Perishable Moments

Moving beyond instagrammable-moments to create IRL experiences that count.

The tide is turning away from the creation of one-dimensional brand experiences created purely for sharing on Instagram, towards the design of those that are perishable, private and ours alone to enjoy. These progressive and evolved brand experiences are layered with meaning, inspiring new levels of stimulation and engagement.

In their latest ‘Future 100’ report, JWT Intelligence noted the rise of the ‘anti-instagram’ interior as the most progressive brands move beyond made-for-Instagram experiences to create immersive and interactive brand experiences that inspire new levels of stimulation and engagement.

Taking their cue from artists, curators and exhibitions, whereby a growing number of them are creating installations which are impossible to capture on screen, brands are beginning to imagine how they can reward people for their visit by creating moments of brand and product immersion that you simply have to be there to enjoy.

After a period where the desire to create shareable social media content has become an integral part of any design brief, it’s interesting to note this shift.

This enlightened approach is driven by the recognition that a truly great brand experience should be witnessed through our eyes, not just our phones. It’s no longer about how it looks on Instagram, but how it feels in our hearts; it should appeal to all of our senses, not just our social media following; and it should reward us for our visit in a way that simply viewing pictures online could never really compare. In short, it’s about creating experiences that are perishable.

We first began thinking about the idea of creating perishable moments when we came across a quote by Jon Wilson from Greenwich University: “Traditional wisdom for luxury brands was that you should create something year on year that was bigger and better and more expensive, but it is now more about key moments which are perishable – like Japanese cherry blossom. It happens every year but then disappears, making that very moment the one that counts. Luxury brands must now create perishable moments. Just like going to a live gig – bursts of heightened, transcendental activity that maintains salience.”

Although here Jon talks of luxury brands leading the way, it seems only right that brands across all spectrums - from mass to premium - should begin to consider brand experiences in this way. Viewing Instagrammable content as a by-product rather than the aim of the game, and seeking to connect with their audience on a more genuine level.

So, how do you create brand experiences that are perishable? It’s not simply about the transitory, here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of the brief, it’s also about the emotional connection that it brings. Therefore not only is the idea of spontaneity and surprise important, so too is the tactility and emotion that it evokes.

There are 3 key ingredients that create Perishable Moments:

01. EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS

The emotional currency of the brand experience is crucial. According to the Harvard Business Review, connecting emotionally across the brand experience generates 52% more customer value.

It’s also been scientifically proven that emotional experiences imprint better in our memory, therefore perishable brand experiences must embed products and services in a way that evokes strong and long-lasting emotional responses.

The power of design in creating a positive and memorable emotional connection should never be underestimated, as every element of the experience has the potential to influence our overall impression - for better or worse.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

As designers, we’ve instinctively known this all along, but it’s interesting to see Google setting out to prove the effect of good design on our emotional wellbeing. During Milan Design Week, the technology powerhouse teamed up with leading neuroscientists to prove just that.

A Space for Being featured three rooms with varying lighting, sounds, scents and textures - intentionally designed to stimulate visitors’ senses in different ways. Before entering the interactive rooms, visitors were equipped with a specially made wristband which used four sensors to measure specific physical and physiological responses, such as heart rate and skin conductivity.

“Design affects everything. What you choose to surround yourself with affects your wellbeing and your body, and the fact that neuroscience is now proving that is thrilling to us.”

Ivy Ross, Google’s vice president for hardware design

An interesting route that deserves much further exploration in the future is not only to evoke emotions, but to sense and respond to them too.

Celebrating the warmth and delight of human connection, the ‘Joy Life and Light’ installation by Preciosa used sensors in its large-scale lighting pieces to encourage visitors to openly share their emotions and connect with one another.

One of the chandeliers was wired with sensors that recognised the sound of clinking glasses and erupted with light when people raised a toast. A second chandelier featured lights that created a carousel-like structure, featuring sensors that responded to two individuals hugging with a dramatic display of flashing bulbs.

02. SENSORIAL EXPERIENCES

It’s become widely acknowledged that the more sensorial your brand journey and the more senses engaged, the more attentive the audience.

Some really interesting advances in this area are currently being made, particularly in the health and beauty retailing arena, whereby brands are using visual, sonic and olfactory conversations. Often these moments can be the smallest details and yet evoke the biggest response.

It seems that the notion of enhanced touch and tactility is currently gaining traction, and it was one of the key trends we noted at Stockholm Furniture Fair earlier this year.

