In this digital age the brands that will emerge from declining markets will be the ones that find new and better ways to connect and engage with their customers - by offering real, human experiences.

One such experience struck me recently in a surprising location – a shopping centre – the brand battlefield. In one of the many thoroughfares, one brand, chose to take the fight in a different direction, the brand was Carte Noire. They had constructed a small temporary room, decorated like a reading room in a stately home, complete with atmospheric lighting, wallpaper and carpet. There were tables and chairs and, at the front, a leather armchair in which sat an actor narrating literary love scenes – ranging from Pride & Prejudice and High Fidelity to The Rotters’ Club. On entering, shoppers were greeted, offered a complimentary cup of coffee and invited to take a seat, relax, and listen – a perfect coffee moment.

 

Now, ironically, I don’t even like coffee but the pull of this concept was so strong that I wanted to be part of it anyway.

This perfectly illustrates what brand expert, Leslie Butterfield described recently in his The Experience Revolution: “The increased desire among consumers for authentic experiences is a reality. More and more consumers will react against the blizzard of digital distractions that pervade our lives and leave us feeling a little frustrated and empty. They are going to want to fill that void with real experiences. They’ll turn toward brands that offer multi-sensory events, locations, and occasions - anything that reconnects them with other people in person, not remotely.

Brands that use real experiences can tap into our emotions and will open up a wellspring of goodwill, loyalty, and, ultimately, value.”

I may not have drunk the coffee but, me telling this story now, signals how very true that is.

Experienced by Justin Morgan

London buses are emblazoned with ads for bland, movie blockbusters, perfumes and fashion labels, but one of these ads got me thinking - it deserved admiration. From an unlikely source, the west end show ‘Mamma Mia!’, it simply stated “Somewhere in the crowd there’s you”. At first glance this seems fairly unexceptional - it’s just a line from an ABBA song, isn’t it? 

It’s more than that, it’s actually deceptively clever - the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts and it’s brilliance sings out.

Used in this context, that particular line from that particular song plants a thought in our minds. It suggests and pre-supposes that:

a) There is a crowd that have enjoyed or are enjoying this show (as of 2007, 30 million people worldwide had seen ‘Mamma Mia!’); and
b) You are either among that crowd already (and by using ‘you’ they are addressing everyone on London’s crowded streets); or,
c) If you haven’t already seen the show, you will feel you are missing out on something, something which the in-crowd (of millions) have already experienced.

The question of ‘how to attract even more people to see this already popular show’ is answered with the very clever choice of these words which suggest that despite the phenomenal success - somewhere in the crowd is YOU!

Applauded by Justin Morgan

Sitting on the bus the other day staring at the traffic, something caught my eye. It was a delivery van, but not just any old delivery van – this one was delivering smoothies for Innocent. The reason it caught my eye? It was totally covered in grass. I could not take my eyes off it – what a fantastic image, contrasting the greyness of the London traffic, a van covered in grass, it was vibrant and alive! I decided to study people's reactions... IT REALLY GOT NOTICED! Almost everyone in the vicinity gave it a long, hard stare. What a wonderful idea, what a brilliant piece of advertising, what a great brand differentiator... and what fantastic fun!

It makes one wonder why so many companies shy away from doing things differently; afraid to make a statement, happy to disappear among the crowds. Why is this so when the brands that do stand out, the ones that do indeed 'think different', are the ones that we as consumers fall in love with and find irresistible, we desire the products they sell.

Let's do something that gets noticed, call Sectorlight on (0)20 7659 4990.

Noticed by Justin Morgan

On a recent trip to Normandy, I was delighted to stumble across an exhibition of vintage tourism posters. Each is beautifully crafted and wonderfully captures the spirit and glamour of an age gone by.

They just don’t make them like this anymore, c’est la vie.

Découvert par Justin Morgan

 

Take stock-shots of laughing couples and clinking champagne glasses on a white background, with some prominently placed contact numbers, and you have the blueprint of a bog-standard large-scale development hoarding. We've all seen them, and unless you're hunting for a new place, they don't exactly add to your day.

But it doesn't need to be that way. There are recent examples of imaginative, amusing and creatively designed hoardings, from The Architecture Foundation's commission of the Temporary Eyesore hoarding by artist Scott King to Quentin Blake's illustrations wrapped around the Grade II-listed Stanley Building on London's King's Cross development site.

'Most of the time, hoarding design is a missed opportunity,' says Hat-Trick Design director Gareth Howat. 'Hoardings are often designed for big developers, who are trying to promote an area or a specific building. We approach them as a great opportunity to do large-scale, impactful graphics, rather than give them the usual "wallpaper" treatment.'

Hat-Trick's work for the redevelopment of Oxford Brookes University includes the design of substantial hoardings. Rather than opting for the usual imagery of smiling students, the consultancy designed a series of trees, inspired by the leafy campus, all representing different departments and aspects of the university.

