One Part Learning, Two Parts Product Demo

If you were following me on Twitter Wednesday, you probably saw my stream of posts about taking my daughter on an Apple Store field trip. Like I say in the "boo" above, field trips as thinly veiled product demonstrations are nothing new. We all have experience with them. But it's interesting to me how Apple turned the paradigm on its head with this program.

Most field trips I've been on, involve some knowledgeable person talking to the kids and explaining how everything works. Apple didn't do any of this. Instead, the store employees explained what everyone was going to do (make a commercial, please note the emphasis on action), handed out the tools and let the kids run wild. It was experiential branding at it's best.

Think about it. Apple may have a strongly managed brand, but the brand is all about the user experience and how it dovetails into your creativity and expression of self. So a simple product demo of the iPod Nano's new video camera functionality turned into kids being kids with video cameras. And the video editing power of iMovie became kids creating whatever they could imagine.

All of this became a strong lesson in what I've been talking about on the blog recently: A brand can be strongly managed and still accommodate the user's experiences and impressions. Doing so take a little guts, because customers don't use products and service the way actors do in commercials. But if your brand accounts for individual expression, it's more likely to lower barriers, create good will and nurture true advocacy.