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Ill never forget the first time I saw the power of a group gasp. Years ago, at a Baltimore Ravens game, a film Id helped create played across the stadiums newly installed LED screens. In the climactic moment (a close-up shot as the kickers foot struck the ball) the entire crowd seemed to freeze, breath held, before erupting in a wave of energy that swept the stands. Thats because the shot was perfectly timed with the real kick-off that started the game. Picture 70,000 people rising to their feet in unison, their collective gasp creating a moment of pure electricity. That wasnt chance. It was the result of designing an experience where story, environment, and audience collided to spark a visceral, shared response. This group gasp, that instant of collective, visceral awe, has become the holy grail of modern brand experience. In a fragmented world where people crave connection, brands arent just competing for attention. Theyre competing to orchestrate shared emotional resonance. From spectacle to lasting impact The roots of immersive brand experiences run deep. In the late 1990s, with the internet booming and new competitors emerging thick and fast, we worked with IBM to use custom technology (think infrared sensor projections, interactive exhibits, and flexible architecture) to shift brand perception from staid to innovative. It wasnt about showing off gadgets; it was about shifting from a one-way monologue to the customer to a democratic conversation with them, entirely reimagining the relationship between people and brand. Today, environments like Sphere in Las Vegas or New Yorks Oculus Transit Hub blend architecture, storytelling, and cutting-edge tech to create collective awe. Outside these venues, brands are playing with physical space to show up in evermore seamless, smart, and impactful ways. HBO and Giant Spoons Westworld activation at SXSW set a new standard in experiential, inviting people “into the show” by recreating its Sweetwater location, deep in the Austin desert. But heres the real shift: Experiences no longer end when the audience walks away. Social media amplifies a single moment of wonder into a global phenomenon, extending impact for weeks or months. The gasp becomes evergreen content. Designing for shared emotion Technology may set the stage, but it doesnt guarantee resonance. The magic lies in emotional choreography; guiding audiences through intimacy, tension, and release. Like a great film score, the best experiences ebb and flow rather than hammering at peak volume. Different brands call for different emotional tones. For one, it might be joy and togetherness; for another, reverence and hope. Theres no universal formula . . . what matters is intention. The most successful moments also feel effortless. They dont overwhelm with every technical trick, but instead use restraint so each detail serves the story. Shareability isnt accidental, its designed into the experience. Yet it works best when it feels authentic, not engineered. The new marketing imperative A broader cultural shift in consumer spending, aka the Experience Economy, is nothing new. Since the 1990s, weve witnessed more people prioritizing experiences over material possessions. Marketing spend has taken a while to play catch up, but with a stated 74% of Fortune 1000 marketers planning to increase their spend on experiential marketing over this year, ad spend is now markedly shifting. Executives increasingly recognize that these moments forge emotional bonds that traditional campaigns cant match. When people share a communal, in-person experience, the emotional response is amplified. The brand becomes embedded not just in an individuals memory, but in a collective one. In an era of fleeting attention, belonging is rare, and therefore valuable. But as pop-ups and activations proliferate, not every immersive event cuts through. The brands that win will resist spectacle for spectacles sake and focus instead on stirring genuine collective emotion. Surprise: The spark behind the gasp At the heart of every group gasp lies surprise, moments that subvert expectation. Sometimes thats high-production spectacle, but just as often its a small, human detail: a perfectly timed music cue, a flash of humor in a serious setting, or unexpected use of lighting. Memorable moments dont require blockbuster budgets. They require empathy, timing, and the courage to be unpredictable. Commuters werent prepared to stumble into the surreal world of Severance in Grand Central Station, and adding the shows cast to its severed floor made Apple TVs experience even more unforgettable. The thought, I didnt expect that is the beginning of brand magic, and when people feel compelled to share it, the impact multiplies. The road ahead for immersive storytelling Were no longer just making content; were designing experiences. Content sits in a frame, while experiences unfold in space and time. This requires thinking like architects or choreographers, not just advertisers, designing for attention in motion across multiple tempos and entry points. Most importantly, it means anchoring every decision in emotion. AI is already transforming how brands design for emotion, from predictive analytics that anticipate audience reactions to generative tools that create hyper personalized experiences. But the real power lies in combining these tools with human empathy to craft moments that feel both innovative and deeply personal. At a time when trust is fragile, immersive experiences offer brands something rare: the chance to build emotional connections that pull people back in again and again. So, the real question for brands is simple: Are you willing to design for the gasp? In an age of distraction, the ability to elicit shared wonder may be the most valuable strategy of all.