Developers are gradually realising that hoardings offer more than just a place to stick estate agent telephone numbers. Land Securities appreciates the value of what it considers its 'killer application' of the brand. 'A hoarding needn't be a boring old board and a bit of plywood,' says Tom Foulkes, Land Securities head of development marketing, retail. 'It can be done in a way that is more engaging and more effective. You have to engage with people, and to engage with people you have to invest in design.' Hines, meanwhile, just launched a large-scale Urban Gallery project, wrapped around its One Grafton Street development, in collaboration with Royal Academy Schools, which displays the work of 13 art students and alumni. The gallery is part of a larger concept designed by Sectorlight and brokered by Futurecity, to tie Hines into a cultural strategy, the One Spirit Showcase, and will continue to showcase different art projects throughout the development period.

Sectorlight managing director Jerry Llewellyn says building wraps are generally undervalued as tools to promote a brand. 'If you look at the exposure that hoardings get to the public, you're reaching thousands of people on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. You're getting massive return for the exposure, and a lot of clients underestimate that power,' he says. 'There are some great examples of how you can turn something so utilitarian into something that's culturally interesting. It creates pride and something to feel good about.'

The UK is outshone by European and US counterparts when it comes to the creative use of what are essentially prime-location, large-scale blank canvases, adds Llewellyn. 'Europe gets it right,' he says. '[When there's a development], they will wrap it, clad it and make it look unusual and exciting. In London, there doesn't seem to be an appetite for it.'

This difference in attitude is partly to do with the UK's restrictive planning regulations, with authorities reluctant to let creative designs through. Design consultancy BWP Group learnt this the disappointing way, when their design for the hoardings around a new boutique hotel was rejected by the council. The proposed hoarding had a leather-padded design to reflect the luxury hotel brand through a 'subtle and interesting' approach, says BWP creative director James Williams, but it was still scuppered by red tape. Hoardings are too often used as blatant marketing tools, with the need to promote sales at the forefront of developers' minds, says Williams, whereas building communication with the neighbourhood should also be a core aim.

Cultural consultancy Futurecity brokers many collaborations. As well as the One Spirit Showcase, Futurecity put in place the cultural strategy for Stockwell Park and Robsart Village in east Lambeth. The Village People temporary hoarding is the first artwork to be installed on the site. Illustrated by comic book artist Thomas Dowse, it depicts residents of the estate, capturing genuine neighbourhood characters.

Igloo Regeneration, meanwhile, worked with art collective 4Wall on the community engagement programme for its Bermondsey Square development, which opened last week. It aimed to highlight the depth of local values and traditions in the area, with the 180m hoarding surrounding the building site providing the starting point. Inspired by conversations with local people, 4Wall artists painted different illustrations on the 2.4m2 wooden boards over a three-month period. The resulting large-scale artwork met Igloo's initial goals and its desire to avoid overt branding, as well as creating a point of discussion and promoting a sense of ownership within the community.

Futurecity's Davy stresses that such projects have to be executed with the same rigour as any other campaign would. Even though the private sector and, particularly, the property sector find it increasingly interesting to look at more innovative ideas, 'they're not philanthropists', as Davy puts it. 'But they are looking for different treatments, and if you get the conditions right, you can do brilliantly innovative work and give artists great opportunities at the same time.' 

 

Originally printed in Design Week, Volume 24/Number 19, May 14th 2009

 

Here's a wonderfully fun and playful display typeface (you could even say it's tie-rrific) constructed from a personal tie collection by Ed Nacional, a graphic design student at Parsons, New York.

He says: "A large amount of the collection was acquired from my dad."  He hopes to soon extend the project to add alternates, numbers and ligatures as his tie collection grows.

 

Located by Justin Morgan

A visionary marketing campaign is what every project desires and deserves, especially in a market where there are high levels of competition and marketing budgets need to tighten up.

Now where do you start? Well, budgets are obviously tighter and therefore campaigns need to be more focused.

So carefully review who you are trying to reach, who your target markets are, and how you can get to them more directly and efficiently. Monitor and review campaigns regularly, see where incentives are performing or underperforming and react to this quickly. Ensure everything you do has a meaning and substance and delivers focused messages. Don’t risk anything that’s arguably vague or imprecise.

Further, more than ever, the vision of the developer and the project must be reflected in a concise communication strategy that has a clear positioning, that answers the questions, “How we are different?” and, “How we are better?” It will call for a deep and well-considered understanding of your customers, their needs and their motivations.

With these answers we have the starting point for a communications brief that must lead to the development of a compelling, differentiating idea. It must be an idea that is ownable, that can work across all media, new and old. It must be an idea that reflects more than the physical characteristics of the building or development. It must make an emotional connection with potential markets and to do this it must tap into all the senses, connect on a personal level and tell a powerful story.

Today there is a need for real integrated ideas. Above and below-the-line traditions have moved on. We have 360 degrees online and now inline (as consumers increasingly take control and tell us what they think in blogs). In this new world of message distribution, the powerful idea still reigns supreme. It is a poor idea that leads to ineffective communication and inevitably higher costs as more resources and budgets are used to try and pull it together.

So appreciating that we are in the highly unique marketing environment of real estate, where do we go from here?

Firstly, we suggest that you should consider cutting back or stopping traditional ‘Brand’ marketing and advertising and concentrate on ‘Direct Response’ marketing. Indulging in institutional brand marketing ie: ‘This is us, this is what we do and this is our telephone number’ is an excellent way to empty your budget with no appreciable return.

