The brand experiences designed for everyone… except those in the room

The experience economy is booming and brands are investing more than ever in pop-ups, takeovers and immersive environments.

There's a real and growing appetite for physical spaces that create atmosphere and provoke emotion in a way that the online world just can’t.

Yet, for all that investment, a surprising number of brand experiences feel oddly flat. 

They can look incredibly impressive and photograph beautifully, but when you are actually standing inside them, something doesn’t quite land.

Over the past 17 years, I have seen a definite shift in what brands expect from physical spaces. We are now designing for multiple audiences at once - the visitor, their followers, the brand team, the photographer, the wider social feed, and the internal stakeholders too.

This can translate to spaces that are visually busy but emotionally thin.

Installations that are packed with features often lack a clear idea or narrative that makes sense to the visitor. Too often, gimmicky interactions are factored in to ramp up interaction, but without any meaningful link to the wider experience.

There is also a tendency to borrow detail from one activation, a mechanic from another, or a format that has proven popular elsewhere. Over time, those references can build into something that feels familiar but incoherent (although they work for the camera).

In real life, people respond best to atmosphere and surprise. 

To create both you need to consider the experience from their point of view. The moments that are the most memorable are the ones that make you feel something, even if you cannot quite explain why.

That means being much more intentional from the beginning. The strongest projects tend to start with a simple question: who is this for, and what do we want them to feel?

That sounds so obvious, but it is often where things begin to drift. When a space is trying to satisfy too many audiences, the core experience can become diluted. Everything is included, but nothing quite lands.

Designing for the person actually makes for a much stronger creative, as it forces better decisions about what stays and what goes. It also makes it easier to distinguish between an idea that deepens the story, and one that is simply filling space. It creates clarity, which creates impact.

Interestingly, the experiences that do this well will most often perform better beyond the room as well, because when something feels considered in real life, people want to share it. The content becomes a byproduct of the experience, not the objective.

Of course we need to design for multiple audiences. That is the reality of how brand experiences are consumed today. But if the person standing inside the space is underwhelmed, it does not matter how good it looks on a screen. The moment has already been lost.

Gemma’s five tips to keep the focus on the people in the room

Define the feeling first

Get clear on what you want people to feel when they walk in. Curiosity, excitement, comfort, surprise. If that is not set early, the experience quickly becomes a collection of features rather than something coherent.

Design the whole journey

Think about how someone moves through the space from first glance to exit. Where they pause, what draws them in, what makes them stay. The strongest experiences work from beginning to end.

Make every interaction earn its place

Only include interactive elements that deepen the idea. If something is there simply to give people something to do, it will feel hollow very quickly. Any activity must lead back to the core idea.

Edit with intent

Resist the urge to include everything. When a space is trying to satisfy too many audiences, it becomes cluttered. Strong experiences are usually the result of careful decisions about what to leave out.

Protect the core idea

As feedback builds, experiences can become overloaded with extra asks, features and compromises. Keep returning to the original idea and the feeling you wanted to create. If a new addition weakens that, it probably does not belong.