Whoa! A slow day at SXSW? Margot Bloomstein questions the convention that slow experiences are frustrating and fast experiences are positive

By Scott Woodhouse at SXSW

Well last night certainly escalated. It’s impossible to get to bed early here – we should have bought a responsible adult with us on this trip. Austin is a cool place, and so are the people here. It’s got a very San Francisco-esque vibe – not what you’d expect to find out here in the desert.

Today has been another massive day, but what got me thinking most was “Whoa Nellie! Content Strategy for Slow Experiences”, by Margot Bloomstein (@mbloomstein), author of Content Strategy at Work.

Here’s why:

A big part of SXSW is spent standing in lines. Lines for food, bands, parties, workshops, the toilet, tacos…it’s something you just have to be at peace with. So it seemed fitting when Bloomstein opened on an image of people standing in line at a Chevrolet motor show booth. “These people are delighting in the line” she said. “They’re engaged, anticipating, discovering, creating memories – thanks to content.” And she was right. Chevrolet had cleverly embedded things into the line experience that people could play with, read, watch, listen to and connect as they waited for their turn.

Chevvy couldn’t change the fact that people would need to stand in line for a long time to get access to the booth – and the content didn’t make the wait in the line any shorter. But it did drastically improve peoples’ experience of it. Chevvy had taken something that’s inherently negative and made it a positive experience.  

Content has the power to change an experience and the user’s perception of it. For years, Rory Sutherland has championed the power of improving experiences with “psychological solutions” – in the case of Chevvy, that was making waiting more enjoyable for people, rather than trying to speed the line up.

When it comes to the web and ecommerce, the convention is that slow experiences are frustrating and fast experiences are positive. But Bloomstein questions this way of thinking.

We have such a fixation with making things faster, more efficient, easier, more orderly and getting people through the payment process as quickly as possible — and sometimes, that’s a recipe for disaster. Users click confirm too soon, confuse important details, or miss a key feature in a product description. Efficient isn’t always effective, or in the best interests of the user.

Bloomstein believes that people can [and want to] appreciate slow online experiences. Not everything needs to be fast to be functional. In fact, some of the most memorable and profitable engagements are slow and messy… and that’s just right for the user. Slowing down the path to purchase using content can allow people to soak up the journey, explore, discover, build affinity with brands and make sure they make the right purchase decision.

Patagonia is a great example of a brand that gears its content to slow users down, focus their attention and help them make positive purchase decisions. Patagonia isn’t just an outdoor clothing brand – it’s an environmental activism brand. At its core is the belief: buy less stuff and make sure what you buy lasts. It’s a bold strategy for a retailer, but everything Patagonia does is designed to be in the best interests of both the environment and its loyal customers. They don’t want people to impulse-buy. They want them to carefully consider each purchase, love the item when it arrives in the post and come away feeling good about the experience. 

IKEA is another example of a brand that’s harnessed the power of slow experiences geared for exploration and discovery – both in its digital and real world shopping environments. When was the last time you got in and out of an IKEA store in 10 minutes or less?

Traditionally, slowing people down online would be a massive no-no. But Bloomstein advises us to stop mindlessly optimising and think about the consumer. We want them to love it. Not just the product, but the experience as well – pre-tail, retail and post-tail.

Using data to anticipate user needs, suggest relevant content and make things faster and more efficient is a big theme here at SXSW. But it raises the question: if the web always serves us content that it thinks we want based on what we’ve always done, how will we ever experience new things? Does this approach neglect the value of freeform discovery and exploration? And does it remove the opportunity for brands to unlock new kinds of delight and affinity through positive, meaningful experiences?

Other good stuff we saw today: Stephen Wolfram on the future of computation, Dennis Crowley [Foursquare] on the future of location and Google’s demo of Google Glass and the Mirror API.

No. More. Parties.

Scott Woodhouse is a planner and Mish Fabok is a digital producer – both are from Whybin\TBWA Group, Melbourne and both are in Austin to get serious about interactive, tacos and parties. Woodhouse is writing a daily SXSW diary exclusively for Campaign Brief.