Last week Malcolm Gladwell published an article in The New Yorker titled “The Tweaker: Steve Jobs’s Real Genius.”  In addition to offering an excuse to the time-strapped not to read Walter Isaacson’s Jobs biography, it got me thinking about the extent to which “tweaking” is in fact one of the magical arts of great experience brands.

In Gladwell’s account, perfectionism and obsessive editorializing even more than creativity drove Jobs’s genius: he observed, he improved, he improved some more.

That’s something experience brands also do well—and yes, Jobs’s Apple is rated by consumers the greatest experience brand of them all in our forthcoming Best Experience Brands study. Experience designers observe touchpoints and obsessively improve them, adding in new touchpoints as needed. Whether they’re assessing touchpoints online or off, they look at them through a user lens, constantly reiterating to make experiences flow better, be faster and more intuitive, and ultimately be more inspiring. 

So, tweak away experience brand masters!

With almost two months to go in 2011 it’s a bit premature to be calling the year, but at the risk of being premature, here are 3 brand lessons that stick out for me:

#1: The best brands are experience brands. 

Jack Morton is about to release our first “Best Experience Brands” study (email me to learn more). We learned that consumers really do prefer brands that offer unique experiences. When we asked what brands they think are experience brands, Apple was by far the top choice—as I said, the best brands are experience brands.

#2: Brands that deliver an inconsistent experience will suffer. 

Netflix: the problem wasn’t that the experience was bad so much as that the experience Netflix customers were promised wasn’t the one they got. 

#3: Standing for something is part of experience.

Starbucks will never win over my foodie friends, but it remains a brand that outperforms competitors based on providing a superior experience—and increasingly, that experience has included taking a stand, sometimes on touchy matters like political contributions and gridlock. My favorite: Create Jobs for USA, developed by GOOD Projects.