My Brand Experiences

How often are you delighted. by your brand experiences? How often are you disillusioned by the fairy tales and friction created by a brand you chose or didn't chose, but have to deal with? Raise your hand if you've ever heard, "We're experiencing higher than normal call volumes, please stay on the line, your call is important to us."

Brand isn't just a marketing function, it's a function of culture, goal-setting, and customer service protocols.These experiences are a big part of our lives, and how brands show up for us or fail us is important to everything from commerce, housing, transportation, entertainment, the economy, food, and even legislative policy.

The quote "Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room," famously attributed to Jeff Bezos, emphasizes that a brand is a reputation built through consistent actions and is ultimately defined by public perception rather than a company's self-proclamation. This applies to companies, systems, and individuals, highlighting that a person's or brand's true identity is formed by the cumulative experience, trust, and impressions it leaves on others.

I am struck in this moment how our most important resources, time and money, are wasted by brands without our permission. It's one thing to dedicate time and money, it is quite another to have brands steal your time and waste your money. It truly IS a delight when brands fulfill their promises and respect time and money.

I'm sharing my personal brand experiences that illustrate how brands can frustrate and delight us.

Aera

I had a hard time explaining to my husband, Byron, why I spent $199 on a fragrance diffuser several years ago. The perfect answer came recently in the form of sample fragrances sent to m in a recent order of a capsule with Linen fragrance (one of my favorites). The box had two simple words, "Smell happy." That's why. We had three dogs at one point. I have a keen sense of smell (something I didn't realize how much I loved until I lost it for several months after getting Covid). Byron keeps our dogs bathed and clean, but let's face it. Our fur babies can be smelly, no shade on dogs, babies too.

I adore my Aera. You can dial the intensity of scent up or down depending on the size of the room and the pervasiveness of the dogness. Every three months or so, I peruse the catalog of scents to find a new favorite, some that smell exactly as you would expect; Majestic Fir, Beach, Lavender. Some require exploration, like Snow Fall or Soft Pants, which has tones of vanilla and sandalwood. The description says, "Loosen your waistband and put on your fuzzy socks. It's time to chillax." I liked the fragrance so much, I wrote a song about it as an ode to remote workers during the pandemic lockdown.

Alaska Airlines

It's kind of hit or miss how an airline will behave when you need to cancel a flight. Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation required airlines to refund travelers for cancelled flights and improved the criteria for refunding or allowing modification of flights. Big huge thank you to Alaska Airlines for a full refund of a fare for a last-minute cancelled flight. Also my mom's best friend Linda worked there for many years and loved the people and the company. If it's good by Linda, it's good by me.

American Express 

I have had a relationship with American Express for decades. I quite literally have been pleased with every single interaction. That is so improbable. Financial services can be fraught with complex shenanigans, but it is so clear that the culture of American Express is customer service and they deeply understand their why. I have been a customer with money and credit, and one without a lot of either. I am treated with the same care by customer service whether I'm using their credit card or their rewards banking. Unlike many financial institutions, their culture prioritizes the consumer, not the dollars amassed by every interaction. Their services include payment products, banking services, travel services, business & corporate solutions, insurance products, and merchant services. Their credit cards include Platinum (travel card), Green (everyday spending points card), Gold (travel and dining focused card), and Black (by invitation only). American Express structures its offerings to match different spending patterns and lifestyles rather than strict "levels," though cards do range from no-annual-fee options to ultra-premium invite-only products.

When I lost a Platinum card on a business trip, they helped make sure my hotel stay was covered even though I had to replace the card. When my Rewards Checking card was compromised (someone made five back-to-back orders at Domino's Pizza) they quickly identified the fraud (not sure how that algorithm works, but I'm a food snob and though I've ordered a lot of pizza, Domino's isn't a place I frequent), helped me file a claim, and reimbursed me. When I filed for bankruptcy and called them about closing my Platinum card, they were unbelievably kind. The representative thanked me for being a customer and told me they would look forward to welcoming me back when times were better. To have a financial services company treat you well during your most stressful, most difficult, and most devastating life moments is not just a surprise, it's rare. Wherever my journey takes me, in good and hard financial times, American Express is my choice.

