During my recent road trip from Chicago to Seattle, my brother and I had a pile of CDs ready for the long haul. We knew we would need tunes without the annoyance of radio ads during the four days of driving. Well, we had just hit Chicago traffic when we both noticed that our rental van had Sirius satellite radio on board. We did not open a CD jewel case for a few days.
Satellite radio is one of those things you have to experience to truly appreciate it and warrant a purchase. It's a great pitch - digital sound, no commercials, no need to change channels during interstate travel, tons of options - but it's still just radio, right? This made me think of a concept called "experience before the brand" - no matter what the ads and marketing say, it's the customer interaction with the company or product that shapes the brand experience. It's why Starbucks doesn't need advertising and McDonald's does. And it's why I became a huge fan of satellite radio.
The millions of dollars spent on advertising Sirius didn't make me ever consider buying satellite radio, but trying it did. Not even considering reaching for a CD for days without a repeated song on ThePulse made me think it's a worthwhile investment, not a great Web site or ad campaign. The same thing happened for me with Netflix - the concept sounds great, but is it worth my $10 per month? In that case it was neither trial nor advertising, but rather the huge collection of customer interactions with Netflix that influenced my decision to buy - friends, family and bloggers who shared their positive experiences with me and sealed the deal.