What Is a Brand Home? Everything You Need to Know
Ads, banners, social media, internet pop-ups… Today, brands have an abundance of traditional promotional avenues. But most of the biggest (and the smartest) brands know that these hyper-competitive, low-attention routes are no longer enough. As AI accelerates people’s digital and online fatigue, making them crave real-life experiences above all else, experiential marketing is becoming the most effective source of connection, impact, and growth. And with it, so is one of its most prominent components: a brand home.
What is a Brand Home?
A brand home (sometimes called a brand house) is a new way for consumers to experience a brand. It’s an “immersive manifestation of the brand,” according to Angela Knotts, luxury marketing consultant and a former director of brand marketing at Anchor Brewing Co. Instead of going to audiences with the product, companies bring the audience to the brand by creating an interactive, experiential destination that tells their story. Think of it as a flagship store, but instead of showcasing the product, it takes you to the heart of the brand’s identity through a variety of interactive tools that make you — the consumer — a part of the narrative. A permanent place that represents the brand and provides a space to affirm and increase its consumers’ loyalty and passion for the product.
Why Should You Care?
Experience building is a trillion-dollar industry that sits at the top of the economic value chain, outpacing goods and services. The COVID-imposed lockdown, acceleration of online distrust due to AI, and overabundance of digital content have all resulted in modern consumers valuing experiences over tangible things, with spending on experiences increasing by 65% since 2019. So, it’s clear that the brands that show up in real life will stand out in the market.
According to AnyRoad’s research, the average net promoter score (the likelihood of someone recommending a brand) of a brand home increases from 34 to 84 after the visit is concluded. 85% of attendees are likely to buy from the brand as a result of visiting a live marketing event, with 70% becoming repeat customers. Brand homes generate direct revenue through tickets, retail, bars, food, and private hire. In addition, 98% of consumers are likely to share their experience online, creating free advocacy through social media.
What Makes a Good Brand Home?
Some of them cost a lot of money. Others can be as simple as one guide walking you around a vineyard. No matter how you approach it or what your budget is, get it right by focusing on:
1. Story before the product
Unlike in flagship stores, a brand home is not primarily motivated by making sales. In the best examples, businesses lead with heritage, craft, and human narrative and let the product emerge as the natural conclusion of that story.
2. Participation, not presentation
At their most effective, brand homes provide exclusive, behind-the-scenes access that lets consumers become part of the brand, not just hear about it. Letting guests mix their own sodas, brew their own beer, bake their own snacks, etc, helps convert visitors into fans and advocates. Because they've done something, not just seen something.
3. Sensory environment design
The aim is to make a permanent physical statement about what the brand is. So, every design decision — architecture, lighting, sound, wayfinding, material quality — will either reinforce or undermine the brand's credibility.
4. Production quality that matches ambition
The gap between a brand home concept and a brand home that actually delivers impact is production and design execution. Environmental design, immersive technology integration, spatial storytelling, fabrication quality, AV systems, live experience programming… All have to come together in flawless execution.
Regardless of the details, the key is to bring value beyond sales, letting the guests perceive the experience as a meaningful extension of the company’s ethos, not as a promotion or an advertisement of its product.
Our Expertise
The world’s biggest brands are investing, and we’re helping them deliver. In 2021, we started a five-year project with Coca-Cola to revitalize its flagship store in Atlanta and turn it into a brand home worthy of the brand’s 140-year history. The goal was to build a place where visitors could step inside Coca-Cola's story and experience the brand through participation, discovery, and play.
While the partnership is still ongoing, guests can already experience and partake in a lot of Coca-Cola’s history. Like Scent Discovery, an interactive exhibit that examines the science of smell while paying tribute to founder Asa Candler, who famously identified ingredients by scent alone. Or the Beverage Lab, where visitors can engage with the science behind flavor and formulation, gaining a deeper understanding of what goes into every Coca-Cola product. And at The Studios, they can become creators themselves, using digital tools to design personalized Coca-Cola-inspired artwork, extending the experience beyond observation and into participation.
We designed and built each environment to turn brand storytelling into something tangible, memorable, and shareable. Rather than simply presenting Coca-Cola's history, we invite visitors to engage with it firsthand. That's exactly what a successful brand home does: transforms audiences from spectators into participants and creates lasting emotional connections that traditional marketing channels simply can't replicate.
Examples of this are widely available across the industry: Diageo’s transformation of Johnnie Walker’s existing distillery into a multi-million dollar brand home, the iconic Guinness Storehouse in Dublin: a brand home that was named the world’s leading tourist attraction at the 2023 World Travel Awards, Starbucks’ 20,000 square foot Coffee Sanctuary in Bali that, among other attractions, offers roasting classes… the list is expanding by the week.
Storytelling at Its Most Ambitious
A brand home is a long-term decision about what kind of brand you want to be. Whether you’re in sports, culture, or entertainment, luxury or lifestyle, corporate or B2B, or a retail company seeking to differentiate itself among competition, a brand home can serve as a proud declaration that your brand story is worth telling and that your audience is more than a consumer; it’s your community.
The brands that have made that declaration — and executed it with excellence — built some of the most durable consumer relationships and most sustainable revenue streams in the experiential marketing landscape.
This is exactly the work that leading organizations like Coca-Cola, the NCAA, FIFA, the International African American Museum, and more, trust us to deliver. Explore more of it and contact us for an impactful brand home that tells your story from a partner that knows how to tell it.