What the heck is a brand experience?

Most interaction we have with brands in our daily lives are in situations and environments full of noise. Perhaps you’re at the alcohol retailer cruising shelves and becoming overwhelmed by all the packages and messages, the crappy lighting, the cheap displays, hurried announcements.

Or maybe you’re thumbing down Instagram’s looky land to check in on what’s new with your favourite brands but are inundated by alternative sponsored brands, reminders of what your more popular friends are doing, or distractions of notifications.

Or sometimes that brand engagement is at an event —alcohol on the table or bar being slung by a non-drinking part time server with aspirations of becoming a nutritionist after they developed rashes from avocado toast.

These interactions and a million others are simply uncontrolled, unpredictable and full of alternate brand voices which drown out your own. The result is a weak interaction that doesn’t clearly communicate who you are and worse, often leaves a bad experience for those looking to engage.

What if you could have all the control? What if you could create an environment that spoke only about you and in the tone, voice and vocabulary that you managed? Without the noise and competition for attention of alternate brands. What if this environment created a feeling that enveloped the essence of who you were? What if every single thing and visual in this environment was considered, part of the plan and purpose and was a solution with the goal of a real return on investment?

If you had this control, what would the music be? How about the lighting? What would the goals of the space be in terms of flow of people? Of the timing of the flow? How long would you want people to stay? What would you want them to do? To experience? To purchase? What would you want these people to tell the world, through instagram or direct to their friends?

How would this place tell the deeper story of you and what your motivations are? How would this space work in your business model? Would you be able to create more products to fill the space that you can’t currently because you don’t have distribution or audience out in the noisy world?

A strategic and well considered space is a brand experience. This isn’t a theme space. Nor is it a space that’s been sprayed with logos like a NASCAR pub. No, this is a space that has distilled the essence of the brand and sensitively sewn together a cohesive idea that the audience can engage within and learn about the culture of the brand. To experience the “real” soul of the brand and it’s people. A place where the people of the brand feel at home in their authentic mother ship which influences how they act.

This is what a brand experience is about and the success of these places or portable situations is why they are becoming the must have for growing and successful brands.

Be that an alcohol brand, a sharp retailer, a fav restaurant or hospitality offering or even a service like dentistry or nutrition — the opportunity is to build an environment that together with your physical product, service and people, completes the big picture of who you are — it fulfils the “whole product” — the "emotional product" becomes clear to everyone who engages leading to deeper relationships with visitors that convert them into loyal contributors to your brand lifestyle which results in greater revenue and positive value to the audience.

So while you review our experience spaces on this site, consider the brand and what must have been planned and executed well to fulfil the goals. And if you are considering a brand experience, give us a shout and we’ll see if we can assist.