Moo.com

For some time now, I have been pushing myself to consider the broader meaning of “branding through people”. As new technologies advance, and give rise to new ways of interacting over the Internet and developments such as Second Life, I find myself intrigued by their potential impact. Towards the future, it seems more and more of our interactions may no longer involve an actual person, but continue to contain elements that we would normally associate with human contact.

As my own thinking on this evolves, I am often haunted by the following question: to what extent is branding through people linked to the actual involvement of a person ? In other words, can we consider branding through people as any form of branding that involves either a natural person (i.e. an individual) or exhibits certain characteristics that are usually linked to one (i.e. a personality or character traits) ?

Let me give you an example. Recently, I ordered some business cards through online printing company Moo.com. In spite of being an entirely virtual business, Moo goes to great lengths to give you the feeling that you are dealing with an actual person.

Let me give you a few examples:

• On their homepage, the welcome text reads :”Hello, welcome to Moo. We’re a printing company where every one is different.”
• They have a blog titled “You, and what’s going on at Moo.”
• When you get a delivery, it reads “Your Moo mincards are inside. Exciting, isn’t it ?“
• “MOO is based in London, England, where we carefully print and hand-pack everything for global delivery.”

From the wording and language they use on their site to the helpful tips they give on getting the most out of your shopping experience right down to the little card they use to wrap their packages, Moo excels at one thing: giving you the feeling that there is someone sitting next to you the entire journey.

Someone who really cares about you.

In fact, in many ways, Moo is much better at this than many people are. When was the last time you felt that the callcenter rep on the other side of the line really did care ? The supermarket attendant really helpful ? The bank employee really interested in “finding the best solution for your needs” ?

It is immensely difficult to control the human variable in customer interactions (on both sides), so one strategy could be to try to create a brand personality through the use of technology. Companies that are successful in delivering a positive customer experience often do so by building in specific personality-like traits in their processes.

In short, they give you the impression you are dealing with a person rather than a company.

I find this evolution intriguing as it leads me to think about branding through people in much broader terms: perhaps we should be talking about “personality branding” instead ?