My Favorite Brand Discovery

Several years ago I was a founding partner of the branding agency, Studio Absolute. While many of our clients were in the A/E/C industry, we had a broad range of clients including Avamere, a large senior living corporation.*

I performed an extensive Brand Discovery for them. I wish I could remember exactly how many people I talked to, but if I had to guess I'd say at least 30. Most of these exercises can be done with a sampling of 15 interviewees, but they wanted to include their executive team, investors, partners, and my favorite–their end clients, seniors. I was so impressed by this. That was a daring move, asking residents for their opinions!

Needless to say, this process took a few months to complete. I plan for 20 minutes and let people know when we've reached that point. But sometimes people need to talk, and I let them when I can, and if we're on topic. Once we move on to their cats, I know it's time to gracefully end the conversation. But these conversations were special.

I learned about their families and who had passed away. I learned what brought them to an Avamere community, and how often they get visitors. One told me she was trying to escape. Several told me about the wallpaper, the food, their neighbors, but one thing stood out as a singularity.

This gentleman was eager to show me his camera. I occasionally stay on site for senior living photoshoots if there's a journalistic element involved. It allows people to open up naturally, in their own time. I haven't done this yet for a discovery, but it's not out of the question!

They all told me about their Director who lived on site for a while to fully experience it through the residents' eyes. Seniors and their families opened up to me about what a profound impact his presence had on their perception of the company.

This was an important marker informing me the internal perception may be aligned with the external perception–at least with their end client. It wasn't the only marker I looked for though. My objective is to find patterns that provide a consensus of opinion and experiences.

After my third day on site, she's challenging me to race.

We know to take it with a grain of salt when we see one bad Yelp review among a sea of positive comments. The opposite is true as well. Within about 5 calls, patterns start to emerge in the way people experience the brand. In my experience, 15 is ideal for small to midsize firms and 30 is overkill for most companies unless they have sub-brands, like Avamere.

I later went on to become the marketing director for Lenity Architecture who specializes in senior living design + build. I had the privilege of photographing several incredible communities across the US and Canada, and building content for our marketing and a planned print documentary.

*The images featured are not Avamere clients or facilities.