Original Experience Makers
How to build Original Experiences for people, brands and businesses
‘If you want to be original, get ready to be copied.’
Coco Chanel circa 1938
To be copied is one of the most flattering things that can happen to any brand and is often a useful measure of success. Being the first has unmeasurable benefits. But how do you get there? How do you create an experience that is truly original? Memorable? Or better, one that you want to share over and over again?
At NewTerritory we make original experiences — and that’s no mistake. We have developed a methodology that enables us to create truly original products, services and experiences for some of the world’s biggest brands and it’s newest start-ups. From category defying hospitality to immersive digital products.
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What is an original experience and why are they so important?
Simply put, an original experience has the ability to drive internal cultural change and in doing so positively affect the relationship your customers have with the brand. Because the experience your people have is directly linked to those of your customers.
When done correctly they have the ability to connect teams, inspire creativity and foster a culture of innovation and problem solving — externally they can skyrocket brand loyalty, generate hype, promote consistency and ultimately build moments that are synonymous with the brand.
Additionally, our approach helps to explore and unpack what effect certain levels of investment will have across the journey. This allows our partners to build the experience with a clear view of how and where to add value within certain commercial realities (where spend really matters). Equally, this methodology allows us to frame how smaller, more discreet moments can come together to deliver a well balanced experience where everything works in concert — ensuring all elements are considered contextually and at the right volume.
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So how do we create them?
At NewTerritory we have been developing a methodology to do just this — so here are some thoughts on how we can create truly unique original experiences for businesses, brands and people.
01 Deep Empathy
In order to make something meaningful we need to consider what people want to achieve (functional requirement) and how they want to feel as they do it (emotional need) — this involves understanding how we can begin to elicit the varied and more nuanced emotions people can feel to create an experience that is compelling, yet authentic.
02 Macro to Micro
Unpacking and understanding the experience from the moment of discovery — how do I become aware? The approach — how do we create anticipation for what’s to come? The threshold — how do I begin to prepare for the experience? And the peak — what is the signature moment that this experience is leading to.
03 The Power of Togetherness
Often original experiences do not exist on their own, they are composite by nature. Composed of multiple people and skill sets, teams, markets, systems and technologies — so should be developed with that in mind. For this we need to foster new ways of working through radical collaboration.
04 Designing Desire
We need to build experiences that touch all the senses, that make people want to reach out and touch, taste, smell, see and feel them. A key part of creating an original experience is that they often comprise of multiple moments that people should remember, lust after and ultimately desire to be a part of.
05 Make it Real
None of the above matters unless you can bring it to life, creating a vision for people to rally around. Making it tangible for internal teams, then connecting that vision to the reality of the OEM’s so that we can make it a reality for our customers.
Throughout a series of articles, podcasts, videos and interviews we aim to dive deeper into these 5 tenets of what we believe makes an original experience, so check back in over the coming weeks to find out more about how we create original experiences for people, brands and businesses.
By James Ravenhall, Creative Director at NewTerritory.
