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10 July, 2024

Authenticity and experience in place branding

Posted by Megan Oldcorn

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How can we evoke the experience of being somewhere, for someone that's never been?

Immersing ourselves in a landscape can play a huge part in our overall wellbeing – and our ability to work creatively. As a writer, getting out and walking has become an important part of my process. I find that I’m grounded by what’s around me, and able to physically work through my ideas. 

My love of slowing down and exploring on foot has prompted me to think about how we experience and communicate place as an agency that specialises in place branding. It’s often our task to weave a wider "experience" through depictions of place, but much of this experience comes down to living it for yourself. Can you ever accurately evoke the experience of being somewhere, for someone that's never been there?

One of my favourite walking routes is down to the bottom of Geevor Mine and along the coast path. On paper, this probably shouldn't be a beautiful place – past industry is everywhere, in gravel piles, disused buildings and mineral-stained cliffs. But as the seasons change, so does the landscape. Here, the sea fills the horizon and when a storm sweeps in, you can stand and watch it slowly rolling towards you. In early summer, sea pinks dot the cliffs and spring up on the edges of the wastelands. In winter, the light changes to a cold, watercolour blue. 

It’s an ever-changing visual feast, and those elements are the things that often make a place remarkable. Character doesn’t just lie in nature, but the way it interacts with where you are. So, if I were trying to describe this for someone that’s never been to Cornwall’s Tin Coast, where would I start?
 
One thing to remember is that our experiences are always rich in detail, even if we don’t notice it. Tapping into some of the sensations of being within a place is an easy way to conjure the image of being there. 

Sea pinks Tin Coast
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First, live it for yourself

To be able to represent a place accurately, you first need to have really experienced it. This sounds obvious, but it’s easy to take for granted the things we see and encounter every day. If you’re creating communications for a place that you manage, first set aside some time to go and really soak it in. I like to pack a notebook and make notes in-situ, as well as taking photographs as visual prompts for later. Record the smells, the sounds, what you can see from different angles – it’s all part of the picture. Only then can you start painting that picture for others. 

Use sensory cues

Those smells and sounds I mentioned a moment ago – they’re sensory cues, and they’re a huge part of our lived experience, even if we don’t realise it at the time. When it comes to writing about a place, weaving through references to scents, colours, textures, sounds and tastes can elevate your words from pedestrian to immersive. This needn’t be in-your-face obvious; it could be a subtle reference such as ‘the café’s warm glow’ or ‘a chilled, crisp cocktail’. 

Include the small and specific

Alongside these sensory cues, there will be other small and more specific things that catch your eye. For me, this can mean noticing things like a nice spot where the sun falls, or the marks made by a past worker. They’re little and seemingly insignificant details, but this can be where real character creeps in. For one of our designers, these might be visual cues like recurring shapes or patterns within a landscape or its architecture. While creating a brand identity for the Golden & Co. farming partnership, Diggory noticed a number of arches and curves around the estate. Bringing these into the brand concepts felt like a natural step, and one that gives real integrity to the final product.

Share the stories of place

Often, it’s the people that really bring a place to life. After all, if there’s one thing we know about marketing, it’s that people respond to the stories of other people; often more than they do to a brand “telling” them something. We all have different experiences of a space or a landscape, and we all bring our own stories and perspectives to it. Providing a platform for these histories, anecdotes, stories and reactions can be a very powerful thing. This is a baton that Tresco has picked up and sprinted to the finish with – the island’s Tresco Times journal has become a collection of voices that do far more to sell the island experience than its marketing team could ever do alone. 

Invest in authentic imagery

Imagery can do a huge amount of heavy lifting when it comes to creating a sense of place – but only if it’s done well. Every image tells a story, so do make sure that story is true. Posed portraits, artificial colours and strange angles are all things that undermine, rather than enhance. Art direction is a craft in itself, and should be tied into your brand personality, but as a general rule, it’s always better to shoot in natural light, with people behaving normally. If you have the time and resources, build a bank of imagery showing different times of day (dusk, for example, is often beautiful) and the whole range of seasons. This means that you can change things up throughout the year, showing a powerfully honest depiction of where you are. 

And there we have it

Authenticity is an overused word in modern marketing, but its popularity only goes to show how desperately audiences are seeking brands with integrity. The closer we can get to an authentic brand depiction, the closer we get to accurately conveying a brand experience, and the more compelling communications become, without any need to "hard sell" or include marketing cliches. And as we’ve seen with so many of our clients, this is only ever a good thing.

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