Last night, "Black Wednesday", we did our kickoff for Social Flare at the Canoe Club,
a local place here on the southside of Chicago with a Polynesian
theme. I didn't pick it expressly for that reason, though it wasn't
easy convincing people of this. You see, very recently I moved back
from Hawaii, and it's no great secret I miss the place. So when I pick
a place with luau lamps burning outside and where the first word the
hostess greets you with is "Aloha", my motives become suspect.
Of course Jon and I scouted out various locations for our kickoff,
and it just so happens that the place with palm trees, waterfalls and
flowers made all the cuts. It wound up being an amazing evening all
told, in no small part due to the excellent experience the Canoe Club
provided. The food was also art, the service attentive and very
resourceful.
Having just moved back from the real thing, I was interested in how
the Canoe Club put forth it's "brand", it's version of what Polynesia
is like and what is required to recreate the experience. It's a bit
like visiting at the Polynesian at Disney World,
which I've also had the pleasure of doing. Both places are not terribly
accurate in an anthropological sense, but they do is communicate the
brand very well. When taking it all in, it's not so much what should be there, but rather what you'd expect to be there.
the Canoe Club brings many elements of what people feel the
Polynesian experience entails and weave them together, into a place.
Little experiences like greetings at the door might seem unimportant,
but if patrons were met by a "howdy" or a "whussup" at the door,
there'd be a jarring effect.
"Aloha" is received well, on a subliminal level. I think
that's a large part of what branding, developing a brand or an
experience, is all about. Crafting an image, message or identity based
on our expectations, all the little prototypes and conventions we have
stored up, and communicating them. Sticking with places to eat, think
for a moment about walking into a Hard Rock cafe, a House of Blues, Cheeseburger in Paradise, an IHOP, or a McDonalds.
All of these places put a lot of effort to advance their brand image as
you walk through the door. Color palate, seating style, wall art,
music, and manner of speech.
We know when we're at a McDonalds; it's familiar and comforting, in
a way. We understand when we're in a tropical setting as well...
waterfalls and sliding guitars, flowers and aloha. Experiences are crafted with branding, and impressions endure.
Social Flare, a social media optimization ( SMO ) firm, takes the
client's brand and supports it, enhances it especially for social media
venues like MySpace, Del.icio.us, Flickr, and so on.
Let's do business.
