Hatch Issue #5 Experience Economy

ISSUE #05

__winter 2016

R E V E L AT I O N S I N M O D E R N B U S I N E S S A N D C U LT U R E

THE SONOS EXPERIENCE FOOD: AN EXPERIENCE OF THE SENSES THE ART OF CUSTOMER CARE MARKETING TO WOMEN: DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T JUST MAKE IT PINK

HatchIssue04

The Experience Economy

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IN AN EVER-MORE CONNECTED WORLD WE ARE LOSING OUR SENSE OF HUMANITY. THE DIGITAL OVERLOAD IS PROMPTING A DESIRE TO RECONNECT WITH WHAT MAKES US HUMAN AS BRANDS AND DESIGNERS TUNE INTO SENSORY EXPERIENCES AND EMOTIVE RESPONSES. IAN IRVING - KEMOSABE

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P H OT O B Y. C L I N T A D A I R

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THE

TEAM

Editor-in-Chief Ian Irving

Editor

Chris Henry

Creative Director Daisy Boulding

Contributing Editors

Michela Beltrami, Samanah Duran, Mel Noakes, Ian Irving, Chris Henry

Contributing Writers

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recovering, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publishers. Although the greatest care is taken to ensure all of the information contained in Hatch is as accurate as possible, neither the publishers nor the authors can accept any responsibility for damage, of any nature, resulting from the use of this information. The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Hatch. C A R G O C O L L E C T I V E .C O M / D A I SY M A I 0 1 N E I L M A S O N P H OT O G R A P H Y.C O M

Jade Coles, Mel Noakes, Joy Howard, Louise Dear, Phil Hinitt, Charlotte Dawe, Tasnim Bhuiyan, Chloe Cunningham, Orr Vinegold, Sharon Wright, James Smith, Sarah Yeats, Justin James, Steve Lacey, Sophie Harvey, Emily Slater, Paul Reeve, Nick Stagg, Solberg Audunsson, Jonathan Openshaw, Harry Wright, Dan Einzig, Stephen Barnes

Cover

Photography: Daisy Boulding

Hatch is printed and bound in the United Kingdom by SMP Group.

Distribution

Hatch Magazine is distributed across Europe by Global Media Hub. Hatch can be found in private membersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; clubs, airport business and 1st class lounges, health clubs, hotels and luxury apartments. - 10 -

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__ C O N T E N T S

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Editor-in-Chief Notes The Experience Economy 2 4 - 2 5 The Experience Revolution Story 2 6 - 2 7 Marketing to women: Don’t just make it pink 2 8 - 3 0 The Sonos Experience 3 2 - 3 6 #BEYOUROWN meets Louise Dear 4 0 - 4 3 Food: An Experience of the senses 4 8 - 5 1 Spotlight: The Honest Hour 5 4 - 5 6 Exploring your Experiences 5 8 - 5 9 The Art of Customer Care 6 0 - 6 1 Tech: The Experience Economy 62 The New ‘New’ Digital Experience 6 6 - 6 7 Giving authenticity to experience 7 0 - 7 3 The Big Brand Experience 7 8 - 8 1 How marketers can target the white working class: Lessons from Brexit 8 2 - 8 5 Reimagine Retail 9 4 - 9 5 Sharing experience through storytelling 9 8 - 1 0 1 Death to the Exhibition? 105 Brand Story: Soffle’s Pitta Chips 1 0 8 - 1 1 3 Theatre and Performance: The True Experience Economy 1 1 4 - 1 1 5 In-Store Insights 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 How POS can enhance the new shopper experience 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 We need to talk about Data in Marketing 1 2 4 - 1 2 5 Exploring your Experiences 1 2 8 - 1 2 9 The Caveman and the Buy Button 133 Why we experience? 1 3 4 - 1 3 7 Experience: The Future of Eating Out 1 4 0 - 1 4 1 Where do humans live in a digital world? 144 Editor’s Summary 14-15

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I N TH IS N EXT ISSUE OF HATCH WE TAKE AN I N-DEPTH LOOK AT ‘TH E EXPER I ENCE ECONOMY’ Why and how the term ‘Experience’ has become so prolific in the world of brand and service marketing. Although the concept of the Experience Economy was born in the business field, it has crossed its frontiers to tourism, architecture, tech, urban planners and even industries such as hospitality. Brands have embraced the term ‘Experience’ and it’s everywhere we look, but is the experience more important than the product, the object and the service or is the experience of the purchase moment the thing consumers desire most? We’ll be taking a deep dive into the power of experience and what part it plays in the sales and marketing of products and services in all walks of life and business. We’ll discuss what the consumers think of the term ‘Experience’ and is their expectation of it differing in a brand or agency’s delivery of it? We’ll be getting the views of experienced leaders in the industry and find out how they are placing experience into the mix or even avoiding it. Are brands becoming guilty of doing experience for the sake of experience? With this, we will hear from a number of brands in Fashion, Automotive, Broadcast, Food and Drink, and Retail. Who is doing it right in their eyes and how are they seeing experiences evolve? And are the simplest experiences the most effective of them all?

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What does ‘Experience’ really mean? Oscar Wilde famously said ‘Experience is simply the word we give our mistakes.’ We dig then into the demise of the term Experience and Experiential. Has it become a faded term and something that today’s consumers are wising up to and frankly getting sick of, as are the more qualified marketers amongst us as well? We will try to decipher how we get cut through in what is becoming the most cluttered and possibly diluted of marketing disciplines. We will explore it from all possible when it comes to Experience and will aim to explore from it all possible viewpoints and truly get down to the crux of what the Experience Economy is all about!

I hope you enjoy the opinions and insights of the contributors of this issue.

Wo r d s : I a n I r v i n g EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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S T R A P S

A V A I L A B L E

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W I T H

G E N U I N E

THE

EXPERI ENCE ECONOMY

As my colleague Ian pointed out the Experience Economy. It’s a term we’ve touched upon in previous issues of HATCH but perhaps never explored fully. Experience is a phrase that in recent years has been overused by a number of marketing and advertising professionals. It has felt like a safe word to use, more so a word that is the go-to answer or solution to any question posed by a brand or retailer in regards to the consumer mindset. Have we become lazy in that respect then? So much so that perhaps the meaning of the word experience has lost all significance – we argue, what really is an experience now? We’ve seen the experiential world gain momentum with a number of small to medium sized agencies professing their expertise in delivering ‘immersive’ or ‘bespoke’ brand experiences and experiential events, multiply in numbers each year. This has manifested itself to a point where nothing seems out of the ordinary anymore and where the events and experience dedicated industry has become highly saturated. Reading industry publications that showcase the supposed best of experience led marketing, we’ve witnessed brands do experience for the sake of experience. Is this respecting today’s consumer, or are we guilty of delivering experiences with no authority or relevancy and simply brand slapping them for the sake of some press coverage and a few hundred retweets? Experience is still for some reason regarded as a new term today and each year we’ve seen trend predictions for the New Year cite experience still as the number one game changer that brands need to focus on. It’s true that thanks to online, technology and social - people have yearned for more from consumer environments and are wanting to experience their favourite brands in new and invigorating ways that make them proud and gets them talking passionately. But are a number of brands really achieving this? Oscar Wilde famously labeled experience as the name we give our mistakes – we could say certain brand activations or events can be tarred with this same brush. An experience is something you remember and something that stays with you, be it for the right or wrong reasons, and can shape you for the better or worse. We’ve seen too many times brand experiences become gimmicky or lacking in any form of conviction or authority and this has left the consumer going away feeling unrewarded or even confused. Where we’ve got carried away with the concept of experience, brands are trying to complicate things more and more and deliver on gimmick rather than honesty.

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Experience is by no means a new thing and to truly understand it, there needs to be a collective review of its true origins. Harry Selfridge, as surprising as it may sound, was one key individual that laid the foundations of consumer experience today. Understanding that shoppers wanted to be excited and their individual needs and desires tailored for was and still is the key to the success of Selfridges. Brands that can get back to basics with experience will hopefully find better results in their marketing exploits and find their customers to be more satisfied. Hopefully so far weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve not come across as to cynical about the world of Experience. We know we believe in it, but in this issue we are looking to set the record straight and unearth new findings about the term and the industry. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be speaking to a number of innovators in the field to gain a better understanding of the true meaning of The Experience Economy as well as unearthing some new and exciting discoveries and methods that are enhancing the consumer experiences. Expect no stone to be left unturned as we delve deep into todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world of Experiences and find out how effective they truly are and who is winning in the war of experience.

C h r i s H e n r y EDITOR

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TH E EXPERI ENCE

R E VO L U T I O N S TO RY The Experience Revolution was started over several cups of tea. Before that fated first sip I had never met fellow co-founder Nanci Veitch and couldn’t have begun to imagine just how much we had in common. We both fell into events via unconventional means. We were cross industry and cross discipline, not particularly corporate, not technically qualified and yet heading up event programmes and feeling like we were absolutely bossing it, or at least bossing it just a bit. My journey had lead me to Shoreditch House and Soho Works tasked with programming 50 events a month for a membership made up of creative industry professionals, arts leaders, entrepreneurs and independent freelancers. Nanci headed up the events team at UsTwo, a prestigious digital product studio with a mission to provide excellent live content for the tech community. Our roles were (and are) great, the work is fun, fast paced, varied and unexpected. But three years in I started feeling lost. I struggled to find my tribe. I went along to every mixer and social going. I got advice from as many advertisers, marketers and brand ‘gurus’ I could seek out. As these sessions rolled on by, I learnt little about the industry itself and at the end had no real allies to team with. I had the feeling that the status quo didn’t reflect me, and my heady ambitions of what the events landscape could be. That was until I met Nanci who was the first person to mirror my feelings and thoughts. We decided to stop complaining and make something happen. That thing is a place for thought leadership and community online and IRL. We call it The Experience Revolution.

cited examples of sexism when working on site with all male technical teams including threats to pull the chord on entire live music shows when presented with small changes or requests. Only to be overridden, and ridiculed by male counterparts. So what is the new skill set of an Experience Manager, as opposed to an Events Manager? Our findings over the past year suggest a new level of creativity needs to be applied, psychology, brand knowledge as well as curatorial practice. Resilience in spades and an expert in the dance that is, work politics. But what if the Experience Manager is just a fad? We found criticism to alarming and over zealous titles ‘Events Guru’, ‘Events Leader’, ‘Experience Architect’ or ‘Narrative Designer’. No one wants to feel like their job is a ‘fad job’ as opposed to a ‘future job’ and no one wants to feel like they’ve nicked their LinkedIn title from an old episode of Nathan Barley. And yet, these are the roles we begin to see launching not in agencies, no, but in the new event space. Retailers desperate to engage their customers want ‘Events Leaders’ and arts organisations want to work with ‘Narrative Designers’ who understand ideation, production and activation and some of the biggest co-operations in the UK seek strategic advice from ‘Experience Architects’. In the past my ‘Events Curator’ title has had me heading up panel discussions for forward thinking magazines like Riposte, or teaching workshops to in house marketers of soap. These roles are at the front line, and it is these roles that are bringing true definable attention to the events space. These roles, I believe will ultimately innovate the sector.

Event Managers Vs. Experience Managers - Insights from our first meetings. ‘Working in events often has that ‘swan effect’ noted Marta, A student from Central St.Martins, you have to look graceful on the surface whilst thrashing tremendously under the water.’ Keeping up such an act is exhausting. However the pressure to have total control left some with little ability to delegate. One member of the group was told by her company founder that ‘events director roles didn’t exist’. Others

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Experience Managers must stop managing. And start leading.

Jade Coles FRSA EVENTS MANAGER SOHO HOUSE

Leaders require the confidence to be innovative and entrepreneurial: Philippine Nguyen, launched ‘Art Night’ (The UK’s answer to Paris’s Nuit Blanche): ‘leading a large scale event like art night is a challenge: you need to put together a structure, quickly, that is almost a small institution, while having the flexibility of a startup’. I wonder how those working for brands can still create an agile working culture? Otegha Uwagba recently launched women who; a new platform supporting women in the creative industries: ‘women who is very much an online and offline endeavour as very early on, I realised that in order to have a genuine impact, it was important to have an IRL aspect to the platform, and allow women to connect in person’. Otegha, like many has moved from large-scale media agencies to starting up alone, managing more grassroots political projects. ‘I started and run ‘women who’ on my own - with no team members or any kind of financial backing. Whilst it’s challenging from a logistical (and financial!) point of view, there’s something incredibly - 25 -

satisfying about having full creative control over everything, and being able to realise my vision for it exactly as I imagined it. I don’t have to ask anyone for sign-off - I get to make all the important decisions, which is sometimes daunting, but ultimately immensely gratifying.’ Those like Otegha and Philippine mark the rise of Experience Managers focussed on curatorial autonomy, authenticity and freedom from the bureaucracy of thoughtless branded content. What’s next? This year our biggest meet up was made up of 75 people at The University of Greenwich, I hoped that our cohort might begin to find their tribe and I know collaboration has happened since that late summer day. Now we have some insights we have started to think about what’s next. In 2017 we will start work on understanding these new areas of the experience, analysing the skills needed and noting new trends. We already know that millennials are spending more on experiences than they are ‘stuff’. Here at experience revolution HQ we wonder, is this new sphere of an already historic industry prepared for the spotlight?

M A R K E T I N G T O WO M E N

DON’T JUST MAKE IT PI N K Wo rd s : M e l N o a ke s EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING EXPERT AND FOUNDER OF NAKED COACHING

With a recent study by Unilever stating that 40% of women don’t identify with their portrayal in adverts and 91% of women saying ‘Advertisers don’t understand us’ according to Martha Barletta, author of Marketing to Women, why can’t marketers hit the, cough, spot? With women making 80% of purchasing decisions, understanding women’s motivators for purchase is crucial. One of the single biggest differentiators between the sexes is the fact that women naturally create relationships and want to build a connection with a brand. And as we move increasingly into the experience economy, there is no more effective, or potentially disastrous, medium than experiential.

P H OT O B Y. V E R N E H O

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Let’s take one of my favourite examples. Labour’s Pink bus. A journalist in The Telegraph described it as “the lovechild of Barbie and Sheila’s Wheels”. It’s easy to see why. It was a mobile sexist, patronizing, alienating attack on wheels. A campaign that sought to empower women to vote and reach out to us “woman to woman” alienated and patronized the very audience they were seeking to woo. Compare that to Sport England’s “This girl Can” campaign. Primarily, the campaign is rooted in a powerful insight: that the fear of judgement by others is the primary barrier holding women back from participating in sport. The campaign recruited real women participating in exercise. They were hot, sweaty, and bigger than a size 6 and crucially shared inspiring raw and honest messages. They built a community via Twitter and Facebook by creating a tailor made algorithm that sent encouraging tweets to women who were themselves tweeting about exercise or fear of hitting the gym. They created a conversation and a connection. By January 2016, just one year after the campaign launched, 37 million people had watched the This Girl Can 90 second video and the campaign has inspired 2.8 million women to get active. In June 2016 a press release was issued stating that 260,000 more women and girls in England played sport than in 2015.

“In order to effectively

communicate with women, brands need to understand our lives, the personal values which drive our behaviour and the relationships we hold with one another and ourselves.” Emma Lax, HEAD OF WOMEN’S S P O RT A N D L I F E ST Y L E AT C S M S P O RT & E N T E RTA I N M E N T

Then there’s Dove. One of the greatest achievements of the Dove campaign is that it initiated a global conversation to widen the definition of beauty. Advertising had typically used unrealistic and unattainable images of beauty that Dove sought to challenge by addressing the beauty stereotypes. Overall, much of the campaign’s success can be attributed to it being the first digital campaign to drive participants to a supportive online community that reached over 200 million people worldwide, with over 26 million people participating in the campaign online (Springer, 2009). As proposed by Vivek, Beatty, and Morgan (2012), the engagement of customers (or potential customers) through the online campaign built trust because

“individuals will feel that the company cares about them and has their best interests at heart”.

