FOR BRANDS
The Headlines
Many creatives agreed that as frustrating and changeable as the constraints brought by COVID have been, they have pushed us to develop in directions which have been on the table and in many cases desirable for a while.
For example, designing experiences in which people feel physically safe became uppermost in our minds, as did the different experiences different people have had and will continue to have as COVID shapes and reshapes our societies. This provides us with an opportunity to consider the physiological experiences of safety in designed experiences overall - leading us to everything which underpins them, including values systems and ideologies - and how the way these considerations are or are not addressed will directly reflect who will engage and who by extension will engage with your brand.
A big contribution to these conversations came from exploring the shift that many brands are making to thinking about the people who engage with them not as consumers but as citizens. There are clear benefits to brands of having an activated group of engaged citizens supporting their goals. Achieving this has everything to do with setting up the right dynamics - situating your audience in an active relationship to your brand and your goals and providing space for them to bring something of themselves to the table. Experience design has a powerful role to play in this if we can shift to thinking about this practice as facilitating interactions as opposed to designing complete and directed experiences.
At the most empowering end of the spectrum, where there is potential for your audience to bring their individual, open ended creativity to their engagement with your brand, you leave space for the experience itself to be two way engagement - part of the relationship building on a deeper level.
To be able to work in this way we need our processes but also the culture of how we work to prioritise collaboration; between client, design team and audience.
Download the full report to read the group’s insights into:
The status of touch
No touch digital integration
Social impact
Co-creation
Building community and who benefits
When interaction doesn't happen
Collaboration between client, creative and audience
Fit for purpose design processes
New ways of networking