The EBCs briefing programs are delivering a much more sophisticated message. It’s all about telling the company story. Today’s customers are more sophisticated and are not as easily impressed. To do their job, briefing programs and briefing facilities must not only impress, they must communicate.

EBCs are effectively communicating their company’s mission and message, so the people who visit them are often treated to a remarkably high level of presentation sophistication. It’s combining that Wow factor with the insight that allows customers to quickly see and understand how they might solve a problem using our products.

In the Silicon Valley, it’s not uncommon for people to fly in from another country and visit 10 or 12 different briefing centers, so companies have to do something to stand out.

To these folks, developing such storybook presentations is their job, and executive briefing centers – a catch-all term for a wide variety of corporate facilities designed for the dual purpose of hosting high-level executive meetings and articulating a company’s vision in often breathtaking architectural splendor – are where those presentations take place.

“Briefing centers are designed and built to support a company’s strategic goals,” explains Frank Boschi, executive director of the Association of Briefing Program Managers (ABPM). “They do that by providing an ideal environment for companies to showcase the best they have to offer, in a highly customized way, to anyone with whom the company has an interest in doing business, be it executives from another company, current clients, potential clients or even dignitaries from other countries.”

In each case, these briefing centers have been designed and built to embody and communicate the spirit of the company itself, while still functioning as an effective sales and marketing tool. Striking this delicate balance of vision and practicality is not an easy task, however, particularly if the company building the center doesn’t have a specific vision of how its corporate vision should look in brick and mortar.

In 1956, Pantone print shop had not yet come up with its signature color system.  The company was $50,000 in debt when Lawrence Herbert came aboard.  Herbert not only pulled the company out of debt, he catapulted the business into the multi-million dollar corporation it is today (in 2007, the company sold for $180,000,000).

Herbert rolled out the standardized color system in 1963, and in doing so, forever changed the industry.  Companies and organization marketers striving for a cohesive, consistent marketing campaign immediately picked up on the need to establish set Pantone colors for their materials.  The system is still in use today.

In addition to helping other companies and organizations with their marketing by providing a structure for consistency, Pantone was also excellent at marketing itself.

The company presents a Color of the Year – a color they deem needed or represented by a given year.  Consider the color mimosa, named for mimosa flowers.  This color was made popular in 2008, and has remained in the eye of the public ever since – at least, as much as any one color ever is.

For more information, see the related articles by Wikipedia and E-How.

Here’s a brief article on the color Mimosa. 

Most of us understand ‘consistency in branding’ as content cohesiveness in the areas of voice, subject matter, and perspective.  We take for granted the ability to generate a logo the same way, by any number of different producers – and it was not always so.  Pantone has been alive and successful before and after digital technology breakthroughs.  Clearly, Herbert is a visionary.  And last we checked, he was still head of the company, thriving away.

May we all be so lucky to prosper in our creative ventures!

Between mobile marketing, social media, tastings, email marketing, packaging, branding, and POS displays, a full marketing campaign for wineries is detailed – but not impossible.

WineBusiness.com discusses the plight of small wineries: To get help or fold to the larger entities.  We recommend getting help and thriving right where you are.

Our Wine Industry packages include a website (from scratch or redux), email marketing, social media, branding, portable displays, POS displays, and more.

Click here to see our Wine Industry Portfolio.

Whether you’ve been in business for ten minutes or twenty years, we’re here to help you compete and succeed in an overloaded market.  You take care of the delicious, quality wine, and we’ll get customers looking your way.

Happy harvesting!

Related blog posts:

Wine Industry Tastings and Events

Mobile Marketing

Elements of an Excellent Website

Consumers want quick entry to their sites of interest, with fast load times and an easy, fun interface.  Many won’t spend time on sites that load slowly or are hard to decipher.  With so much variety available, there’s no reason to slog through a difficult site or article.

Here are HubSpot’s Top 8 Things to Know about Mobile Marketing.

Regarding social media, HubSpot reports: “Blue Fountain Media found that Americans spend one of every six minutes online using a social network, offering marketers a tremendous opportunity to increase their exposure time through mobile social networking.”

