference? And I think for probably like six years, until one of my kids stole it to keep, like, Lego hands.
But I still talk about it because it was like this moment where I was like, that's going to stick with me. That's like, even now I'll be on Amazon, like, shopping, and I'm like, putting the Celestial Seasonings in my cart. Because that brand moment stuck with me.
I'm sure I could buy a tea that tastes exactly the same. But it was that moment that became this Hallmark moment for me, that not only do I continue to buy their tea, but I tell people about it. I turn to this advocate. So to me, that would be my thing is like, make sure you're beyond good enough for everything, but don't find that Hallmark moment or those Hallmark moments and really let them shine.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Well, not to be too cheesy, but I think that's a nice, warm ending to this wonderful conversation. So I want to give you both a huge thank you for sharing your insights. It was such a thoughtful conversation. And to our listeners, if you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow Monocle and Koegi on LinkedIn for more perspectives on building a human first brand experience. We'll see you next time.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:38:49] Speaker C: Thank you all.
