Update From The New Brand Experience Lab

Vending machines are back en vogue! Marketers from Coca-Cola to Kraft Foods are transforming run-of-the-mill vending machines into brand experience machines. I just attended an event hosted by SapientNitro and got to meet the people behind the Unilever "Share Happy" machine, one of the most innovative brand ideas I've seen this year. These pop-up brand experiences are a trend that I expect to increase for the next few years as marketers start to realize the full potential of creative technology.

In my forthcoming report called "The Pop-Up Brand Experience," I provide advice about how marketers can transform product transactions into brand moments. My report draws inspiration from the recent trend in new-age vending machines that are combining technnologies such as networked computers, facial recognition, and multi-touch displays to innovate how marketers can deliver brand experiences at the moment of purchase.

I'll be back soon to share some more insights on the subject of "brand moments" and "pop-up brand experiences," but for now, I'll leave you with a few quick takeways. Marketers who are on the leading edge of delivering the new brand experience are:

  • Forcing collaboration across multi-disciplinary teams, including technology, creative, marketing, strategy, sales, and service. And it's not just org chart collaboration. It's actual side-by-side, co-located, roll-your-sleeves-up-to-a-whiteboard problem solving.
  • Investing in R&D to test the limits of what's possible when you combine human emotion and advanced technology at the moment of truth.
  • Focusing on the details of execution by mapping out intricate consumer journeys and then deploying all of the brand assets in their arsenal in a synchronized manner to surround consumers with a fully immersed brand experience.