Throw Like a Girl for Always found a similar sweet spot challenging stereotypes. With more than 52 million views and 160,000 likes on YouTube to date, it’s the brands exceptional storytelling and ability to create a movement that sets this campaign apart. Not only does it inspire but it provides a channel for further engagement and change. Again it built connection and drove conversation. In our sophisticated and hyper connected world we are finally reaching a tipping point and targeting by classic gender roles is increasingly outdated. In fact, using bland descriptions like “mums” “women” “female audience” is just downright lazy. Women, as consumers, are not a homogenous group that behave and act in a uniform way. As Emma Lax, Head of Women’s Sport and Lifestyle at CSM Sport & Entertainment says: “It’s difficult to segment women’s lives; using typologies or segments to represent women is too simplistic. Women need to be considered - 27 -

holistically and within the context of their lives “In order to effectively communicate with women, brands need to understand our lives, the personal values which drive our behaviour and the relationships we hold with one another and ourselves.” A woman will invest more with a brand that acknowledges her lifestyle, her motivators and ultimately builds a relationship with her. She’s a diverse, smart and sophisticated shopper and she wants to know why your product will benefit her and how your brand supports her. Fortunately, as female consumer power increases and companies diversify, we’re starting to see a shift in the way businesses market products, but also the way in which they design and make them – which is more advanced and sophisticated than “let’s make it pink”.

THE SONOS EXPERI ENCE

Wo r d s : J OY H O WA R D C H I E F M A R K E T I N G O F F I C E R , SO N OS

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Music is a vital experience. It’s a love affair that stays with us throughout our lives. We know that listening to music out loud at home leads to stronger relationships, more intimacy, happier families and more quality time spent together. It makes boring things more fun and the fun things immeasurably better.

But the gap between how people feel about music and how they’re experiencing it is massive. Have you ever seen someone put their phone into a cup or cupped their hand around it to get a few extra decibels? Playing the latest release through some tinny laptop speakers. Or how about when they realize that the party is suddenly listening to their incoming messages instead of their music? It happens too often - to too many people - and it makes us wonder: how did listening to music turn into a series of interruptions, pairing fails, and an endless quest for volume? At Sonos, we know there are millions of people who love music just as much as we do and that’s why we’re

here. Our purpose is pure and simple. To fill every home with music. To create the ultimate music experience for music lovers everywhere, just like us. And we place that experience front and centre of everything we do. What we make, when we communicate and how we connect with music lovers and creators around the world. In our early years, we invested everything we had to create our home sound system. One that sounded incredible, that connected you instantly to the entire history of recorded music; to the playlists you love the most. And in a way that takes no effort, no thought – just a simple, instant connection to that experience. Communicating the Sonos experience is, and will always be, our biggest challenge. To experience Sonos is to understand it. And to understand it without the experience is a gap we have to bridge when we meet those new to the Sonos world.

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We approach our marketing in the same way we approach our product design, with experience at its heart. We know that most of our customers come to us after experiencing the system first-hand. Whether that’s a referral from a friend or having just experienced it in their house, our greatest opportunity is to recreate the spark that opens the gate to welcoming music back into your own home. That’s why we opened our first flagship story in New York in July. This was a significant milestone for Sonos and a joy to invite customers into a space that’s as close to our home as we could create. In it, we built seven tiny homes – each of which gives you a sense of what music can be like in the smart home – where everything works together seamlessly, where sound is a vital part of the design of your home environment, where you have to experience it to believe. We’re also fulfilling our mission through partnerships with brands who share our vision of home as a centre of vital cultural experiences. One example is our partnership with Airbnb, which will use the power of music to make everywhere feel even more like home. Together, we’re enhancing the listening experience not only for Airbnb’s host community, but for their 100+ million guest arrivals around the world. We’ve been offering Sonos systems to new Airbnb hosts and began piloting a Sonos Home popup activation to early promising results. At Sonos, we also take our contributions to music and culture seriously. Sonos Studio, which

started out as a gallery space in LA, was our first real step. In the Studio, we combined music, art and technology to create connections with music creators and music lovers in an intimate surroundings where they enjoyed shared listening experiences. This concept evolved through many pop-up spaces such as house parties in Amsterdam, Sonos Studio NYC, a week-long installation at Neuhouse, and our current studio in London. We also understand that being relevant today means making it easy. The easier we make it to fill your home with music, the more people will listen. From our perspective, music deserves a central place in our lives and in our homes and we see an opportunity to use our brand’s position in the industry to advocate for the future of how music is experienced at home. To do that, we are kicking off a new global marketing campaign, titled “You’re Better than This,” which pokes fun at the absurdities of modern listening. When we’re able to wake people up to the limitations of their current solutions – or lack thereof--then we’re on a path to making home life better and, for us, that’s the best outcome we could expect.

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You’re Better Than This

Listening Fail #09 “Extreme Pairing Fail”

Listening Fail #28 “Barely Hanging On”

Listening Fail #15 “Cable Jungle”

Listening Fail #30 “Cable Nightmare”

Listening Fail #14 “Mug o’ Bass”

Listen Better at sonos.com Listening Fail #02 “DIY Docking Station”

Listening Fail #23 “You’ve Got The Left And I Got The Right” - 31 -

#BEYOUROWN is the new platform brought to

you by the most affluential, influential and entrepreneurial women of today. Inspiring, sharing & celebrating amazing success stories from well established key influencers to new rising talent, there is a place for us all. Hosted by Samanah Duran, core topics include Business, Music & Media, Fashion & Art and Sports.

Samanah Duran is a British fashion designer & successful businesswoman. As company Founder, CEO & Creative Director of Critics Clothing, Samanah is setting a great example as an aspiring 21st century entrepreneur, for an audience of all ages. Her fierce emphasis on inspiring each individual to embrace their identity and to take pride in their individuality is perfectly presented in her vision for innovative clothing, which was revolutionized through the crafting of indulgent streetwear with the power to evoke self-expression. Building on that inspiration as an extension of Critics Clothing, Samanah has now successfully launched #BEYOUROWN. The interviewing channel featuring both new and well established female talent and entrepreneurs that wish to share their story across the nation and who we feel would be a good fit for the readers of the online interviewing blog.

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#BEYOUROWN M e e t s LO U I S E D E A R

This month #BEYOUROWN interview Louise Dear, a Brighton based artist with a simple ambition, that being is to create beautiful paintings. Louise creates large, contemporary, figurative works. She is passionate about colour and is continually exploring the power it has to invade our senses and influence our emotions. Here Louise brings us into her world and shares her thoughts on her creative process and advice on starting out in the art world. Hey Louise, how does your day start and how does it finish? I like to start my day with a swim. My apartment is

right on the Brighton seafront, overlooking the sea and unless it’s super wild, I have to get in. It’s my morning meditation, my calm before the storm of the day and it’s where I get a space to think. Some of my best ideas come to me in the ocean. My day usually ends with a glass of wine or two chilling with my partner discussing our day and putting the world to rights. The rest of the time I paint!

What is your creative process? My inspiration comes from everywhere and everything and I am always coming up with new ideas. My daughter Lama is my main muse and if I’m not actually painting her, I’m painting an aspect of her to portray a feeling or an emotion. I carry sketchbooks everywhere and am always jotting down ideas. I usually work out the exact finished painting in my head and then it changes and evolves as I begin to create. Sometimes the materials take over or something new I have read or seen on the walk to work totally influences what I do that day. I love to make rules and boundaries for myself just so I can break them. I work on panels of aluminium that are sanded and scratched before I throw a multitude of mixed media at it then I begin to paint. My works are multi-layered, as are we and I work on different sections depending on my mood. This is a process I have devised over the years so that there is always something for me to work on no matter what my state of mind. If I’m energetic and flamboyant I work on crazy abstract backgrounds or turn the music up and paint up a huge seductive face. If I’m feeling a little tired or in a quieter mood, I paint flowers or fill in sections of pure colour, which is so relaxing and totally lifts my spirits. I have recently begun work on a new project #loveyourselfie where people are sending me their selfies and I’m creating small original portraits from them. These are pieces I can work on anywhere so when the sun shines I can take my work to the beach. I recently had a week in Greece and spent every day painting selfies sitting on the rocks with my toes dangling in the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean, divine.

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What is on the horizon for 2017? It’s shaping up to be a very busy year! My biggest commission to date, a painting called KissKissBamBam, will launch on Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, next month and I have another huge commission in New York that I will be starting in the New Year, as well as some private commissions. I’ll be continuing work on the #loveyourselfie project which has already proved to be incredibly popular as I’ve been sent literally hundreds. I’m in talks with a new gallery, a licensing agent and a make up brand who want to work on a new branding project, all very exciting. I’m really enjoying the moment of being in such demand. What do you believe is the secret sauce to creating a great piece of artwork? Passion. Simply passion. I have an urgent need to create

and deep desire to paint. Art has always been a part of my life and I yearn for it when I am away. I am an incredibly emotional person and I pour these emotions and feelings into my work imploring my viewer to be seduced and feel the way I do.

How has your painting style evolved over the years? I have matured, honed my craft, and developed my techniques. My works have evolved and continue to do so, as I have. My subject matter is similar yet my works have become more ambitious and braver as I’ve gained recognition. I continue to experiment, to research and learn new ideas and will always do so. I love discovering a new artist, studying their technique, pinching some of their ideas and inserting them into new works.

You have pretty much been exhibiting your artwork since 2000, what has been your most favourite to date? I’ve always got a new favourite and sometimes I have a work that I struggle to let go. I have a piece in the studio at the moment that I created earlier in the year. It’s called ‘I Love You MADLY’ and I do! I simply LOVE it.

What challenges do you face in your every day life and how do you overcome them? My main challenges are finding the time to do

all the other things that are not painting. The admin, finding the head space for all the aspects of running a busy business that I don’t enjoy. I do have a couple of wonderful assistants but sometimes there are problems that only I can solve and these usefully get resigned to the ‘do later’ pile.

What advice would you give to an aspiring artist out there that is starting out? This business is certainly not for the faint hearted. If

you dream art, breath painting, create in your sleep then you will succeed. But if there is something else you’d rather be doing, go do it. Being an artist is no way to make a fast buck. It is a career of peaks and troughs, highs and lows and many a month you will struggle to pay the rent. To be an artist you need a rebellious nature, to be a maverick and a desire to live on the edge. If this is your nature and you can handle the pressure the rewards are supreme.

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“Believe in yourself! You are supreme, unique, a one off! You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul”

What mantra or quote duo you live by? Oh I’ve got several!

But I think they all boil down to the same thing. Believe in yourself! You are supreme, unique, a one off! You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul.

a brick wall. Then, an idea that I thought amazing only yesterday seems foolish even ridiculous now. These moments don’t last long and if I really am struggling for some new inspiration, I take myself off to an art fair or a gallery or two that always delights the fire.

What is your medium of choice and why? Gloss paint How do you choose the subject of all your painting? on aluminium. This is the basis of I usually have an image in my head that I just have to paint; a posed, position or bouquet of flowers that I want to incorporate. These images are stuck in my head and I can’t rid them until I’ve executed them in paint. My daughter Lama is my muse. It is her face that I paint over and over to portray a mood and emotion, plus aspects of womanhood and femininity. If I’m not actually painting her, I’m painting a symbol of her that represents and celebrates all women.

my paintings but I also use a variety of mixed media from household emulsions to exquisite tubes of intense pigment and 24carat gold leaf. Acrylics, vivid inks, guilt creams, glitter, stickers and crystals. I use a multitude of materials overlaying chaotic splatters with formal stripes, forming layer upon layer of intense colour and texture. I want the viewer to be seduced by my works and continue admiring and loving them, searching and always finding something new to look at hidden in the depths.

Do you ever experience creative blocks? Yes. I can be

Check out Louise’s projects and collaborations at

running along full steam ahead with a million ideas whirring around in my head when I suddenly hit

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www.louisedear.com

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WWW.CRITICSCLOTHING.COM

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“NOW WE N EED TO BE OBSESSI NG ABOUT TH E CREATION OF EN D-TO-EN D EXPERI ENCES THAT WRAP AROUN D PRODUCTS AN D BRAN DS… BECAUSE I N A WORLD OF DATA, PERSONALISATION AN D REAL-TI M E ANALYTICS, TH E EXPERI ENCES WE CREATE BETWEEN BRAN DS AN D PEOPLE WI LL BECOM E TH E POI NT OF DI FFERENTIATION.” – H AT T I E W H I T I N G

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FOOD:

AN EXPERIENCE OF THE SENSES Let’s start by saying - Food is meant to be experienced. The way a dish looks, smells, tastes, and even sounds, factors into it. In our current age of interconnectivity, food has fewer surprises; therefore experiential marketing plays a vital role in creating individuality in a crowded market. Customers look for an authenticity of experience with a brand, being able to have an emotional connection leads to longevity, especially for chain restaurants that can struggle to keep the buzz when facing competition from independents, which have more freedom.

Wo rd s : P h i l H i n i t t R E STAU R A N T M A R K E T E R

If a settled restaurant is looking to boost sales and wants to avoid discounting as a means of driving covers, an alternative is needed in which to distinguish itself from competitors. While people tend to stick with the restaurants they know won’t let them down, they are also looking for brands to wow them with something unique. Depending on the execution, experiential marketing can have a widespread effect, particularly in the social age where your customers themselves are a marketing channel. Experiential marketing for restaurants can take many forms, but at its core the goals remain the same as it would be in any industry; to create long term affinity with the brand and in the case of restaurants, a connection with the customer that reaches beyond the physical walls. It will also show innovation and flexibility that pushes itself to find a new audience outside of the traditional restaurant sphere. Customers are now far more savvy to marketers and aware of thinly veiled attempts for sales without building that relationship. So how should it be used? Experience should be about providing the customer the ability to form their own connection with the brand, not dictate what the - 40 -

brand should mean to them. Too often we try to tell a customer what they should feel with the interaction, rather than simply creating a situation or environment that builds an organic and genuine lasting relationship. Dishoom’s Holi Festival is a great example, a free spirited event for all ages, not simply sponsored by a restaurant brand, but with an experience rooted in the restaurant offering, with large numbers of people enjoying entertainment, food and a whole lot of gulal throwing. Great experiential marketing like this shouldn’t move the person too far from the essence of the brand and will succeed when both the brand and the consumer benefit. Even with more simple experiences, if you’re asking for them to sign up, or for them to post online they need to be rewarded, through the enjoyment of the experience itself or physically by what they take away with them. So where do we go next in the world of restaurant experiential marketing? It’s likely that along with the continual use of festival/street activations, that we’ll start to see more initiatives involving technology and interactivity. Digital screens are used by some restaurants, creating entertainment and distraction during waiting times, but virtual reality is becoming more mainstream and the concept of eating in a version of a brand’s homeland, never more appealing… I for one am excited to see where we take experience next.

P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G

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P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G

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‘EXPERIENCE SHOULD BE ABOUT PROVIDING THE CUSTOMER THE ABILITY TO FORM THEIR OWN CONNECTION WITH THE BRAND, NOT DICTATE WHAT THE BRAND SHOULD MEAN TO THEM.’ PHIL HINITT

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O C H R E furniture â&#x20AC;˘ lighting â&#x20AC;˘ accessories ochre.net

new showroom at 57 pimlico road london sw1w 8ne - 44 -

CHEF ADAM BYATT AND HIS HOLY TRINITY

4 The Polygon, Clapham London SW4 0JG 0207 622 1199 www.trinityrestaurant.co.uk

4 The Polygon, Clapham London SW4 0JG 020 3745 7227 www.trinity-upstairs.co.uk

40 Abbeville Road London SW4 9NG 020 7042 6400 www.bistrounion.co.uk

2016

Trinity restaurant, Adam Byatt’s longstanding neighbourhood favourite, has been awarded a coveted Michelin star just one month shy of its 10th anniversary. Known for his serious commitment to contemporary British cuisine, Adam Byatt is one of London’s most exciting chef-restaurateurs.

Trinity was awarded its first Michelin star in October, just one month shy of its 10th anniversary!