BetterHelp

The definition of Agitated Catatonia, a diagnosis I received in 2024, means that a person increases reactivity to their environment. It can include hours of meaningless motions and actions and it can be debilitating for the patient and frightening for onlookers. It's mental illness that can be short-lived or ongoing. Exact causes are not understood and it can be linked to both psychiatric and physical illness and it can, in most cases, be successfully treated with rest and therapy.

As a Marketing Executive whose "brand" is optimism, Agitated Catatonia seemed like a stretch diagnosis for me. Respiratory illness, lack of sleep, recent loss of a job, stress, and lack of prioritization in work and day-to-day life had me in a programmed state of fight or flight. These and other realities began crashing into each other and I ended up spending two days and one night in the ER and then the psychiatric unit to address this mental health crisis. 

Once I came home, I researched obsessively. I wanted to understand how this happened and what I needed to do to make sure itr didn't happen again. As part of my care, BetterHelp was a tool I used to access counseling, to journal, and to track important metrics with an Oura ring. It became my mission to improve metrics around sleep, movement, meditation, joy, play, and rest. BetterHelp wasn't just the place I came to learn, it was the place I came to heal. I'm grateful for the simplicity and elegance of the platform and its' place in my healthcare journey.

Google

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

When I started in digital marketing, two years before Google, search engines like Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves were helping us navigate the new world of the internet. I have been grateful to Google for knowledge, for my job, for the ability to explore far flung locations, for brilliant images, and for new ideas. In the past couple of years, Google seems to have lost its' way. Searches for specific brand names or products surface sponsored ads before the "correct" answer. The single, helpful interface has now become spread out across too many products, some doing many of the same things.

I'll never forget when my friends John & Polly Wood introduced me to Google at a coffee shop late in 1998. You could feel that it was going to change the way we search and expand what we had access to. More than 27 years later, I'm hoping they can make a come back by focusing more on their mission. I can't speak to the universality, but their organization of information is far less useful than it used to be,

Ken Burns

In a recent interview on Joe Rogan, Ken Burns spoke about his nearly 40-year career as a documentarian. He said that history and people are complicated and that it is his job to, "call balls and strikes". We have watched most of Burns documentaries, including deep-dives into our National Parks, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Vietnam War, and most recently, Baseball in which my stepdad, Wally Backman, is mentioned as part of the team who won the 1986 World Series. His work is prolific and most projects take about a decade. He engages with other smart folks to help bring these important stories to life. The newest documentary, The American Revolution, starts tonight, Sunday November 16 on PBS. Burns is one of just a few people I trust to share factual accounts of important events. I'm grateful for his work and learn so much from it. As a brand, he consistently finds different and better ways to fund, create, promote, and teach the stories of us and we're all the smarter and wiser for it.

Phish 

This 40-year old jam band owns the quintessential illustration of excellent content strategy.

The music and concerts are events. Done correctly, attending is an act of love and care for the music and for the other attendees. The people who follow Phish are predominantly delightful and deeply committed to the enjoyment and evolution of the music. I'm more of a Bee Gees, Elton John, Billy Joel, Billy Idol gal, but came to love the band not because my husband loves them, but because what they do is done with so much care.

During the pandemic, band leader and guitarist Trey Anastasio did a series of concerts with other amazing musicians called Beacon Jams. Bassist, Mike Gordon, recently funded research for being in the "flow" state. A neurological event experienced by humans during deep states of focus, intensity, and joy such as playing music, playing sports, performing surgery, listening to music, or any event that allows us to be fully present for a moment in time.

I decided I wanted to see the band live after watching their NPR Tiny Desk concert. They played, "Sleep Again" about how our relationships change when we have children and how we find our ways back from that wonderful and exhausting time. I heard "Miss You" for the first time, a song dedicated to the memory of Trey's sister who died young of cancer. And they played, "Carini" a fun, goofy song where the words really don't mean much, but it's fun to sing along. What's not to love?

