What Can I Do for You?

Wondering what I can do for you? I've listed a few ways here, so please e-mail me or give me a call if you'd like to see how I can help you achieve your business objectives. Remember, all of my talk about compelling, authentic and relevant experiences is about making your business better. Today, incremental changes may keep you from going out of business, but to thrive, you need to deliver a better experience then everyone else.

One of my specialties is the exploration of where place meets social media. I call it the socialization of place. As companies explore the power of social media, they're forgetting about the power of place. While it's important to use the SM tools available to us today, it's equally important to remember that each & every day, people go to places. Just look at what happened when Circuit City forgot about the importance of place. In less then a year, they were closing all of their stores. (You can view more of my thoughts on this topic at Polinchock's Ponderings: Socialization of Place.)

With products becoming commodities and customer service at an all time low, creating a complete Customer Relationship Experience™ will become the only path to success. Think about it, what separates many products today? Usually it's the price. And as companies lower their prices simply to compete on a pricing basis, everything else is bound to suffer. Companies today need to look at their total business model and see where the customer experience really comes into play.

With my unique background in both brand experiences and new technologies, I can help determine the best way to help you tell your brand story, both on- and off-line. In addition, I have an extensive depth of creative resources, from designers to promotion experts, to architects and interactive experts, to bring a diverse thought base to my projects.

Here's how I can help you create compelling, authentic & relevant experiences that drive your business:

1. Emerging Technology/Trends Consulting and Research. Want to learn more about a specific technology, like augmented reality? Need to look for strategic use for emerging technologies and how they can better deliver your brand story? It's not enough to just know what's out there, knowing how to use it is critical to doing it right. I've been exploring emerging technology for almost 20 years and continue to explore the cutting edge. My contacts at universities and research labs around the world continue to keep me up-to-date.
2. Ideation sessions If you want to explore the creative possibilities of brand experiences, bring me in to facilitate a customized charrette for your brand. The charrette is an intense, collaborative process, utilizing a unique, interdisciplinary team comprised of designers, architects, marketing & retail experts, futurists and storytellers. It embraces the collective visioning necessary to understand how compelling brand design, narrative and experience build the foundation for ongoing, consistent value delivery. BTW, for you history buffs, the 19th century French term "charrette" means "cart" and was used to describe the final, intense work effort expended by art and architecture students to meet a project deadline.
3. Brand storytelling. I'm often surprised at how many marketing people don't know their own brand story. And when I do workshops with 10 people in the room, I'll usually get 5 or 6 different stories. If I asked you to write down your brand story in 10 words, could you? In a world of undifferentiated products, you need a great story to create a great brand experience.
4. Experience Walk-Abouts. Curated walking tour of the best retail brands in NYC. Custom Walk-Abouts can be developed for other cities. Understand what is (and isn’t) effective in terms of brand experience design at the point of retail – technologies, services, operations, packaging, design, display, merchandising, sales, MarComms, etc. Stay ahead of the curve and learn about catalytic trends such as “socialization of public spaces”, “e-tailing within retailing” and “store-in-store co-branding”, etc.
5. Experience Audits. Everyone talks about their brand and what their brand stands for, but are you auditing how you deliver on that message? Companies audit their financial records - but they rarely audit their brand experiences. The Experience Audit allows companies to gain insight into the collective experiences of the brand and delivers real and immediate value that is actionable by:
   • Analyzing the detailed set of sensory, physical and emotional experiences that are your brand.
   • Deconstructing the real, imagined, attitudinal, perceptual and cognitive elements at every brand touch-point to provide a comprehensive understanding of core experience assets and liabilities.
   • Providing a window into understanding how experience design will define and deliver a brand's sustainable competitive advantage, presently and in the future.
   • The final Audit Report will be used to develop the Experience Platform. This platform can be implemented immediately by addressing liabilities, and also creates a long term strategic plan to generate continued brand equity.
   In addition, the Experience Audit:
   • Meets short term and longer term company/brand expectations.
   • Links your Brand Experiences to extraordinary growth opportunities.
   • Uses emotion and attitude (sense, feel, think,relate and act) as the foundation of the process.
   • Has leaders in their fields using proven time-tested disciplines to give you insight and answers.

These are some starting points, please e-mail me or give me a call to explore these or other ways I can help you. I'd be happy to discuss ways that I can help you better engage your customers.