In our interview with Tamar Elkeles, Chief Learning Officer of Qualcomm, she explains how the museum, we partnered with them to build, has provided their employees with high-touch, experiential way to tell their corporate story. Within a more meaningful context, the museum has given employees an opportunity to learn, see and feel the history of Qualcomm. “Employee engagement needs to be built” says Tamar, and we at Baker are proud to have been a part of the foundation. Check out the interview here: http://www.bakerbrand.com/insights/experiential_engagement.html
To introduce a new line of deodorant LYNX created the first invisible ad. Special LED screens were mounted to windows of an abandoned terrace house. To the un-glassed passerby there is nothing special to see. But if you have sunglasses on the voyeur in you got a treat.
Our office is located in Santa Monica, so I often have cause to drive along Lincoln Blvd, its main thoroughfare. I comment all the time on how run down and shabby so many of the storefronts are. The paint is peeling off, neon signs are only half lit; stores, inside and out, are a cluttered mess. I wonder why the building/business owners don’t seem to care to make their place of business more appealing to the passerby. I’m sure it all comes down to cost, especially “in this economy”, but shouldn’t the curb appeal of your business equate to more money for your business and therefore the whole reason why you should spend more?
An article published by yellowpages.com states:
“Your storefront can make or break your business. It’s a form of advertising, as well as the beginning of the customer experience. You can have the perfect location but waste it if your storefront and building looks shabby and dated or if customers fail to notice it. Retail curb appeal is more than just creating an aesthetically pleasing storefront. Retail curb appeal is about making people want to come inside and buy. If you are a retailer, your store is your brand. Effectively attending to your storefront and building, then, is one of the most important branding steps you can take. The storefront sends the world a message about your business and its personality.”
Making people want to come inside and buy. Enhancing curb appeal. Sounds like what we do for our clients.
The construction site was completely obscured by fencing, but the posted architectural renderings caught my eye. When the fencing was finally removed, I realized the renderings didn’t do it justice. I saw an elegant and thoughtful design, beautifully integrated into a slope at a corner of hilly Pan Pacific Park. Partially below ground, it’s rooftop paths seem like extensions of the walkways in the park. When on top, or viewed from the park, one might be surprised to learn there is something inside.
Perhaps this was a problem. It was too integrated, too calm and collected. How could anyone find it?
The signage that now mars the museum exterior is clearly the result of poor planning, not to mention taste. I imagine a reactionary “signage committee,” eager to address a problem but unable to comprehend a larger picture. It looks hastily “designed” and installed, with absolutely no sensitivity to what the architecture was designed to achieve. A ham-fisted LOS ANGELES MUSEUM OF THE HOLOCAUST, set in Helvetica Bold , white letters crammed in a long black rectangle debases the museum. Making matters worse, the name is bookended on each end by what is perhaps the worst logo ever—an inelegant, literal symbol that further devalues the museum.
From across the street you can see the sign is crooked. Not even the installers cared enough to step back and take a good look.
Currently best practices circle around concepts of consumer and employee engagement.
Yet, with the over saturation of products and information we encounter daily, engaging the consumer and employee has become exponentially more challenging. Experiential design offers a new opportunity to immerse, engage, and educate your multiple audiences.
Recently Jessica Melnick, an account planner and strategist at Baker, wrote a compelling insight on using a corporate museum to tell your story. Jessica describes how a physical space offers an interactive, highly-engaging, non-traditional way to have audiences understand the core essence of a company, its corporate character, achievements and the values that drive it. By story telling on walls, through kiosks, with objects and videos you can uniquely bundle the past, present and future of an organization and its industry. Every visitor — whether customer, business partner, current or perspective employee — who invests in a 15-minute tour will walk away with a different level of comprehension and sense of your company and brand. In years gone by, corporate museums were used to simply document a company’s history. Today, they can contribute to charting its business success.
