Brand is a Gut Feeling — So How Do You Make Customers Do What You Want Them To?!

We all know the phrase: brand is a gut feeling as written by Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap.

Or do we? If customers are making emotional, instinctive decisions based on how your brand makes them feel, how on earth do you get them to take the actions you want - to book, buy, visit, or recommend?

It starts with understanding that while you might have mapped a neat customer journey: Awareness → Consideration → Purchase → Loyalty — that map only tells I side of the story. Your customer is on their own path too, one that I call The Understory.

The Understory and brand as a gut feeling : Your Customer’s Emotional Journey

The Understory is the hidden, emotional path your customer takes alongside your designed journey. It’s not about which web page they land on or which button they click - it’s about how each interaction feels. Does it reassure them? Spark their curiosity? Make them feel valued? Or does it confuse them, annoy them, or leave them cold?

When your customer journey and their Understory align, magic happens. Everything feels easy and right to them. And, they move through the journey with trust and confidence. When they don’t align? That’s when you see them hesitate, drop off, or vanish altogether.

Mind Markers: The Emotional Cues That Guide Them

Along their Understory are what I call Mind Markers. These are emotional cues or moments that reinforce how they feel about you. These can be as subtle as the tone of voice in your email, how a staff member greets them, or how your booking system behaves on mobile. They’re little checkpoints that either build emotional momentum or create friction.

Your job is to identify those Mind Markers and ensure they consistently make the customer feel the right things - trust, excitement, clarity, belonging.

Why Positive Affinity Changes Everything

Here’s the kicker: when customers feel positive affinity towards your brand or when their Understory is lined with positive Mind Markers, they’ll actually skip steps in the traditional journey. They don’t feel the need to research competitors, read endless reviews, or second-guess themselves. They just go with their gut and buy.

On the flip side, if they feel disengaged or your brand fails to resonate, they’ll stall. They’ll linger, circle back, and sometimes abandon the journey altogether. Not because your product isn’t good enough, but because the emotional cues weren’t strong enough to guide them.

So What Should You Do?

1️⃣ Understand the Understory - map out how customers actually feel at each stage of the journey, not just what they do.

2️⃣ Identify and design your Mind Markers - the moments where you can reinforce positive feelings.

3️⃣ Remove friction and amplify flow - so their emotional path and your customer journey align seamlessly.

Because if brand is a gut feeling - and it absolutely is, your job is to make sure that gut says yes at every turn.

If you want help mapping your Understory and finding the Mind Markers that make customers move (instead of meander), let’s talk.

More about me

Hey, I'm Catherine Warrilow and I write the brand strategies for visitor attractions and experiences, helping them to better connect what they do with what their audience actually wants.

My signature tools include The Messy Middle, Situational Relevance, Trigger Thinking, Mind Markers and of course, The Understory. If you want to book a chat about your brand proposition, get in touch.