Experience
Whether being a citizen or tourist chances are good the excellent public transport service is used to get around in Berlin. And sooner or later the ‘Naturkundemuseum’ underground station is spotted on the route map. At least by some of the 900+ million annual passengers*. The name change already creates a greater awareness for the museum among a broader audience since even locals regularly have a look at the map. Bearing a comprehensible name for speakers of European languages and being located in short walking distance, the station is the museum’s entrance to many future visitors.

Arriving at the station reveals that it not only carries the natural history museum’s name, yet is a sneak peek to it. Seven billboards display lavish behind-the-scenes photographs from the inside – with images one would hardly see: cleaners dusting off a dinosaur with feather dusters and scientists exploring the giant archive of fossils.

The pictures deliver a genuine insight to the museum and its employees’ work. With original, well-crafted motifs they might impress visitors of any age and increase their anticipation as well as lure people just waiting on the plat­form into its exhibitions. In order to leave no doubt about the subjects of the images the museum’s brand mark is projected and part of every photograph.

A few more meters towards the exit, a mural relief of an Allosaurus fragilis highlights the museum’s most famous exhibits – it shows the biggest dinosaur skeleton in the world – and makes them tangible already prior to the arrival. Last but not least the carnivore, true to scale, directs the way to fellow fossils.

Challenge
Transforming a station into this kind of an invitation was time-consuming and costly, yet well worth the effort. Even after the museum, transport company and advertising corporation joint forces, the city council still vetoed and had to be convinced. While the transportation company covered the rebranding costs of approx. € 250,000 – 300,000 [1], the outdoor advertiser sponsored the billboards.

Goal
People can spot the natural history museum just by looking at the public transport route map. People can have a glimpse on its exhibition just by taking the underground line U6 northwards. The Naturkundemuseum station is an excellent example of how to raise the visibility of a remarkable, yet hidden institution and how to invite the public.

Early spotters were presented a special gift: On the new station’s opening day everyone arriving by underground train got free admission and had an extra pleasant welcome experience.

* – According to the Berlin Verkehrsbetriebe 930 million passengers used the public transport service between January and November 2011. [Source: Berliner Morgenpost]

Overview
+ dedicated station name creates broad awareness of an institution
+ great way of sampling a museum experience
+ themed station can create an immersive welcoming experience
! rebranding stations in big cities is costly – in this case at least € 250,000

Seoul’s citizens may have tomorrow’s tech gadgets, but are pinched for time. Being the hardest working nation in the world – with 30% more labour time than the global average* – leisure is rare. Therefore grocery shopping is rather a burden than a pleasure. With many people living in the megacity’s suburbs and commuting to work for hours a lot of valuable time is spent in trains and train stations every day. Tesco’s Korean subsidiary Home plus sets out to make a virtue out of a necessity by putting up virtual grocery shelves in underground stations.

All images: © Home plus / Tesco

Large posters on the platforms mock the aisles of a supermarket and shelves hold the same products as they used to. But instead of physical products to grab there are 2-dimensional avatars and QR codes to snap. Whilst waiting for the next railway busy Seoulers can use a dedicated smartphone app to scan the codes and add the related products to their digital shopping basket. After the virtual check-out the goods are catered to the buyers’ homes on the very same day.

The virtual shelves bridge the gap between retail store, online shop and home delivery. While the products remain intangible just as in a web-based shopping application their real-size reproductions in familiar presentation style come as close as possible to a retail shopping experience. This might ease the buying process and remarkably considers the disposable time as well as spacial context within people’s daily routes.

Even though the poster shelves might be great for routine purchases they seam less appropriate for discovering new products. In any case Home plus proves to be a brand understanding their customers’ needs by creating a condensed and unpretentious brand and shopping experience that saves people valuable minutes of their rare spare time.

Although it was a temporary campaign the success for Home plus’ home delivery service which increased by 130 % in online sales almost guarantees a follow-up. And if not by Home plus itself some competitor will probably carry out more tests since this video documentation went around the business and ad world and made customers from all over the globe already ‘like’ its service design.