Now that you have a Michelin star, what’s next? How do you raise the bar? Being awarded a star this year will certainly give us a renewed sense of confidence in what we are offering and will no doubt spur us on to push further and achieve an even more heightened guest experience. But the focus is very much on maintaining the high standards that we have always set for ourselves and polishing up what we already have. Trinity has been in Clapham for 10 years, what do you think has changed for it to receive its first star this year? The response to the star from the industry has been overwhelming, many have said ‘it’s about time’ and ‘at last’, though for me Michelin called it right. We have been at this level before but not for such sustained periods. Now I feel that the star is truly representative of this last year at Trinity. How have your team celebrated since the announcement? We shared a glass of champagne but it has been mostly heads down ensuring that we deliver on the increased expectations of our guests. We will have an incredible staff party this year! What is one thing that has already changed since achieving the Michelin star? My ability to sleep at night. - 45 -

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WeAreKemosabe.com

FAITHFUL FRIEND. TRUSTY SCOUT

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S P O T L I G H T: T H E H O N E S T H O U R

Wo rd s : C h a r l o t te D awe FOUNDER OF THE HONEST HOUR

WH EN I WAS A LITTLE GI RL GROWI NG UP I N MY SMALL FAM I LY BUBBLE CONSISTI NG OF MY M UM, DAD, BROTH ER AN D DOG, LI FE WAS LI M ITED TO A SI M PLE ROUTI N E LEAD BY MY PARENTS BUT WH EN IT CAM E TO BEDTI M E EVERYTH I NG CHANGED. TH ROUGH TH E READI NG OF STORYBOOKS MY I MAGI NATION WOULD SOAR TO FAR AWAY PLACES, MAGICAL PEOPLE AN D EXTRAORDI NARY ADVENTURES. No matter how fictional and far-fetched they were, each story taught me a lesson, plus good morals and values. These were drilled into my young, impressionable brain and allowed me to understand and empathise with people. Stories to children are both entertaining and educational but for centuries they have been a way of passing on information and experience to people of all ages. Writing has been the long-standing method of documenting story telling but stories actually predates writing and in their earliest form stories were told to ancient cultures through rock art. Today we see stories painted, printed, recorded digitally and told orally by storytellers who want to preserve culture, and pass on tradition from generation to generation. Sharing life is cherished as well as painful and challenging moments through story telling brings people together. I was introduced to Monique through a friend last year on International Women’s day. When we met up for the first time I tentatively listened to her stories on being a full time working mum. She spoke of her journey from business to breastfeeding and as her heart shined brightly on her sleeve, I instantly felt connected. It compelled me to share in return my own current story of love and of loss.

It was from this experience with one another that we decided to start The Honest Hour. We wanted it to be a place for sharing honest stories for other women to read and learn from, feel inspired by, supported or empowered to make change, to not feel alone, or isolated from their experience but to share it and feel connected. The focus on women’s stories was important to us, not only because of the day we first met but also because the issues pertaining to women continuing to be sidelined in mainstream discourse and so we wanted a platform to champion women’s stories to hear their voices and to share their experiences in an honest space. We believe that the more women share their stories the more they can influence and empower generations of girls and women. www.thehonesthour.com

We both left our meeting feeling lighter and inspired, sharing our stories with each other was supportive and empowered us to make changes and move forward positively.

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HONEST HOUR STOR IES

MY M USLI M, EIGHTYYEAR-OLD FATH ER, WAS WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, TH E MOST PROGRESSIVE PERSON I HAD EVER KNOWN. W o r d s : Ta s n i m B h u i y a n

Being a freedom fighter in his youth, he did it all, from being jailed at fourteen for fighting for the civil rights of his people to demonstrating against the Vietnam war alongside Vanessa Redgrave and John Lennon. “John was in a band, apparently,” Dad had once said nonchalantly, shrugging as though it was a trivial fact that was barely worth mentioning. “Something to do with insects.” At the time, I had remembered gaping unattractively at him when he said it but in hindsight, my father had never really paid much attention to celebrity or the superficial. He knew Gandhi and didn’t like him, couldn’t tell you anything about contemporary culture and was so disparaging about the shallowness of social functions that my mother, frankly, had to stop taking him out with her for fear of losing all her friends. My Dad’s rampant feminism also wasn’t a big hit back then. He often cited men as the cause of all the problems on the planet (much to the chagrin of all the other men in the room), loudly scoffed at the other Asian parents who sympathised with him for not having sons and never for a moment thought I couldn’t achieve anything I wanted to. If anything, my father worried about the inequality my sister and I would face because of other people; people who might judge us for our lack of wealth, our sex or even the colour of our skin. He talked about racism to us at a young age, something I had laughed off because I had been born in possibly the most multi-cultural part of London and had never experienced it. “Racism doesn’t exist in this day and age, Abbu,” I - 49 -

had countered countless times, young and stupid and convinced I knew more than he did. I changed my mind when I received my first sneer of “Paki,” at twelve, however. (I also promptly chased the little shit who said it until he squeaked and bolted himself inside his house but I digress.) It made me think of my dad as a young student in the sixties, clever enough to attend Oxford and become a Professor but too dark to be an acceptable tenant to the landlords in the area, who would put up signs that clearly stipulated, ‘No dogs. No Indians. No Irishmen’. The progress that has been made since those years is so staggering that I honestly can’t fathom what it must have been like back then. I used to wonder just how my father stood for it, being the smartest man in the room and still maligned for his differences. I soon realised, however, that it was because he was different that he was so dogged in his convictions, being the loudest voice in the room even - especially - if people didn’t want to hear what he was saying. My father died of heart failure in 2012, an event that was the single worst moment of my life. It also made me truly appreciate all the many life lessons I learned from him, the main one being never to think less of myself, even if society might have. The funny-sounding name I loathed in school is now one I appreciate for being memorable. The skin I always worried about being too dark is an all year tan without the hassle. So here I am. An Asian girl who was born in a poor area, now doing a job I never thought a person like me could ever get. And I know whom I have to thank for that. So thank you, Abbu. For everything. Until we meet again.

HONEST HOUR STOR IES

At the tender age of 24 I ran across a road in Barcelona and was hit by a bus. At the

Wo rd s : C h l o e C u n n i n g h a m P A R T N E R , H E A LT H I S W E A LT H

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time of the accident I was already spiritually and emotionally brokenthe accident seemingly a physical manifestation of my inner turmoil. I was in a relationship with a boy that I adored, but who was incredibly controlling, manipulative and generally toxic. I was suppressing everything: my life, my thoughts, and my feelings, whilst orbiting somebody elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s centre and putting somebody elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs ahead of mine and totally abandoning myself.

A therapist later reiterated Jung’s synchronicity theory, that there are no accidents. My brother joked, “What, you didn’t see it coming?” I hadn’t. Not even when it was too late, all I saw was my 100 euros worth of sushi lying across the road. In hindsight the bus was exactly what I needed. Whilst a mere metaphorical lesson may have been less painful than a broken collarbone, I truly believe that only an experience this crazy could have given me the literal shake that I needed. I was left in a bed in the hospital corridor as I waited for my MRI scan. As the hours passed I began to imagine the worst- what would the scan reveal? In those moments I realised that things needed to change. I no longer recognised the person I had become, with very little vital energy, I was a shadow of my former self, constantly tearful, riddled with anxiety and barely able to catch my own breath. I decided that I wanted to be able to help people, as the hospital staff helped me. In the weeks that followed I binged on the Sopranos and contemplated my options. I identified my feelings of malaise - described

as: a disconnection, something that you can’t quite put your finger on, an underlying discontentment- a disconnection from life. I was totally and utterly lost, drowning in confusion, spinning in emptiness. I was looking for someone, or something to alleviate my sadness. In the months leading to my accident, strangely enough, I remember contemplating what it would feel like to be hit by a bus. Just to feel something. Anything. Maybe there are no accidents. The bus may have flung me into the road, but it also allowed me to wake up to my life, and for that I can only be grateful. I read spiritual texts and looked into Eastern medicines and healing. As a woman I feel a deep need to nurture, and I suddenly felt a longing to return to my roots, to uncover ancient wisdom and to reconnect to nature. I enrolled on a course to do Naturopathic Medicine. My bone fused back together, I became stronger and slowly my life followed suit. I set up a healthy snack company called Forager. I started a cooking business based on my knowledge of healthy food and I’m currently running holistic yoga retreats in Tuscany. Along the way I learnt that it’s ok to want to take care of someone, but you need to take care of yourself first in order to take care of

P H OT O B Y. P AT R I C K H E N D R Y

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another. I learnt that it was not ok to be too compliant with someone else’s view of the world, or to digest their thoughts in exchange for love. To start with, it only truly matters that you love yourself, to take responsibility for yourself and for your happiness. And to know that actually sometimes the root cause of your anxiety can be a gluten intolerance, or that you might be feeling a bit miserable because you aren’t getting enough healthy fats, or perhaps you feel tearful because of an imbalance in gut bacteria. This small knowledge is so powerful and can change people’s lives for the better. I mean sometimes it can actually be that your boyfriend is an arsehole. Dump him. Do it. Be brave and move on. I learnt that it’s better to listen to yourself than the Mad Men. Trust your instincts and go with your gut. Being freed from the toxicity of my relationship means that I no longer have to view my life through a kaleidoscope of hurt and confusion, in fact exactly the opposite is true. I have so much gratitude and appreciation for the people around me. I feel so privileged to be able to do what I love, to travel, to feel excited every morning, and to share knowledge that can make others feel better both in and about themselves.

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THE NEW QUATTROPORTE. BY MASERATI.

RACE-BRED ENGINEERING IN A LUXURY SALOON. SINCE 1963. In 1963, a legend was born when, for the first time in automotive history, Maserati mounted a racing engine in a four door saloon: Quattroporte. The latest version features twin-turbocharged V6 and V8 petrol engines, and a powerful V6 turbodiesel, whilst for an even sportier stance, GranSport trim includes a special aerodynamic kit, sports seats, gearshift paddles, red brake callipers and 21” Titano wheels. Please call us for more information.

H.R. OWEN MASERATI LONDON Melton Court, 25-27 Old Brompton Road, London, SW7 3TD Phone: 0333 240 1580 / Web: www.hrowen.co.uk/maserati

Official fuel consumption figures for the New Maserati Quattroporte range in mpg (l/100km): Urban 18.1 (15.6) – 35.8 (7.9), Extra Urban 35.8 (7.9) – 54.3 (5.2), Combined 26.4 (10.7) – 45.6 (6.2). CO2 emissions 250 – 163g/km. Fuel consumption and CO2 figures are based on standard EU tests for comparative purposes and may not reflect real driving results. - 53 -

EXPLORING YO U R E X P E R I E N C E S Ask the average marketer about what emotion they would want to engender from their consumers about their brand and it would be “Love.” The buzz word of the new millennium. Much has been written to overcomplicate the issue so this is an attempt to keep things simple. Firstly, Consumers are people. Secondly, people have needs ranging from basic (food, water, shelter) through to what Maslow calls Self-Actualisation (achieving one’s full potential). So what’s this got to do with brands and experiential marketing? Well successful brands organise themselves around core objectives that tap into the basic human striving to achieve their full potential. Lululemon, the Canadian yoga wear, brand’s mission is ‘Creating components for people to live longer, healthier, fun lives’ whilst Nike have ‘To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete’ and Red Bull ‘…gives you wings.’ You can buy TV ads, magazine covers and make beautifully crafted videos but if you really, genuinely want to change people’s thinking, habits and lives you have to do rather than just say. You have to give something to the athletes and those who want to fly. Red Bull organizes over 6,000 events globally from Backyard Digger to Air Races. They have literally opened up an entire generation of people to participate in extreme sports through creating experiential events at mass scale. Not only has Red Bull ridden the experiential wave to YoY double-digit growth but it also now makes a substantial chunk of its profits from ticketing at these events. - 54 -

Nike changed its business model about 15 years ago when it decided to shift spending into experiential events such as its daily Nike running Clubs, Nike+ and Race Series. And these are all entirely free to the end consumer. Lululemon runs festivals such as Sweat Life and daily free Yoga classes at all its global stores and has quickly developed a cult following, which has helped triple its stock price and grow its revenue to $1.3BN. In short they marry up their company mission with deep understanding of their consumers’ deeper desires and needs to create experiences that genuinely improve the consumer’s life. And the results have shown this approach to be a worthwhile bet. In return the consumer will become a loyal purchaser of your product, even when faced with cheaper or more advertised alternatives, because you have made a huge positive deposit in the goodwill bank whilst a fancy TV advert or poster is just another piece of noise in an already cluttered landscape. For us at Savse, we have a clear mission to improve the emotional, physical and professional wellbeing of our consumers. We have spent a great deal of time understanding the deepest desires of our consumers and planning a series of over 100 events across 2017 which directly inspire people to be the best versions of themselves, at absolutely no charge. We’re betting big on experiential in 2017 and would encourage others to do the same. Wo rd s : O r r Vi n e g o l d H E A D O F M A R K E T I N G S AV S E S M O OT H I E S

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YO U C A N B U Y T V A D S , M AG A Z I N E COV E R S A N D M A K E B E A U T I F U L LY C R A F T E D V I D E O S B U T I F YO U R E A L LY, G E N U I N E LY WA N T TO C H A N G E P E O P L E â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S T H I N K I N G , H A B I T S A N D L I V E S YO U H AV E TO D O R AT H E R T H A N J U S T S AY. YO U H AV E TO G I V E S O M E T H I N G T O T H E AT H L E T E S A N D T H O S E W H O WA N T TO F LY.

ORR VINEGOLD

P H OT O B Y. R E D D A N G E LO - 56 -

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TH E ART OF CUSTOM ER CAR E Wo rd s : S h a ro n Wr i g h t H.R. OWEN SPECIAL PROJECTS DIRECTOR

Experience is at the heart of everything H.R. Owen do; the whole group centres around it, regardless of the brand we are representing, or the dealership you are entering. We pride ourselves on forging a great relationship with all customers and consider first impressions to be everything. Maintaining a set standard is vital and client care leads to long-term retention – essential for any business, particularly in the current climate. Above all, we focus on our relationship with our customers. Buying a luxury or performance car is a very personal experience and can be an involved decision process. We aim to get to know our customers and their likes and dislikes, so we are best placed to help guide them through all of the stages; not just at purchase but well beyond that. Our experienced staff are well practiced at building a rapport right from the very start, to take the pressure away from the situation and make everything an enjoyable experience. Every detail matters to us, no matter how small, and we aim to personalise every element of that experience. By fully understanding each client’s requirements and making this our priority, we ensure satisfaction. It’s important we really get to know our clients – be this having their favourite flowers upon arrival or having their cake of choice delivered while they are waiting in one of our lounges. Our approach makes certain that, for our clients, the H.R. Owen experience is an impeccable one, and we aim to bring in influences from their lifestyle to provide buying advice along the way. This could be used for anything

from advising them on colours and specification to ensuring we invite them to the most suitable event. A gesture as simple as gifting their favourite wine when they take delivery may not sound important, but it can make all the difference to someone’s experience. When you go to a large luxury hotel or a fine restaurant, you expect, and get, the same level of service from every member of the business – and that is what we aim to deliver at H.R. Owen. We are aware that a three-Michelinstar restaurant is one bad experience away from being downgraded, so the luxurious customer service is offered consistently to every client. Whether they are buying our highest-priced new car or hiring a special vehicle for one day, they must receive the same level of client care. We also offer a full-circle range of services that are designed to make our customers’ lives easier – we aim to be the one place that our customers need to call for everything they need related to their car. We take care of insurance and servicing, plus our in-house body shop can even step in should the worst happen and a repair is needed. Nothing is too much trouble, everything is designed to take the stress out of a stressful situation.

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Beyond their own car, we can also help make an occasion a truly special one, thanks to our Luxury Hire and Chauffeur Drive services. Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collecting someone from an airport, acting as a chauffeur for a special day or even if you just want to get behind the wheel of the latest supercar, we will have the ideal car for making the experience one to remember. We are proud to be the only luxury retailer that has a fleet of 24 vehicles at its disposal, which we will deliver to your door, meaning we can react swiftly when a client needs us. On top of in-house insurance, Luxury Hire and Chauffeur Drive services, we are also one of the only companies to offer driver training to supercar purchasers. Experience, as always, is key. We want our customers to build a relationship with us over years to come, so we put our all into building a strong foundation right from the start. We are team focused, and the message is simple: deliver a sevenstar-plus experience to all who communicate with us.

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TH ERE IS NO DOUBT TH E WORLD AROUN D US IS CHANGI NG. FASTER THAN EVER. In the UK a fifth of all retail sales take place online with this figure growing month on month, and having just taken the much anticipated delivery of my brand new Amazon Echo, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve become acutely aware of just how retailers are adapting to the times.

