Bringing a brand to life in today’s dynamic hospitality landscape takes more than just opening the city’s new hotspot. It’s about creating an immersive experience that resonates with the customer on a deeper level.
After all, a brand is a living entity, and like any living entity, it thrives on interaction, emotion, and storytelling.
Understanding your audience
The first step in bringing a brand to life is understanding your audience, and truly understanding what they need. It’s not enough to know who they are; you must understand what drives them, what they value, and how they perceive the world.
Invest in comprehensive market research, engage with guests through direct feedback, and analyse trends within the industry. Knowing your guest’s mindset will inform every aspect of your brand, from the design of your spaces to the services you offer.
For instance, within branding and marketing at Sunset Hospitality, we spend time to research creating a customer persona, which then allows us to tailor the brand’s experience to meet their needs and desires.
Building the brand identity
A brand without a story is like a book without a plot – uninspiring and forgettable. Your brand’s story should be relatable and reflective of its core values. It’s the narrative that connects your brand to your audience, making them feel a part of something bigger.
We tend to start with the culinary concept and then build on that with the interior design and landscaping, branding and marketing, and operations.
Once finalised, your brand’s identity should be applied to all touchpoints of the guest experience interactions, and consistently communicated across the marketing channels and collaterals.
Multi-sensory experiences in hospitality
Think about how a signature scent or a classic tune can evoke memories for you. A brand comes to life when it engages all the senses.
For example, during the planning stage, our expert team work hard to design sensory-awakening elements so that the guest experience becomes memorable, so that the feeling, smell, sound, or taste, is associated with that brand.
From the aesthetics to the ambiance, to the taste of the food – every sensory detail should be carefully considered and aligned with your brand’s identity.
Personalisation and attention to detail
Personalisation is no longer a luxury — it’s an expectation. Guests want to feel recognised and valued, and this can be achieved through attention to detail and personalised service.
Utilise guest data to tailor experiences to individual preferences, from their most loved cuisine type to their preferred drink and their favored server.
Training staff to anticipate and respond to guest needs with warmth and efficiency further enhances this personalised touch, creating a welcoming atmosphere that guests will want to return to.
Consistency across channels
Inconsistent branding can confuse and alienate your audience. Ensuring a cohesive brand experience across all channels is crucial. This means maintaining the same tone of voice, visual style, and customer service standards whether your audience is interacting with your brand online or in-person.
For example, AURA Skypool relies on consistent branding, which continuously builds trust. To reinforce the brand identity, we use striking, high-quality imagery across all our marketing channels and collaterals, and the same design is reflected in our décor.
Our tone across all platforms aims to be upscale and inviting, whether online or in-person, while our customer service is uniformly excellent, reinforcing our commitment to luxury and exclusivity.
Staying relevant in hospitality
The culinary lifestyle scene is ever-changing, and brands must evolve to stay relevant. This doesn’t mean abandoning your core values but you must find new ways to express and deliver them.
Whether it’s refreshing your aesthetics, adopting new technologies, exploring new markets, or redefining your customer experience, staying adaptable ensures your brand remains vibrant and engaging.
At Drift Dubai, we’ve taken this approach to heart with our recent revamp. The ongoing uplift and renovation are not just about aesthetic updates, but about reimagining the guest experience to align with the evolving tastes and expectations of our clientele.
By introducing new design elements that reflect contemporary elegance and expanding our culinary offerings to include innovative dishes that blend traditional French dishes with modern influences, we are staying true to our core while also pushing the boundaries of what a beach club and a restaurant experience can be.
Our goal with this renovation is to create a space that feels both familiar and exciting—where guests can still find the essence of Drift that they love, but also discover new elements that surprise and delight them.
For example, through the creation of Drift – Sea Lounge, we are diversifying our product with a more entertainment-focused experience, adding a new dimension to our brand but also reinforces our commitment to providing a memorable experience for all our guests.
By Guillaume Ferraz, Managing Director of Daylife, Sunset Hospitality Group
