Like other aspects of branding, EI relies on human perceptual psychology.
When people are in a seemingly familiar environment, they can co-relate to the brand value experience. All this happens within the critical 15-minute window when customers are fed with conscious and sub-conscious data and imagery that enables them to feel the existence of an identity.
EI thus becomes an important strategic platform and touch-point where people can feel that an identity lives within a product or service's environment.
For the brand consultant, the methodology lies squarely in understanding the brand's core identity, for it is essential to create an environment that fully encompasses and reflects the brand. The experience can then be shifted from the product or service to the retail environment in a way that reflects back on and amplifies both.
The brand consultant needs to be something of a conjurer and illusionist to invoke emotive visual cues, as well as three-dimensional elements, to visually create an audience's perception of brand personality and achieve a unique brand retail experience. This process has two critical elements: defining the dimensions of the physical environment, its possibilities and inherent weaknesses and using appropriate visual communications and right choice of materials for furnishing. Miele is one retailer which has overcome limitations of small showroom size and has transformed this disadvantage into an asset. In its Bangkok showroom for example, Miele creates a visually- striking space. The emphasis is on a high-end experience that is bold, ambient and completely different from the way in which white goods are traditionally marketed and sold. It wonderfully showcases their products as the Rolls Royce of white goods.
What are the advantages to contextualising the brand identity within its retail space? Firstly, the retailer will connect to the customer better because a distinctive environmental identity is an important strategic platform for communicating the values of a product's brand with great precision. Furthermore, the customer can see, touch and smell the brand.
Secondly, a focus on retail environment creates brand preference. Physical space offers the possibility of literally and figuratively communicating with customers at the moment of purchase (one-to-one marketing). Creating trust and good experiential visual associations concerning the customer's environment will ultimately lead to customer loyalty. Thirdly, creating an EI with a powerful thematic element creates an experience that trendsetters will adopt and which will stand the test of time. And endurance of the brand over time is and always has been the acid test of brand potency.