M i c h e l a B e l t r a m i T E C H A N D D I G I TA L E D I TO R

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From the comfort of my sofa I’m now asking Alexa to place my take away order, or ask for an Uber or turn the lights on. How convenient you say. But, that’s not all, in Alexa’s own liquid tone, ’soon you’ll be able to ask me to buy you millions of items with just your voice’…Hurrah! Where only 20 years ago we were teetering on the brink of e-commerce, we’re now fully entrenched in m-commerce and headed on a collision course with v-commerce. Consumer buying behaviour is evolving, how we interact with brands and what we expect from them has never before hinged on this degree of inflated expectation and as Ian Irving perceptively highlights in his Reimagine Retail (p.82) piece, experience is the driving force behind sinking or swimming in this climate. Savvy customers of today are demanding the traditional B2C model becomes B2ME to ensure success. The possibilities truly are endless and all around us… It’s true that soon our lives will also exist on virtual plains where the invisible is just as real as the visible. Marketeers will be able to serve rich content that merges the two worlds seamlessly. James Smith’s article touches on this shift towards augmented reality in our industry, and in a month where U.K members of Parliament have called for the creation of an Artificial Intelligence Commission to examine the effect new technologies have on society our responsibility as creators, marketers and explorers of this brilliant new age will be brought to the fore. There will be scrutiny of the ethical, legal and societal ramifications of these technologies, long gone are the days of the glorious, ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ print campaigns of old. The government have been quick to recognise we are all just human after all, and as “The Caveman and the Buy Button” by Harry Wright, surmises, more often than not we react on primal instincts when prompted by immediate stimulus. With the impact of AI on the workforce alone dissolving 6% of jobs by 2021 it seems that it’s not only they who need to re-skill and up-skill to this new world, but the consumer as well… Speaking of which, “Alexa…’what’s my bank balance?...” <gulp> Enjoy our revelations in tech and all things digital in this issue of Hatch. Mx

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TH E N EW ‘NEW’ D I G I TA L E X P E R I E N C E

Imagine a vivid, yet pixelated apparition of King Kong scaling the Empire State Building, just one of countless digital phantasms seeded amongst the metropolitan plexus of New York City. An illusion yes, but within mobile the possibilities of creating this type of content are becoming very real. P H OT O B Y. M A R K A S T H O F F

Wo rd s : J a m e s S m i t h SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETER

Whilst the holograms the sci-fi industry had promised us by now haven’t themselves manifested, we’ve instead been gifted something just as complex and intangible; geospatial data. It exists as an infinite substratum of cached information residing between your device and the real world. Imagine virtual protest graffiti on landmarks, or a rock band releasing an album that can only be listened to in certain parts of the London Underground. Geodata has offered us a paradigm shift that vast stratas of the marketing industry haven’t yet grasped. Smartphones provide us with a new duality to access the Internet; so thinking solely within the binary of eye to touchscreen is damn archaic, platform limitations aside.

been an industry-wide failure. Subtly backdooring geolocation info into social posts was a mistake, the damage of which has still yet to be fully patched. As consumers, our trust has been spooked, stifling innovation, creativity and progress. Psychologically, there is a chasm of difference between Twitter covertly tacking on the GPS co-ordinates of your family home to a tweet, and you actively geotagging your Instagram with Glastonbury Festival. Irritatingly the latter offers us marketers the real opportunity. Users readily engage during a moment they’d choose to share. For the younger generation the boundaries between privacy and publicity are even less considered, so things will inevitably march forward.

Yet I need not sing a hymn for one of the first facets of this, augmented reality. Niantic recently gifted AR its very first killer app. It was left to Pokemon of all things to breach that all-important cognitive threshold with consumers, perforating the Baudrillardian barrier between that often-intangible simulacrum of data and the ‘desert of the real’. Within days these digital phantasms already felt second nature to us. Forget the over expansive maps of MMORPGs or GTA, the playing field for video games and indeed marketers is now a 1:1 scale.

Snapchat is the first platform to grasp this shift intrinsically. It was the first major social network to be birthed on mobile and understands the power of not only ephemerality, but of the geospatial. Facebook must be careful to not reside in the slipstream here. Whilst appearing to play catch up recently with the co-opting of Snapchat Stories to its Instagram platform, Mr Zuckerberg’s purchase of Oculus seems to suggest an understanding of what looms. Right now the zenith may look like McDonalds branches as sponsored Pokestops or geofenced filters in every branch of KFC but make no doubt, the real King Kong is coming.

There are challenges however. That the big social platforms have failed to coalesce the digital paranoia whipped up in part by the Snowden revelations has

@jameshadouken - 62 -

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Most crucially, use it to deliver relevant, effective and always-on communications to them all. - 63 -

P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G

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Make every interaction count, even the small ones. They are all relevant. SHEP HYKEN

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GIVING

AUTHENTICITY

TO EXPERIENCE Pine and Gilmore argue that businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers, and that memory itself becomes the product — the “experience”. More advanced experience businesses can begin charging for the value of the “transformation” that an experience offers, e.g. as education offerings might do if they were able to participate in the value that is created by the educated individual. This, they argue, is a natural progression in the value added by the business over and above its inputs. Internal and consumer facing brands are investing on really engaging their people with the brand and its beliefs with the aim of opening the net to the wider world – if you connect with something, there is a chance you will fully engage with it. We see this with our clients more and more, most recently with companies doing business in other countries, by really tapping into the emotion behind the brand the aim is to create that customer loyalty and it seems to work. The reality is, that brands have stopped hiding behind expensive stunts and have become real – or at least have the desire to be perceived as ‘real’. This comes from having a better understanding of the consumer, with the world as it is today with access to information being so freely available, there’s been the recognition that people really do their research before they commit to or purchase something and that brands can no longer hide that truth. Some brands do it with considerably more success than others. The successful brands tend to be the ones that have an authentic culture that is unmanufactured, where their ‘culture is the brand’. The culture that their product offering is built upon, their unique set of beliefs that their staff buy into and the way in which they interact with their consumers. Apple, Innocent and O2 are all great exponents of ‘culture is the brand’. Some brands had this ethos and lost it, think British Airways and some brands have never had it but tried to ape their competitors, think Vodafone in the case of O2. The difficulty comes with how to measure the success of such activations and live experiences as there’s much less of signing up on the spot, it is more about giving the consumer an ‘experience’ which will influence their future decisions.

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Whilst consumers have become more knowledgeable and selective about the brands they engage with, they have also come to expect a certain level of interaction from them, whether in a shopping centre or at a festival. There is almost a sense of entitlement, like a bunch of spoiled children at Christmas and God help the brand if the consumer doesn’t like the experience because that will be Tweeted, YouTubed, SnapChatted, Instagrammed into a tsunami of negative hysteria. You can visit Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush practically any day of the week and not help but trip over an activation for Samsung, Citroen, Sky or one of the other habitués. It is the same

story at the music festivals that clutter up the UK countryside from T in the Park to V at Reading. The challenge for marketers is that they dare not exclude this type of live interaction from their marketing plan at risk of surrendering customer experience to one of their competitors. This brings live experience marketing to a crossroads where some real thought leadership is required. How can it evolve and develop beyond its current form? How can consumer expectations be managed? Live event marketing needs to draw on inspiration from its recent past in order to know where to go next. It needs to draw on the values that made it

a strong, effective and original marketing tool. It needs to engage true and authentic influencers who will help amplify the experiences. The answer could be found in ‘less is more’, marketers need to be more selective and avoid the clutter of the shopping centres, train station concourses, town centres, muddy festival sites and the pop-up clichés. They need a strategy that is brave, bold and has a genuine point of difference. To borrow from a certain tech brand they need to ‘think differently’ and they need to do that soon. Credibility and authenticity are the key ingredients to any successful marketing strategy…live event marketing should be no different.

W o r d s : S a r a h Ye a t s CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR,SLEDGE

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Experts in Live Events & Moving Image

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WHAT ARE BRANDS DOING TO EMBRACE EXPERIENCE? Wo rd s : J u s t i n J a m e s MANAGING DIRECTOR, BIGGER

Over the last five years we have noticed brands and their agencies are being much more proactive when it comes to experience consideration. I can see this through how we are approached to do work: For example this year weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had projects and briefs given to us through digital, advertising, partnership, PR, branding and even staffing agencies. I see this as either the brands themselves are looking at experience as something they can channel through the different agencies they work with, or that the different agencies themselves need an experience angle to fulfil a brief or make it more engaging. I think this has led to ad agencies buying up more experience led agencies so they can add that string to their bow and offer an all-in-one solution. Brands also have dedicated experience agencies that they will brief in from the start of a campaign or involve in all-agency meetings from the start. This is probably the best way brands have embraced experience, as they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see it as an add-on but something they need to work on from the start. A good example of how we worked with a client was on a recent project we have just completed that was 6 months in the planning. The North Face invited us to pitch on a loose project idea they had. They had previously sponsored an event and invested a lot into it, however they wanted a new direction and to create an event of their own where they could in effect, own the whole experience. The role of the experience agency was to lead the whole campaign and sit at the top when it came to communication with the digital, PR and creative agency. This is because the experience was leading the project. For us it was refreshing that a brand would do this. The project was an overall success and the client was very happy with the insight The North Face Mountain Festival created.

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Is it overused or saturated? As explained before it’s probably only over saturated because everyone is trying to ‘do some experiential’, this essentially leads to some really crap work and also gives the experience economy a bad name. Some people classify experiential as staff handing out free vouchers at Oxford Circus, which it really isn’t at all in my opinion. Marketing Managers also need to take risks and realise that to stand out and get noticed you need to do something different. Yes, sampling covers ground and gives you metrics but people just want free stuff. You’ve not given anyone any real insight into your brand or created any motivation feeling for them to buy you in the future. In addition to this marketing managers need better education on what experience is and how it can benefit, I also think that’s why sampling campaigns and awful pop up shops appear so often, because there are so many marketing managers making un-educated and simplified decisions. However, on this point the experience agencies are partly to blame, as we need to do a better job selling it in. Google the ten biggest experiential agencies in the UK and read their mission statements, it’s all bullshit, if I was a Marketing Manager, I’d feel confused. If more brands briefed in experience agencies from the start on what the business objective is, then we would see better work all round because we could offer better solutions rather than an add-on at the end or the crumbs of the budget that have already been eaten up by the big-guns in agency world.

Are brands doing experience for the sake of it? Some brands are doing it for the sake of it 100% and that’s all to do with the fact they don’t get it and are box ticking. Again, this is down to education of what experience is and what it brings to the party. Technology plays a really important part in this process and through technology, brands will be able to understand how experience can impact on sales and how face-to-face interaction really benefits. I recently sat in an all-agency meeting where the ad agency bamboozled the client with stat after stat on where the money was going and how it was benefitting, so you could see how the TV ad had reached the target audience. I thought this looked great but for me was really boring, it’s just talk about eyeballs on TV screens. We will be able to do this soon in a much more interesting way through the integration of digital technology into what we do. Also using video from events, social media integration will really demonstrate how the experience has delivered and achieved the business objective. In essence I think that all agencies need to work together to achieve the business objective but we all need to be involved in the process from the start.

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How marketers can target the white working class: Lessons from Brexit

The background Brexit v Remain was undoubtedly the most all-encompassing political event the UK has seen for many years. In a country with known and sadly accepted voter apathy, polling stations unexpectedly found themselves reveling in abnormally high voter turn out. Post Brexit we were facing a country at war: name-calling, accusations, threats, anger and suddenly every social media user in the country became a political expert. But what exactly fuelled this passion that we so rarely see at the ballot boxes? The answer comes in the form of the working class. “I’m 38 and have never voted in my life. I was actually quite nervous about going into the voting booth but I felt I had to do it! There was far too much at stake”. Jack, Grimsby. If we put politics to one side, Brexit has been one of the most valuable marketing lessons of the decade. For those needing to create successful marketing strategies, Brexit showed unchallengeably the best way to communicate with working class people. Why? Because it connected with nearly every working class code, creating motivation and a strong call to action - a sagacious strategy that offers a real valuable world lesson. The Head of Marketing for The Mirror summed up the reasons why the Remain campaign didn’t have the same clout when he said: “The Remain campaign failed because ‘Adland’ and the media failed to hear the emotional soundtrack of life in England outside the M25, and there are serious lessons for brands beyond the referendum”. What she was basically alluding to was that Remain focused their efforts solely on the electorate populous of London and ABC1, proffering a language they understood and presenting issues that matter to them, whilst ignoring the C2DE. Wrongly assuming that ABC1 would make up the majority of the voter turnout, because the working classes can never be bothered anyway so why talk to them?

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Underestimating Brexit power turned out to be a monumental error, and basically cost them the election. This subsection section of the electorate, unmotivated and disinterested in mainstream politics could not identify with anything that Remain had to say. However, Brexit cut through the veil of indifference by challenging their whole ethos. They switched on, and motivated by what they heard - they acted. How often are the white working class considered in marketing campaigns? Increasingly we are seeing those responsible for marketing asking for ‘real world insights’, as the value of the working class, as an audience, is starting to come to the fore. For some time now those in marketing and social research will have been aware that bubbling below the surface there have been some big divisions in society. Coming from a decade or more of ‘equality’, we became blind to the reality and assumed that political correctness, human rights and equal rights had everything covered. However, this is not so, the class divide is still very much an issue. ABC1 is the focus of pretty much every marketing campaign across the country, after all, these are the people with purchasing power right? Wrong. Channel 4 amongst others are beginning to understand and acknowledge that in some cases it is C2 who have a higher disposable income. Our research for this purpose was based on the criteria below, and followed up from the ‘Leave’ vote confirmation. The aim was to go beyond the politics and better understand the class of people that became so influential. This article offers an insight into the working class and how they see the world, and pitches some vital erudition that delivers high value to those responsible for marketing.

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Approach SLS the cultural and behavioral insight agency conducted 20x in-depth interviews post referendum in the following, predominately white working class, areas that voted leave: Boston, Bolton and Feltham. We also conducted social media audits and took on a semi ethnographic approach using the principles of ‘Commercial Anthropology’, hanging-out with respondents in their natural environments ‘betting shops, café, pubs, social clubs, hairdressers’. Who are the working class? Defining the working class used to be easy. However as with all things evolution has taken place, and what was once a single group apparent by several defining factors, has now split into three subclasses each of whom have their own agenda and criteria, but have similar grounding values running throughout. A quick and dirty definition of the working classes used to be: wage earning people, educated at secondary modern, living in back to back houses. Those with their heart in the right place with associations to Butlin’s holidays and Blackpool, the men worked in the mines, read The Sun and went to the pub, the women shopped in Woolworths and preferred to pay money in small amounts. So what changed? Today, we now consider three subclasses - perhaps one could argue three levels of yearning. The Strugglers, the Salt of the Earth, and the Aspirational working classes. So what characterises and defines these groups?

Strugglers Those in the strugglers class want to change their lives, but do not know how. As a consequence they live in stress and chaos and are struggling both financially and emotionally. This in turn leaves them low in confidence, either internally or externally and feeling completely disenfranchised, they often appear on TV in ’Poverty Porn’ programmes.

Salt of the earth Having a strong work ethic: the Salt of the earth has a very black and white view of their world. They take pride in their appearance and home and use their income in part for holidays which they live for. Their leisure pursuit choices are those traditionally thought of as working class activities.

Aspirational working class The aspirational working class that wish to change their own lives, and have a strong drive and desire to see their own children succeed. They have an old fashioned moral compass giving them traditional values, and have more middle class interests compared to the other two groups.

United they stand Despite these three emerging groupings having marked differences we can see that they still find unity in the several common causes, and these are the factors that Brexit managed to use to spark the fire. Engaging with the working classes by opening dialogue around issues key, common to all and by offering one pivotal factor - hope. Getting out into the communities and meeting with members of all sectors it became clear that there was a dislike amongst all groups of how the working classes are portrayed in the media. Whilst it is true that there are different communication codes in the working class compared to those seen in the middle class, that is not to say they don’t know when they are being ridiculed. There is a just indignation about the media depiction being distinctly less favourable, respect means everything and the media does not offer any.

‘The most important thing in the world is respect’ John, Bolton. A lack of respect generates a feeling of anger among the working classes, they will not choose to engage with someone or something that appears to disrespect them, it goes against their values.

‘If people don’t respect you you have nothing’ Mandy, Boston.