Category:
E-Commerce
Lays sells more than 200 flavors of potato chips across the globe. Only one of them puts a potato on the package. That’s because in many ways, the largest potato chip company in the world, Lays, is the embodiment of a modernist brand. Hear the word Lays and its red and yellow logo pops into your brain, quickly followed by a hallucinated blast of salt on your tongue. The logo is an abstract hero, associated with chips only through constant consumer exposure. But in Lays own market testing, it discovered a cost to this approach: Only 42% of people realized that Lays potato chips are made from potatoes. Nowas the long, liberal war on ultra-processed food has been emboldened through a new Venn diagram with MAHA politicsLay’s is launching a potato-forward makeover its calling rooted in real. Its part of a larger initiative to stoke excitement around Lays, and salty snacking in general, as Frito-Lay attempts to counteract a 5% core profit decline in 2024. The project kicked off two years ago, as the internal design team at PepsiCo, which owns Frito-Lay, began a redesign of the brand that reached all the way from the logo to the bag. I think what we’re trying to do is really pay homage to the 300,000 farmers [who grow] the real potatoes that are in the product . . . really bring that forward, front and center, so that it’s a feeling,” says Jonnie Cahill, CMO of PepsiCos international foods. [Image: Frito-Lay] The new Lay’s logo The PepsiCo team began the refresh with a deep analysis, and earnest retrospection, about what the heck the Lays logo even meant. Variations of the mark, with a yellow orb and red overlay, had been in use since 1995. [Image: Frito-Lay] The story wasnt as sharp as we wanted it to be, says Carl Gerhards, senior director of design at Lays who also worked on the relaunch of the Pepsi brand in 2023. Some people, even internally, thought it was the chip [or] it was the potato. In reality, it was supposed to be the sun. During market testing, in which the company asked people to draw Lays as an idea, a sun entered the scene again and again. Even if that relationship was subconscious or just tied to picnicking. So Lays rolled with the sun, and wrapped it with a newly rendered red ribbon (indicating Lays is a gift from our farmers). Lays rays of sunlight now fill the orb and break out as a radiant glow across branding that almost looks like a circle of french fries. In fact, the design team members went full method actor with this image, and they actually stamped the rays with sliced potatoes dipped in ink to give the brand a deeper rooting in the root vegetable. [Image: Frito-Lay] As for the wordmark, the last iteration actually featured a drop shadow, which dated it a bit. The bigger problem, though, was that it was part joyful, part fanciful, says Gerhards, who notes that the looping y in particular confused its identity. It didn’t feel like it had quite embraced one world or the other. [Image: Frito-Lay] The new mark ditches the touches of script and focuses on terminals (the ends of letters) that finish with an almost organic point that falls just short of calling it a hook. Those terminals are meant to mirror the shape of the red ribbon that sits over the sun to ensure the letters are legible. In countries across the globe, of course, Lays isnt always called Lays. In Columbia, for instance, Lays is called Margaritaand yes, that nine-letter brand has to fit in the same footprint as short-and-sweet Lays. [Image: Frito-Lay] The new Lay’s packaging In many modern brand campaigns, it really only matters how something appears online. But for packaged foods, physical retail still reigns, as 82% of grocery shopping is still done in person. The Lay’s team confirmed that the impression of its packaging within retail environments is still paramount to selling chips. On store shelves, the potato is king, as Lays now features images of potatoes on every flavor. Those potatoes look different fom flavor to flavor, too, emphasizing different natural shapes, slicing, and peeling techniques behind produce. Where most brands try to be more iconic, make one thing, and show it all the time the exact same way, food is not that way, says Gerhards. And so we wanted to embody that in our design. [Image: Frito-Lay] Real, photographed potatoes and chips now appear on every bag rather than for just the classic flavor. They are accompanied by flavoring elements (like salt or barbecue sauce). The new brand hues are less candy-like and derived specifically from the colors of real foods, like the bright-but-earthy green of a cut pickle. All of this food lies atop a wood-block pattern, evoking a kitchen cutting board or hint of barnyard chic. Coupled with a bag that will shift from glossy to matte in many markets, Gerhards believes it all adds up to a more tactile, sensorial experience where the consumer senses texture. I think there’s a magnetism to this skeuomorphism, says Gerhards. I’m not going to put my hand up and say I’m the biggest fan of it in other areas of design, but for the latest [Lays] brand, I think it’s really appropriate. Then to validate these designs, the team set up retail tests (some in real stores, some in makeshift simulations) across the world, timing timed how fast people spotted the brand and their flavor. (Some testing even used eye tracking.) The company claims that in many cases, it saw an increase in hard benchmarks like findability and purchases, along with qualitative factors like customers believing the packs looked more flavorful and understanding that the chips are made from potatoes. [Image: Frito-Lay] Lays plan to get you to eat more Lays The Lays team sees a lot of value in the bag silhouette, and its being treated as a portal across in-person and online moments. That means in stores, you might see Lays sitting on a shelf thats shaped like a big bag of chips. And on Instagram, you may see a Lays bag that appears as a cropped photo of potatoes. That portal is a subtle but key part of Lays marketing strategy, because while the brand actually reached 28 million new households last year, it needs to continue to increase consumption to appease Wall Street. The company reported earlier this year that one of its most significant growth challenges is that people are chasing experiences on their limited budgets. The portal is essentially a way for Lays to toe-dip into lifestyle brand territory, inserting itself, or transporting its audience, to new places to eat Lays. I think one of the unlocks for growth is occasionality: occasion penetration and being relevant for more occasions, says Cahill. And I think you see that in this [larger rebrand], that you can imagine the brand and the product showing up in more occasions. But only when the rebrand launches on shelves later this month will we know: Are people more likely to eat chips if they know they’re made out of potatoes?
