Trait 3: Attentive
ENVIRONMENTS FOR TRANSFORMATION
With cases such as Instagram launching a dedicated ‘Wellbeing Team’ aimed at countering the anxiety and depression their platform fosters, we are seeing an increasing shift in the level of attentiveness demanded of brands.
Brands are being held accountable for the effects of their products and services - and quite rightly so. Just as with our friends and loved ones we are looking to brands to show us they care. That they have our (best?) interests at heart.
As a result, new spaces and concepts are evolving, shaping a future direction for experiential, built on well-crafted thoughtfulness. Brands are branching out to add a wealth of attentive offerings to their bow. The message being:
Whatever we do, we also help YOU take care of you.
Resetting mind and body
With movements going viral such as #selfcare, we’re seeing individuals looking for radical ways to re-boot both mind and body. The environments we operate within are responding by working hard at supporting us in taking ‘better’ care of ourselves.
In the workplace
The previously mentioned examples of Biophilic design in the workplace (Trait 02) are proof that our working environments are ones that need to change with the most urgency as we spend so much (sometimes highly pressured) time in them.
UNStudio, in collaboration with social design agency Scape are exploring placing ‘reset pods’ within the workplace. Building on the premise that the workplace is a highly influential environment on our day-to-day wellbeing, the team have gone about re-envisioning the break-out pods we’ve seen in offices for the last 10 years. They’ve challenged their nature and pushed their functionality, designing them more responsively to the range of our emotions and needs. Reset pods are a series of small spaces offering stress-reducing activities that can be installed within any environment. The key is their varying nature. Some are more passive ie: offering yoga or contemplative interactions with a light installation, whilst others are more active ie: offering drumming or dancing. The pods also feature biosensors to scan the brain and offer users insights about how their state responds to the activities. A powerful example of sensory simulation in human-centric design.
In experiential retail
In direct opposition to the attention-grabbing bombardment of content we’ve experienced these last years, brands are increasingly aspiring to quieten their tone and deepen their relevance. It’s no longer about distracting with wow-factor instant gratification, but attracting with thoughtful and more introspective moments.
Following on from having the most instagrammed installation at Milan Design Week last year, global fashion label COS consciously shifted to the other end of the scale and crafted an experience aiming to bypass the instagram moment. Loop, a marble run installation located at the Gana Art Center in Seoul, encouraged visitors to be calm and contemplative. The focus moved away from capturing or sharing the moment, and instead invited visitors to simply be in the moment. This year in Milan, COS created yet another escape; a circular, mirrored installation reflecting the open sky, giving the public a counter experience to the hectic feel of the design fair. The artist behind, Phillip K Smith III, explains: “So that you can sit on the steps, maybe for ten minutes, maybe for an hour, and just watch the sky. When is the last time that you did that?”
The list of experiential settings created by COS is growing, and brings to fruition the brand’s love for simple, playful and considered solutions. Regularly partnering with pioneers in the world of art and design is an effective tool for the brand to be seen as doing ‘better’ by crafting moments of exploration, contemplation and reflection.
Wellbeing Connoisseurs
Even the connoisseurs of health are developing innovative ways of affecting our physical and emotional states through their services. Many fitness spots are drawing from the transformation economy to revisit the shape of their environments, and their offerings.
Pushing boundaries with new techniques
Multisensory yoga studio ChromaYoga, combines their yoga classes with light and colour therapy techniques, brain-stimulating soundscapes and bespoke natural aromatherapy. The purposefully designed sequences are grounded in the latest scientific research - creating a powerful immersive experience…
… which transforms as it moves through the colours of the spectrum (chromayoga.co.uk)
Tech as a helping hand
Tech is being used cleverly by London dance & fitness studio Frame. A recent add-on to their class-selection filters goes beyond the realm of the functional (what location are you near? What type of class are you after?) and becomes a helping-hand in the selection process, by actually asking you how you feel.
Ensuring you’ve checked in with yourself with what state you’re in (with options like ‘Moody AF’ or ‘Giddy’) it then suggests a list of the most relevant classes. A bit of friendly tech. customising the experience by enabling a two-way dialogue, making the process responsive (more on this in Trait 01) - and the offering on-point.
Shaping fitness retail into a community
Our cities are becoming saturated with multi-functional environments; fusing an array of offerings under one roof, from retail to relaxation - and beyond.
An interesting angle within this is the sense of destination these environments can foster. They become gathering spaces with the potential of creating a powerful sense of community.
Cycling brand Rapha has done a stellar job of congregating cycling aficionados online (through their stories, films, culture pieces, organised rides, tips on travel, etc) but they’ve understood they need to have physical presences around the globe to augment the value of this growing network. By making it tangible and real it becomes lived, and therefore more meaningful.