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Communication codes might be different but at the core they are simple, honest and free of pretension, another thing that the M25 Remain bubble were accused of failing at. Working class people are direct, to the point and argumentative. If something needs arguing, they do it now, that is accepted and clears the air. The working class also have a functional approach, there is no dwelling or reflecting on things, they either get it and move on, or don’t get it and move on. Looking at learning style we see a prevalence of kin-aesthetic or visual learners. That is the art of learning by doing or seeing, placing a low rate on aural learning. Another reason why long speeches by politicians or advertisers leave them cold, Literacy might be an issue in some areas so we equate visual learning to offering visual impact. Instantly understandable from a quick look. Engaging with the working classes also requires humour. There has to be humour in everything, whether it is laughing at other people to make themselves feel better, or laughing at their own lives because is lifts some of the darkness they perceive they experience daily. Story telling or reminiscing plays a large part in their cultures, talking fondly about what their parents and grandparent experienced, seeing it as a better and happier time to be alive, and this is also used to bring context to, and justify their actions today. “My main reason for voting out was the fact that my grandfather fought for this country and over the years slowly but surely our rights and freedom of speech has been eradicated!” Claire, Boston. Farage played into this communication set when he campaigned on behalf of Brexit. His approach is very direct and visual, which immediately generated interest. It was clear that he loved to start an argument, however his content did not have much depth. Whilst this horrifies and turns off the middle classes, it was welcomed and extolled by the working classes. Authoritarian populism was a term offered by cultural theorist Stuart Hall to describe Thatcherism, and knowingly employed by Farage. Whether the working classes were aware of the term or not, the similarities were instantly recognisable to them in Farage’s behaviour. ‘Thing about Farage is that he pushes it a bit but he says it how it is like Thatcher used to’. Ed, Feltham. This is now a strategy that Teresa May is looking to emulate and offer. The new Thatcher, a very strong leader that sticks to her guns and does not back down, but liked by the north and south. Harnessing the knowledge Brexit may well have been the most cleverly executed marketing ploy this millennia has ever seen, and we can take their strategy as a lead. If we look further into the social codes of the working classes, which is exactly what Brexit did, we can further tap into other strategies that offer a hook into the interest of the working classes.

are socially conservative: family, community and country is key, and they generally believe in the death penalty. There is also an inability to see things from other people’s perspective, but they have really strong community ties and want to look out for the little guy. Many of the working classes don’t have dreams, only those that fall in the aspirational working class. Otherwise it is all about survival and immediate gratification. Little things that make you smile, buying small things that make them happy, like chocolate, wine and champagne. ‘Once you are in the circle it’s hard to get out’. Lacy, Boston. The influence and appeal of celebrities holds interest as this offers brief glimpse of what a dream or aspiration could be. Jordan is a good example, a real person that came from a similar background and has reached success and fame. Whilst they may not directly see the aspiration as being for them, it holds a real voyeuristic appeal and a ‘what if’ approach. This element of interest also applies to the unreachable Hollywood glamour, a fascination with the lives of those like Angelina Jolie, or indeed one step further into fantasy, those of the superhero. This escapism stance has generated some really successful ad campaigns, such as combining fantasy elements with real life. ‘Party in the kitchen’ by Ikea offered a level of escapism that sold a lifestyle inline with the celebrity - out of reach, yet holding visual impact. Promotions can be achieved by combining the celebrity with the instant gratification: A massive fantasy prize offers great hope, playing to the constant need for hope - whilst offering a small reward, a pound off here and there brings the instant gratification they live for. It is common for the working classes to have more than one job, the rise of the mom-entrepreneur, needing to work but be there for the children. Any match of jobs that works for the situation, and whatever it takes to make ends meet, it is not about wealth it is about survival. This creates savvy shoppers who will spend hours going to great lengths to get the best deal. There is no loyalty to one shop over another it is all about the deal. Brexit tapped into this by sending digital coupons to get money off the shopping. It is worth remembering that the working classes love nostalgia. A strong like of the familiar and they look back fondly. This creates a primeval instinct and one of the reasons innovation fails. Cavemen for example needed new food and water sources but this could often end up killing them. New is not always better or safe. The working classes have a constant tension between the new and the familiar. In order to succeed with something new, there is a need to attach the new things to how the familiar supports this in order to create the feelings of nostalgia and safety, and finally acceptance. Sacrifice is important, they border on stoic, seeing sacrifice as a burden to bear, and many saw Brexit as a sacrifice, but a price worth paying, most simply summed up by one quote:

‘My sister is a heroin user so I adopted her son. I look after my mum who is ill and cook every night for my dad as he is disabled. I gave up on buying clothes so my daughters can have private lessons and go to acting. I always think of others and sacrifice what I want. If we have a bumpy ride in the economy so be it, it is a price worth doing for the country’. Joan, Stoke. A lot of working class areas have fear of change. Their local area has been decimated and there is an increase in poverty. Not being able to get housing, the change in their towns, failings in the NHS, none of these things make them happy, which in turn leads to blame of others. Brexit sold this outcome as a direct result of being in Europe, making leaving a no-brainer attached to the desire to return to the nostalgia state where it was all better. ‘The area has changed so much once it was nice now it is just £1 shops and pawnbrokers’. John, Boston. The working classes are natural gamblers. From playing bingo, using gambling sites and betting on the football. In some pro Brexit areas, over a period of a year 80% will gamble compared with only 32% in London. They consider life not to be very good anyway, so as a natural gambler why not take a gamble on Brexit. Conclusion The bottom line is the working classes are not hard to reach, they are just hard to talk to, success is all about how you communicate with them. Brexit tapped into the working class codes. Straight talking, offering hope for the future wrapped in the familiar, dangling the safety of the past, it spoke their language. Remain focused on the present, the working class do not relish the present, it isolated them and left them disinterested. Using the real life experiences above and combining this knowledge with short form content advertising, (visual impact learning) C2DE are easily reachable, and well worth the time and investment. The Author: Steven Lacey is the insight and cultural decoder director of Kemosabe. Steven is an ex planner who has headed up a number of behavioral change campaigns for Action For Children, Department of Health, Department of Education, Home Office, FSA and Greenpeace. He has also worked commercially on insight projects for Asda, B&Q, IKEA and Google.

Wo rd s : S teve L a cey OWNER OF RESEARCH AND TRENDS C O N S U LTA N C Y S L S I N S I G H T

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Wo r d s : I a n I r v i n g EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

CREATI NG EXPERI ENCES HAS N EVER BEEN MORE PIVOTAL TO HOW CONSUM ERS ENGAGE WITH BRAN DS. AS WE BEGI N TO PRIORITISE H UMAN CON N ECTION AN D SEREN DI PITY OVER MON EY AN D MATERIALS, EXPERI ENCES ARE REPLACI NG PRODUCTS AS TH E PREVALENT FORM OF CONSPICUOUS CONSUM PTION. Meanwhile, our digital lives are encouraging us to step away from the screen and rediscover the magic of live events, enabling us to discover how technology can form the basis for singular experiences. The recommendation for brands is clear – use new digital technologies and multisensory experiences to create true moments of connection. Consumer experience is far from over; in fact the digital age has made it more important than ever

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before. Taking retail as an example, e-commerce is now the norm, while shifting demands from the next generation of consumers continue to spur ubiquitous technology disruption. Brands that survive and thrive will be one step ahead and equipped to enhance their consumers’ lives. These enhancements may play out in the physical world, but will be powered by the predictive insights that data analytics deliver and by the flexibility provided by the cloud.

Stores are no longer just about consumption anymore; they are platforms for connection, participation and mystery. Instead of just creating a story, brands need to share their value system and allow multiple stories to emerge. The digital world is creating imaginary worlds that enable us to jump into the unknown and experience far more than ever before. Retailers must create this same level of complexity and involvement within their retail box. In a world over-saturated with options, technological add-ons and brand overload, coupled with increasingly knowledgeable and dissatisfied consumers whose expectations are high, brands need to layer powerful experiences to engage them in the moment. The digital age is leading to a revival in multisensory experience, a Sensory Splurge. Rather than layering experience because it is on-trend, it is vital that every experience resonates with the DNA of your brand, maintains an authenticity to your values, and is both desirable and entertaining. Connected retail technology is linking consumers, devices and data leveraging the Internet of Things for smarter shopping experiences, from the high street to online, in-store to mobile applications. Retailers who use the right mix of offline and online experiences for their customers will have the biggest advantage in the future. A connected retail landscape can include everything from apps, analytics to augmented reality.

millennials engage with the process. They grew up using the Internet and mobile technology, and they don’t have patience for inefficient procedures. Outdated processes can ruin the customer experience for millennials, who know someone else can do it better. Customer expectations, combined with advancements in technology, fuel the demand for a whole new kind of marketplace. Retailers need to connect with modern customer expectations and provide experiences that engage the consumer, or risk falling behind. Social media is one of the best ways to connect with consumers and create a new kind of shopping experience. Recently, we’ve seen a number of retailers use Snapchat to reach customers with unique content. Snapchat Stories can be especially effective; unlike regular snaps, Stories allow brands to collect multiple images, short videos, and text, and share them for 24 hours with a group of followers. The advantage of Snapchat is that content is fresh, exclusive and essentially free. Brands can update content as quickly as trends arise, creating a real-time brand experience.

I’ve noticed that smart brands, however, are harnessing the power of social and digital media to re-imagine the shopping experience and make it fun again. The key to retail success in this era of robot-like online shopping lies in finding creative ways to turn it into a real experience. The notion that experiences are more important than objects is increasingly popular (but it’s not one that I personally agree with). This is reflected in consumer behavior and can have negative consequences for retailers who focus only on product and location. As people spend more of their money on experiences— dining out, traveling, entertainment— and less on possessions, retailers can no longer neglect the customer experience if they hope to survive. Expectations for customer experience are different now, too, in part because of how those pesky - 83 -

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One company that understands this is the clothing brand Free People. It uses Snapchat in a fun, experience-based way by offering sneak peaks of upcoming collections. The company also uses it to humanize its brand by having employees answer fun questions via Snapchat to provide a glimpse into the company’s culture. All that said I much prefer Instagram stories to the afore mentioned tech. In the brick-and-mortar world, some retailers are using geolocation technology to collect data on consumer behavior and create more personalised experiences for in-store customers. Geolocation allows stores to send specific promotional messages to customers’ phones when they stand in a particular place in the store. These promotional messages might include limitedtime offers or coupons for products that appear only when the customer is right in front of that product. When a shopper can’t automatically predict what the experience will be like, it revitalizes what it means to shop in a brick-andmortar location. Geolocation technology can also track mobile device signals to create a map of what a customer does in a store. Another promising way to use geolocation is by tailoring product offers to a customer’s physical location. For example, geolocation can help promote nearby retailers that offer skiwear when a customer visits an area known for skiing. With the undeniable might of online retail giant Amazon, smaller retailers can’t hope to compete on the same level. Amazon’s product selection and prices are nearly impossible for a smaller business to replicate. The one area in which smaller retailers have an edge, however, is providing a real experience. Businesses should be ready to take advantage of consumers’ growing appetite for authentic experiences if they want to compete in the new marketplace. By using social media and digital technologies to connect with customer expectations, retailers can create a new kind of shopping experience, reigniting that lost sense of excitement about shopping again. By incorporating the best of digital into the human experience of shopping IRL (in real life), customers will be able to recapture the nostalgic joy of shopping. It’s incredible how far brands have come with implementing digital technology into their stores, but also how far they still have to go to really stimulate today’s digitally-intuitive customer. For the first time in five years, the number of store closures is slowing. Even online stores, for instance, Amazon, Ocado and Watchfinder are proving that, despite customers being wedded to their mobiles, physical stores can claw back appeal. They’ll do this by enabling customers to experience products in totally new ways. Retailers are looking to the stores of the future, creating an environment that is trusted, engaging and interactive. With so much of the shopping journey now being about more than just ‘convenience’, stores need to leverage a new

purpose. In 2015, we’ve seen brands begin to move in the right direction. But next year will be the year that retailers will really start bridging the online-offline gap, providing customers with the opportunity to shop for leisure, experience as well as convenience. Predictions are that the next generation of store will harmonise physical and virtual retail experiences, strengthening the loyalty of customers; building deeper, more consistent engagement between customer and brand, wherever they are in the world. No retailer has completely nailed this omnichannel existence yet, but many are beginning to experiment in a variety of creative ways – creating their own brand universe that centralises around the customer’s experience first, and convenience second. Samsung’s flagship store, for example, introduced football pitches to give an immersive experience

Cosmetics giant Sephora is today challenging the entire retail landscape by digitising the physical shopping experience

of its technology, which could then be shared online. Apple stores, of course, made digital browsing devices their in-store statement pieces, and Burberry heightened its reputation for exceptional multi-channel marketing this year with its first retail store built entirely around the user experience of its website. But one brand has taken an even bigger leap. Cosmetics giant Sephora is today challenging the entire retail landscape by digitising the physical shopping experience with its new Flash 3.0 concept store in Paris. The model takes the brand beyond click-and-collect and into the realm of ‘shop-and-ship’, allowing access to an even vaster product range that visitors can sample in the flesh. As part of the experience, the store anticipates the digitally driven behaviour of today’s consumer. Visitors to the store will discover detailed digital catalogues on every touch point, easily browsing and selecting what they want, then adding items to their virtual baskets. Shoppers can totally personalise the content they receive using the technology, having their purchases picked and shipped to them instantly, making buying in store as seamless and customised as it is online. In this leap towards the future of retail, Sephora bridges gaps in the company’s holistic offering using the powerful Connected Retail Platform technology; drawing a symmetry between each - 85 -

of its international stores, its app, website, the physical counters and even its customers’ social networks. It’s testament to the changes we’re seeing in the retail landscape today. Retail is no longer just about how consumers use a brand. It’s about offering bespoke purchasing opportunities, at every opportunity. With that comes a further challenge: how to make each sensor a noteworthy and enjoyable data-generating experience, which feeds back into how the brand improves its overall ecosystem? Conversion rates in-store are much higher than they are online. It’s another reason why finding new ways to attract consumers into stores is an incredibly valuable process. In store, brands have the power to create richer physical touch points that bring products to life and increase sales. But figuring out the simplest, seamless and most digitally effective way to get shoppers to convert in store is something many brands battle with today. Until a brand solves this problem, gathering any real consumer feedback will remain obsolete. Data collection within stores has, until now, proven largely inconclusive, and is rarely used to enhance future experiences in a meaningful way. The Sephora concept and technology provides the brand a way to consume and review consumer data, just like Google Analytics would a website. Such a connected online-offline experience will certainly attract the ‘always-on’, tech-savvy customers, who have huge influence on their social circles’ buying behaviour. It’s an experiment that will no doubt cement Sephora’s position as a spearhead for the entire industry, highlighting to other retail professionals how far a physical store can go, as well as letting its own employees see first-hand how new consumers behave within an entirely new store environment. Having a head start like this over the rest of the industry makes it a risk worth taking. In-store results today are fragmented because consumers are only just beginning to appreciate the trade-off between having instant-gratification and having a more leisurely and relevant shopping journey. Today, brands must contend to appeal to both whilst connecting consumers digitally, too. Savvy brands will look at how the retail experience can marry the best of online - its scale and convenience - with the tangible experience shoppers know, love and be wowed by. The potential rewards for success are enormous, extending far beyond improved brand perception or increased direct sales. Brands need to look beyond just digitalisation, and ensure that the overall experience encompasses both online and offline. The store itself will become another digital marketing channel, and appealing to customers digitally through unique store experiences will become more important than ever over the next year. Roll on 2017.

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P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G - 87 -

ETHICA L & ORGA NIC www.kowtowcl othi ng.com - 88 -

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You walk into a retail store, whatever it is, and if thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a sense of entertainment and excitement and electricity, you wanna be there. H O WA R D S C H U LT Z

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P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G - 93 -

SHAR ING EXPER IENCE T H RO UG H STO RY T E L L I NG P H OT O B Y. S T E V E H A L A M A

I do an awful lot of public speaking, in pitches or on stage or as a guest lecturer at various educational establishments and I am always asked “how do you do it?” they often follow up with “I couldn’t do it, I’d be so nervous”. I have a number of speaking appointments in the coming months and it got me thinking about the psychology of being able to stand up talk to an audience, large or small. I always remember a colleague telling me to “be yourself” after I fumbled through my very first faceto-face client pitch. I had watched him on so many occasions ‘own’ the room and mesmerise the clients sat hanging on his every word. My biggest mistake was ‘trying’ to do it like him and trying to ‘act’ the part. Over the years I have realised, and experience has taught me, that there is no need to act or to be nervous if you know your subject matter and believe in what you are expressing. I don’t get nervous because I love doing it, I love passing on my experiences and the things I’ve learnt from the amazing people in my life, the stories I’ve heard or have indeed been a part of. In this issue of Hatch we are covering the subject of ‘Experience’ and how brands and industry have put so much effort into the term experience in the past 2 years. I am looking at the term experience from the perspective of storytelling and just how much can be gained from telling or hearing a story and more often than not from a complete stranger or someone you just met. I had lunch just the other day at an old Chinese Restaurant in the back streets of Spitalfields and shared a table with a female city broker, a young graffiti artist and Neuro Surgeon from Burma, the stories flowed and we all learnt something new that day simply by sharing an oversized plate of Chinese Broccoli in Garlic! Brand storytelling isn’t a new concept, but with the explosive growth of social media and content marketing, the opportunities to tell stories as part of direct and indirect brand marketing initiatives have become a strategic priority.

