Brand
experience
Your brand leads a lot of lives—perhaps more than you think. Of course there is your product, which your existing customers know, love, and have expectations for. Then there is your brand: the name, logo, colors, story, and tonality that people associate with you and your product. But beyond that exists a third dimension: the Brand Experience.
What is a “Brand Experience”?
Your Brand Experience is made of every touchpoint that people interact with your brand, both internally and externally. From your website, to your socials, ads, content, Powerpoint presentations, official documents, PR & news stories, listings on recruiting sites, even email signatures or profile pictures of your employees.
This also means in the physical world: business cards, trade show presence, merchandise, the signage on your office, official letterheads, and beyond. Every one of these touch points can be a valuable way to give your brand some distinction so long as you utilize them correctly. That’s where we can help.
As we see it, a Brand is more than the sum of its parts. A brand doesn't just live on a website with a description of its services. A brand lives in the interactions between it and people: customers, employees, competitors, and the world at large. When we work with you to sculpt your Brand Experience, we develop a more holistic understanding of your brand that helps make it a joy for everyone.
Together we’ll figure out how your customers discover and interact with your brand, and determine how to make every one of those experiences as pleasurably memorable for them as possible. What these touch points are vary greatly from business to business, brand to brand, so we will work closely with you to figure out exactly what those are. We also work with your internal team: figuring out how to bring the story and vision of your brand alive for the people who will be making it possible, your employees.
How does CRU Craft Brand Experiences?
We begin, as with all CRU projects, with Brand Strategy: in this case, identifying the channels that your customers would have contact with your brand. This means all digital means: websites, social media, press, advertisements, but also physical ones: trade fairs, OOH, word of mouth, and beyond. This way, if we worked on a rebranding project together we can see where we need to roll out the brand and how. Sometimes this means helping you restructure your website so that information flows according to your new Brand Story or Strategy.
But other times this means crafting a unique experience for your website that explains your product in a more interactive manner. We look at what your customers need, and work with you to create something that speaks directly to them, meeting them where they need to be met, online or in person.But perhaps the most important place where your brand lives is with your team itself.
Because even the most passionate, motivated founder is just one person who is telling your story and creating the experience of your brand. But multiply that by ten, or one hundred people who are able to bring that same enthusiasm and consistent messaging? It’s a powerful thing. Business cards, apparel, merch, your in-office decoration & branding all help create a palpable team feeling that ensures everybody understands exactly who you are.
The CRU Network & Beyond
CRU can help you craft and define what your Brand Experience could look like and work with you to create a roadmap on how to accomplish it, but we also cannot do everything (though we certainly try). If your Brand Experience requires a film, or a full ad campaign, or perhaps even an architect, or an event planner: we have an extensive network of creatives both internationally and within Berlin that we can connect you with. As your creative consultants who intimately know your brand we can create concepts that can be executed by our partners, or help your team create briefs that are more impactful and help you meet your creative and strategic goals.
Website
Our in-house design team can work together with our seasoned developer partners to create impactful websites big and small on any major CMS of your choice (though Webflow is preferred).
Templates
From pitch presentations, to letterheads, flyers, social media assets, and more, we can design easy to use and customizable templates for any collateral that you may need. We work with you to ensure that your team can use them consistently with the tools you already have.
Office Branding
We can help with in-office wayfinding and interior design choices that are in line with your visual identity, making the place you work the perfect representation of your brand, letting clients and colleagues alike interact with it in the real world.
Merch
Shirts, hoodies, lanyards, totes, or whatever you need, we can design and advise on the printing and manufacture of it and make it a physical touchpoint for your brand that you can actually touch and interact with.
OOH/Promotional
Whether creating out of home experiences and ads or promotional roll ups or banners for trade fairs, we can design and deliver powerful branded items that help get your message across.
FAQ
How long does a Brand Experience Project take?
This depends on the scope of the project and what Brand Experience services you want to explore. We can discuss what you need and figure out a timeline that works best for you.
Can I hire CRU to only work on our Brand Experience?
In order to achieve the most effective results we need to also have some strategy and brand work to utilize. If you are very prepared in both departments and think we can offer you our skills and expertise then we can also talk about how we can help. Otherwise, we would need to do some strategy and branding work together.
Can you just be our Brand Experience Consultants?
Sometimes clients just need a consultant to oversee some projects that are in progress, or help bridge the gap to get something off the ground. We can offer our creative or strategic consultation and connections to help you out.
Do you work project based or retainer?
We prefer project based but we can also work on limited retainers, depending on the specific needs of the project.
What else can you do?
We’re always surprised about what tasks our clients can come up with and love a new challenge so we can think creatively together and do whatever it takes to bring your brand to life.
You have a glimpse about us and how we like to work and consult. In the end every business and situation is different. So tell us about yours.
