Brand Innovation and Weathering Uncertainty
How is COVID-19 impacting brand experiences for businesses who rely on in-person interaction? We take a look at how several Austin-based businesses are expertly extending their brands into customers’ homes.
A business’s brand isn’t simply their logo, a list of core values, or their design system. Brands are living, evolving, and exist across — and within — every part of a business’s operating ecosystem. The best brands are emotional, not transactional, and they create value beyond measurable data points. This is where the experiential value of a brand lives.
As a brand and experience design agency, we at Handsome care deeply about how people interact with businesses, and how design plays an important part in fostering relationships between companies and people. In our work, we approach building brands holistically to ensure relationships with customers are strong and sustainable.
Whether we’re on the road traveling or enjoying one of our favorite local restaurants, many of us are drawn to support and frequent businesses whose in-person experiences reflect their brands perfectly and unforgettably. COVID-19 has forced all businesses to put a pause on in-person experiences. For hospitality and brick-and-mortar-dependant businesses, there’s perhaps never been a more immediate need to adapt and thoughtfully extend their brands into the digital world.
Several of our favorite Austin-based businesses — each having a magical brand quality you feel when experiencing them in person — have stepped up to the challenge with all-new, in-home customer experiences. But these aren’t just examples of adaptation for weathering a storm, they’re emblematic of businesses who consider their own brands and customers’ experiences holistically and authentically.
Experiencing America’s Best Movie Theater From Your Living Room
Tim League, Alamo’s founder and CEO, is a board game enthusiast, a prolific collector, and an enchanting storyteller. If you get a chance to meet him or hear him speak, he’s someone you immediately know is cool…and you’ll try to figure out a not-too-embarrassing way to ask him to be your new best friend. Alamo’s brand starts with Tim — not just because he founded Alamo, but because there’s a direct line connecting Tim’s passion for film, his authenticity, and his slightly off-script brashness to Alamo’s brand DNA.
Alamo’s brand has always extended beyond their screening rooms — off-site special events, website, app, themed menus, you name it, Alamo has probably done it (or will)— it isn’t a surprise that they’ve been able to create a uniquely-Alamo at-home experience for their dedicated fans.
After announcing the closure of their theaters, Alamo launched Alamo at Home seemingly overnight, letting their customers not just watch movies on demand, but keeping weekly screening traditions like Terror Tuesdays and Weird Wednesdays alive.
But the Alamo experience isn’t solely about watching movies. Food and the communities they bring together are just as important to Alamo’s brand promise, as highlighted by the recipes of menu favorites that they’ve made available online, and, most recently, the launch of Alamo Curbside, which offers food and bar menu items, in addition to other household staples.
It’s Not Delivery, It’s DIY Fine Dining
“What is this place? An art gallery? A tech start-up? I’m standing outside a mysterious new building in downtown Austin’s Warehouse District, its exterior veneered in black steel plate and glass bricks.”
If the first few lines of Patricia Sharpe’s review of Comedor for Texas Monthly are any indication, from the moment you arrive at Comedor any preconceived expectations are sent into a tailspin. It’s “easy” to hide a mediocre menu within an overly-designed space, but the trio of Texas chefs who started Comedor have serious kitchen experience — Uchi and Noma, to name drop just two very important kitchens — and have created a deeply personal interior Mexican style of their own that’s perfectly at home within their Olson Kundig-designed restaurant.
It’s important to start any discussion about Comedor there, because Comedor can’t be reduced to the food they serve. While delivery and curbside pickup have been essential for keeping many restaurants open through COVID-19, food delivery isn’t usually an intentional brand experience, and restaurants like Comedor can’t simply turn to Favor to stay true to their brand’s promise.
Chef and owner, Philip Speer, knew “[They] needed to pivot and create a new business for this to work,” so rather than standard online ordering, Comedor partnered with a new venture, Assembly Kitchen, to sell dinner kit versions of menu favorites. Each kit comes beautifully boxed with ingredients pre-prepped and individually packaged, and includes paired instructional videos, giving diners an opportunity to cook their dinners at home with Speer helping along the way.
A bone marrow taco kit you make at home will never result in the same bone marrow tacos you order sitting inside Comedor’s dining room, but that’s OK. It’s not meant to be the same experience. Comedor’s dinner kits are perhaps the very best example of in-home fine dining, because they connect you with their food in a deeply intentional way, through an experience you could never have inside a restaurant.
Brands Won’t Be Different, They’ll Be Stronger
Many other businesses we admire and support have created natural extensions of their brands, and in some cases have used this time to expand their customer bases beyond Austin. Antonelli’s Cheese Shop, the heart of Austin’s cheese scene for many, has recently opened up online cheesemonger appointments and cheese classes that were previously reserved to in-store appointments only (and they’d always sell out quickly). For those who value fitness as an important part of staying healthy and, more importatly, sane, East Austin Athletic Club, Flow Pilates, and Black Swan Yoga are a few who’ve brought the excitement and energy of studio classes online and to homes around the country.
An unfortunate reality is that many businesses whose brands depend on in-person experiences are being hit hardest, and temporary closures might end up becoming permanent. Business is tough. Crises and disruptions always happen, and even though things are starting to feel like this is our new normal, the brands we’ve looked at and how they’re responding to COVID-19 should also be considered as natural extensions of businesses in an increasingly digital world. “Things won’t change as much as they will accelerate,” Scott Galloway recently wrote, in response to what the world will look like after all this. “COVID-19 is just making the future happen faster.”
While brand adaptation during COVID-19 is a forced hand, holistically-considered and uniquely on-brand extensions are how businesses should approach innovation. If you’ve come across a business who has met uncertainty by strengthening their brand promise let us know — we’d love to start a discussion that might inspire all businesses to take a moment to consider their own brands, and how they’re evolving and innovating during these challenging times.