Post-it notes

As marketers, we study Kaizen, Scrum, Six-Sigma, and other project management philosophies. I love making lists for so many of life's professional and personal priorities and post-it notes are a great way to do that. I have made the mistake of trying another brand that didn’t stick well on the refrigerator where my lists for the market, or meals, or honey-do's go. That's super frustrating. Hey little piece of paper with adhesive on the back, you had one job. The notes didn't include their brand name on the back (for good reason) so this is a recommendation to just use the original, we know they work.

Redfin, Rent dot com, and Zelle

I will rarely put multiple brands together in my analysis, but my experience with real estate fraud was driven by the relationship between these real estate and financial services brands.

Data governance is a big part of my job. We organize data, ask questions of data, apply human need and human qualities to data, and improve user experiences with data. It can be first party, third party, or other kinds of data used for many important, and sometimes nefarious purposes.

I outline my full experience with data governance and fraud in this post but top-level, we moved back to Portland, Oregon from Camas, Washington about a year ago. We found what appeared to be a legitimate rental through Redfin. After completing an application, paying fees and security deposit, and working with someone claiming to be the owner's attorney, we discovered the truth: the property wasn't a rental at all. New owners were moving in while we stood outside with our lease agreement. The experience I had started on Redfin, who uses MLS data for home sales (reliable), but third-party sources like Rent.com for rentals (unreliable). This created in me a false sense of security about the data, because I trusted the brand. Redfin provided boilerplate language about not being responsible for third-party data and directed us to report the scam to Rent dot com who provides their leasing data. When we filed a police report, Rent dot com insisted there was nothing they could do and suggested law enforcement could subpoena information about the data source. The police, overwhelmed by these types of digital fraud on top of their already-full allocation of resources to physical crimes, were unable to help. Redfin and Rent dot com refused to help and blamed each other. When I reported the issue to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Zelle noted their policy states that the consumer bears 100% responsibility when transferring money with their service. Real estate, rental, and financial services are plenty. I won't be using any of these services again.

Talecris Grifols

I have been donating blood and plasma since I was in college. Sometimes donating for free, primarily with the American Red Cross, and sometimes for a fee, with companies like BioLife and Talecris Grifols. Sometimes it was for extra cash for college outings to Wendy's, or the movies, or for a six-pack to bring to a party (of course when we were of legal age;). Sometimes it was for extra cash for pedicures, martinis, or travels. The people at Talecris Grifols are predominantly skilled and kind. According to their site, Grifols (not sure why it's sometimes referred to as Talecris Grifols or just Grifols) is a global healthcare company founded in Barcelona in 1909 committed to improving the health and well-being of people around the world. The company develops, produces and provides innovative healthcare services and solutions in more than 110 countries. A pioneer in the plasma industry, the company develops innovative plasma-derived medicines and other biopharmaceutical solutions that treat patients with chronic, rare and, at times, life-threatening conditions. It focuses on treating conditions across four main therapeutic areas: immunology, infectious diseases, pulmonology and critical care. Grifols has the largest network of donation centers in the world, with close to 400 across North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and China.

The process of donating is straightforward, and during the 90 minutes or so of the donation, it's not too loud to listen to a podcast or read a book. For two donations a week, you get $45 for the first donation and $75 for the second. The plasma is then used to help burn victims, those with bleeding disorders or weakened immune systems, and babies with Rh disease.

TMobile 

This brand assessment is less a cohesive narrative about my experiences and more a running list of grievances in order of how irritating the request or statement is:

1. Do you want to be transferred to a support team for a fee of $10? Um, does any one actually say, yes, please charge me extra to do the job you should be doing for the $153 I already pay you every month?

2. We care about your experience, looks like there's a wait. It should be about an hour. Cool, because I got nothing else going on and spending 1/24th of my day listening to your advertising sounds delightful.