Our cultural emphasis is, increasingly, on fun.  People buy cars to feel light and free, wear clothes to feel stylish or sexy, buy food to be healthy or slim, and play on social media for the sheer joy of it.  This is a huge opportunity for marketers – simply make it fun for people to interact with your business, give them valuable information or inspiration in the process, and up go the profits.

The Exhibitor offers a free e-book on companies’ use of social media, including resistance to implementing social media and desired outcomes.

Here’s what they report: 2/3 of all companies in the U.S. use social media for marketing in some capacity.  Of those who do not, the top reasons given are lack of time to implement a program, and lack of knowledge for how to do it.  These two resistance reasons are related – understanding social media and how to yield great results pushes it up in the priority list, where there is suddenly time for it.

Our advice is: If you’re not yet on the mobile marketing and social media bandwagon, hop on.  There’s help available – you can do-it-yourself with the many free resources available; hire someone to walk you through it; or farm out the work entirely.  Whatever your budget, there is a way for you to join in on the fun.

Here’s some help in that direction.

In this busy age, people do not spend time on confusing, hard-to-read, poorly laid out, or otherwise offensive websites.  A good website has each of the following four areas covered beautifully: navigation; colors; font; content.  We’ll help you avoid common pitfalls and present the site that is your “online waiting room” well.

Navigation

Ideabook.com discusses idea architecture – the structure into which your ideas ought to flow.  If you’re unsure whether your website has intuitive navigation, have a friend or two try it out.  If they are interested in what you do and not yet expert at it, they’ll quickly become frustrated at unintuitive navigation – ask for their feedback and adjust.  Each time you introduce an idea to your reader, there should be a link to guide them easily to the next action item.

Colors

Ideabook.com goes on to explore color palate for a website.  It turns out that some of the top websites in the world – Apple, New York Times, and Yahoo – use extremely basic color schemes.  This allows them to keep the reader focused on content rather than bells and whistles.  For those of us who are not yet giants, some bells and whistles can help get readers’ attention.

Tips:

• Keep content readable, no matter what the design and colors are up to
• The colors should not be too distracting – for instance, if they clash greatly or are too bright, they will make the site unpleasant
• Consider the color scheme of your website to be the upholstery in your showroom – choose colors appropriate for your industry

Font

Use fonts that are welcoming and easy to read.  As DIY Themes reports in its highly useful Nonverbal Website Intelligence e-book, studies show that using difficult fonts gives the impression of a more difficult product or service – not what one generally wants to convey during marketing.  The only exception is specialty products, where one may want the customer to believe a product was difficult to make in order to justify higher prices.  In this way, a difficult-to-read font on imported chocolate can help customers feel better about paying more for it.

Content

Give people enough information to understand what you wish to convey, and reason to ask you for a meeting.  People’s time is valuable!  Say just what needs to be said, and not a character more.

What does this mean for you?  Good things.  Better insulation and design of buildings translates to lower electric bills.  Hybrid cards result in less money spent at the pump, and fewer toxic chemicals in the air.

Even e-readers, which many are sad to see replacing books, save thousands of trees every year (particularly among those who read a great deal) – and that number is only growing.

Here at Krak Design, we’re pleased to showcase some of our favorite developments in Green Design.  Feel free to write us here, or contact us via Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to add your own! 

1)     Solar Powered Roads!  That’s right, we said it.  These roads are made of glass, and harness the sun’s energy while it sits, hour after hour, under the sky.  Did you know that asphalt is made from petroleum?  Gas prices and road prices alike have been skyrocketing.  Scientists predict that unless we find an asphalt-free solution to roads, our highways will go to pot.

2)     A Revolutionary Notebook Computer.  This incredible new development by Yanko Design includes paper-thin top and bottom, and a battery that charges in water. (It makes the iPad look antique.)

For more exciting inspiration, check out this five-minute video A Day Made of Glass.  The world’s best technological minds are meeting with the smartest, most modern designers to produce devices and mediums that make life more efficient, streamlined, and environmentally friendly. 

