With brands needing to work harder to capture the hearts and minds of people and simple browser based internet applications becoming commonplace, “brand utility” has become more of a mainstay in the marketing biz. Something of a buzzword among the planner/digital types. 

Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly is credited for coining the phrase, and it’s an insightful thought that has brought focus to many of us that are in a role of legitimizing work that isn’t solely push messaging via traditional channels.  At the brand level we’d translate utility to “purpose”, a  higher calling beyond making money, and one of the primary reasons for brands like Southwest Airlines and Method succeeding in the market.  At a more executional level it’s a simple way for brands to provide service to people (ala Target, and Charmin) as their potential customers walk through their daily lives.  For digital/retail, Nike has set the bar.

As we’ve embraced this more and more with our work, it’s occured to me that “being useful” is only a first step.  With the growth of technologies that make complex data more simple to navigate, one no longer needs a degree from MIT to surf the numbers.  As visual interfaces on the web become more accessable, it seems only a matter of time before brands begin to use these platforms for users to get an intuitive understanding of what they want, what they need, or simply a tool to “surf” information in a way that’s less deliberate and more guided by “feel”.  I’m not that much of a tech-head but I’d assume Ajax is only the tipping point for these applications.

Of course Netscape and Google are decent examples of folks who created this space.  Google earth is the latest to seed itself throughout the marketing community.  But some richer examples worth looking at:

Thinkmap/Visual Thesaraus:  (above)  Surfing the flow of dictionary and thesaraus entries.  Who needs synonym finder?  This app has been around for a bit now, and it’s a great productivity and creative tool.

The Wii news Channel: One of the simplest, fun ways to surf news.  Beats a browser, and puts news into immediate global context.

Stamen Design/BackChannel: On the edge of data visualization, Stamen is always worth watching.  This example demonstrates a way to visualize and navigate web dialogue.

BabyNameWizard: Roll through hundreds of possible baby names, and track popularity via this tool that uses 100+ years of US census data.

All of these applications demonstrate a trend, the web helping to provide a degree of context to information so simple to navigate that it’s a “no brainer”.  A great creative tool as well.

Brands should take note, as some of the above already have and move beyond “usefulness” and provide a self guided tour that leads with intuition.