Category:
E-Commerce
A new kind of warehouse has just popped up, nestled in seven acres of forest in northern Indiana. It’s the latest delivery station for Amazon, one of hundreds of logistics centers around the world that handle the package sorting and van loading for last-mile delivery. But while this delivery center will be doing all that standard work, it’s also acting as a living laboratory to test out what the future of Amazon’s delivery stationsand maybe the future of warehouses writ largewill look like. The delivery center, known as DII5 and located in the town of Elkhart, has been designed to test and evaluate more than 40 sustainability initiatives that Amazon hopes to apply to future building projects. These efforts range from using low carbon concrete to air-source heat pumps to an underground water reclamation system. One of its most notable elements is that the delivery station has been built primarily out of mass timber. “We’re looking at this place to be somewhat of a laboratory for learning and understanding how do these different pieces work within each other?” says Daniel Mallory, Amazon’s vice president of global realty. [Photo: ZGF] The warehouse is part of Amazon’s Climate Pledge commitment to decarbonize its global operations by 2040, and Mallory says that lessons learned from this building will inform future building projects. [Photo: ZGF] The mass timber market problem This new delivery station was designed by warehouse specialist firm Atlantic AE in partnership with the architecture firm ZGF, known for mass timber projects like the soaring new terminal at Portland International Airport and Amazon’s own HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia. ZGF principal and project lead Marty Brennan says his firm helped develop the initial design concept for the project and he looked at it as a demonstration project that could push the limits of how a warehouse gets built. “We were given the opportunity to rethink every material,” he says. “In total we ended up with about 40 initiatives and half of those were really material focused.” Mass timber is the big one, with compressed laminated timber wall panels and glue-laminated timber beams making up the bulk of the building’s structure. Mallory, who was recently visiting the facility in Elkhart and spoke to Fast Company over video, says those material choices were used to guide the project’s aesthetics. “That’s our structural element there,” he says, turning his camera to a wall of wood. “There’s no steel, there’s no gypsum board, there’s nothing behind that. It’s wood to insulation and that’s it.” Even the exterior of the building is clad in wood, using locally sourced yellow poplar, the Indiana state tree. [Photo: ZGF] Mass timber is not exactly a new material in the architecture world, but it’s still gaining a foothold in the U.S. market, and is rarely used in a project like this. Mallory says he’s hoping this project can show manufacturers that there is utility and need for this type of mass timber product. “The inconsistency of demand within the market is one of the lagging issues that we have to get mass timber up and going, he says. “If there’s a way we can produce scalability here, not just within Amazon, but within industry, so we could get more consistent demand and better utilization efficiency, I think we could do some things to drive cost and drive efficiency in that side of the market,” he says. As one of the biggest companies in the world, Amazon could have the power to make an impact. Mallory notes that Amazon is currently building 20 different facility types in more than 60 countries. Getting more mass timber into those projects could move the needle. “We think we can help effect some larger change, particularly in this market,” he says. [Photo: ZGF] A test bed for sustainability Other unique elements in Amazon’s mass timber project include its low carbon concrete floor slab, which uses a fibrous bonding element in the concrete mix, saving an estimated 40 tons worth of steel reinforcing bars. Clerestory windows built into a sawtooth roof and glazing around the edges of the building bring in natural light and reduce the need for artificial lighting. And a water reclamation system gathers rain from the roof and cycles it to an underground cistern where it’s filtered and reused for toilet flushing and irrigation. Some of the sustainability initiatives used at this new delivery station are more about proving the approach than solving a specific local problem. The water reclamation system, while important in an arid climate, has a little less of an impact in Elkhart, 50 miles from Lake Michigan. Not every effort will be rolled out in every future project, Mallory says, and the process of evaluating these sustainability initiatives may help the company learn more about what additional efforts would be most impactful. [Photo: ZGF] Mallory says one of the biggest impacts from this project could be how it helps spread the wordand the know-howfor integrating these approaches in building projects. “It’s a one-stop-shop to bring developers, other contractors, and designers through to say here’s the elements that we’re looking at,” Mallory says. “It really is kind of a laboratory that we’ve put here that we want to make sure we’re learning from.” He’s hoping others learn from Amazon’s mass timber building as well, even some of its business competitors who operate their own warehouses and delivery stations. “I don’t see sustainability as an area where you drive for competitive advantage,” Mallory says. “We work with large scale developers who are building boxes for a lot of our competitors. If they take one of our sustainability initiatives, we’re good with that.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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