JULY/AUGUST | THE COLUMNISTS
Access’ regular
columnists talk
mega brands,
historic venues
and learning from
retail...
FANG-tastic
Jonathan Emmins, founder,
Amplify Eccentric events
Josephine Burns, chair, Without
Walls The tech-first marketplace
Simeon Aldred, group creative
director, Vibration Group
There’s a new acronym doing
the rounds: FANG brands. For
the uninitiated, that’s Facebook,
Amazon, Netfl ix and Google; a.k.a
today’s mega brands. They exist
purely in the digital world, but, with
the experience economy driving a
critical need for physical presence,
how can these intangible brands be
made more tangible?
Defi ne your architectural
direction. From design that
‘holds’ the audience and creates
a sense of community, through
to playgrounds and landscapes
that invite individual exploration;
architectural language and
materials have a fundamental role
in evoking key brand characteristics
and sentiment.
Ensure your style has substance.
Detailing and styling that creates
a movement towards behaving
like a lifestyle brand can soften
and humanise brand interaction.
Although beautiful, aspirational
Scandi-living has become a familiar
go-to for tech brands and now runs
the risk of becoming experiential
wallpaper. Instead, create spaces
that overtly trigger audiences’
emotional responses and let them
project their own memories.
Shape the narrative. Experience
design weaves a narrative out of
the environment to craft a truly
engaging story. beyond the space.
More at accessaa.co.uk Much of our work is urban, but
there is a new and growing demand
in out-of-town spaces - the focus
here on parklands and landscape
gardens, the great eighteenth
century English vision that melded
art and nature.
There are around 3,000 of these
attached to country houses, castles,
palaces, and stately homes across
the UK. Many run activities to
generate income from golf courses,
weddings, and of course festivals.
These sites often have a strong local
identity and wider appeal where
celebration – mirth and madness
in the forest - is a quintessential
English trope: think A Midsummer’s
Night Dream or Robin Hood.
Festivals and events help
balance the books but our sector’s
contribution lies in how our artists
make magical these spaces –
illuminating their specialness,
melding the work into the
particularity of the landscape or
simply being crazy in the woods!
Rode Hall Estate, the site of Just
So Festival and Portmeirion, Wales
(Festival N°6) are striking examples
of just how well this works.
Heritage properties are eager
to increase their profi le. Without
Walls is looking to grow strategic
partnerships, using outdoor arts to
draw upon their geographies, their
histories, and their people to share
their incredible stories. One of Vibration Group’s founding
brands is Xcite, an events agency
specialising in the design and
delivery of retail events.
Retail is a challenging
marketplace now more than ever,
and we couldn’t have predicted
the way the market would shift
so fundamentally so quickly. This
shift is no secret - the high street
is shrinking, large retailers are
closing stores and growing online,
and shopping has moved on. Our
challenge is to stay relevant and
deliver innovative campaigns for
bricks and mortar destinations.
The key is owning and accepting
the changes, and making sure
we’re leading the charge with new
ways to engage shopping centre
audiences, who as consumers are
exposed to a world of choices and
experiences more sophisticated
than ever before.
The twice yearly ‘build it, they
will come’ fashion shows that we
delivered when we set up Xcite 15
years ago have had to become part
of a much more tactical annual
events strategy. We have to move
swiftly, identify micro-trends and
design and deliver events that can
be activated in-centre, online, and
on social media. Creating offl ine
activations that form part of a fully
formed campaign that exists online
too, is the only way to swim rather
than sink in a digital ocean.
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