Every marketing campaign must give your audience a reason to respond. You should be conveying one simple message, something that they or their business can relate to and therefore something that will interest them enough to switch on their computer or pick up their phone.

Secondly, embrace the web and expand the communication channels via email and mobile. Your website should be seen as your selling tool, delivering information as well as a virtual experience. Over and beyond that you need to focus on search engine visibility. In this current climate it is estimated as much as 80% of worldwide users are turning to the web when doing their ‘homework’ before making any purchases or decisions.

Online activity can be integrated with your internal sales system and is completely measurable, allowing you to better manage and diversify your market budgets.

Thirdly, when executing collateral measure everything you do. All of your marketing should be trackable down to the specific ad or marketing initiative which generated every enquiry. If you can’t trace an enquiry back to the origin of the lead, it will be difficult to evaluate where your marketing money is going. How can you know what’s effective and what’s not?

And a final word on how to make the money go further. Before creative work starts make sure your sales proposition is clear and concise. We use strategists and writers, as well as designers, in workshop sessions with our clients, agents, and architects, to ensure we’re saying all the right things to maximise interest.

Dissent if you dare, but integrated campaigns must be embraced if we are to build a brave new creative world. A world that delivers results.

This paper sets out to discuss “getting people there”, where we are currently and hopefully open up the debate to embrace new ways of looking at reducing the issues of anxiety driven by the pace of life and also at increasing a sense of public confidence.

Since time immemorial human beings have made gestures in attempts to communicate either by hand or through body language. Not all have been fully understood.  Signage has become a particular problem.  The places people walk, meet, play, drive and generally go about their business have become an ‘instruction park’.

In less frenetic times, places announced themselves, you knew when you had arrived and simply asked for directions.

Today the development of the urban environment at all levels is still exercising politicians and professionals alike, from Alsop planning a revitalised Barnsley to Rogers looking at London’s spaces,  juggling and walking the fine lines between quality of life, communication and the needs of business.  

Nowadays from the retail centre to the transport hub and the business park, people need particular help to know where they are and where they’re supposed to go.

These often conflicting requirements have now reached the status of a science… but is it joined-up science?

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are actively addressing the current situation.  They, following experiments in Holland, are taking away signage, not adding it.

The situation has grown to such an ‘explosion of ironmongery’ partly because agencies appear not to have an agreed philosophical approach to urban issues from which those providing the distinctive parts can draw guidance, over and above  spatial and corporate rules.

We think it is time that a full and proper debate on the constituent elements that go into making the urban scene should be engaged in jointly by all those who contribute to it via their separate disciplines. Maybe then wayfinding will not be an ‘add on’ along with landscaping, lighting and art.

What if we dared to ask a land artist or filmmaker or installation artist to lead the debate?  Maybe some of their concepts of perimeters, barriers, focal points the lines made by walking or using familiar and simple means e.g. bicycles, could promote a fuller discussion on the form visual elements in the landscape might take?

These issues were raised in an Arts Council sponsored exhibition in 1973, ‘How to Play the Environment Game’, where Theo Crosby was concerned that planning and building should be developing a social utopia as well as a physical one

The following images are set to raise the question, the answers will be the result of the analysis of the specific, the history, location, the  purpose of any project and the openness brought to the discussion.  The ‘Nonsite’ cannot be delivered where the discussion environment does not set the limits, but challenges the limits of those who participate.

If the simplification in architecture is not to render the cityscape into universal uniformity, there is no question that questions need to be asked.  There is a need to redeliver a sense of place.  Whether that is the ‘percent for art’ programme is questionable.  What is needed however is a proper understanding of what makes environments work and how people respond to them.

Again from Crosby, a large part of the answer might just be “finding a viable reason and context for working in a way that allows instincts, beliefs and urges irrefutably dictate”.

And adding art indiscriminately into an already ‘adequately’ cluttered environment is to add to the chaos.  Technology and fashions change.

Maybe the discussion is the suggestion that there is a future with more emphasis on temporary, flexible and expendable manifestations.  This is not to deny that permanence provides a sense of continuity and security.

What we are postulating is that consideration of all the interventions... lighting, seating, water, landscaping… and particularly wayfinding… as a comprehensive whole at the point of design,  delivering the sense of something special is a distinct possibility.

Sectorlight is a brand consultancy involved in providing marketing communications, design  and wayfinding services internationally, particularly in relation to urban regeneration and major mixed-use property development projects.  We have the staff base, creative intellect and hands-on experience to make a positive mark on, and contribution to, your special project.

The Type Directors Club (TDC) has announced its 2009 typeface awards, with winners being awarded the Certificate of Typographic Excellence in Type Design. Above is one of my favourites, Malabar by Dan Reynolds. You can see all the winners at the TDC website.

The Hillman Curtis Artist Series is an incredible selection of short films interviewing some big players in art and design. I especially enjoyed Milton Glaser's and Mark Romanek's. Glaser's posters shown later in the short film are truly beautiful and Romanek's use of lighting and colour in his work is gorgeous. Well worth a look.