April 7, 2023
Every other Sunday, I head to a coffee shop to write to you.
I order the same breakfast (a medium-sized coffee with an egg, spinach, and avocado sandwich) and sit at the same power outlet-friendly table facing the door. I pull out my laptop, arrange my space, and begin writing.
It’s a ritual I have built for myself. It adds comfort, control, and ceremony to these Sunday morning writing moments.
The 15-minute drive to the coffee shop.
The small talk with the woman who works the counter.
The people-watching.
It signals to my brain why we are here and what we’re about to do.
And on days when I leave that coffee shop with fewer words to show for it than I hoped, the ritual itself feels like an accomplishment.
Rituals are different from habits.
Habits are the mundane things we do just because we do them.
Rituals play into our inherent desire for stability, belonging, and connection. They’re emotional.
You might have your own rituals.
Maybe you eat, do, or wear something specific before an important day at work.
Or before you board a flight.
Or work out.
Or (like me) when you need to get into a particular headspace.
Some rituals have been cemented in us through marketing.
You twist, lick, and dunk your Oreo.
You make popcorn for family movie nights and tacos on Tuesdays.
You snap your Kit Kat in half and eat it in a most particular way.
These aren’t habits. We don’t do these things just because.
We do them because the brand ritual brings extra joy to the experience.
It’s a value-add.
Living in this weird era of AI obsession has me looking for ways to insert humanness into the brand and customer experience we build for clients. Finding the moments the machines and algorithms miss because they view our audience as data points. We know them as living and breathing people.
Incorporating rituals helps us to:
- Encourage our audience to keep choosing us.
- Build fandom and community around what we offer.
- Make it unlikely they’ll ever want to choose a competitor.
- Insert more delight and joy into their journey.
What can we do to incorporate rituals more deeply into our marketing?
Observe how your audience interacts with you.
To stick, rituals must be built on top of your audience’s existing behaviors rather than trying to force new behaviors onto them.
Think about how your product fits into your customer’s daily life.
- Where and when is it used?
- How is that use initiated, and what are the steps in the process?
- For example, must it be unwrapped if it’s a physical product? If it’s service-based, do they open an app, log in, or something else? What do they see first? Where do they go next?
- What emotions are connected to its use? Are they calm moments or moments of stress and frustration?
- What ELSE might they be doing or experiencing at the same time?
Watching someone use your product or service is helpful in finding these answers. You can’t survey it out of them because they may leave out part of their ritual--either because they don’t realize they’re doing it or because they find it embarrassing.
If a stranger asked how I eat a Kit Kat, I would tell them I break off a piece and eat it. Because that is how a typical person would answer, and I don't want to sound like a weirdo.
But that's not how I eat a Kit Kat.
I have a six-step process for that.
Step 1: Break off a piece.
Step 2: Eat the chocolate off each end.
Step 3: Eat the chocolate down each side
Step 4: Remove and eat the top layer.
Step 5: Remove and eat the middle layer.
Step 6: Eat the bottom layer.
That is an entirely different answer from the one I initially gave. You'd never know my true behavior unless you watched me do it or until I trusted you enough to share (the ritual, not my Kit Kat). Understanding how a customer really interacts with your product can reveal more than you think.
Where can you add some pomp?
Map out your audience's journey with as much detail as possible to identify the awkward steps and turns they take when completing a task.
Where can you insert a piece of ceremony, storytelling, or connection to those moments that others can't replicate? Where can you use brand rituals to create a greater sense of community?
Tony Hsieh built Zappos by creating unique customer-centric moments.
Apple does it through scarcity, encouraging people to wake up at 3 AM or to stand in line for days, all so they can be the first to purchase the latest product.
Owala (makers of my favorite keyword-spamming water bottle) does it through packaging, telling me where to lift, press, and pop my new water bottle. Each time I buy a new one, I complete the ritual in the same way.