Marketers have been telling brand stories for years through advertising, in-person brand experiences, exhibitions, films and live events, but the art of writing those brand stories as effective pieces of online content is a challenge that few are trained to do. That’s because the best brand storytellers understand the critical elements of fiction writing, which are skills that few marketers have been formally trained to do. Today’s big agency and global brands will have space for new roles like the data architect and the brand creative content director. While the former position focuses on all that big data has to offer, the latter focuses on increasing consumer emotional involvement in the brand through social media and content marketing stories as well as on weaving the brand storyline into offline brand experiences and marketing initiatives. There are many mistakes to be made in the process of putting down a good story, so I have had a good root around to discover some fundamentals that can help you to craft compelling brand stories for your own content marketing and integrated marketing efforts. Honesty and transparency are important in brand storytelling. Yes, you’re crafting “stories,” but they need to be rooted in the reality of your brand, products, and industry. In other words, even brand stories must adhere to the three primary steps of brand-building: consistency, persistence, and restraint. If your brand stories are inconsistent, they’ll confuse consumers who will turn away from the brand in search of another that meets their expectations for it in every interaction. Be creative but don’t stray too far from your brand promise. Confusion is the number one brand killer. Brand stories are not marketing materials. They are not ads, and they are not sales pitches. Brand stories should be told with the brand persona and the writer’s personality at centre stage. Boring stories won’t attract and retain readers, but stories brimming with personality can.

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Brand storytelling requires that you create characters your audience will like and cheer for. That doesn’t mean you’re required to create fictional characters or brand mascots to tell your stories. While characters like Allstate‘s Mayhem can be very effective in presenting brand messages and stories in a variety of ways, you don’t need to create a fictional mascot to tell brand stories. For example, create buyer personas and tell stories from their perspectives. Tell stories from your employees’ points of view or from a third-person point of view. The important thing is to create characters that enable your audience to become emotionally connected to them to such an extent that the audience wants to follow their character arcs. Fiction stories follow a structure that includes a beginning, middle, and an end. Your brand stories should follow a similar structure. In the beginning, you need to open strong and establish your story setting and the characters. The middle should set up your main character’s problem and present conflicts that get in his or her (or its) way before he or she (or it) can find resolution in the end. This is your character’s story arc, and you need to take your reader along for the ride. If

they enjoy the ride, they’ll stick around, tell other people about it, and come back again and again. Make sure your brand stories are page-turners by focusing on the use of perpetual marketing in your efforts where one piece feeds off of the next. Leave your audience wanting more, and they’ll come back again and again. Consider using “Watch This Space” hooks on your website or Facebook Page, or try releasing teasers via Facebook, email, or Pinterest. Perpetual marketing tactics offer the perfect opportunity to include offline and mobile marketing in your brand storytelling initiative, too. As with all brand-building efforts, your goal is to surround your consumers with brand experiences (including stories), so they can self-select how they want to interact with your brand. Give them multiple ways to enjoy your brand story, and you’ll find yourself moving closer to achieving your brand marketing goals. Credit: With thanks to Forbes for the tips.

Wo r d s : I a n I r v i n g EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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CUSTOM ERS AR E NO LONG E R BUYI NG PRODUCTS A N D S E RV I C E S – TH EY ARE BUYI NG EXPERI ENCES DELIVER ED VIA TH E PRODUCTS A N D S E RV I C E S G R E G O R Y YA N K E LOV I C H – C U STO M E R E X P E R I E N C E I Q

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P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G

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EXH I BITION The word EXHIBITION has not elicited the most positive of feelings lately, it conjures up images of middle-aged monochrome styled men working alongside pretty yet overly made up, under dressed and under inspired promo staff and gold fish bowls full of business cards from people keen to win a bottle of not so premium champagne,Â thousands of sales execs meandering around a giant hall weighed down by their bags of generic merchandise and pamphlets all of which is frankly an experience most consumers would rather skip.

Wo r d s : I a n I r v i n g EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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So how do brands get it right? Making Live Experiences work… sorry Live Experiences work is about keeping it simple and engaging, so here are a few thoughts for your exhibition’s presence Objective Setting Successful companies set clear measurable goals for their exhibition programme. Obviously these should be in line with wider corporate revenue targets and marketing strategies. Understand the role of the exhibition It should be a catalyst for every part of your organisation. Everyone with a sales role should see each exhibition as a massive opportunity to:

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Although a thriving industry commercially, the Exhibition Industry has witnessed some poorly executed live experiences from brands. Ill-informed marketing teams have spent an inordinate amount of money on investment in this area of marketing and thanks to their lack of the specific industry knowledge that comes with this territory, have delivered exhibition spaces with no clear insight into the reasons why they should be present at these events in the first place. More so, these brands have been sold on the misleading hyperbole that surrounds these events and that their attendance there is paramount to success. With the right brand and team behind it, the exhibition world is one brimming with creativity and a great deal of financial potential and reward for those involved. However the more astute marketing teams are not just throwing money out of the window. They instead are increasingly looking at the returns on their time and investment from events and exhibitions. So let’s try to seek some positivity amongst the bad suits, shell schemes and frankly mundane world of the poorly executed Exhibition. Exhibitions ask some interesting questions of businesses; to package yourselves up, your ethics, your products, your people, your brand and to then put it all on display for judgment in front of competitors, partners, clients and prospects over a short period of time.

Speed up the sales cycle by engaging with existing clients and prospects Start a brand new relationship or meet hard to reach targets Staff should know who will be visiting and interrogate the exhibitor list in advance Some exhibitors will be direct competitors but many will be clients or prospects Supply Chain Managers/ Directors can meet and evaluate existing and potential new partners HR Managers/Directors can take the opportunity to attract top talent Key influencers should be presenting in the seminar programme and being interviewed for trade publications Your Head of PR should be busily feeding news to the organisers

It’s about time Is it a 2 day exhibition? 3 days? 4, or more? If your organisation sees it like this the chances are you’re not maximising your effectiveness. Any program of events should be seen as focal points for an integrated marketing campaign. Even if you only attend one event per year you can extend its life by creative pre-show, at-show and post-show activity. Start the engagement 4-6 month out. Digital, social media, sales force awareness, direct mail. Build on it. Have a brilliant event. Put in place a clear plan for the touch points in the days, weeks and months after the event to keep the engagement going.

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KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID Offering Drinks and Food The simplest type of hospitality of them all, and one which never fails. As everyone who has ever attended an exhibition event will attest, the price of a cup of tea or coffee can often be astronomical. By offering free drinks to potential clients, you are giving people what they want while ensuring they remain at your stand for a little longer than they might have originally intended. The fact that the beverages you are offering are hot also gives you the perfect opportunity for engaging visitors in conversation while they wait for their drink to cool down. Finally, the simple act of offering something for free, even if it is just a small cup of tea, creates an immediate bond with potential customers. Video Screenings There is nothing quite like moving images to catch the eye of passersby. Playing a striking and interesting video is an excellent way of getting people to stop at your stand and conveying your marketing message to them. By including various calls to action in the video too, such as suggesting people to ask your staff for further information; you may be able to tempt people to stay a little longer. At the very least, you may have increased your chances of receiving a follow-up contact from interested parties. Employing the Right People This is undoubtedly the most important aspect of winning custom at your exhibition stand. Everything that has been mentioned above is not worth anything if the staff on your stand are perceived as being unhelpful or unapproachable. It is not enough to ensure that your workforce is knowledgeable about your product or service. They need to be able to engage people in friendly conversation, while at the same time not coming across as being too pushy or sales-oriented. It is a tricky skill to master but one that has the potential to make or break your exhibition. Content is important but context is king Think about the content required to achieve your objectives; then think about what you’ll need in terms of graphics and digital content. Too many exhibitors order big screens and multiple iPads because they want to grab attention; then they wonder what to put on the screens.

Data Capture Well designed, paper based visitor engagement forms can still work very effectively. Scanners hired from organisers’ work and there are some good data capture apps out there. Everything should feed directly into your CRM system so that nothing slips through the net. Make sure your staff understands the process and the importance of the data.

P H OT O B Y. S L E D G E

The Follow Up Have a robust process in place for follow up. It cannot be an afterthought – “OK the events finished, we’ve got some leads, I suppose we should hand them out to the salesforce to follow up” – not good enough – not even close. Anyone responsible for lead follow up needs to diarise time specifically for this crucial activity. Preparing Your People It’s an entire topic all on its own – even your best people with great experience of exhibitions can benefit from developing the very specific skills needed to maximise effectiveness before, during and after the event. The staff who represent you are your brand ambassadors. Not just those who work on the stand, anyone from your organisation attending the event and spending time on or around the stand, need to be totally on board with messaging, goals and objectives. The stand staff need to know exactly what’s expected of them; make sure you invest time, and if necessary money, in preparing your staff. Give them the tools they need to be highly effective. Review & Reset Before every event put a date in the diary for a review and reset meeting. A structured meeting during which all stakeholders look at what worked, what could be improved and, based on that, a careful resetting of objectives and the tactics you’ll need to implement to achieve them. Wo r d s : I a n I r v i n g EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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SOME IDEAS FOR FREE... However visually striking their exhibition stand might look, successful engagement has to start with getting visitors to their stand. The following provides eight ideas to drive more stand visits for the brand, help them stand out from the crowd and provide experiences that deliver real value to their audience. Gamification Gamification is a trend that is gaining significant traction at the moment. Games are fun and a great way of drawing in an unfamiliar audience. By introducing a game for delegates to play when they visit the stand will help them to attract more people and keep them engaged for longer in something that is fun, challenging and competitive. This is clearly something we can devise in line with the print industry. A live quiz show with a prize, remember that surprise and delight is the marketing buzzword of 2016. Augmented reality You can help overcome the physical limitations of an event venue by using Augmented Reality to engage with their audience and bring their brand to life. AR enables your audience to immerse themselves in an intriguing experience that can draw crowds, whilst learning about your product at the same time. An Augmented Reality app can be used on large screens, or iPads on your stand. For example, many car manufacturers have launched augmented reality apps that allow customers to explore the features of the tech and equipment, the factory it is built in or a full overview of an end-to-end installation. Competitions Despite the fact that competitions are a commonly used tactic at exhibitions, I still believe there is mileage for innovative competitions that are promoted via social networks prior to the event â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a great way to get people involved and give something away to a lucky winner at the end of it. Photo booths Invite delegates to have their photo taken in a photo booth on your stand, and ask them to think of a caption for the photo that relates back to your brand. These photos and captions can then be streamed online and displayed on a large screen at the exhibition with your Twitter handle, to encourage people to share across their social network. - 101 -

iBeacons iBeacons could be placed around the exhibition hall to help delegates navigate around the show but direct them straight to the brand, and be used to send specific marketing messages to their smartphone as they walk past their trade stand to help draw them in and encourage them to linger for longer. Q&A Encourage the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s audience to ask questions about issues relating to their industry prior to the event via social media, and use these to engage further with the wider exhibition audience online. Knowledge share The brand really should be considering hosting really hands on product demos at their stand, which call for interaction from passers-by. They should also use a presenter who has lots of charisma and humour to get as many people around the stand involved. Create a workplace, coffee and touchdown area If they have the space, they should create a workspace area for people to catch up on emails, recharge their mobile phones and enjoy a free cup of coffee. If visitors want to use the Wi-Fi, they must give their details. To get a coffee and a snack they must give their name and email address. This will help you deliver a personal experience (just like Starbucks!) to those who visit your stand. Surprise and delight Socially powered vending machines and printers are a no brainer for this environment, giving snacks drinks and gifts in return for their social media details. Video capture of visitors We have incredibly simple tech to support the creation of branded video content from the show that can be instantly uploaded to all of their digital channels. I suggest a roaming brand reporter capturing interviews, reviews and commentary from the show. By thinking creatively and harnessing the latest technology, there are plenty of ways to use innovation to engage with a wider audience so the brand can generate more leads and create a memorable experience of their brand at this and other exhibitions. Start thinking hard people; a stand is not a million pound box that you fill with poor staff, bad coffee and a gold fish bowl for biz cards.

P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G

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“BUSINESSES OFTEN FORGET ABOUT THE CULTURE, AND ULTIMATELY, THEY SUFFER FOR IT BECAUSE YOU CAN’T DELIVER GOOD SERVICE FROM UNHAPPY EMPLOYEES.” To n y H s i e h , C E O , Z A P P O S

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B R A N D S T O R Y: Wo rd s : S o p h i e H a r vey FOUNDER

How did it all come about? When I was doing my Fine Art degree I worked as a waitress where I became really exposed to the social side of food and eating out. One of the chefs there mentioned how good pitta chips were to make at home and for some reason it stuck. It was quite a while till I actually made them and tried them but that was the start. A few years later a friend was over and rather than having the usual pitta and hummus with our beers I made super spicy chilli and garlic pitta chips. Both really impressed me and from then on when anyone came over or a party was happening I would make pitta chips. But the turning point of making them for friends and then making them for an event without realising was when SOFFLES was created. What’s your background and how did this influence the brand? I have always had a huge interest in the Pop Art movement, American lifestyle, retro branding, and how this was marketed to the consumer. This was definitely the impact that created Soffles. Throughout every process design has played a central role to the brand. From this art background and friends from the same we were involved in a lot of private views for art exhibitions. It was here that I decided I needed to make a design for the bag. Then spray painting up bags putting them in a cinema style tray I was off, offering my chips out to people with their beers. Always liking to turn things into a project this was a long road of spray painting bags, cutting pitta and garlic and trying to sort some sort of production line at home. This was now how I enjoyed spending all my spare time. How did you move into making it a business? The whole thing grew pretty slowly as I continued to work at the gallery with Soffles as a side project. Banished from the kitchen in my shared house after constantly stinking it out with chilli & garlic, we built a shed in the garden and converted it into a pitta roasting heaven. So for

a couple of years I would spend all my free time in there roasting my chips, packing them then delivering them around London when I wasn’t working and starting to build the business in a very basic way. It was quite a while before I left my job. That definitely was a big hold back as time was so limited to push things forward, as I basically spent all my time roasting pitta chips or delivering them. The ultimate push came in luckily finding a local factory in Tottenham where I was able to start producing on a much larger scale. Hand sealing turned to automated packing and I now had the time to start thinking about distributing the chips on a larger scale (i.e. not via bike). Every step of the way something physically has got easier as we started streamlining processes but the pressure of it started to increase, a lot due to the timescale that everything was taking so long to happen. As the business was growing we up scaled the production recently and made improvements to the way we made them. This was a really hard decision to make and on one hand the most exciting time but also the scariest time, as I was sure I would have a pitta crisis on my hands. However the new pittas were a success and this move allowed us to have SHARE size bags that are now stocked in selected Waitrose. This was a real milestone as I first contacted them when I was making them in the shed in Stoke Newington. It took a couple of years to get there but it was definitely something I had hoped for and for it to actually happen was a very exciting time. Undoubtedly it’s been tough, but what has really kept me going is that I was making something that people enjoyed, I had built such good relationships with customers there was no way that I could give up on it. Cutting and roasting pitta till the early morning in a shed in the garden was very testing and whilst the excitement of orders gave me energy to work around the clock it definitely at times was very hard when things weren’t going the way I wanted. But hopefully those days are firmly behind me and toughened - 105 -

me up. Now it’s time to build on that and the Soffle brand that I have created. What has made Soﬄes into what it is today? The main focus has always been on creating a snack that is made with fresh ingredients. I wanted it to be very far away from a crisp that has been deep fried and covered in powder. Instead we mix fresh ingredients into the dough and oven roast with olive oil with no compromise so very different to everything else that you will find in a snack bag. Alongside that it is all about having them in social situations whether it be in the pub, partying at a festival or at home with friends. We love meeting people and being out and about in London with our pitta mobile. It is the number one thing that we enjoy and what has been the backbone of Soffles. Very much being a word of mouth product this is definitely down to the fact that a group of friends would enjoy them together with their beers.