Rapha Clubhouses, as their stores are branded, are dotted around big cities worldwide offering visitors (who may or may not be consumers) a gathering space with a café and spaces showcasing a program of curated content and events around the Cycling culture, history and lifestyle. There they can also find out about rides and other ‘off-site’ events. The Clubhouses have more recently taken on a mobile form (a Rapha van) following the community on their adventures around the world, giving them an anchor point even when on the road.
Alongside the smart marketing story behind all this, the model of ‘retail as a Club House’ gives back. It encourages a sense of community, and by default augments opportunities of belonging - a key factor in mental and emotional health.
Revisiting existing offerings
As most brick and mortar retail, pharmacies are having to reconsider what they do and how they do it. New York Pharmacy Medly has radically revamped their service — looking at their offering as one holistic experience (from the design of their store, to the digital UX and delivery services), very much centering each stage of interaction around the needs and wellbeing of their customers.
Creating new offerings
Ingenious offerings for physical and mental reboots are implanting themselves within the concrete jungle as longed-for oases of restoration.
Innovative not so much in it’s shape as in it’s nature, Anatomē taps into the growing interest in services around our physical and mental health. Beyond the expected blend of juice bar and yoga classes the key to Anatomē’s success is it’s timely approach to ‘nutritional and emotional balance’.
The impressive apothecary bar offers a vast selection of ‘essential oil elixirs’: scientifically researched oil blends with mood-altering properties, devised specifically to support us manage modern day stresses. Their in-house range of supplements can be coupled with consultations with practitioners, helping customers identify the causes of the issues, and therefore be more effective in remedying them.
Hybrid Offerings
Playing on the unexpected (more on this in the upcoming Trait 04: Imperfect), brands are encouraging self-care all around. The further removed from the initial brand offering the better; using that contrast to heighten the effect and demonstrate versatility.
In Hospitality
Hospitality spots normally known for their decadent cocktails and naughty nights out are re-balancing their act by hosting collabs with fitness brands - cleverly proving they can provide hedonism and health.
The Boundary (hotel, bar and restaurant) has teamed up with fitness studio Frame to concoct a ‘wellbeing weekend’: an urban retreat, inviting you to have fun, indulge whilst exercising and taking care of yourself. The ambition is to break the mould of retreats necessarily happening beyond the hustle and bustle of cities, and to stake their claim in the urban turff.
Other hotels such as Nimb in Denmark are offering similar retreats where beauty, nutrition as well as physical and mental health are catered for though workshops, treatments and more.
It’s not only a four day stay - it’s four days of transformation (nimb.dk)
In Events
Innovative interpretations of these shifts have taken root in the event space.
A great example is the Spa of Unconscious Desires by Bompas & Parr, hosted during the London Design Festival. This conceptual happening inside the Tom Dixon designed Mondrian Hotel, hosted a series of unconventional healing rituals. The 5 ‘treatments’ proposed challenged pre-conceptions as they immersed guests into an alternative interpretation of beauty and relaxation. Flipping the perception of what a spa is all about, this curated experience aimed to probe guests by pushing boundaries of comfort and disgust.
Not maybe so much directly about attentiveness, but definitely thought-provoking… and entertaining!
American Express have also teamed-up with up Frame (yes, these guys are prolific to say the least) to host Power Up, a series of immersive experiences over two days in a public square in the City of London. The fitness, relaxation and dance activations take visitors through a Japanese Forest for restoration, a Neon Jungle to energise and a Power-up Zone to boost power…
…preparing visitors to “own the day - or night” (moveyourframe.com)
Under the #AmexLife banner, this brings to life their latest brand platform promoting ‘Powerful Backing’. Using a tangible environment and physical actives to enact the message that Amex has your back.
Our thing is helping you do your thing (americanexpress.com)
In Cultural Institutions
A surprising coming together is New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, with choreographers / dancers Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass to create an intensive exercise workout in The Met’s galleries. Part gallery tour, part dance performance, part workout; it’s a combination made to invigorate and inspire.
A more extreme example is The Palais de Tokyo’s ‘Visite Naturiste’ a guided exhibition tour to be done naked! The aim is to leave clothes at the door, and with them the shackles of our conditioned existence, supposedly enabling us to experience the art with a more open mind, and therefore engage with it on a deeper level.
Evidently not for everyone this one… but it could be very freeing - so kudos to those who dare to go bare!
Summary
In this time of scepticism and disenchantment towards commercial motivations, brands are making moves towards offering some serious TLC. Whether giving us time to focus on ourselves, feeding our minds, inviting us to escape - or simply getting some momentary RnR - this shift is about brands ‘humanising’ by demonstrating they’ve got our backs.
Branded environments are responding across the board - from retail, hospitality, health, fitness, culture, and way beyond - offering new spaces and concepts, drawing from the transformation economy to support us in taking ‘better’ care of ourselves.
