Advent Blog

What kind of first impres­sion does your space make when a cus­tomer vis­its your orga­ni­za­tion for the first time? Every sec­ond is valu­able in mak­ing an impact — from the time they arrive to when they walk out your door. Think about the first time you walked into Starbuck’s… you smelled the cof­fee aroma, you heard the cheer­ful barista call­ing out cus­tom orders, you saw patrons sip­ping their bev­er­age while read­ing the morn­ing news or meet­ing with friends; and of course there was the Starbuck’s color scheme, logo, décor, retail offer­ings and fur­nish­ings… that is the Starbuck’s expe­ri­ence. It is the unique Starbuck’s “brand”.

What mes­sage does your organization’s space com­mu­ni­cate? Do your cus­tomers know who you are and what you do by sim­ply walk­ing into your space?

What about the actual path your client walks from the front door of your office to your con­fer­ence room? This is a prime oppor­tu­nity to show off your organization’s accom­plish­ments, your val­ues, your peo­ple and their com­mit­ment to excel­lence. Why not set a pos­i­tive tone for the meet­ing before it even begins?

At Advent, we uti­lize “brand spaces” treat­ments to work with clients to align a phys­i­cal space with the mes­sage they want to com­mu­ni­cate inter­nally and exter­nally. Every treat­ment is as cus­tom and unique as the mes­sage it con­veys.

Mars Petcare, head­quar­tered in Cool Springs, TN, wants their vis­i­tors to know that pets are their pri­or­ity; that is their mes­sage. Visitors are greeted by the most impor­tant cus­tomers of all – pets!

Lipscomb University wants to com­mu­ni­cate how impor­tant the stu­dents are to the University. In this walk path in the admis­sions build­ing, pho­tos of stu­dents line the walls dis­play­ing var­i­ous activ­i­ties and areas of engage­ment. The framed pieces have change­able graph­ics for easy updating.

Before even enter­ing the front door of the Healthways head­quar­ters, the orga­ni­za­tion demon­strates its his­tory of accom­plish­ments with step­ping stones on the path to the front door. Each is a mile­stone of suc­cess inlaid in the con­crete – what a great way to intro­duce Healthways to a new visitor!

Branding your space sup­ports three key mar­ket­ing objec­tives – dif­fer­en­ti­aion, con­sis­tency and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This oppor­tu­nity to make a great first and last­ing impres­sion can dif­fer­en­ti­ate you from your com­peti­tor and cre­ate brand aware­ness not only to vis­i­tors but also inter­nally to staff and employees.

How could an employee not remem­ber Mars Petcare’s val­ues when they are greeted with them each time they step off the ele­va­tor to enter the office? How about the happy pet wel­com­ing them to work each morn­ing? (This pet actu­ally belongs to a Mars Petcare employee.)

What is your organization’s story? What do you want vis­i­tors and clients to know about you? What are your company’s accom­plish­ments? Does your space com­mu­ni­cate why and how you are dif­fer­ent from your com­peti­tors? Let your space speak. It could com­mu­ni­cate the unique mes­sage that the great­est sales pitch can’t express!

Tags: brand spaces, Experiential Marketing, lobby makeover