Harry Potter is hands down my favorite user experience. I’ve not run across a more well-choreographed, well-articulated, 360 degree brand experience than this world of literature.The series is brilliant - entirely immersive, completely on-brand, consistent, and high quality. (I’m talking about the books specifically, but I’d argue the movies certainly add to the experience as do the limited and well-produced licensing efforts, like Bertie Botts Many-Flavor Beans). J.K.Rowling has created an entire world for us - complete with its own language, culture, rituals, images, characters. It’s brilliant. And in thousands upon thousands of pages, it’s never fallen down.Reading the series to my children has been one of the highlights of my life as mom. We’ve shared an experience that has completely enchanted us and given us so much to talk about over the years. The language of Harry Potter has become our own secret tongue and we love casting spells, discussing quidditch matches, conjecturing on whether Dumbledore is truly dead, and imaging together. (I say he’s not).  We’ve even gone so far as to create fanfic.Without a doubt, Harry Potter is my very favorite user experience. All brands should strive to create so full and compelling a world.

I’m growing curious about the DNA of the iPhone, from a media planning perspective.  What is it going to be?  The iPod is all about entertainment, but mobile phones are all about utility.  In other words - successful advertising on mobile phones tend to promote functionality - search, Google maps that show where product can be purchased locally, text purchases, etc.  Most people, today at least, aren’t looking for entertainment on their cell phones.  But other devices, particularly mp3 players and gaming devices, fit well with entertainment - short video clips, ads, interactivity.  And some devices, let’s call them laptops, lend themselves to both.

The iPhone has the potential to open up the floodgates for mobile media - to make entertainment as relevant as utility.  And if the cellular industry follows suit, the shape of mobile media - just now in its formative stages - is set to change again.

What do you think?  Is an iPhone more phone or entertainment player?  Can it be both?  And if you’ve got one, please by all means, write in and let us know how you like it and what you’ve been doing with it!

This was pointed out to me by the brilliant Alison Munsell, cultural commentator extraordinaire at Egg.  7-Eleven is rebranding a dozen of its top-selling stores “Kwik-E Mart” as a tie-in to 20th Century Fox’s new Simpson’s movie.  Even though only a few stores will be rebranding, all 7-Elevens will be restocked with key Simpson’s products like Krusty O’s cereal, Buzz Cola, WooHoo! Blue Vanilla Squishee Slurpees, and pink frosted Sprinklicious doughnuts.  Now if only they could have Apu behind the counter!

In all seriousness, it’s a brilliant, breakthrough way example of Active Branding, taking the brand to the people, rather than driving the people to the brand.  And it’s great to see a brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  I haven’t found myself in a 7-Eleven in quite a while, but you better believe I’ll be stopping by to check this out!

For more pictures of one of the re-branded stores, check out these photos by Justin in Seattle.

Most of the current iPhone fuss is about the way that this single device might finally pay off the promise of convergence.  It’s everything you to carry - all-in-one.

Convergence is all well and good, but that’s not what I find most exciting.  For me, the most progress can be found in the savvy navigation.

It’s Minority Report time.  Between iPhone and Microsoft Surface and a few other mind-blowing navigation tools on the horizon, we’re finally reaching the point where we navigate content intuitively, based on visual cues, rather than creating alphanumeric systems as proxies (think alphabetical filing or dewey decimal).

Google took the first step forward with search - no need for an encyclopedia when you can just type in your query and find the answer.  Search is just now getting to the point of blending media - type in a query and get text, images, video etc back all in one response.  (Would you rather read or watch your answer?).

And now, the beginnings of truly visual information architecture - inexpensive digital imagery can flow through the pipe so we see an actual replica of the content - the album, the book, the person, the report, the cover page - as we navigate.  It’s a much more intuitive, logical system.  (I always point out how Tivo makes more sense than a vcr - you tape the show, not the time slot.  Visual navigation is going to be the same sort of leap forward - you see the content, not some coded proxy). 

Finally, it’s the beginning of an information architecture renaissance, one in which visual imagery finally gets its due.  My old myopic boss ran around chortling that this is the “decade of design”.  He was right, of course, but had only the narrowest of vision.  Design will be the critical differentiator for longer than a mere decade.  And design is bigger than graphic arts.  We’re finally reaching the point where we’re designing information and experiences, intuitively and elegantly.  Savvy navigation is only the beginning - but oh, the places we’ll go.

The next revolution is here.  We’re going to be forced to design and market one-to-one, whether we’re ready to or not.

Web 2.0 is changing the paradigm - consumers no longer go to your site.  You must serve key information up to them.  If it can’t be iGoogled, you’re in big trouble.  If it ain’t a widget, it ain’t gonna fly.  The days of portals are over - think dashboards.

And now Yahoo is rolling out its dynamic smart ads.  They can serve up an ad - design, content and offer - based on an individual’s online behavior.  And they can extrapolate this behavior to other individuals in order to achieve scale.

It’s time to reinvent your product experience within this new world order - give your consumer what s/he wants, not what you have.  Merge product with process and tailor.  If you’re a hair care manufacturer, find ways to optimize your product to the person based on hair type, water system (hard or soft), and desired effect.  If you’re in insect control, give your consumers widgets that help them better understand their specific needs to the zip code based on climate, breeding patterns, rainfall, etc, and offer products that follow suit.  If automakers like Toyota can customize cars like the Scion, why can’t you customize products?  If Dell can build to order, why can’t you?  If digital enables efficient small batch printing, why can’t you print to order (like Jones)?  If Pandora enables brands to program music based on their essence and consumer mood, why aren’t you customizing media?

It’s time to reinvent marketing.  All around me.  And you.  And her.  And him.

Are you ready?

I love when this happens.  This a.m.’s post perfectly synchs with a fantastic article in BusinessWeek on experience design.  Check out Peter Merholz’s essay The Experience Is the Product.  Both say the same thing - we need to design solutions that create the optimal consumer experience.  Just getting there isn’t enough.  You need to get there elegantly.  Read it and enjoy.