'Topical'_4th Principle of Spacebranding

 Jooyun Kim's 

Spacebranding vol.13

"The best luxury is to feel and experience the story."

 <Movie Breakfast at Tiffany's>

The opening scene of the movie <Breakfast At Tiffany's>, starring Audrey Hepburn, begins with Hepburn getting out of a taxi early in the morning in Manhattan, New York, standing in front of a Tiffany store, eating a bag of bread and drinks, and looking at Tiffany's jewelry. Her eyes seem to show a desire for an inaccessible, yet accessible, location.

<Breakfast at Tiffany's> from https://www.paywebs.xyz

In 2017, Tiffany created a brunch space that embodies the imagination of having breakfast in the building in the movie Audrey Hepburn loved by many. As the marriage rate declined and interest in artificial jewelry increased, the traditional jewelry business was facing a crisis. Tiffany strategically created a space of hot topic by using movies that can be called Tiffany's Heritage.

<‘Tiffany Blue Box Cafe’, a hot topic through heritage>

Tiffany tried to expand Tiffany's business area from traditional jewelry to accessories and silverware through the experience of a new space. The name of the store was ‘Tiffany Blue Box Cafe’, and the purpose was to target millennials and experience the luxury of modern Tiffany. There is a statistic that a woman's heart rate rises by 22% just by looking at the Tiffany Blue Box.1)

Blue Box Cafe at Tiffany New York from https://www.vanityfair.com

Surprisingly, the cafe space is a space that looks like the inside of Tiffany's jewelry package, the blue box. The walls, chairs, plates, salt and pepper containers all give you a sense of immersion with Tiffany's signature color, egg blue. 

Blue Box Cafe, a space like a scene from a beloved movie, has become a popular New York brunch spot that you can never experience unless you make a reservation at least a month in advance by word of mouth. This is a case of successfully leading the brand business expansion into space with strong topicality. In the East, Tiffany Blue Box Cafe opened in Hong Kong and Tokyo, Japan in 2019.

Blue Box Cafe at Tiffany Hong Kong from https://www.merci-magazine.com/mercinews/tiffanyandco

The factor of topic can be an image of a powerful space, and it is related to everything that customers may be interested in, such as Heritage, which shows the same history and tradition as Tiffany's, and the founder's personal story. The important thing is that topicality is not a marketing activity after creating space. The topic is the story that should be designed from the time the space is planned.

Jaime Hayon of Spain, who is called a genius designer, emphasizes that “the best luxury is to feel and experience the story.”2) Recently, as more and more customers share their brand impressions through word-of-mouth or SNS, the importance of topicality is increasing. To build the topicality of space for space branding, I propose three space design methods. It is the nostalgia of memories, the sharing of values, and the synesthesia of emotion.

<Method of topicality #1 Perfume of memories.>

The nostalgia of memory is associated with familiarity and intimacy. It is a way to utilize the stored images common in our daily lives in space. Sensory clues that the customer is already aware of creating intimacy and comfort. Basically, people prefer comfort.3) It's not about creating something new. Using the memories that already exist in the minds of customers, creates a link with the space.

The human brain and computer memory are similar in terms of the function of storing information, but there is actually a big difference. The computer stores the input as it is, but the human brain and mind are the opposite. People tend to reject new information that cannot be judged or evaluated on their own. 

In other words, it accepts only information that is contextually consistent with the information it already knows and filters out the rest. People think authenticity is a novel move from one person's past that draws out our common memories, hopes, and aspirations.4)

Promenade Hermes Museum ©Jooyun Kim

The Hermès Museum, located on the first basement floor of ‘Maison Hermes Dosan Park’, the flagship store of Hermes that entered Seoul in 2006, is a case that stimulated nostalgia as a trail in the forest. The space design was done by Hilton McConnico, an American artist and art director based in France.

He filled the museum with stories of trees and lights. The trees that we often saw while walking along the forest trail blended with the light of the museum floor, creating the impression of a serene and serene yet surreal space. The name is also 'Promenade Hermes Museum.'

Promenade Hermes Museum ©Jooyun Kim

When you first look at the space, it seems like you are just looking at the trees in the forest. If you look behind the wooden pillars in the forest, you can see the works collected by Emile Hermes, the third generation of Hermes, and the history of Hermes one by one. The wooden posts covered with specially processed leather dyed in various colors create a striking first impression of the turquoise forest.

Promenade Hermes Museum ©Jooyun Kim

Through the space where historical works displayed on the back of the pillars found while walking along the trail coexist, Hermès was space branding respect for nature, the world's best leather craftsmanship, and a long history. Promenade Hermes Museum, which has now moved to Paris, shows that the way of using the nostalgia of memories is useful in opening the hearts of customers.

