“Brand centric” vs. “user centric” and why it matters

“Aren’t all designers strategic? Most of them think about the user and design in such a way that enables certain interactions, right?”

I was talking about brand strategy in relationship to design with someone the other day and they raised this insightful question/comment. I’ve been turning it over in my head a bit and here are some thoughts.

User centric and brand centric are not the same thing.

User-centric is vital to having a successful product. Brand-centric is vital to having a sustainable experience and building brand affinity over time. And EVERYTHING you do contributes to that.

To put it another way user-centric is a puzzle piece, brand centric is the puzzle. The whole picture. How all the experiences work together to tell a unified story. This is where brand thinking is vital to long-term success, loyalty, and differentiation.

So we have to think not only “how will someone interact with this successfully?” but “what will their experience be as a whole?” How will they feel? What will they think? Will they want to voluntarily repeat that interaction because of how it was uniquely designed? Will they crave more interactions like that? Will they prefer it over other options? 

A brand communicates values through interactions and generates affinity and loyalty and recognition over time.

User centric is about a single experience. And the importance of this to a brand success cannot be overstated, but brand centricity weaves all the experiences together with a common, recognizable thread.