Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Brand spaces
Developing stylish areas that are decorated and designed to appeal to your target market, even if they do not sell your core products, will reinforce your image and help customers appreciate the distinctiveness of your products and brand.
The idea
One of the trendiest new ideas in marketing, brand spaces advocates creating stylish spaces—perhaps a bar, art gallery, lounge, or exhibition hall—that may not be directly related to your main product but where individuals are immersed in your brand image. Practiced by leading companies such as Apple, ING Direct, Kodak, Google, and Nokia, there has been a dramatic increase in the number and quality of brand spaces.
French car manufacturer Renault uses brand spaces with a high level of commitment and panache, running four brand spaces in Buenos Aires, Bogota, Mexico City, and Paris. Its latest project, the Terrasse Renault in Mexico City, is impressively designed, and centers on “a bar with wooden latticing, through which visitors can glimpse the Renault zone, where car prototypes are exhibited.” Occupying prime real estate in global cities and offering gourmet cuisine, art galleries, and seamlessly blended marketing, the Renault brand spaces are characteristic of the concept. Renault describes its brand spaces as “hosting artistic, cultural and sporting events in keeping with the brand’s universe to reinforce Renault’s energy and identity as a visionary, warm and innovative brand.”
The innovative design of brand spaces includes Nokia’s “silence booths” for people seeking temporary quiet and calm at music festivals; Coca-Cola’s “Red Lounges” designed to provide multimedia experiences to teenagers in malls in Illinois and Los Angeles; and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Lounge in Tokyo incorporating VIP rooms, multimedia opportunities, and even Xbox-themed mixed drinks.
With an increase in lifestyle brands, brand spaces can reinforce your organization as part of an idealized culture and aesthetic that is sculpted to the tastes of your target demographic. Brand spaces help sell directly and indirectly. They also build the value of your business by generating understanding of—and affinity for—your brand.
In practice
- Consider where your target demographic market would choose to go to enjoy their free time and use your brand space to create an idealized version of it.
- Recognize the variety of options you have when creating a brand space; focus on individuality.
- Remember that the aesthetic and physical design of the brand space is usually vital.
- Choose which specific aspects of your company’s service and image will be portrayed in the space.
- Provide a range of activities for visitors to enjoy.
- Decide what the emphasis of your brand space will be—for example, convenience, culture, excitement, or relaxation.
- Choose your location carefully—whether you choose an airport, shopping center, music festival, or simply a city street to be home to your brand space, is the first step to ensuring the project is a success.