P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G

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“MASS ADVERTISI NG CAN H ELP BUI LD BRAN DS, BUT AUTH ENTICITY IS WHAT MAKES TH EM LAST. I F PEOPLE BELI EVE TH EY SHARE VALUES WITH A COM PANY, TH EY WI LL STAY LOYAL TO TH E BRAN D.” H O WA R D S C H U LT Z

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T H E AT R E A N D P E R F O R M A N C E : TH E TRUE EXPERI ENCE ECONOMY

P H OT O B Y. P A U L G R E E N

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The value of live performance, or our formalised version of live performance: Theatre lies in the reason why it exists. We have theatre because humans need stories. Theatre is valuable because it shares the stories we need in the environment or format we need them in; with other people, and structured. Stories help us process and understand our emotions, our societies, our families, our world and the coming-together for a communal experience reflects the fundamental way in which most humans experience life. Man is not an island. The need for shared experience and a shared belief in a fiction is a fundamental aspect of who we are and why we live the way we do. Huge communities, masses of people, are able to collaborate because they all believe in the same shared myth, or fiction. One idea that motivates them all. The shared fiction we live under now is, I’m pretty happy to argue, money. Money isn’t real, it’s value is perceived as real by almost everyone on the planet, making it a shared belief - we all believe that other people believe it, thus we create value - and value ‘exists’ as ‘real’. Our strongest shared fiction used to be, and in most cultures it’s still pretty high up there; ‘God’. Alongside religion, monogamy, human rights and crime are all social constructs, or - if you will - shared fiction. Just because humans create these ideas about how and what we think, doesn’t mean they’re not absolutely integral to how we exist and what we believe - they are. They are the stories we share as a group of people in order to give ourselves something to believe in, to process our emotions and inhabit our world. - 109 -

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Our closest primate relatives cannot cope in groups of more than approximately 35 animals. When a group gets too big, they fight, branch off to form new smaller groups and move on. Chimpanzees are by far the most social of the primates and they cannot co-operate in groups of more than about 120. London is home to a population on its way to exceeding 10million - how do we live like this? Cities have brought together thousands of humans for at least the last 6000 years. How did the Egyptians control thousands of people and get those pyramids built? How can we live in multitudes while other animals cannot? The answer, of course, is - storytelling. Big scale storytelling. Lots of people believing in things - it’s how we work. Our ancestors developed complex linguistic skills; our language enabled us to describe in detail what was around us but also to question everything. Language gave us chance to create explanations to our questions, enabled us to identify, name and express feeling. The combination of these things gave us storytelling. Storytelling gave us myth, legend and religion. Storytelling united disparate groups in a common understanding. Storytelling is everywhere in our socio-political systems, in our relationships, in our economy. Hey, storytelling basically IS the economy. Absolutely staggering numbers of humans are able to co-exist in one society and contribute to that society, because they believe the same things. Theatre, film and all cultural events are manifestations of how we share in and explore - and push - and change - and question - the things we all believe in. Cultural experiences (any cultivated, curated, group experience) give us the narratives of our lives and I believe that theatre is the most potent form of experience available to us. Live performance has a rhythm, a ritual; it’s immersive and cathartic. It’s magic. There are few rituals that people really, seriously ascribe to in a modern, post industrial, secularist society. One big example that remains is football. Football is an utterly ritual orientated, spectatordriven, social experience. Theatre offers the same things; watching something that makes you feel something, being in a group with the others also feeling something. Live theatrical events, live performance or spectator-driven experience are the truest examples of the oldest form of the experience economy and give us some of the very first examples of paying for a feeling, of seeking connection. The exchange of cash for experience is not new. The idea that experience IS product, IS outcome, is entirely what the performing arts and sports are all about. This has been true

since the amphitheatres of ancient Greece and the coliseums of ancient Rome. Humans crave being with other humans. Humans crave an understanding, or at least attempt the discussion, of what they are, they crave an opportunity for cathartic processes and theatre is the form we created to give a home to these needs. Theatre gave a formal time, space and place for storytelling. That time and place let people formalise narratives and guide how we experience those narratives. Once something is formalised, then you have boundaries that can be broken. Once you can break boundaries, you have a continual movement of ideas, a constant desire to create. Every act of creation is an attempt to understand ourselves and even now, we still need those attempts at working it all out. We have Film, TV, iPhones and YouTube, what more do you need? The role that theatre and live performance plays in an increasingly tech reliant world is that it shows us the two way street of experience. This exchange is fundamental to imaginative and emotional development - this enables us to live appropriately and successfully with others, and in groups. In families, at work, humans crave shared experience; shared experience generates shared values, trust and empathy. Without trust and empathy, without understanding others and the stories of the lives of others, what kind of place would the world become? The thing is, tech is great. Tech is fine! Tech is crazy, impressive and yes, it is changing the world. But it’s just not enough. Nothing replaces genuine human interaction, an honest up front right-there exchange, a communication - with eyes and ears in real time and space. It’s nonnegotiable. We can pretend this isn’t the case, we are kind of pretending as a society at the moment, but it’ll be tears at midnight and pistols at dawn for all of us eventually if we ignore the basics of what humans need in order to function together. Or even just to function. Think of a child. Imagine you’re busy (not that hard!), imagine you’re away a lot and imagine you communicate with that child mainly through a screen. They see your face and hear you’re voice but they’re not actually with you, they can’t tell if you’re holding your breath, they can’t feel if you’re relaxed or happy or tense or stressed, not really. And you don’t really know about them. You can think you do but you’re not experiencing each other in real space. They can’t connect with you; they can’t work out who you are. This means they can’t work out who they are in relation to you. Okay, so imagine never communicating with that child in the flesh, ever. We wouldn’t dream of it? The inner workings of the human mind are like - 112 -

that child, it needs stuff, it needs food and water and rest but it also needs connection in order to run normal cognitive processes. What I’m saying isn’t ground-breaking - but sometimes its just good to remind ourselves that our mind has got to have it, it’s got to have those experiences that amount to more than commuting in a tunnel or scrolling through Instagram or drinking Red Bull, and you’ve got to seek out ‘liveness’. So sure, I’m biased about theatre. I make theatre. But I’m advocating live experiences - whatever they are, seek them out. Spectator based rituals like sport and theatre have existed for millennia for a reason - they’re really good ways to experience things that are new and live. These are things we need. Open your eyes to how often you are giving your little inner being some real, live, experience. Just how many opportunities do you reckon you actually take up to engage with others, properly eyes and ears - in any given day, week or month? The theatre is the oldest, most traditional form of what we now recognise as the experience economy. Theatre gives us some of the very first examples of formalised narrative and storytelling: pitched as an experience exchanged for coin. It is the truest example of people (we call them artists) who offer experience as a service. Storytelling in theatre, as everywhere else, is our myriad of attempts answer the question of how do we be who we are? The answer is unreachable, and so the stories will continue as long as we do. The experience economy is going nowhere.

Wo rd s : E m i l y S l a te r ACTRESS/WRITER

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IN-STORE INSIGHTS Wo r d s : P a u l R e eve CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR

Considerations in putting together a window scheme – what’s important and what is not? We all know retail has changed massively in the last 15 years. With so many ways to shop, browse and comment customers are interacting with brands every minute of every day. Fashion retailers are at the forefront of this. Their brand presence online has to be eye-catching, engaging and innovative. Shop windows are no different. Any window is the first physical interaction the shopper will have with a brand. In a busy space such as fashion retail, the window really needs to work hard to grab attention whilst sticking to its brand principles. Whether seasonal or promotion driven, a good window scheme will live or die with the creative. You can use all the props or special finishes you like, if the creative concept is no good, the likelihood is the window will fail to achieve the retailer’s objectives. Truly great window displays should hero the product, whilst using the creative as a framework to enhance inspiration and engagement. Once the shopper has engaged with the retailer’s window, the message you want them to take with them should be simple and clear. Multiple messages in a window scheme can dilute the overall proposition.

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The role of POP in window displays, and in-store in the fashion sector Â Â Once the shopper enters the store POP should take over. The story told in the window must continue in store to create a consistent interaction for the shopper. POP has multiple purposes to retailers; helping the shopper to navigate to different ranges and also highlighting hero products around the store. There will always be price points and offers, but the creative theme should continue throughout the store all the way to checkout. We want the customer to leave the store feeling they have had a fully joined up shopper experience, from their initial interaction with the window scheme right through to purchase.

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圀圀圀⸀䤀刀匀䤀倀䄀⸀䌀伀䴀 ⴀ 䀀䤀刀匀䤀倀䄀

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POS CAN E N HANCE TH E N EW SHOPPER EXPERI ENCE

The shopper journey today, as we know, has elevated itself beyond an experience of entering a store, browsing, choosing, purchasing and leaving. Where Point-of-Sale’s role was on a whole to inform the customer and aid the process of their journey, the need for experience today on the consumer’s behalf has allowed PoS to evolve giving marketers license to be more creative with their in-store offerings. With so much disruption out there and the many available platforms for your average shoppers to switch between, PoS today needs to capture the imagination of the customer but to an extent where we’re not bombarding them with messaging and serving only to enhance their experience whilst still staying on point to a campaign’s core message. It’s true today that shoppers want something more out of their shopping experience, in that they want to experience. Interpret that however you like, and depending on the brief of a project, there’s so much that can be achieved with PoS solutions from both a design, creative, engineering and build perspective. At SMP Group, our work with a number of high street brands has seen us tackle a number of complex briefs with different objectives. Each brief has seen us infer the meaning of, and context behind the term Experience in differing ways. Working with Ab InBev for instance, we’ve helped them align their brands to events or times their products can be connected with to create a more event or season focused experience and

enhance the association of the brand with that particular time or event. Using Corona Extra as an example, considered a summer beer, AB InBev were keen to explore in-store solutions that aided and extended the narrative of the summer season and put shoppers in the mood for summer. Creating relaxed summer beach hut inspired FSDUs were an innovative solution to showcasing the Corona Extra range in conjunction with summer that enhanced the shopper’s experience and created a strong link and association between brand and event. Shopping, although not everyone’s favourite pastime, can be a pleasurable activity due to the positive emotions it has the potential to stir within the customer. Working with TESCO on their last Christmas campaign, we paid particular focus on the emotional experience of children and toys. Where Christmas can of course be a stressful and expensive time for parents, we wanted to inject a sense of fun into family Christmas shopping and create a more immersive experience. TESCO Toy Town was born. TESCO Toy Town was born. By creating canopy headers with a snowy rooftop design, twinkling LED lights - 118 -

and a hanging Toy Town arch as the main focal point focal point of the POS, we had created an experience led retail environment that was magical and engaging for the shopper. We reported back increased dwell time in store thanks to in-store engagement and this contributed to the 1.5% increase in like-forlike growth that TESCO experienced over the Christmas period. Whether it building an association with a product or event, or acting as an extension of the campaign’s message, PoS has helped marketing teams inspire the shopper in new and exciting ways and the capabilities available to us as marketers has given us the the means to create experiences as bespoke and unique as clients need them to be, whilst delivering on their core objectives. Wo rd s : N i c k S t a g g SALES DIRECTOR - SMP GROUP

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W o r d s : S o l b e r g A u d u n s s o n TA K U M I C O - F O U N D E R

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W E N E E D T O TA L K A B O U T

D A TA I N M A R K E T I N G We’re opting for a fuzzy catchall term instead of conversing with a little more insight. Data represents to us the lighthouse helping us navigate to smarter spend. Less waste. More reason. But in just the same way uttering “social” in a planning meeting doesn’t magically make your brand likeable, the word data doesn’t make its spend smarter. I have a theory, that for every marketer that says “if you can’t measure it, don’t do it”, there is another one that understands foregoing opportunities just because you need faith in the medium can be the cost of breaking through in a meaningful way. Not every conversation is sentiment analyzed. Not every eyeball is tracked. Lasting impressions are not ad impressions. Because recording data has become a negligible IT cost, most of data is actually useless. The leap from data to insight (the stuff that makes data actionable) is getting bigger and bigger, because the time spent digging the good parts out is increasing proportionately to the time spent communicating the insight gathered. The remedy is better tools to sift and surface quality, or proactively reducing needless data gathering. And what about those banner networks? Their year of reckoning came last year with a big reveal in Bloomberg. Some major networks being revealed as a pile of artificial traffic, amounting to useless and inflated data. Turns out bad data is worse than no data. False security. But there are other sources of bad data. I worked for a start-up where we consciously decided to collect as much data from our mobile app as possible, sprinkling every action and feature with data gathering handles. The thinking was that keeping the data haystack around was cheap, and we’d surely have modern tools to find the needles. We racked up operational debt, only revealing itself when we encountered naming mismatches between app clients, gaps in tracking and ill-advised naming schemas for events. With the benefit of hindsight, it probably would have been better to ask questions first, and start gathering data second. As data gathering is outsourced to platforms they’ll be asking what success looks like on our behalf and trying their best to make reports as actionable as possible. They’re trying to present the data in meaningful ways and shortening the distance between raw data and insight as much as possible. My company Takumi has started compiling lists of recurring emojis in captions for our influencer campaigns on Instagram. So what does it tell us that the cocktail glass emoji was the most frequently deployed emoji for a lunch special? I honestly don’t know, but it’s an attempt to take underlying data, extracting and presenting it in a helpful way. And it goes to show that the road from data to actionable insight is often sprinkled with colourful facts. Instead of data I propose we get more specific by referring directly to topics such as; audience insight (the demographics and behavior of consumers), paid performance (the measured impact or success of paid social and search spend), engagement rates (the ratio of organic interactions with content) and sentiment analysis (an algorithm analysis of content assessing soft variables like tone of voice, useful for social interaction). And hopefully with time, we can start a) increasing the quality of the data that drives these parts of marketing and b) recognizing that on our inevitable journey to a totally tracked Black Mirroresque world we should go on faith every once in a while.

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P H OT O B Y. N E I L M A S O N - 122 -

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E X P LO R I N G YO U R

EXPERI ENCES

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Wo rd s : J o n a t h a n O p e n s h aw E D I TO R I A L D I R E C TO R , T H E F U T U R E L A B O R ATO R Y

Instead of disappearing in the digital age, the power of physical experiences only seems to be gaining traction. As we gaze ever deeper into our backlit devices it seems that we’re also in need of the counterbalance: physical experiences that can touch you on a deeper level than a touchscreen. This isn’t a backlash against digital formats but more of a recognition that whilst new technology brings with it tremendous opportunity, it cannot emulate the analogue in many vital respects. One sector where this becomes particularly interesting is in the case of retail and we at The Future Laboratory have made it a special focus of our research in recent years. The e-commerce revolution of the late 1990s and early 2000s brought about such a dramatic shift that some commentators were quick to declare the death of bricks and mortar altogether. Bytes had replaced atoms, it was thought, and soon we’d dispense with physical stores altogether in favour of the cool, digital efficiency of online. Certainly, retail was dramatically disrupted by these advancements in technology, but the last few years have witnessed a fascinating renaissance in the bricks and mortar model. Instead of trying to compete with the speed of online, many physical stores are refocusing on what they do best: providing touch points with consumers and building brands, rather than just flogging units. This renaissance in physical formats needs to be seen within the broader context of the move towards an Experience Economy, where many consumers (especially in the luxury sector) are looking for emotion and access rather than just acquisition. According to recent research from Harris Poll, 78% of Millennials would now choose to spend money on an experience or event over buying a desirable object. That’s a staggering and perhaps alarming figure for retailers who are wedded to flogging merchandise and gives pause for thought about how we approach our physical retail spaces in the future. At its most extreme, this trend is leading to stores that actively frustrate the consumer’s journey to purchase instead of trying to speed them to check-out. Dwell time becomes more important than spend, following the logic that if you get a consumer to emotionally invest in your brand through physical interactions they are more likely to financially invest in the brand at a later date, perhaps through your e-commerce offer. We’ve been calling this trend Explorium Retail and have been tracking it for over a year now, scouring the globe for best in class examples. South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster provides a masterclass here. Originally launched as an online-only brand back in 2011, their buoyant e-commerce offer meant that their move into bricks and mortar was freed from the tyranny of - 125 -

transactions. Instead of peddling specs, Gentle Monster stores peddle stories, and they now boast several immersive and challenging showrooms. ‘We believe inspiring spaces help to sell products,’ says Jae Ho Bae, head of interiors at Gentle Monster. ‘Customers don’t remember products when they visit a space, they remember the architecture and artwork curated within the space’. One of the brand’s most ambitious showrooms to date houses the Quantum Project, an ever evolving space that changes on a 25-day turnaround, working with local artists and designers on each new reincarnation. ‘Stores are not just about consumption any more, they are platforms for connection, participation and mystery’, explains Martin Kwaskowski, creative director at Milligram studio and one of the retail experts we spoke to in researching this trend. ‘Instead of just creating a story, brands need to share their value system and allow multiple stories to emerge’. A more mainstream example comes in the form of Samsung’s latest flagship space in New York, 837. Launched earlier this year and described as a ‘digital playground’ rather than a retail concept, the space is packed with everything from interactive artworks to performance spaces. Everything, that is, apart from product: consumers are not actually able to buy anything at 837. Instead, the focus is on interaction and experience. A similar logic can be traced in recent luxury initiatives such as Louis Vuitton’s Series 3 space launched in London last year, where creative director Nicolas Ghesquière and set designer Es Devlin collaborated to create a rich and immersive brand experience that went beyond retail. The Explorium Retail trend is not only limited to luxury and technology however and we’re tracking it across retail categories. The recently launched Nike Studio in Beijing, for example, eschews the bold simplicity associated with sportswear retail spaces in favour of a moody, challenging environment that aims to push consumers to their physical peak and unlock their mental potential. The Adidas run base in Berlin also combines aspects of a wellness and nutrition center, delivering far more to their consumers than trainers and t-shirts. Instead of the luxury flagship model of gleaming glass and cool marble, we may be seeing the rise of ‘brandships’: convergence spaces where consumers can explore anything from culture to fitness or education. The aim here is to get people to linger for longer, exposing them to your brand message and building loyalty. It’s a bold new world for retailers to engage in and one that demands a business plan that can encompass the long game rather than immediate dividends, but the ultimate prize is engaging with consumers on a lifelong journey rather than just making a swift buck.

