Your Customer Does Not Experience Your Brand in the Boardroom
Years ago, my team pitched an activation to MHD for one of Hennessy’s products in hostess night clubs and KTVs across the China market.
During the process, something had became obvious.
The management team knew the product extremely well. They knew the brand history, positioning, packaging and campaign materials. They probably also knew impressive facts about cognac that most customers would struggle to remember after midnight.
But they did not fully understand how people were actually consuming the product in real life inside a Shanghai KTV. That was a fairly important detail.
Which brings me to an important personal disclaimer. In the interests of full disclosure and transparency, my wife already knows that in the past, my boss in Shanghai would occasionally bring me to these venues to entertain our agency’s clients. That was the business culture there. I was there for work, not for the company of the hostesses, so nothing inappropriate happened, and my hands remained firmly to myself at all times.
Now that the domestic compliance department has been satisfied, let us return to the customer journey.
So before proposing the usual suspects - promoters, posters, and expensive product displays - that other agencies enjoy placing everywhere, I walked the team through the real life customer journey.
What usually happened when a group arrived?
How the party went straight to the private room after being greeted at the reception and did not linger in the corridors or other parts of the club.
Who influenced the drinks order?
When did the bottle enter the room? Who poured it?
What were people doing at each stage of the evening?
Most importantly, when were they actually paying attention?
Because customers do not enter a KTV room and spend hours admiring brand materials. No matter what we want to believe...
They sing badly, they drink and they check social media (mostly Wechat Moments) on their phones.
We shared with the client the various ways in which real people talk business, entertain clients, try to impress friends and navigate social dynamics which rarely appear in a brand guideline.
This discussion gave the management team a clearer picture of what was actually happening inside these venues.
More importantly, they were open enough to absorb the new information. They agreed to adjust the original brief a little so that the activation could better reflect the real customer experience.That mattered.
Sometimes a brief should not be treated as sacred scripture.
When better information emerges, the strategy should be flexible enough to change with it.
Once we all understood the experience properly, we could identify where the brand materials might actually be noticed and have the most impact.
Some locations mattered, others did not. A beautiful poster placed where nobody is looking is still a poster that nobody is looking at.
We also noticed that the evenings usually followed a rhythm.
At first, people sang. Then, at some point, the singing slowed down. Guests began talking, drinking and interacting with each other. The music continued, but it had gradually become background music.
But background music is not meaningless. Used properly, it can lift the energy of a room without demanding everyone’s attention.I understood this partly because I used to DJ as a hobby when I was much younger.
Music does more than fill the uncomfortable silences. It changes the atmosphere and maintains the emotional momentum. It can make even the bare concrete walls of an underground reggae dance club feel alive.
That insight led us to the main activation idea.
At the right moment, when the drinks were flowing and the room had reached its emotional peak, a model dressed as a DJ would enter with a portable DJ console.
She would not interrupt the celebration, instead, she would amplify it.
The music would rise. The mood would lift. The brand would become part of the moment when the group was enjoying itself most.
We were not trying to force another branded performance into the room.
We were trying to enhance the customer’s experience and connect the brand with the emotional high point of the evening.
They liked the concept and accepted the pitch. Unfortunately, the budget was not available to produce it. That happens sometimes. Sometimes everyone agrees that an idea is strategically sound, and then the finance department quietly escorts it out of the building in handcuffs.
It is what it is.
Looking back, I also realize that this was probably where my consulting mindset had already begun to emerge. I was still working on creative advertising campaigns, but I was not simply asking what campaign we should produce.
I was also questioning the assumptions behind the brief, helping the client understand the market more clearly, identifying where the real opportunities were and adjusting the direction before recommending the solution.
The creative idea came later.
The diagnosis came first and the strategy second. The client gave us the objective, then we worked out the right strategy with them. Then came the creative expression and execution.
That principle has stayed with me ever since.
A customer journey is not just a decorative diagram used to make a presentation look sophisticated.
It should show how the people we want to reach out to actually behave.
Where decisions are made.
When attention rises and falls.
Where a brand can genuinely improve the experience.
The question is not:
Where can we place more marketing materials?
The better question is:
At which moment can the brand create the greatest impact?
Businesses often know what they sell. They may not always fully understand how customers experience it.
Before launching another campaign, activation or promotion, it’s good to step outside the boardroom and walk through the experience from the customer’s point of view.
Find the moments that genuinely matter.
Otherwise, everything else may simply be activity.
If your business is investing in marketing but struggling to identify where it can make the greatest impact, that is where we can help. We help businesses cut through assumptions, understand the real customer experience and focus their resources on the points that matter most.
Because activity is not strategy.
And more branded posters will not help when they are placed where nobody is looking.
Disclaimer: This article is based on my personal recollection of a past professional pitch and is shared solely to illustrate broader lessons about customer experience, creativity and commercial strategy. Certain details have been simplified, generalized or omitted for clarity and confidentiality. The views expressed are entirely my own and do not represent Moët Hennessy Diageo, Hennessy or any other organization involved. All brand names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.
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