Activationroom
Brand experience agency for every part of meeting your brand
A brand experience is the whole encounter: what people see from across the street, what happens in the queue, what they touch, what they take away and what they post. We design it as one thing, let you see it on its site before a panel is cut, and build it ourselves.
Where it starts
Usually with a brand identity that already exists and a product story that needs telling. We work from your guidelines and make them physical: which materials suit the brand, how its colours behave under real light, and how its type reads at three metres and at thirty.
Every point of contact
People meet a brand experience in order. First the silhouette from a distance, then the entrance, then the first thing they can pick up, then the moment the product is explained, then what they leave with. Each step either pulls them further in or lets them drift off.
We map those steps before designing anything, and decide what each one has to do. The result is an experience with a shape, where the best moment comes at the right time and the queue is part of it. The last step is the one most often forgotten. What someone carries out, or photographs on the way out, is what reaches the people who were not there, so it gets the same attention as the entrance.
A system you can use again
Many brands need the same experience to work in different places: a shopping centre atrium in March, a festival field in July, a department store window in December. Designing each one from scratch costs more and looks less consistent.
So we design a set of parts with rules for putting them together, much as a brand identity has rules for type and colour. The core pieces are made to travel, the graphics are made to swap, and each version is rendered on its site before it is built. Somebody on your team should be able to brief a new venue from one document that says which pieces go where, how much space they need and what power they draw.
Designed and made together
The people who design the experience sit with the people who make it. A designer who can walk over to the joiners and ask whether a curve will hold, or how a panel will survive a hundred people leaning on it, designs better. It also means the render you approve is drawn from the same model the makers cut from.
Our craftspeople work across joinery, metalwork, CNC and finishing, so the pieces people touch get the attention they need.
Between waves
An ongoing activation needs looking after. Between waves, the kit comes back, gets checked and repaired, and is refitted with new graphics or a new product story. Planning that at the design stage keeps each new wave quicker and cheaper than the first, and keeps the experience looking cared for.
About brand experience design
What does a brand experience agency design beyond the physical build?
The order in which people meet the brand, what happens in the queue, how the product is explained, what people can touch and what they leave with. It also covers how the experience looks in photographs, because that is how most people will see it. The build is how all of that becomes real.
Can one brand experience travel to different venues?
Yes, if it is designed as a set of parts from the start. The core pieces pack to travel, graphics swap for each audience, and each layout is planned for the space it is going into. Each site still needs checking for access, power and permissions before the kit arrives.
How is an ongoing brand activation kept fresh between waves?
By planning the refresh at the design stage. The kit comes back after each wave to be checked and repaired, new graphics or product stories are added, and one or two new pieces keep repeat visitors interested. Designing the structure to accept changes makes each wave quicker than the one before.
Send over whatever brief you have, however rough.
The product, the date and any sites you have in mind are enough to start. The first reply will say what is possible in the time and where the budget goes furthest.
info@stillroomcreative.com