* – According to the OECD’s Better Life Index “people in Korea work 2256 hours a year”, which is the “highest rate in the OECD and much higher than the OECD average of 1739 hours”. [Source: OECD]

Overview

+ considering people’s day-to-day needs & daily routines
+ making the most of waiting – turning it into a productive moment
+ augmenting an app shopping experience
! rather works for repeated buying than discovery of new products
! condensed shopping experience compared to real supermarket

Experience

Due to an enormous revival of biking in the city of Berlin – made possible by cultural trends, ecological awareness as well as political decisions in traffic planning – one gift and marketing gimmick has become popular recently: the saddle cover. After having worked all day long Berliner cyclists are presented with unicoloured wrappers waiting on the seat when picking up their bike in the evening.
Printed with smart slogans, linking the qualities of the cover to the giving brand, the slipcover is a surprising touchpoint capable of causing a pleasant brand experience.

Global as well as local brands use the protection covers as freebies and try to establish a verbal connection between the gift and its donor. “I’m leakproof!”, the mobile service provider O2 assures and the international chain of health clubs Fitness First promises: “Cycling with us haves you dry!”.

Distributed at one of Berlin’s most central places the communication on the covers clearly addresses young, sporty, urban individuals: “Always present – navigating cyclists and pedestrians for reaching their destination, too”, Nokia explains and hints at its digital map offerings.

A great and cheap tool to make a good impression one might say – coming at a price of less than one euro / US-dollar. Of course, there is a catch …

Challenge

Despite being such a low priced and easy-to-make product it should be really “leakproof” and not cause the rider a wet botty after just a week in use. Just like the student union pledging not to “leave you out in the rain” should rather be true to its word. If not, the gift can turn into the opposite of a good brand experience. A lack of quality and potential water permeability may not only leave a disappointed presentee behind, but even link the bad experience back to the brand.

Goal

But if quality is not an issue and more admen can come up with clever claims going along with a brand’s true capabilities, then the covers will be experienced just as they are: as helpful and valuable gifts. So it’s almost for sure people riding bikes will thankfully use them for months and not only the thrifty and lazy ones will carry the brands’ messages through the city.

And let’s not forget the avid ones: The most successful wrapper of last biking season was created by ‘Radio Eins’, a radio station with more sophisticated sound and content. Its cycling listeners are so passionate about the brand and were that keen on the cover they started stealing from the saddle next to them right in the daytime … this is the kind of endorsement your brand might reach when promise and performance match – even with a touchpoint of little monetary value, but notable personal meaning.

Overview

+ gift with high utility value
+ low price: < € 1 / £ 1 / $ 1
+ easy to distribute to target group with small waste circulation
!  quality of the cover must fit the brand’s level
!  any communicative promise has to meet the facts

Image: © FullSix Group / Diesel

Experience

The Italian fashion brand Diesel recently started enhancing its retail shopping experience with social media features. Visitors of its Madrid stores can now instantly express their appreciation of a denim through a red-framed plate next to it.
Pointing a smartphone, running a QR code reader, on the sign leads instantly to a simple mobile site holding the brand’s logotype, Facebook’s omnipresent like button as well as name and image of a favoured pair of jeans.

Assuming the potential customer is logged-in on Facebook with her / his mobile phone, a tap on the button publishes a prepared message on the user’s wall immediately. Headlined with the jeans’ name and store’s location the posting says “I am in Diesel’s Fuencarral store right now and like this pair of jeans …” – in Spanish, of course.

Hitting the button shares a link which neither leads to a sub-page on diesel.com nor offers any further information on the liked item. Instead of allowing friends to discover the product a click on the link surprisingly routes to Diesel’s international Facebook page which lets the whole experience appear as an awkward action to collect more fans on the social network.

