Apple's new iPod, and one-button Starbucks purchase

One of the five forces of customer experience management is the customer's awareness of a company's brand. This is separate from their awareness of what other people THINK of that brand.

But one of the nuances here is tricky, because in the world of branding, no brand stands alone. Think of Gucci. Somewhere in your head, some neurons on firing, and nearby is the cluster of neurons you've set aside for BMW. And, probably, Apple.

And, perhaps, Starbucks.

So, when Apple does a deal with BMW (as they have), and with Starbucks (as they've just announced today), you got a lot of neighboring neurons lighting up like stars.

When companies in different sectors partner up like this, they're called constellation partners. They don't even have to spend a lot of money to get a ton of brand equity out of the partnership. I doubt seriously that the iPod jack in the MiniCooper (a BMW product) sold that many MiniCoops. Nor did it drive a ton of iPod sales. In fact, the whole deal probably COST Apple and BMW more than they could point to in revenue.

BUT, that's not the point. The point is that people talk about it, and the buzz activity reinforces the brand positioning of both companies. Free promotion, baby, and of the best kind, because the closeness of the brands combines with the novelty of the relationship to create something really memorable and strangely logical.

And think now of what it means to be able to walk into a Starbucks with your new iPod Touch(tm) and push a single soft-button to buy the tune playing at that very moment within your Starbucks. (And they play some darn good tunes.)

This is a great example of a spin on that force of customer experience management we just mentioned, because it not only is a direct customer experience of the Starbucks brand, and of the Apple brand, but it is also an experience of the constellation of the two of them. I will growl at the first person who uses the phrase "brand synergy". We don't need synergy added to any more business phrases. And we already have constellation to describe this kind of phenomenon. People experience the stars, connect the dots and see a bigger picture -- Steve Jobs as Orion, Starbucks as Aquarius.

So in six months, when you go into a Starbucks and see Apple users pushing buttons on the iPod Touch, don't be surprised if you see some PC laptop users glowering just a little. In the past, they might have been able to live happily with their Dell or HP laptop, but in a few months they're going to feel like Steve Jobs just bumped ahead in line for a double shot of cool.