“When information is cheap, attention becomes expensive” James Gleick
This is the state of the mind today. Constantly bombarded with overloads of information. We are all guilty of it — watching law and order while refreshing the snapchat feed. Slight pause and then double click that little circle on the iphone to Instagram and you are sucked into the infinite scroll.
But I digress.
This begs the question of how do brands, organizations and of course people actually capture the coveted presence also known as attention? This question of attention should be most perplexing to brands. With a new cohort of customers coming to the forefront who are digitally savvy and have a strong detector for bullshit. Lets call them the ‘Conscious Customers’ — aware, awake, and awesome. Albeit, utterly deprived of undivided attention.
The lack of attention puts brands in somewhat of a state of flux. Right? I mean brand loyalty which I would argue is a derivative of genuine human loyalty comes from the revered gaze. The moments of pure, undivided attention. Although,this idea of attention is not new to brands. The equation is simple: see my brand, engage with it, buy my stuff.
The real question is how does a brand capture “The Instagram generation” who “experience the present moment as an anticipated memory” Surely it goes beyond hashtag ad campaigns and paid product placement on the latested social network.
I believe it does.
Flow States
This generation requires and desires a new kind of attention that will be sought after by brands and employers alike. A deep emersion into an experience that is so compelling it will be addictive. The brands and start ups that hope to thrive will have to induce flow. An optimal state of consciousness brought about by product, service, experience, and any kind of ‘advertising’.
What is Flow?
Put simply flow is a state when we perform our best, feel our best, when we are so focused that time dilates, it is a state of supreme attention and rapt absorption. Also known as a brands wet dream, if held in the same instance with there product of service. But, perhaps one of the most compelling aspects about flow is our state after the experience has taken place — a deep sense of enjoyment and it is a landmark in our memories of what life should be like. This state in the eyes of brands is equal to loyalty.
But is this really new? is flow an unknown phenomena. Not at all. Flow states are constantly achieved by extraordinary athletes, as well as ordinary people. The exhilaration of surfing a massive wave …thats flow. The conversation with a friend that passed by in what felt like 2 minutes but was actually 2 hours…Also flow.
What is new is our ability to address the factors and triggers that lay the infrastructure to make flow less of a fluke and more of a planned event. In his book ‘The Rise Of Superman’ Steven Kotler outlines the flow triggers. There are 17 of these flow triggers and they fall into 4 categories.
Getting Into Flow
Flow, is the art of total immersion and brands should be extremely excited at the opportunity that lies ahead, or incredibly terrified at the start ups that will cease the low hanging fruit. The reason is the convergence of a few factors.
- The rise of a millennial customer “the kind of person who cares where her coffee and chickens come from, and also her clothes.”
- Emerging technologies that make the digital and physical world more seamless.
- The ever decreasing attention span in culture.
When all three of these factors combine inevitably combine, brands will have to provide flow experiences to stay relevant. Brands will have to create environmental, psychological , social and creative triggers both internally with talent inside the organization and externally with customer experiences through product and service.
Brands need to go out of their way and come up with novel ways to induce flow when thinking and crafting all steps of experience a person will have when interacting with anything to do with their products, services , or even the awareness of the brands existence.
A few years back I recall reading that “content was king” and now with the rise of mobile it is “content is king, but context is queen”. In the future it will be “flow to flourish”.
Brands That Are Using Flow
Flow to flourish brands will utilize the triggers of flow through currently emerging technologies to produce flow states in all brand experiences. Although, the 17 flow triggers will be reduced to 8 elements of flow. 8 elements of flow in the context of a brand seems more elegant.
The 8 Flow Elements For Brand (Adapted From Flowskills.com)
- Clarity Of Goals & Immediate Feedback
- The rules are clear. In every action, success or failure is immediately perceived. Sports and the arts are therefore classic flow-activities.
2. High Level Of Concentration On A Limited Field
- This allows a person’s consciousness to delve deeply into the activity. This is quite novel from the often chaotic and contradictory demands in daily life which may cause confusion and dissatisfaction.
