When photographing your lunch is becoming a trend, and maybe a much-abuse practice, your customers have now the power to promote your brand through a variety of hashtags, #foodies #foodgasm or #yummy, their imagination is limitless and the audience too. As an example, « food porn », identified more than 25 million times on twitter 54 million on Instagram, is an increasing tendency referring to the action, for a « foodie » (food enthusiast), of photographing his meal and sharing it with friends, fans and follower on social network.
It represents a real marketing opportunity by offering a smart thought global experience to your client. How to develop and nourish it ?
When it’s done right it can be glorious but a good pastry is not enough to make your customers share the experience your company offer. You need to develop authenticity and originality (your visual identity) , a special atmosphere (interior design), a cute packaging (graphic design) and a smart social network use (web design/communication). By according those four steps, you stimulate your customers senses and you make them want to identify and share that experience.
We use to say we are what we eat, now it seems that we are what we post, exposing what we eat, a brand, a store, or any places offering an experience, is a way to stage and to describe our selves. This trend is amplified by Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest (in which picture is dominant) and by the apparition of new and more performing technologies. Some applications propose special setup for photography, allowing more vibrant, colorful and detailed pictures.
Wether the photography exposes a delightful pastry, or your hand holding that expensive bespoke perfume, today, visual pleasure is as important as the taste pleasure it self. It becomes almost physical and stimulating, creating desire and fascination. Like in pornography, the excitation comes from the image. The more a picture stimulates senses, the more it is liked and shared on social network.
Visual Identity
{ Value & authenticity }
Buly - perfumes and scented vinegars - Paris
This primary step set the tone. Create a logo, choose the typography and the colors, define the message you want to embodying.
In this example, La Maison Buly, originally founded in 1787 and resurrected in 2014, is an atypical project both routed in French tradition and fully innovator, between secular rituals of beauty and new perfumery technologies. Thus there gray logo inspire elegance and tradition by its engraved aspect and sinuous lines. Natural beauty is turned into a concept, they use vintage engraved icons, botanical antic drawings. Traditional secrets are delivered by a qualified staff, in a kind of luxurious pharmacy style. To that has been added product range with a outdated packaging but terribly chic! It makes you feel a high-level of requirement.
Nothing is left to chance, from the flask to the stopper and the label, everything follow a guideline properly thought and designed in advance.
Interior Design
{ Atmosphere }
Maman NYC - Bakery & Coffee shop - New York
Last month we went through an article called NYC’s 10 most Instagrammable restaurants, rating restaurants that are the most posted on Instagram. It is interesting to analyze, all of the 10 restaurants are small concepts, affordable and based on a simple and authentic aesthetic. The ingredient are colorful, varied and inspire health and nature or authentic home cooked flavors.
One of the restaurant was opened last October and is name is published 1,272 times on Instagram.
The feeling of authenticity and home cooked flavors was extent to the Design of restaurant, through a perfect mixed of vintage and antique furniture and some design objects. We particularly appreciate the poetic design of the dishes used.
It is a perfect example of a global experience to which customers are very responsive, finding values they are willing to adhere and share.
Graphic Design
{ Packaging }
Mast Brother - Chocolate Makers - Brooklyn, London
Show your customers that every detail mater.
Beyond the visual aspect, there is tactile impact provide by the paper used or the embossment of it. Some customers buy a product just for the packaging, others may keep their coffee cup and use it as a pencil holder or just a pretty souvenir.
Mast Brothers, the New York based Chocolate maker, was founded in 2007 with an obsessive attention to detail meticulous craftsmanship, groundbreaking innovation, and inspirational simplicity.
Inspiring chocolate packaging - if the inside is definitely seducing, the outside is even more ! The two brothers have understood the interest of a beautiful packaging: on theirs, cashmere patterns, stripes, anchors, cubes… well, everything which is fashionable.
The sophistication of their wrapping paper is so successful that a book gathering all of them was edited.
Social Network
{ Smart Social Network }
Cire Trudon - 17th century Candlemaker - Paris
Extend the experience online, you website is a virtual windows to promote your business.
Founded in 1643 under the reign of Louis XIV, Cire Trudon is the world’s oldest candle maker operating. Their website is a good illustration of website concept, in addition to basic informations, share your story, know-how, news, articles and events.
They include enough content so the customer feels that the company is not only interested in the act of buying, but is also concerned about art, culture, events or anything else. It’s a way to generate topics on social networks (which redirect on your website), drawing people's attention and getting new followers.
In Cire Trudon case, the design of their website is smartly thought to link the their brand's story to the present, mixing old prints, patterns and typography with modern photographies, illustrations and drawings.
If possible, hire a professional Graphic Designers or Art Director, an Interior Designer to enhance your company’s values, establish a precise and original visual identity which match with your motto (leitmotiv). It’s a delicate work in which colors, lines, pictures, proportions need to be perfectly balanced to catch your client attention, always remember that first impression count.
From case to case, that work needs to be extended into an Interior Design process to transform your brand in an attractive experience which people want to share.
Keep in touch and get new customers by developing and sharing an artistic, cultural or educating dimension through a magazine, events or simply a blog. The content needs to be brief and effective to interest a large audience.
Whatever your company has been founded in Paris one century ago, or in New-York last year, you always have a story, an approach and a know-how to share. Build a brand.