THE QUIETEST TOUCH

Expert

Jun 16

Why “brand as experience” is the only metric that still matters

A hush beneath the hype

Somewhere this week, a beach-side DJ will push volume into the blue horizon and a thousand lanyards will bob in time. Yet, if you stand a few steps back—feet in sand, phone face-down—you’ll notice the most disruptive frequency in the air is silence.

Silence is where presence begins.
Presence is where loyalty is born.

The data backs the feeling. Studies warn that 67 percent of consumers expect “marketing fatigue” by 1 November 2024 Another survey shows 40 percent of Americans unsubscribe from brand emails or texts at least once a week. Volume hasn’t just lost its edge—it has become a tax on attention. When saturation climbs, belonging beats broadcasting.

Brand ≠ Broadcast Brand = Breath

“Once upon a tweet, marketing was a megaphone.”

For decades we treated brands like mounted megaphones: amplify the logo, automate the reach, algorithm the rest. It worked—until everyone owned a megaphone and nobody owned a moment. A brand-as-experience inverts the reflexes:

Say it louder → Hold it closer
Funnels & retargeting → Rituals & return invites
Time-on-page → Time-in-heart
Reach & frequency → Rhythm & familiarity

When a brand is a lived moment—tasted, shared, remembered—it stops competing for attention and starts inhabiting memory.

Five laws of experiential gravity

1. Mass
Engage more than eyes. HBO’s mahogany-scented Succession candle did more to glue fans than any teaser trailer. Scent outran sizzle-reels.

2. Orbit
Create a ritual people miss if it disappears. Starbucks’ red cups open November; remove them and winter feels off-key.

3. Tide
Leave breathable gaps. Patagonia’s product pages use deliberate white space; the scroll slows, dwell-time rises. Silence is an interface.

4. Spin
Let the audience finish the story. LEGO Ideas turns superfans into co-designers, spinning plastic bricks into cultural torque.

5. Fusion
Heat appears where purpose collides with surprise. Dove’s “Reverse Selfie” beamed beauty-filter confessions onto billboards, blending activism with spectacle and spiking brand favourability.

Brands that obey these laws don’t flash across timelines; they settle—and settlement compounds.

The human compass

This season I’ve spoken to recent graduates clutching new diplomas and CEOs juggling legacy turnarounds. Two patterns always surface:

Everyone is starved for real presence.
Graduates call it community, executives call it culture—same hunger, different expense accounts.

Everyone trusts experience over explanation.
A prototype convinces faster than a pitch. A shared meal quells strategy disputes money never will.

Coda - Stand still, then soar

Presence predates language, outruns 5G, and slips every ad-blocker Chrome can cook up. Build something people can feel before they name it, and the metrics will follow like birds drafting a thermal.

So the next time noise tempts you, ask a quieter question: How near can we get? The answer—measured in heartbeats, not impressions—is the only growth curve that compounds forever.

Hope to see at Cannes Lions!

Upwards.

—Shingy

June 17, 2025

David Shing

David "Shingy" Shing, a Creative Omnivore and visionary futurist, pioneers the frontier of human-technological engagement with his philosophy: "From Imagination to Implementation of Ideas, Iconography, Instinct." This globally acclaimed thought leader has transformed icons like LVMH, Chanel, and Nike with his strategic forecasts, captivating audiences from TED to Cannes Lions with insights on humanizing technology. Championing mindful technological engagement, Shingy's visionary leadership shapes a more enlightened digital future, turning bold ideas into tangible realities that redefine our world.