AIA YAF Connection 19.04 - Practice Innovation

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Connection

Architecture and marketing

What happens when an architect stops thinking about building spaces and starts thinking about building brands? Positioning, consumer journey, target customer, touchpoints, value proposition, unique selling point (USP), and P&L (profit and loss) may not be typical terms in an architect’s lexicon, but when “architecture thinking” is leveraged in a broader context as “design thinking,” interesting synergies emerge between architecture and marketing. This can be an advantage for architects interested in utilizing a design background to create brands and brand experiences that engage people in multi-sensory dynamic environments. While working with international and local brands in China, STUDIO DOHO realized that brands often engage marketing and advertising companies to implement brand activations because of the strength of their focus on human behavior and their ability to engage consumers across numerous touchpoints, which is anytime a consumer has any type of interaction with a brand. While challenging the assumed dichotomy of architecture and marketing, similarities consistently emerged in the creative-thinking process to solve a design problem or case, yet a very different set of deliverables produced from the two disciplines. Architecture by nature is a people-driven endeavor, yet when considered through the lens of marketing, it has the opportunity to engage consumers on a deeper, experience-rich level through the similar storytelling process architects use to define architectural concepts. Marketing helps these stories come to life through designing full brand concepts that define all levels of customer experience and engagement. The real resonance between architecture and marketing is to apply the standard generalist thinking of an architect to an even broader domain. This breadth of perspective can allow for unique opportunities outside the traditional path of an architect and leverages architecture training to expand further and create concepts, experiences, and new brands. Key clients, represented by the marketing department of a brand, often need more than standard architecture or interior design services traditionally offered to create the full concepts required in their briefs. Success in this arena required STUDIO DOHO to consider how we could stretch our service offerings to go far beyond the traditional architecture model. Building on these insights, STUDIO DOHO began to evolve from an interior-design-based practice to a brand-driven creative consultancy that works to create a wide range of brand concepts and strives to bridge the gap between architecture and marketing.

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Bridging the gap “Architecture is not so much a knowledge of form, but a form of knowledge.”—Bernard Tschumi A simple comparison between architecture and marketing can be found when considering the difference between building a house and building a home. The intrinsic value of four built walls versus the value of the meaning given to those walls by the people who live within them is very different. While some esteemed pieces of architecture have certainly elevated to have meaning beyond their walls, buildings can still stand without achieving this level. However, it is critical in marketing to create meaningful brands that live in the hearts of consumers because brands inherently lack a physical nature, so they will simply vanish if they do not achieve this level of endearment and meaning. Similarly, a house will stand even when it is empty, yet the relationships of the people living within its walls are critical to success in creating a home. This differentiation became clear when we began to design whole brand concepts instead of a single space and required our team to develop multidisciplinary skill sets. For example, the deliverables required to create a new food and beverage (F&B) brand concept for Budweiser necessitated a wide range of design thinking to consider all aspects of the project. First, we had to define a clear, concise concept and write a brand story that resonated with our defined target consumers. After the Unique Selling Point (USP—which is the thing that

Above: Excerpt from Brand Playbook for Budweiser China Localization. Image Courtesy of STUDIO DOHO and Budweiser


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