From a business point of view, the intersection of values with economy is making environmental movement take hold in a sustainable way.  While we may be too late to stop Global Warming, we are certainly not too late to make changes in how we live – for the better, the kinder, and the more connected.

Today’s young workers have a different approach: Rather than spending years in school, many digital natives are simply learning on the job.  (In today’s Internet-based culture, that isn’t hard to do.)  And even older workers – Gen X – are starting fresh in new careers with relative ease.  These workers expect their work to be engaging, and have little patience for protocols and hierarchy.  The younger people are, the greater their sense of Unlimited New Beginnings.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what Internet culture is all about.  Constant stimulation with the tandem ability to turn it all off.  That’s options for connection at all times, plus ultimate control.  The minds of people who grew up with Internet technology mirror these stimuli.  At any time, one can open a new window (in a browser or in life) and start anew.

What does that mean for the worker?  He or she is accustomed to being in the driver’s seat.  Traditional 9-5 hours (or more, for many professions) are a dying breed.  Young workers have little sense of weekends, enjoy telecommuting, and can work as easily from a café at midnight as from a home desk on Saturday morning.  The sense of adventure and ownership of the vocation practice is astounding.

Because these workers have more flexible boundaries between work and play, in some sense, any moment could be earning money or furthering a career – but the whole point of this freedom is not to work excessively from pure need.  This leads to exploration in the culture of how to make downtime – and all time – more lucrative.

In his bestseller hit The Four Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, digital native businessman Tim Ferriss lays out his foundation for success.

The book is aimed at workers in traditional corporate positions who wish to live differently.  Top points include:

• Finding a way to live and work “digital native style” despite industry expectations, and in rejection of in-person meetings and 9-5 hours
• “Getting to the point” in communication – wasting no time
• Freeing up time for travel and other recreational pursuits
• The joy of telecommuting – and how to make it happen

No matter what your career is, if you feel there is a life you’d rather be living, consider these questions:

• What do you love to do?
• What are you good at?
• What is your ideal life?
• What steps can you take to achieve your ideal life?

Starting with what one sees as possible, and trying to develop from there, may be practical – but will never yield the drastic life changes that many people need and desire.  Instead of looking at what’s possible, first Dream Big.  What is that star you’d like to reach for?  From there, one can make changes to get closer to that goal.

A note to the wise: While Ferriss’s book has a great deal of helpful information for working smarter and working less while earning more money, it does not address the sustainability and activism causes that many of us champion.  Ultimately, true success is closer to your dream life than your least desired one, and allows you to live in harmony with your own values.  There is no book necessary to guide people in this second venture; what feels like the right way to live, probably is.

According to The Exhibitor Magazine, “Less than 40 percent of companies surveyed have ever participated in a virtual event, the majority of which participated as an attendee only, rather than as an exhibitor, sponsor, or organizer.”  Why the slow uptake?  We’re all online anyway, right?

Resistance to virtual tradeshows is similar to resistance to e-book readers.  A few years ago, a common conversation was the value of “holding a real book” and strong stances against such devices.  Nowadays, the average flight contains many passengers perusing through their reading material on Amazon Kindles and other readers.  As of Fall 2010, nearly 1 in 10 people in the U.S. owned an e-book reader.  This number is only increasing.

With every generation since the Industrial Revolution, there are natives (people who grow up in a world with the technology in question, who view it as normal, necessary, and easy to understand), eager adopters (people who did not grow up with the technology, but are excited about it and embrace it fully), and resisters (people who did not grow up with the technology and do not see its value).  Among resisters, some will become reluctant adopters and others will continue to refuse to participate in new technologies.

These various relationships to technology are not specific to the current era, where the issues at hand are virtual tradeshows, e-book readers, and smartphones.  Previous eras had the same debates about radio, television, cars, planes, and more.

Our prediction for the virtual tradeshow?  As people further embrace a world economy and seek to do business with people across continents, virtual tradeshows will be an easy way to showcase products.  It’s also probable that a new, online-first medium will rise up to replace tradeshows altogether.  Either way, marketing is moving in the direction of more online and less in-person.

