The following tips have been drawn from more than ten years of theoretical and practical involvement in the emerging field of brand experience and experiential design and should provide a useful starting point for any business or designer looking to develop a more experiential attitude towards their work.
The central premise of all experiential design is to develop a more personal and unique one-on-one connection with consumers. Look for ways that you can help the customer enjoy creating a unique and bespoke experience for themselves.
A great example is the 'Build A Bear' children's toy store in the US, where the child is able to specify and customise their bear (for example, they can specify eye colour, what kind of fur or what shape ears they prefer) in a highly creative and memorable way.
We're only ever going to love those brands that really love what they do - whether it be Nike's passion for sport, Pret a Manger's passion for food or Agent Provocateur's passion for lingerie. Look to create experiences that have a real passion and point of view about what they are, why they are and what they do.
As we become more immune to conventional marketing, we'll seek out those brands that are more imaginative in the way they engage with us - not only in terms of marketing, but also in terms of inventing new genres of products, services and 'occasions' for us to enjoy.
Sony's AIBO electronic pet dog, Nike's creation of the new 'sport' of Scorpion football or the Oki Ni fashion store which is for display/trial only - with all transactions made off-site and on-line - are all good examples of a more imaginative and experiential approach.
Experiential design is not just about standing out from the crowd and attracting attention. It is also about making a brand as deeply relevant to the customer at that moment as possible. To sustain this heightened degree of relevance, brands will have to learn more about what we want, how we feel, our hopes, our dreams and our deepest aspirations and fantasies.
For instance, pop star Kylie stays relevant by working with the hottest image-makers in the music business. Amazon stays relevant by learning more and more about us during each transaction as a basis for proactively suggesting ideas for future purchases.
In an age of 'spin' and 'hype', we will increasingly be looking for brands to be more authentic and genuine in the way they conduct their affairs. This may be rooted in the authenticity of the product (Guinness, for example), the ability of a business to stick to its principles (Body Shop, for example) or simply the sense of the spontaneity, 'realness' and 'buzz' that we get from the retail environment or transaction itself.
Experience is a two-way street and we will favour brands that give us greater and newer opportunities to become immersed in their worlds, as they also become more involved in ours.
Some good examples:
- Sony Playstation positionins itself not just as a high-tech games console but as a portal to enter a 'Third Place'
- Motorbike manufacturer Harley Davidson networks and nurtures its customer base by creating events, festivals and happenings
- Prada's Epicentre store in New York has positioned itself not only as a cutting-edge store, but also as a cultural centre in its own right, providing an inspirational focus for localised events, lectures and shows
In an ever more complex, cluttered and competitive world, brands that provide us with valued moments and memories - which in turn become the stories we want to pass on to others - are most likely to flourish. Standing in the Gravity Bar, for example, on the top of the Guinness Storehouse with a breathtaking 360-degree view of Dublin while enjoying a perfect pint of Guinness is a brand moment visitors will remember, treasure and tell their friends about for years to come.
Our culture's obsession with celebrity and 'reality' culture seems set to continue and accordingly, we'll look for an element of 'fame' - or indeed 'infamy' - within the brands we favour. In the past this has taken on a quite literal interpretation through concepts such as Planet Hollywood or celebrity figureheads such as Richard Branson.
This trend is set to continue as brands develop and exploit new experiential concepts, ideas and properties that will not only help make them famous, but also provide valuable new commercial and communication opportunities.
Our general ambivalence towards conventional marketing, coupled with our increasing distrust of 'spin' and the moral collapse of corporate giants (for example, ENRON and WorldCom) is fuelling our insistence that brands operate within a much higher and more transparent set of moral, social and environmental ethics. Furthermore, we will expect companies to do this because they truly want to - not simply for fear of being 'found out'.
The new BP 'Sunflower' identity and its environmentally led pledges, the recent riots outside NikeTown in the US and the Budweiser campaign raising a glass to the non-drinking designated driver are all symptomatic of how organisations will increasingly need to walk the fine line between good business and being a good business.
Last, but certainly not least, put simplicity at the heart of your endeavours to create more meaningful customer experiences. Make your experiences simple to communicate, simple to understand, simple to use, simple to enjoy and simple to tell to others.
This could be through simplifying a whole business (EasyJet), or simplicity in the aesthetics of product and store design (Muji), or just the belief in a simple consumer proposition and promise (the Japanese store called 'No Concept but Good Sense').
The ability of brands to make our lives simpler while tapping into our simple and enduring human needs will be another highly sought after and rewarded quality.