In our homes, a key trend in interior design is associated with the use of textures, materials and finishes that are as pleasing to touch as they are to look at. Creating what the interior design expert Michelle Ogundehin describes as ‘surfaces that thrill our fingertips and tempt our toes’.

Sensorial encounters centred around feelings and physical experiences can enhance product trial in-store, enabling shoppers to experience the product benefits in a way that would be impossible to emulate online. 

The progressive fashion brand The Arrivals recently opened a weather-themed pop-up store called the OutThereLab in New York. Featuring three zones designed around the different micro-climates in three cities - Tokyo, New York and Berlin - with the aim to encourage people to trail their product in the relevant weather conditions. 

During the London Design Festival, British designer Tom Dixon transformed his headquarters in Coal Drops Yard into a multi-sensory lab. Playfully titled ‘Touchy Smelly Feely Noisy Tasty’, the installation took visitors on a journey through the senses in a series of talks and workshops, designed to heighten each of the senses in turn.

In the ‘Touchy Feely’ arch in the shop, Tom Dixon’s interior architecture facility, Design Research Studio, partnered with men’s care brand Harry’s to create a razor bar that draws on the sensory tactility of shaving.

03. PLAYFUL ESCAPES

The power of play has long been one of the most recognised ingredients in effective brand experience. And in such harsh and uncertain economic times it seems that the idea of simply making people smile and brightening their day is only growing in appeal.

Driven by the idea of creating a sense of wonderment in the physical world, designers are experimenting with new approaches and techniques to create joyful and unexpected encounters.

The best approaches are also often the simplest, cleverly tapping into natural human behaviour traits to appeal to our childlike curiosity and intuitive desire to touch and play.

Inspired by the insight that children are increasingly looking to shape their creative confidence through more personalised forms of play, Lego recently opened the House of Dots pop-up at Coal Drops Yard in Kings Cross.

The immersive experience took the form of a life-sized toy house inside a series of shipping containers. Designed in collaboration with French Designer Camille Walala, the five-room interactive house teases Lego Dots, a new arts-and-crafts, 2D-tile play-building concept. Instead of just paint, the designer’s colourful, richly-patterned style is realised primarily through more than two million pieces of a new product called Lego Dots.

The public art installation is designed to take visitors on a playful “journey through colour”. The exit takes the form of an eight-foot slide because, as Walala explained: “Why would you not want to add a slide?”

Proving the power of play isn’t just for children and adults crave it too, the eyewear brand Gentle Monster have recently become the set designers for an entire department store.

Recently described by Frame magazine as ‘not only a brand to watch, but a force to be reckoned with, having given people a reason to get off the sofa and visit a sunglasses store like no other brand in their sector has ever done before’, Gentle Monster have applied the same spirit of playful adventure to the interiors of SKP-S, the future-focused offshoot of Beijing’s SKP luxury mall.

With a concept entitled Digital-Analog Future, the space blurs the boundaries between human and digital interaction. The brand seized the opportunity to stretch our imaginations with surreal installations including a field of grazing robotic sheep and a rundown of Martian history! This is a department store, but definitely not as we know it!

OUR PERSPECTIVE

Placing an emphasis on the creation of brand experiences to be enjoyed in the here-and-now opens up a whole host of new ideas, new materials, and new approaches. Tapping into a hugely under-utilised toolbox of ideas surrounding how to evoke an emotional connection and appeal to all of our senses.

In our opinion there is great value in the concept of creating perishable moments. Not only from the consumers’ perspective, although undoubtedly it creates a far more rewarding experience, but also from a designers’ perspective too.

This shift in focus also signals a new approach for brand communications. Opening up a whole host of new social media platforms, along with new measurement metrics - no longer based on the number of ‘likes’, but something far more enduring.

Clearly there is merit in this approach for brands and retailers too. Giving them permission to behave in a different way that is more innovative and playful. It also helps brands to connect with consumers’ in a more emotive and meaningful way; helping them to understand the brand ethos and product benefits more clearly and fostering a stronger sense of brand loyalty.

We believe that this is not so much a ‘trend’ as an evolution. Even in such early days of this transition it’s inspiring some of the most refreshing new concepts that we have seen in many years.

All of this points towards a bright future of innovation as progressive brands explore this idea with creativity and originality. Carefully blending analogue and digital experiences that would be impossible to recreate in the digital realm and providing us with a welcome break from our screen-based world.