While many of us value the human connection of face-to-face contact, businesses often see the bottom line and opt for a more streamlined approach.  Knowing that consumers like face-to-face contact for the personalization of experience, some companies (most notably Google and Apple) make their customers’ online experiences as intuitive, simple, and pleasant as possible.

The important pieces of marketing in the digital era are to:

1)     Make use of modern technology. If you don’t, the natives and eager adopters will not take you seriously – and they are the future.

2)     Help people feel cared for. This means great customer service, whether online (do-it-yourself web design service Weebly has a stellar email-based customer service program) or on the phone (T-Mobile consistently receives praise and high rankings for their phone-based customer service).

Good luck, everyone!  As always, if you’d like help with any aspect of marketing, please get in touch.

Here are some fun examples:

Kellogg’s Cereal City USA included (before its shut-down in 2007) a theater that represented visitors onscreen. . . shrinking them to the size of breakfast table salt shaker.

Volkswagen’s Autostadt (opened in 2000 and is still going strong) features a theater with rotating plasma screens and opportunities for kids to design their own cars in 3-D kiosks.

WilTel’s Technology Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma In their own words: “The 52,000-square-foot floor plates are connected to a “solar well” vertical circulation core that improves energy efficiency and provides interaction space on balconies and stairways. The 16-foot floor-to-floor heights and sloping ceilings draw daylighting deep into the core. Fritted glass walls control glare and heat gain while diffusing the natural light.”  One visitor described the experience as similar to “walking into a spaceship.”

Clearly, the point of all this effort and design is to wow big customers.  And in today’s digital era, the expense and attention to this mission is often well-spent.  However, there is at least one way to fail at these centers: by neglecting to clearly define the branding, mission, and goals.

According to Jack Rouse, whose company Jack Rouse Associates has created a number of corporate briefing and visitor centers, including Autostadt, the best presentations come from people who have thoroughly answered the questions “Why are we doing this? Who is it for? What do we really want to say?”  Being clear about mission is vital for successful sales and communication.  With projects this important and expensive, years of preparation are both common and necessary.

Executive briefing centers are the ultimate example of the effect of design on experience.  Customers who walk into a successful center are wowed at the intelligent design, every inch of which is aimed at impressing the consumer with interesting, surprising, educational, entertaining content.  Once again, design determines success.

For those of us on a smaller scale: If you regularly greet clients at your office, consider the design of their experience.  How fluid is the greeting, serving of drinks, seating, lighting, wall fixtures, brand messaging, and any needed props?  Are your emails formatted well, sent in a timely manner, and do they link to smooth social networking campaigns and an easy-to-navigate, informative, aesthetically pleasing website?  Even for those of us without the means or need for a large executive center, thoughtful changes in structure and presentation can make a world of difference in your business.

Psychology Today contends that a clean workspace, free from clutter and extra cords, is optimal.  But many famous authors and artists would disagree.  Elizabeth Moon is one of them: “Put me at a perfectly empty clean desk for just five minutes–a note pad, one pencil, room for my laptop – and soon there’ll be a litter of notes, doodles, and anything loose in the room that I can pile on.  That clean, uncluttered desktop is a distraction for writer-brain…it cries out for something.  And what it needs is – against all engineer-brain logic – a mess.”

Perhaps both perspectives are right.  An artist or worker who wishes to be creative needs a blank slate that they are free to. . . mess up.

Regardless of how it occurs, worker sense of ownership and creativity are central to a business’ success and chance at longevity in this fast-paced world.  Workers who clock in to visit an inspiring setting will find their work personally valuable, enjoyable, and worthwhile in a way that workers who feel confined, stuck, or cluttered by others, never will.

This list of the 100 top companies to work for includes creative technology giant Google and sporting equipment retailer REI.  It’s no coincidence that the same companies that rated high in employee satisfaction are also popular with customers.  The savvy consumer can smell good design, and enjoys the ample flow of activity in a well-designed system and pleasant, competent employees who staff them.

We would like to note that people find a vast variety of settings inspiring.  For a young writer, a small closet of privacy may be perfect.  For a seasoned designer, a light airy studio with assistants nearby may be the best.  The key is to give some thought to where people will be working – and whether it works for them.