One of the first posts I wrote in 2005 was about maximizing your brand’s touchpoints. This continues to be favorite topic of mine. The above image from Twitter is a great example of maximizing a touchpoint at a very critical time in a brand relationship – the error message. Every now and then you see a business that puts a bit of time into writing interesting error message copy but rarely do you see an equally witty image accompanying it. They have several more of these as well (the owl that comes up saying ‘Who goes there?’ when there is an identity issue). As I mentioned earlier, this diffuses a potential moment of brand angst with humor. It actually makes you laugh off an error message or warning. In fact, it makes all other Error 404/File Not Found messages seem like you’re getting hit in the face with a sock full of online doorknobs.
Touchpoints Revisited
Well done Twitter. Especially when several online brands are rounding out points of interest in favor of Web 2.0 sleekness.
Nick Westergaard is a strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World and Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small. He is the Chief Brand Strategist at Brand Driven Digital, an educator at the University of Iowa, and host of the On Brand podcast. More about Nick.