3. The callback functionality is currently unavailable. We care about your experience so we may record this call. Pardon me, what does my experience have to do with your recording the call...oh wait, so you can improve user experiences. I have some ideas if you're interested.

4. Have you downloaded the T-Life app? Yep, and it can't solve the issue I'm waiting on line to discuss. Thank you for asking.

5. Are you a DIYer? Services are available on T-Mobile website. Check out the T-Life app today! Sure, I can DIY when needed, this shouldn't be one of those times.

6. I see that you're still here. How can we help? Never mind, you overcharged me by $32 last month but it's worth it to just off the mobile phone with ya'll. I think that's what Alanis Morissette meant by, "isn't it ironic?"

TriMet

For the first time in our 10 years together, my husband and I are down to one vehicle. After a job loss, we needed to whittle our expenses down by two-thirds. Transportation was a category in our YNAB (You Need a Budget is both a book and a money-tracking app) analysis that had lots of room to reduce.

I use our TriMet MAX Rail and Bus system frequently now. The website is helpful for planning and tracking trips and the alert system for any changes or delays is incredibly accurate. The people who work there are, predominantly, helpful and kind.

On a recent trip during a busy time (Portland Timbers game and No Kings Protest) I was on a train home. A man sitting in front of me was staring out the window and speaking loudly about his frustrations of the day, "Why is everything so loud? Get out, go home! I'm so tired of this. Make it stop!" It was clear he was experiencing a difficult day and was also potentially dealing with mental illness. I asked a TriMet employee, Kelly, what could be done. I told him the yelling was unsettling, people were changing seats, or rolled their eyes or put on headphones. I asked if there was a recommended action in these situations. He told me he knew the man, and that he wasn't a danger and that it had been a very difficult day for him and a lot of other folks. He had called Customer Service staff and they joined us at the next stop. I was grateful for the backup in case something went wrong, and for their presence, which seemed to quickly diffuse the outburst.

The ways to connect with TriMet to share issues are present in signs conveniently located frequently throughout the rail, streetcar, and bus systems. Having experienced large rail systems in New York (sometimes great), in London, (pretty fabulous), and Tokyo, and throughout Japan (close to perfection) I was cautiously optimistic about using the Portland, Oregon public transportation system. I have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the service and it continues to expand to provide more access to other parts of the expanding city. My biggest issue with TriMet is the cleanliness of the Transit Stations and Bus Stops which is more of a City of Portland issue than a TriMet one.

Wusthof Knives

I have a complicated relationship with kitchen knives. I love eating and all the things related to it. Gardening, harvesting, cooking, and enjoying food are more than hobbies, they are my love language. As I've continued to invest in my abilities with cookbooks, classes, lessons from cooks better than me (including my husband who is a better technical cook than I am, but I'm a more explorative cook, so it's a wash, don't tell him I said that), and the day-to-day commitment to cooking, great knife skills evade me.

One company that has provided me with better outcomes in the kitchen, is the German knife company, Wusthof. I have a set including a paring knife, a bread knife, and a couple of large cutting knives. A few years ago, the largest knife broke in two using it to smash garlic. As directed on the company website, I sent the knife back to Wusthof, and in about three weeks, they sent me a new replacement knife. I was skeptical about the replacement offer, but the promise to replace was kept and I am a fan.

On a side note about knives, I recently attended the SparkTogether Conference and one of the presenters was the inventor of the Seattle UltraSonic Chef's Knife. The first production of the knife sold out, but I'm looking forward to getting in on the March order. It solves many of the problems I have with knife skills including precision, sharpness, and ability to accomplish a lot of knife needs in one tool. Also, the product video demonstrated how you use the knife to get the essence of lemon for a cocktail, so I'm way in.

We repeat what we are incentivized to do. Brands, whether they're big organizations, political parties, or individuals, have a responsibility to know their why and to strive to support it with affirming actions that build the brand promise. That striving, or lack thereof, is evident in every brand interaction. Make them count.