Steve Lidbury
From omnichannel to monochannel; how Eight Inc. design human-centric experiences for brands including Apple, Tesla and Nike
We first came across Steve Lidbury, Executive Principal at Eight Inc. on stage at FashionTech Berlin in 2018 where he shared ‘How luxury brands can remain relevant in a millennial world’ (available on YouTube), and for us, this was one of the standout sessions of the event. Since then, Steve joined us for our London Tech Week panel ‘Why human connection should be at the heart of all technology’ and we’ve had many interesting discussions over the last couple of years.
Eight Inc. are often referred to as Apple’s best-kept secret due to the fact they are responsible for the renowned Apple Store design. A multi-discipline experience design studio, with 200+ strategic designers and business creatives connected across 11 studios, 6 time zones and 3 continents, Eight.Inc design holistic, human-centric experiences for world-renowned brands including Tesla, Estee Lauder, Coach, Virgin and Nike.
Before joining Eight Inc. Steve, a Ravensbourne University architecture graduate, co-founded Postnormal, collective of like-minded international designers that established a creative presence through a series of both collaborative and individual interior, installation and exhibition projects in Tokyo. He went on to create, Steve Lidbury Design Studio and completed projects in Japan and China that earned him the recognition as a flagship for British design in Japan.
Returning to the UK, Steve took up the role as European Creative Director of the Luxury Automotive Group at Imagination, creating multichannel brand experiences for the likes of Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
Steve’s approach to life and work, is to make most of life by exploring the world, it’s different cultures and people which intern drives him to use design as a tool for creating better human outcomes and conditions for the greater good.
Just before lockdown, we sat down with Steve to record a podcast. Since then we’ve checked back to see if Covid-19 has shifted his thoughts around Monochannel, but he assured us that it’s even more important than ever to create a consistent and connected brand experience. An experience that is driven by emotions, sensations, and desires. In our podcast, we discuss what the future of brand and customer interaction could feel like, and how adopting a Monochannel strategy will change the way we do business.
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Steve Lidbury presenting ‘How luxury brands can remain relevant in a millenial world’ at FASHIONTECH BERLIN in 2018. Available on YouTube
“Humans are sophisticated beings driven by emotions, sensations, and desires. So, we don’t design for ‘users’ and ‘consumers’. People won’t fit neatly into boxes or be siloed into channels. That’s why we don’t design for ‘physical’ or ‘digital’ (they’re inseparable, after all).”
So what is Monochannel and why do we need to move from Omnichannel to Monochannel?
Omnichannel is a term and approach that came into existence after businesses found they needed to build better relationships with their audience across multiple channels and points of contact. Before online shopping and social media, customers would have a direct relationship with the shop owner or sales assistant. Now, we interact with brands in many ways. We may buy something in a store or online, or engage with the brand through Instagram, events or newsletters. However, from a customer point of view, we want a ‘seamless’ experience across all different physical and digital instances or ‘touchpoints’ as they are known.
However, due to the sheer scale of today’s online retailers, multiple ways and volume of customer interactions, it is operationally difficult to execute a consistent experience at all touchpoints, at all times.
Monochannel believes in developing a highly-integrated ecosystem of content, events, physical environments, and marketing initiatives. Anything that doesn’t increase your brand’s intelligence and directly improve and inform all of your other channels is an irresponsible use of capital — human and financial.
Monochannel is built upon:
a unique ID for each of your customers
actively capturing insights about that unique guest’s responses to your content, spaces, products, and events
centrally housing and collecting those insights within a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to improve your offerings
The principles of Monochannel may seem only applicable to large brands such as Matchesfashion or Nike, but all brands can make use of the principles.
For example, having a unique ID means that brands do not have scattered or duplicated customer information. In practice, this means you won’t get the same newsletter email to several different addresses from one brand because you previously signed up to shop online, bought something from a store in London, one in Dubai and shared different email addresses each time.
Overall it means the relationship between brand and customer is more unified, connected, personal, and compelling. It builds brand ‘tribes’, super fans or communities rather than customers. For the customer, it makes life less complicated and its what they expect.
It is essential for brands to build great relationships. Now more than ever brands have to think about how they not only communicate their unique brand story and product but also deliver an experience that lives up to version they have shared. As we potentially move away (due to an increased focus on sustainability) from a strategy of pushing customers to increase their average transaction value (ATV) or frequency of purchase, brands will need to make sure we can diversify what’s on offer and that the brand-to-customer-to-brand relationship is flawless.
Some brands, particularly small businesses, they may not feel the need to create a strategy to ensure customer records and interactions are unified. However, regardless of business size or ambition to grow, we all have to make sure we understand who our customers are and what they each want.
A relationship is a two-way thing, and if there’s an imbalance of that relationship the customer will move onto another brand who treats them well. It’s time to make sure that doesn’t happen because from a brands perspective it costs a lot more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one happy!
“You don’t need to claim it [authenticity] you just are it. You be it. You breathe it. ”
Steve Lidbury at Black Neon Digital’s London Tech Week Event ‘Why Human Connection should be at the heart of all technology’ in June 2019
“Innovation is only once something is adopted. Really innovation is when a large scale of people adopt it. Otherwise, it’s just an idea. ”
Portrait photography by Olivia Jank shot at Eight Inc. East London. Thanks to Henry Frith at Podocal for podcast production.
Further reading
Your Customer is The Only Channel
Key takeaway’s from Tomorrow’s Human Experience Summit III: The Birth of Monochannel
30.07.2020
