Usability + Direct-Experience Branding

I read Jared Spool's article about Branding and Usability and he made an interesting comparison between the two basic techniques of branding: direct experience and indirect messaging.

He stated there that with direct-experience branding, users attribute emotions directly. However, for those marketing campaigns where users can't have direct experience, they need to use indirect messaging with the use of slogans, TV commercials, magazine ads, billboards, or even sponsoring events that helps promote the brand. Sad to say, he did not talked about usability much in conjunction with branding, but nonetheless, discoursed what the true meaning of branding is to the web. Spool also sampled websites like Ebay, Ford, and Edmund and which branding strategy they take for their website.

Since the nature of websites is interactivity, there will always be a direct experience. And it's important to note that designers should focus on building on top of that rather than keeping more busy with too much graphics and falling short of user experience. As you can see, direct-experience branding and usability has a common objective - it's all about users and achieving the best user experience. So it seems the two are the perfect strategy to take when designing a successful website.