<Method of topicality #2 Sharing values>

Sharing values is a way to make headlines by allowing business values and customer values to meet in space. Customers look for meaning beyond the function and emotional satisfaction of the product. Today's society, where material satisfaction reaches its limit, has no choice but to pursue spiritual satisfaction.5)

Consumers are showing a tendency to consume eco-friendly products, products through fair trade, and products that meet the interests of the global community. They are giving meaning and value to their consumption with a clear belief that their consumption has an impact on the market.6)

In particular, as environmental problems such as fine dust have become serious, it is now the era of the environment where it is necessary to consider the environment rather than being eco-friendly. Consideration of the environment, which has been "good to do," is recognized as "a must to survive."7)

Customers now respond to the company's values. This is why ESG management is on the rise. The sharing of values is deeply related to contextual places. Memories of the space held by people living in the times or the story, history of the space passed down from the past are intangible assets of the place, and space.

It is a good way to utilize modern industrial heritage as well as branding as a space that coexists with nature. Showing historical, aesthetic, technological, and cultural values ​​in the socio-cultural relationship of the time is also a way to contribute to the community. Finding potential value in the idle space of the past that the MZ generation considers cool and making it a point of contact with business values can make headlines.

There is a space that has become a hot topic for the creative use of local building materials. It is a village hall called Chokkura Plaza in Tochi Prefecture, Japan. The area was famous for producing architectural stone called 'Otaniseok.' Otani's stone is a light, white stone with many holes like basalt in Jeju Island. It was a popular material in the days of active stone construction, but now it is rarely produced because there are no users.

Chokkura Plaza design by Kengo Kuma ©Jooyun Kim

The villagers decided to build a town hall on the site of a railroad warehouse that had been used for stone shipment, and commissioned architect Kengo Kuma to design it. He wanted to create a 'natural architecture', and instead of demolishing the building on the site of Otani Seok's existing warehouse, he proposed a design that upcycled the stone material from which the warehouse was built.

Chokkura Plaza design by Kengo Kuma ©Jooyun Kim

Chokkura Plaza design by Kengo Kuma ©Jooyun Kim

A unique semi-permeable stone wall system was created by cutting out the existing rectangular stone modules little by little to make a letter 'ㅅ' and combining the stone and steel plate structural materials. In 2006, the design of Otani Stone in Tochigi Prefecture, which reawakened the unique value of the material and overcame the shortcomings of the visual closure of stone architecture, made a very strong graphic impression, and the topic of the world along with the design story. 

Chokkura Plaza design by Kengo Kuma ©Jooyun Kim

<Method of topicality #3 Synesthesia of emotion>

Synesthesia of emotion is a method of creating topicality with a space of surprising elasticity. Synesthesia refers to feeling the connection of business through spatial experience. The spatial installation works created by Yayoi Kusama間彌, who is famous for 'Grandma Dots', create surprises.

An installation “In Infinity” by Yayoi, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art In Denmark, Kusama.from www.architecturaldigest.com

Collaboration with fine art, a representative field that appeals to human emotions, is a way to maximize the added value of space in business. The reason why we feel attracted to beautiful artworks is not because of their function, but because their emotional feelings attract us.8)

Works of art have a decisive key to stimulating emotions. In particular, recent works of art often target space. If such fine artworks collaborate with business, it is possible to create a topical space branding. A small cafe called 'Il Vento' on Teshima豊島 Island in Japan is an example of the power of fine art.

Il Vento Cafe by artist Tobias Rehberger ©Jooyun Kim

The cafe utilizes a typical Japanese-style wooden house. Without designing structural modifications or spaces for the cafe's space, in particular, German sculptor  Tobias Rehberger asked to design to create an amazing space.

Il Vento Cafe by artist Tobias Rehberger ©Jooyun Kim

Il Vento Cafe by artist Tobias Rehberger ©Jooyun Kim

Rehberger is an artist who creates the power of chaos in a space with powerful graphics similar to op art. In  Il Vento Cafe, the entire cafe space has become a playful space with intense graphics of lines on the first floor and dots on the second floor.

<Summaries>

"The best luxury is to feel and experience the story."

"A topic is not a marketing activity after creating space. A topic is a story that must be designed from the time the space is planned."

"The sensory clues already recognized give rise to intimacy and comfort. People prefer comfort."

"Memories of the space that people living in the times have together or the story, history of the space passed down from the past are intangible assets of the place, and space."

"The reason we feel attracted to beautiful artworks."

Jooyun Kim <Spacebranding> pp.83-90

1) Interbrand, 'Tiffany & Co. : 티파니와 22%의 비밀', from https://www.interbrand.com/kr/views/tiffany-co-티파니와-22의-비밀

2) 조선닷컴, 최보윤기자, "상상하라, 아이처럼… 그것이 곧 디자인이다", 2015.04.16., http://travel.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2015/04/15/2015041502662.html

3) Dan Hill, body of truth : leveraging what consumers can't or won't say, Wiley, 2003, pp. 75

4) James H. Gilmore, B. Joseph Pine II, What Consumers Really Want, Harvard Business, 2007, pp. 98

5) Philip Kotler, "Market 3.0", Wiley, 2010, pp. 47

6) Kim, Ji-Hyeon, ‘A Value-driven Spatial Design Marketing’, Hongik University PhD, 2016, pp 20

7) 김난도 외 8인 지음, "트렌드 코리아 2019", 미래의 창, 2018.10.24., 10쪽

8) Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni , Selling Dreams:How to Make Any Product Irresistible, Simon & Schuster, 1999, pp. 22, 41