A Sense of Place
At InoventDesign, we’re cooking up something radically exciting; a veritable gamechanger on technology. Unfortunately, i can’t divulge the devilish details … just yet. For the meantime, I’ll refer to it using our internal codename, Project Faith.
Just yesterday, Brian Quebengco and I were brainstorming on how best to bring this baby into the world.
And as usual, my perspective was : where we will launch is almost as critically important as what we will launch.
The place must have utmost significance; it should intrinsically be part of the story of the brand.
After all, this was how we shared Hapinoy, Rags2Riches (the Rajo Laurel Collection), and the WhyNot?Forum with the rest of the world.
The press launch of Hapinoy was done in Kamayan, of course alluding to our being very Festive and Pinoy-ness.
The Rajo Laurel Collection of Rags2Riches was via a living fashion exhibit/show (thanks to Direk Robby Carmona) in Shangri-La Hotel. That place spoke of our intention of launching a high-end fashion brand made by the rugweavers of Payatas. (of course, part of the story is that we were blessed with the venue being donated by a couple).
The first WhyNot?Forum was done in Warehouse 135. A Forum. In a Club. At night. Picking that place was a critical move. I personally wanted WhyNot? to be “the anti-forum” … after all, most fora are done in hotels, schools, and the like. Uhmmm and zzzzzzzzzz. That’s just not what WhyNot? is about.
—
I remember when i was still working in corporate. I was given a free hand to assemble a multi-disciplinary team to tackle a critical innovation project. The venue where I wanted the project kickoff for the working team? A helipad. I wanted to convey that we were going to scale new heights, to go for the top.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a helipad. So we settled for Top of the Citi in Makati. But you get the point.
A lot of you are probably wondering — isn’t this just frivolity? It’s a nice-to-have rather than must-have? Not exactly.
A sense of place is a critical component of the whole experience of the brand. It deserves so much more thought than it’s currently being given.
And back to InoventDesign … when we finally bring Project Faith into the world, you’ll understand immediately who we are and what we’re trying to do, just because of where we’ll do it.
