[Insights to Action]
Memory in motion
Client
Microsoft
Category
Insights to Action
Scope
Technology
Year
2020
The challenge
As Microsoft 365 evolved from standalone software into a subscription service, the brand team faced a measurement problem with real business consequences. Traditional brand metrics, awareness, favorability, sentiment, were built for a product world. They captured how people felt at a moment in time. But a subscription brand lives or dies on something harder to measure: whether customers continuously feel that the service is worth renewing.
The opportunity
The signal that mattered most was missing entirely. Not how customers felt during an experience, but which experiences they actually remembered afterward, and how those memories shaped the trust, preference, and behavior that drove renewal decisions.
Most brand interactions are forgotten almost immediately. The few that are remembered carry disproportionate weight. They become the story a customer tells themselves and others about a brand.
What I led
I identified peak memories as a missing dimension of brand impact and partnered with Dr. David Evans, a Senior Manager of Customer Research at Microsoft, to co-design a methodology to test it, grounded in Kahneman's peak-end theory and adapted for the brand experience context.
- 1.
Initiating the research direction: Identified peak memories as a missing dimension of brand impact. Co-designed a methodology with Dr. David Evans (Senior Manager, Customer Research at Microsoft) grounded in Kahneman's peak-end theory, surveying 3,600 customers across products and touchpoints.
- 2.
Building a repeatable signal: Worked with research teams to embed memory-based measures into active studies across products and services, turning a one-time finding into an ongoing brand intelligence capability.
- 3.
Converting insight into experience design: Developed an early rubric for what makes brand experiences memorable. Led internal workshops helping teams identify, craft, and test peak moments across the customer journey.
- 4.
Shaping marketing application: Began applying insights directly, shaping marketing narratives around peak moments and advising on experience prioritization across Microsoft 365.
Results
- 23 to 29% lift in brand love and revenue among users who recalled a positive peak experience
- 14x greater ROI for creating peak moments versus eliminating negative ones, a finding that reframes brand investment priorities
- New memorability-based brand metric adopted across key Microsoft business units
- Paper recognized with Best Event Paper at ESOMAR Insights Festival 2020
- Foundation established for ongoing frameworks influencing experience design across Microsoft 365 products and services
Reflection
Most brand investment is optimized for the moment of exposure. But customers don't make renewal decisions based on what they saw. They make them based on what they remember, shaped by peaks and endings, not averages.
The 14x ROI finding argued for designing fewer, better moments rather than more consistent mediocrity.
Companion case study
Microsoft: Small symbols, outsized stakes
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