3. Balance Between Skills And Challenges
- A too difficult piece of music will leave a musician frustrated and disappointed, a too easy one leads to boredom and routine. So flow occurs in range between ‘too much’ and ‘too little’.
4. The Feeling Of Control
- The expression ‘control’ is easily misunderstood. It can put many people off by its association with compulsive domination or nervous attention. Control in flow has none of these qualities. It is a state of security and relaxation with the complete absence of worry: the paradox known in Zen Buddhism as ‘control without controlling’.
5. Effortlessness
- necessary decisions arise spontaneously from the demands of the activity without any deliberate reflection.
6. An Altered Perception Of Time
- Dilation of time, slow seems fast and fast seems slow.
7. The Melting Together Of Action & Consciousness
- Also thought of as complete unity with actions and surroundings
8. The Autotelic Quality Of Flow Experience
- Greek root auto meaning self and telos meaning goal. Put simply the activity itself is the reward.
In Context
How are brands actually using these elements to drive customer loyalty and what is the economic outlook of said brands?
To illustrate brand flow in context we will look at all eight elements of flow and provide a contextual example of how a thriving brand is using the element to create brand loyalty.
- Clarity Of Goals & Immediate Feedback
Brand Example: Airbnb
A key feature of Airbnb’s brand is their ability for the community to authentically create trust with one another. How they do this is by implementing flow element #1 immediate feedback. They use both host and traveller immediate reviews to create a very clear sense of success and failure on the platform.
2. High Level Of Concentration On A Limited Field
Brand Example: Snapchat
Snapchat is the quintessential ephemeral message. Snapchat or Evan Speigal is well aware of “A high level of concentration on a limited field” as a key element of his brands exponential growth.
3. Balance Between Skills & Challenges
Brand Example: Slack
Email sucks and it is gives many of us anxiety. Although on the other end of the spectrum social networks with much of the same kind of content being reiterated over and over in different way can be boring. Slack has used flow element number three to find the happy medium between anxiety and boredom in their enterprise software.
4. The Feeling Of Control
Brand Example: Uber
“A state that is absent of worry” is how control is defined in the context of flow. Many of us remember the worry that has washed over you when trying to find a cab, especially in busy cities. Uber’s brand is contingent upon this element — giving control to both customers and drivers with the app.
5. Effortlessness
Brand Example: Sonos
“All the music on earth, in any room in your house. Wirelessly.” It doesn’t get much more effortless than that. The most compelling business case for effortless or frictionless experiences with brands is that it gives a step into the ecosystem. If you want to expand the effortlessness of your experience — in this case say an extra Sonos Play 1 for your backyard you have to add to the ecosystem.
6. An Altered Perception Of Time
Brand Example: Oculus Rift
7. Melting Together Of Consciousness & Action (Decisions without thinking)
Extremely subjective*
8. The Autotelic Experience
Brand Example: Soul Cycle
Creating an incredible brand through something as simple as a spin class is very impressive. Soul Cycle executes on the autotelic experience element (having a purpose within the act itself). Proof of this is in the business model of soul cycle (pay per class) which validates how “autotelic” the experience is.
The Future Of Flow And Brands
In the future a brands loyalty will be driven by their abilities to create incredibly compelling flow experiences. This, of course will be due to the convergence of emerging technologies that will allow brand experiences and products to provide people with all the triggers of flow, creating a nuero-chemical cocktail of pure commercial bliss.
The Perfect Example Of Flow Brand Experience In The Future
Oculus Rift & xy and z Brands will be the most foreseeable future of the stories brands tell through experience.
Lets Imagine Nike using virtual reality to showcase the performance of a new sneaker. Time dilates and the experience puts the customer in awe while he/she is shown how the product works and what it is capable of — similar to a dream state. The customer comes back to life and has chosen to buy the shoes while in the virtual experience. Of course the shoe is connected to other devices via networks and sensors and is capable of giving the customer real time feedback during their run or workout. That would be an amazing flow experience.
