Efficiency vs. Emotion: Why the Best Brands Choose Feeling Over Being Frictionless

When everyone optimises for speed, the slowest moments become the most valuable.

We're living through the great flattening. Every brand is automating, compressing, polishing. Same flows, same tone, same AI-shaped interactions. It's all very slick. And very forgettable.

This mechanised sameness isn't just an aesthetic problem. It's creating a fundamental divide in how brands build relationships. On one side: efficiency chasers who've stripped out anything that can't be measured or optimised. On the other: experience builders who understand that making someone feel something has become the ultimate competitive edge.

The question isn't which approach is right. It's which one your brand can afford to ignore.

The business case for feeling

The data is clear: the more your customers like your brand, the more your brand loyalty (and often your profits) will grow. Ipsos research consistently confirms that emotionally attached customers are significantly more likely to stay and are almost twice as likely to recommend the brand, underscoring that emotional attachment is the true differentiator over functional satisfaction alone. 

Ipsos also confirms that customer experience can be lucrative, with nearly half of respondents  (46%) saying they would pay more for better experiences. 

This growing return on emotional investment is shaping market strategy: 51% of brands plan to increase their experiential marketing investment from 2024 through 2026, validating the need to target high emotional engagement, which drives consumers to remain loyal.

So feeling drives value. The data proves it.

Two types of brands are emerging

Efficiency chasers prioritise speed, predictability, and automation. They streamline every touchpoint so rigorously that the human element disappears.

Hotel chains with fully automated check-in. Fast-fashion platforms that perfected the algorithm. Telecom giants whose customer journeys feel like escape rooms designed by someone who's never spoken to a real person.

Incredibly efficient. Completely soulless. If they disappeared tomorrow, would anyone genuinely miss them?

Experience builders understand efficiency is only part of the picture. They invest in how people feel, not just what happens.

• Rapha didn't lean into e-commerce dominance. They doubled down on community. Clubhouses, group rides, belonging. In a world where physical shops struggle, Rapha Clubhouses exist for members to find products whilst feeling closer to cycling culture through rides, events, exhibitions and an on-site cafe. Technology powers the logistics quietly; the human experience is front and centre.

• Screwfix may appear to be a straightforward DIY retailer, but they exemplify a hybrid model: quietly efficient in logistics and digital ordering, yet deliberately human at the front line. Their stores and service teams deliver reassurance and guidance that digital tools cannot replicate. A success so great that Which? awarded them an 83% customer satisfaction score for DIY customer service. They're not just selling products. They've been building trust into every interaction.

  
  

• Dishoom serves breakfasts that feel ritualistic, with deliberately scaled-back reservations. Tech handles the back of the house seamlessly, but the front of house is full of choreography, warmth, and tradition. Secret games such as Matka keep people coming back, feeling part of an exclusive club. So while queues can take hours, you leave smiling, and return.

  
  

• ALFRED Coffee in LA built a universe around handwritten signs, creative coffee cups, and a personality that resists automation because it's rooted in character, despite its automation through global expansion and coffee subscription schemes. In a crowded LA coffee market, Alfred's stands out through lasting cultural cachet and shops with personality.

The real competition isn't other brands

When everyone can automate, when AI can power every interaction, when optimisation becomes table stakes, efficiency stops being an advantage. It becomes the minimum, which every brand deploys.

The experience builders are playing a different game. They're competing for emotional real estate. For the increasingly rare feeling that something was made for you and your community, not just optimised around you.

Customers are drowning in efficiency. Every interaction is smooth, fast, predictable. Which means every interaction feels the same. The brands that will win aren't the ones that perfect the algorithm. They're the ones that remember what it feels like to be human.

What this means for brand strategy

The brands that will survive the next decade won't abandon technology. They'll use it to create space for what can't be replicated: warmth, surprise, delight, connection. The inefficient, unmeasurable moments that turn transactions into relationships.

This requires discipline. Protecting the spaces where friction creates value, such as with lively queues and authentic interaction. Saying no to optimisation for optimisation's sake. 

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At Propellant, we believe that If you're building a brand today, the choice isn't between efficiency and emotion. It's between efficiency as a stand alone philosophy, and efficiency in service of something memorable.