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;78% of Millennials would now choose to spend money on an experience or event over buying a desirable objectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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T H E C AV E M A N A N D THE BUY BUTTON BUY

P H OT O B Y. J O Ã O S I L A S

Marketing. It’s all rather difficult, isn’t it? Now, this may seem like an obvious question to start an article with but it’s one that’s raised time and time again. It’s also a question which Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman at Ogilvy & Mather London, and Paul Feldwick, acclaimed author of The Anatomy of Humbug, addressed during a talk entitled ‘You Are Not Paranoid They Really Are Out To Get You’. The conclusion, in brief, was that people make it difficult for themselves by aiming for perfection, with extravagant campaigns that constantly try to out do their last success, when sometimes a simpler method would be more effective. If simplicity is the key then the recent rumours about ASOS trialling a ‘Buy’ button on Instagram and Pinterest suggest that their marketing team are playing the game well. But how can buy buttons be dangerous to the consumer and are they the most sinister, yet brilliant, marketing tools that we have? Well, there are currently over 400 million active users on Instagram and over 70 million users on Pinterest, so you could say that they’re fairly popular platforms. On top of this, Ofcom say we spend about two hours every day trawling the internet on our phones with organisations like ASOS attracting consumers with constant visual stimuli. They halt the absent minded scrolling with pictures of attractive models, posing in exotic settings, wearing the trendiest clothes, making you wish you’d been born with a chiselled jaw line and pushy parents. Unfortunately it’s not possible to change the composition of your face or your family but at

least you can dress like the cool person in the photo, amounting more and more credibility with each garment you purchase. And this, combined with discounts and bespoke offers to followers, is how social media has helped retail sales grow in the digital age. But how do you ensure you convert the interest into a sale rather than a rival company whose models are equally as attractive and wearing what appears to be the exact same clothing? You excite the caveman. To explain this further, there are two sections of the brain that help us function and get us through day-to-day life. In his book, entitled the Chimp Paradox, professor Steven Peters explains that the frontal lobe is the rational, decision-making part of the brain, which effectively makes us human. The limbic system, on the other hand, is the primitive (caveman) part of the brain that is responsible for fight or flight reactions and works entirely on emotive stimuli. It’s irrational, it’s out-dated and it’s the prime target of the ‘Buy’ button. It could be argued that advertising campaigns have become alarmingly elaborate and expensive due to necessity as well as creativity. Of course as technologies advance the possibilities for more creative campaigns grow as well. The previous point about marketers always pushing for greater and better, rather than simplicity, does make sense when you understand that advertising campaigns are targeted at the frontal lobe and the limbic system. They aim to resonate with the rational part of the brain using emotion and more complex campaigns will register as more - 128 -

impressive and memorable by tugging on our heartstrings. This is because ads are made for an evolved intelligence; there are no mechanised constructs with a formula equating to guaranteed success. They play on our experiences and expectations through intricate campaigns that make the rational part of our brain feel good about spending money. However, humans developed rationality later than instinct. We react to our more primitive impulses faster than we do to our reasoning because it’s effectively our default response, even though 90% of the time it isn’t the most sensible. If you bear this in mind, it’s easy to see why the ‘Buy’ button is so dangerous for consumers. Firstly, if it’s part of a social media platform, there’s the feeling of a bespoke service. I follow these people, they create things I like, and they created this for people like me so I should wear it. The product would then inevitably be advertised at a discounted price for a limited time only, instigating a loss aversion switch. Loss aversion is where we neglect to buy something because we’ll feel bad about it later. How do you get round this? Attack a person’s fear of missing out on a good deal; you’re effectively just targeting a different feeling of loss that the consumer will try to avert. Finally, you make the transaction process incredibly easy and instantaneous. Make that allimportant purchase just one click away. No time to think. No time to doubt.

With all of these factors playing on a part of your brain that acts on impulse and emotion alone, the potential effect on consumers’ wallets could be devastating. To be clear, this isn’t an article saying that there isn’t a place for grandiose advertising campaigns and intricate technologies. What it is saying is that people generally make very commercial decisions based on irrational, subconscious feelings. With that in mind, the ‘Buy’ button is so devilishly brilliant because it’s cheap, it’s simple and it attacks the very weakest part of our mind. W o r d s : H a r r y W r i g h t C O N T E N T M A N AG E R AT S H A R E

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So you can gain sales, grab headlines and get ahead. Insider Trends helps global brands create world-leading retail spaces that pay for themselves. We do this by clarifying what’s coming next in the world of retail, and what clients can do to get ahead of their competitors. Our client list includes: Marks and Spencer, Chanel, Unilever, Absolut Vodka, Clarks, Philips, BNP Paribas and Lego.

RETAIL SAFARIS FUTURE OF RETAIL PRESENTATIONS RETAIL INNOVATION WORKSHOPS Get in touch to discuss how we can help you get ahead. contact@insider-trends.com | +44 (0) 20 7183 3785 - 130 -

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LOSE YOURSELF IN A WORLD of

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WHY WE EXPERI ENCE?

Experience plays a big part in our lives each day. Our everyday experiences shape who we are and what we do and the choices we make. Everything from that morning coffee to your daily commute, right through to an evening meal at a restaurant chain can be considered an experience. Our decisions to have these experiences or more commonly repeat these experiences are indicative enoughto suggest that we feel fulfilled by these experiences and are not encouraged to remove ourselves away from them in our daily, monthly or yearly routines. This is just beginning to scratch the surface of what an experience can be defined as, or more so what we can consider to be a positive experience. There is of course always room to discuss the potential of introducing new experiences into an individual’s life, but any sign of this new experience becoming unsatisfactory for them, the individual in question will no doubt revert back to their more trusted experiences that evoke more positive feelings for them. This may sound convoluted when analyzing the simplicity of let’s say a morning coffee experience, but it is all in the small details of that experience that can keep an individual coming back for more, or for new uncharted experiences, put them off completely. As mentioned, it’s simple logic for someone to desire more of something that they have enjoyed or are experiencing some form of satisfaction from. What are these little details that keep someone coming back for more though? Is it, in the instance of a morning coffee - taste, price or even convenience? It’s ultimately up to the experience itself to define how it can satisfy an individual and to what extremes it wants to go to heighten someone’s experience for the better. What we must not forget to is that it is the individual who is experiencing that ultimately shapes the experience long term – what does he or she want from their most simple of experiences to their most complex ones as well. Experiences no matter how inane or trivial they may seem are not one size fits all. C h r i s H e n r y EDITOR

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EXPERIENCE.

THE FUTURE O F E AT I N G O U T

A snapshot of future restaurant experiences by Dan Einzig, futurist and founder/CEO of ‘Mystery’, international specialist hospitality design consultancy and angel investment portfolio. Eating out is already about much more than great food and drink. Now, with the Millennial culture being experience-centric, it’s about how far the idea of experiential dining can go and how restaurant designers and the restaurant industry are evolving the concept of eating out.

Restaurateurs are moving away from the need to build a single physical restaurant space. In the future, rather than simply refurbishing their restaurant on a regular basis, they’ll simply create a suite of different experiences, different restaurant concepts that can be changed on nightly basis or at least regularly re-improved and re-invented.

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This non location-specific dining is already happening with supper clubs and pop-up or secret locations. In London, a popular immersive dining experience is The Ginger Line. It offers secret dining adventures that are located in proximity to the ‘Ginger’ Overground line that runs throughout London. Would-be diners find out the exact location by 6pm on the day of their dining event, and after food and theatrical adventures are done, the expectation is that where, what and how is kept a secret. Previous venues and themes have included submarine suppers, Victorian feasts at the Brunel museum and a Puppeteers Workshop. Their popularity has gone from strength to strength, as the drinks, food, setting and theatrical elements are approached by chefs and designers with the overall aim to create truly captivating eating experiences. A very forward thinking company is also Kofler & Co, a German hospitality business whose PRET |

A | DINER® restaurant concepts focus on trends in table culture, wine and ambience. Working with some of the world’s most futuristic chefs, their restaurants pop up all over the world, in amazing locations. So where does experiential dining go from here? We could end up with Culinary Virtual Reality Experiences. The rise of VR technology, digital printing (using food ingredients to create finished dishes), coinciding with the Millennial need to experience and share their experiences remotely, means we’re just waiting for the opportunity to design a VR restaurant concept that can transport you to the top of a mountain, the bottom of the ocean, or indeed to another planet! Imagine experiencing dining with your friends and family remotely, but simultaneously around the world. Trends are never entirely new: Like fashion and music, they can be re-invented, re-packaged and hopefully improved upon for each generation. - 135 -

Built all around concepts, experience dining is all about giving the diner of today (and of the future) something memorable, something they can talk about and share. To put experiential dining into context, you need to look at the concept of the ‘Experience Revolution’ and the current feeling of ‘Stuffocation’ by Millennials. It’s about looking to experiences for fulfillment rather than products ‘collecting experiences instead of things’. From a memorable restaurant experience to an immersive, theatrical, concept-based drinking and dining experience and everything in-between. In the USA you have successful restaurants like Heart Attack Grill, where the hospital is taken to the extreme for a potentially wild, heart-stopping night!

Our own recent project F Pigalle in Las Vegas is a unique dining experience. A fondue concept inspired by the Parisian red light district of the same name, F Pigalle is a step up from casual dining, leading you through a sex-shop into an intriguing, bordello style ambience; an interior that meshes urban street art with French boudoir influences, where the fondue experience is being gastronomically elevated (by Chef Sam Marvin) along with world class cocktails, whilst wine (which is included in the price) is served in glass baby bottles in accordance with a Napoleonic wine tax). At the rear of the restaurant is an outdoor cocktail lounge akin to a French Indo-Chinese opium den.

Wo rd s : D a n E i n z i g FUTURIST AND FOUNDER/ CEO OF MYSTERY

Other examples from our UK portfolio include Za Za Bazaar, a sensual cacophony, the exciting buzz of an Asian night market; Bubbleology, a pseudo-scientific cocktail of technicolour iceteas; and Adventure Bar, where not everything is what it seems and where every cocktail adds to the story. They all serve delicious products, but all have something extra â&#x20AC;&#x201C; authentic character, unique personality and genuine soul â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that instantly engages and gives you a memorable experience worth talking about. A couple of my personal favourite experience restaurants and bars would also be Swingers Crazy Golf in Shoreditch and the Queen of Hoxton with its wig wam cinema on the rooftop.

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What does the future of VR experience dining promise? Avatars of course! Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go to a virtual reality restaurant as yourself; go as your alter ego, your better self - or your most deliciously decadent self! www.mystery.co.uk

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Langley’s No.8 is available nationwide in many major bars, from fine retailers or online at Amazon.co.uk and Ocado.com Copyright © 2016 Langley’s. All rights reserved. Langley’s is a registered trademark.

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WHERE DO HUMANS LIVE IN A DIGITAL WORLD?

THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL HAS DEFINED CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS.

A move from physical interaction to virtual- in store to online- has created a huge shift in the way consumers engage with the retail environment. But in the rush to embrace the opportunities digital offers have brands perhaps lost their connection with the consumer? Let’s just think about the context. Several years ago research was conducted to monitor footfall at a car dealership. They discovered that when the business closed its doors for the day, customer visits actually increased. What they had witnessed was a direct reaction to a customer experience so poor people were actively avoiding it by visiting when the business was closed. When faced with poor customer experiences, is it any wonder that customers have voted with their feet. In the automotive industry alone the shift to online research means consumers now only visit a dealership once, where previously there were 4-5 physical interactions before a transaction.

choice (dictated by physical space) and lack of transparent pricing. But while digital excels in providing consumers with much better ‘mechanics’ around purchase, the experience itself can be incredibly dry. Sometimes we want to have a conversation, to be sold to and convinced about both product and brand, to kick the tyres and smell the leather, and to be seduced and engaged in a way that goes beyond a transactional process. Blurring the lines between transactional and brand experience can deliver a potent mix. Audi City and more recently Hyundai’s venture with its Rockar store in Bluewater have created experience centres that are unpressurised, engaging and most importantly sympathetic to differing needs. They deliver a brand experience with all the benefits of digital mechanics, offering the flexibility and knowledge without the hard sell. They bring the human to the experience.

Digital puts the consumer firmly in the driving seat, allowing us to avoid not just high-pressure sales techniques but queues, limited - 140 -

In digital we have all the tools we need to be sympathetic to customer needs yet we barely use them. Simply by understanding where a consumer has been on their digital journey we can quickly and easily determine their requirements and where they are in the purchase journey and then respond accordingly. Yet few brands bother. Ironically, a great car dealer does exactly this. They listen to what the customer wants and then tailor their offering to what the customer needs. They play the long game. Companies that understand this are leading the charge in the battle for hearts and minds and many of the recent superstars of the digital world (Uber, AirBnB et al) are built on an understanding that a core digital platform is only half of the story. Knowing how and when to involve or handoff to the human experience is fundamental to their propositions.

Wo rd s : S te p h e n B a r n e s DIRECTOR, COLLECTIVE

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Other brands such as Thread harness this thought and pair a slick sales platform with a personal shopper, creating a virtuous circle where algorithmic data is augmented with a chance to discuss and explore on a one-to-one basis. Consider also GetHuman whose sole aim is to help users navigate the often-impenetrable barriers companies put in the way of the consumer and an actual human being. It seems crazy in this day and age that some organisations set up their digital platforms to discourage human engagement. Ever tried finding a number on Skyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website? With the incoming march of chatbots and messaging services as both service and sales channels, the conversation around sentiment and genuine human interaction have never been more relevant. It will be the businesses that understand this balance and are able to harness both the ubiquitous nature of digital with the more nuanced subtleties of human engagement that will inevitably rise to the top.

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Well here we are, at the end of anther issue… Did you have an experience, or was it just a great read? Either way we hope you enjoyed it and more importantly we hope you now have a greater insight into what experience truly means as we’ve explored the term from a number of interesting perspectives, be it from a sensory viewpoint looking at the experience of sound and taste, to a more modern review of the digitally savvy user and how advancements in tech, AR and social are changing the way they experience things. We understood more about how today’s brands are embracing experience and that determining experience can be as simple as understanding the art of customer care and ensuring experiences today are both relevant and authoritative. The Experiences of tomorrow are heading in exciting new directions as brands and marketers constantly aim to reimagine the world of the consumer and excite them in imaginative ways. Nonetheless we learnt that experiences at their heart are stories and the thrill of these stories and how consumers can relate to them, are the driving force behind people’s appetite for experience. I’d like to thank a number of contributors; Samanah Duran in her ongoing #BEYOUROWN column, I look forward to who she meets next. Thanks to my good friend Mel Noakes for contributing her always much valued thoughts and opinions by adding her own take on the Female Experience. I was also excited to see in this issue, the subject of theatre tackled. A somewhat alien subject so far in HATCH’s history but thank you to Emily Slater on your terrific piece. Some personal shout outs from me to Sarah at Sledge, Steve Lacey for his incredible words and insight, Sharon and the guys at HR Owen, and finally Orr plus all the team at SAVSE, you guys rock! Let us know your thoughts on this issue and how you think we can keep making our content better, Tweet us, Instagram us, E-mail us… get in touch however you feel comfortable. Enjoy the rest of 2016 and we’ll see you all in 2017!

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