Challenge

Diesel’s brand interaction starts smart, but passes up a good opportunity. What could be an analogue-digital word of mouth converter turns into the opposite and does not engage followers, but might leave annoyed and disappointed users behind. The challenge is – as always – to tell a coherent story and lead an interaction to a successful as well as meaningful conclusion for the user. In Diesel’s QR code case this means the link shared on the liker’s wall should include relevant information, so that interested people are able to discover the liked product and learn about it at length. How great would it be to find out about a jeans’ design and manufacturing process, to see other related garments etc.? Unfortunately the brand experience breaks almost at its very last step which makes it even more disappointing since it’s so easy to imagine how it could work successfully.

Goal

Although the Diesel QR code foregoes chances and looks clunky with big red signs that take over the attention of the actual product, the touchpoint connecting retail store with digital followers is powerful. This early attempt will be iterated and improved very soon probably – whether by Diesel itself or another brand. Manufacturers could make QR codes to regular ingredients of labels. Apart from the price, product number and 1d barcode such tags could deliver shareable background information about the product, its heritage, intention and purpose. A richness of content as well as social features are possible – but remain widely unused capabilities as of today.

Even though it’s not a unique brand experience with Diesel, it’s a simple and rather clever way to connect real world objects and locations to digital counterparts with complementary content. Furthermore such extentions might not only serve customers with additional information, but brands and manufacturers as well. Lively discussions on Facebook can generate qualitive feedback which might be used for the product’s next iteration and consequently improve the experience with a brand in the long run.

* – Carolyn Everson, Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Facebook, at Techcrunch’s Disrupt conference [Source: simplyzesty.com]

Overview

+ connecting retail experience with brand’s digital communication offerings
+ easy to implement
+ quick & simple way for customers to digitally share a real-world discovery
! deliver additional information not only a like button behind QR code
! assistance for interested customers in installing a QR reader on phone
! observe discussions on the product in order to get feedback for iterations and improvements in the future

Experience

Waiting for the next underground train might take a bit of your precious time: at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz from 4 up to 15 minutes — at least when you just missed a train and depending on the frequency at the day time. People in groups tend to chat with each other while individuals use their electronic devices to communicate or escape – or start watching the poster ads surrounding them.

Most billboards are designed to be seen for seconds only: A full-bleed image and a tight headline have to catch a person passing by. Such big, though uncomplex information aren’t made to take their audience for more than a glimpse and therefore don’t appear with more than an additional subhead.

The hardware store chain Hornbach had a different perspective on this and went another route: A series of poster stories – all headlined “Hornbach unabridged” with an average reading time of about one minute – was created and installed at U2 underground station. Self-referential, but contradictory questions like “Isn’t it madness stocking a screw that’s sold once every 154 days?” or “Why a longer route of 4.9 km is shorter” were used to pull the commuters into reading. The rather extensive, but reasonable body text delivers a spirited explanation.

Challenge

The poster ads – as easy to read and nicely headlined they might be – have to cover a relevant topic and contain meaningful findings for their broad readership in order to create a comprehensive brand experience. This is given with Hornbach’s billboards, since Germany is Europe’s foremost DIY nation with the biggest per capita spending on building materials by far.* Whatever the reason is, the maker mindset of the German post-war generation makes the insights into Hornbach’s business a matter of general interest – albeit primarily for a male audience, of course.

Goal

All poster ads should not be created equal. A billboard next to a highway has an entirely different attention span than one at a place where people spend minutes waiting for someone or something. As the Hornbach case shows, context and location should have a remarkable impact on the complexity of information. Until now only very few brands consider this and contextually adapt their content within one medium to its various, but unique locations.

The placard installation takes advantage of the setting and phase of waiting to lure people into reading information they usually would not search for by themselves. Hornbach’s introductive questions aren’t some preying on people’s minds – but time and space is right and so they embrace this informative just as entertaining offer to bridge their given time on the platform.

* – Average spendings per capita in European building centres:
1. Germany: € 1,072 — 2. France: € 694 — 3. Portugal: € 412
[Source: Finanzkat.de]

Overview

+ taking advantage of available time in moment of waiting
+ giving brands an exceptionally huge attention span
+ can be entertaining and informative for readership
! demand of relevant stories for broad audience
! appropriate length of text and adequate type size