An interesting article in KioskMarketplace on the importance of branding in self-service:

Most consumers are unaware of the careful planning that goes into the design, packaging and marketing of the products and services they enjoy. Most of them don’t know why they feel comfortable when they walk into a Starbucks; they just know that they do.

This non-tangible, hard-to-quantify relationship between consumers and the products and services they buy is at the core of a successful business.

“(A brand is) primarily an emotional process of engagement. Branding is about 95 percent emotional, and a large part of that 95 percent is at an unconscious level.”

That’s a tough pill to swallow for those who would like to believe it is their product, or their hard work, that should get the credit for success.

I was tempted to agree with the 95/5 percentage, but on a second thought, I don’t think that a bad product/service will make it on a long run just based on its emotional affiliates unless emotion is the need the product adresses. I would rather say the 95% “emotional choice” is rather affecting the choice between two extremely similar products, say Coke vs. Pepsi for example, or as Ms.Janelle Barlow, Ph.D put it in the artlcle mentioned before:

The functionality of your devices — pretty similar, right? So the question is, what’s different? That’s really your strength. Inside an industry, functionality is really not going to be that different.