Brands Offer Consumers an Escape from the Mundane

The following is republished with the permission of the Association of National Advertisers. Find this and similar articles on ANA Newsstand.

By Chris Warren

In the early 1990s, Jimson Bienenstock opened one of the biggest bars in Paris, France, the Café Oz, where customers could only order their drinks from a large, oddly shaped bar and the tables were supersized to make for a communal setting. “It forced people to go to the bar to order, strike up conversations with the bartenders and other guests, and hugely encouraged social interactions between people and groups of people who would never normally communicate with each other,” Bienenstock says.

After selling his 10 percent stake in Café Oz, Bienenstock left Paris, pouring his passion for bringing people together into HotBlack Coffee, which opened in Toronto in 2016. Sans Wi-Fi service, the coffee bar lacks many of the amenities that encourage people to transform a café into a home office. There are no electrical outlets and the counters, by design, are too small for laptops. Bienenstock also forgoes order-in-advance apps in favor of hiring people based on their interpersonal skills.

HotBlack Coffee struggled financially early on, with lots of one-star reviews on Yelp and Tripadvisor pointing to its lack of Wi-Fi. However, about a year after opening, Torontonians started to warm up to HotBlack Coffee’s device-free vibe. The brand has opened three additional outlets in the Queen City, all of them since the pandemic began.

After suffering a setback at the outset of the pandemic, Bienenstock opened a second popup location of HotBlack Coffee in June of 2020 to boost cash flow and rehire the staff he had to lay off at the beginning of the pandemic. “It saved our operation, quite honestly,” Bienenstock says, adding that he has opened two more popup locales in the past 18 months.

The growing appeal of HotBlack Coffee shows that people are thirsty for the kinds of experiences unheard of before COVID-19. Indeed, the stress and disruption borne of the pandemic seem to have sparked a growing need among more and more consumers for an escape from the familiar.

Brands and organizations can facilitate an escape, and in the process foster a human connection with their audiences in their marketing and advertising.

Indeed, as HotBlack Coffee demonstrates, people are starting to unplug and like the idea of going to digital-free environment. A growing list of restaurants, bars, and cafes are either encouraging or mandating that patrons ditch their devices and indulge in the lost art of in-person conversation.

Even before COVID-19, plenty of consumers were aware of the negative effect of too much device time, says Amy Chen, associate director for experience at ANA member Siegel+Gale. But the pandemic has accelerated the realization, which underscores why brands need to think differently about their digital marketing efforts. Instead of measuring success according to time spent on an app, Chen says that brands should put more emphasis on the value of the app and how it can enhance people’s lives.

“Brands have an opportunity to draw repeat engagement not because they are simply addictive but because they are seamlessly integrated, personalized, memorable, and empathetic,” Chen says. “That’s how to make digital a positive emotional experience that strives to connect people to the present moment and other people.”

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

While some brands are tapping into opportunities for people to feel grounded and free from their digital devices, other hospitality companies are offering experiences of the psychedelic variety.

Take the Journeymen Collective. The company offers luxury getaways near Vancouver and Kelowna, Canada, as well as in the Great Bear Rainforest, where guests consume plant-based medicines like psilocybin (magic mushrooms), followed by long walks to get in touch with nature.

Robert Grover and Gary Logan, who co-founded the company in 2018, offer clients instruction and meditative guidance to tap into what they say are universal truths and awareness that will improve people’s lives and careers.

“People are yearning and seeking more meaningful experiences because they have a deep sense within themselves that they are here for a higher purpose,” Logan says.

The demand for the Journeymen Collective’s services has surged during the pandemic, as executives have come under tremendous stress and entrepreneurs increasingly search for business ideas that are both profitable and contribute to the betterment of society.

In fact, demand is ample enough that Logan and Grover don’t budget for traditional marketing channels, with most business stemming from word of mouth.

“As we have become more sought after, we have been offered many [marketing] opportunities that are more conventional or mainstream, which isn’t in line with our brand,” Grover says. “Our business model is simple: We are building a magical world and deeply serve only a handful of clients, so it is imperative that our attraction marketing matches this.”

The proliferation of hallucinogenic-based vacations comes amid a burgeoning “shroom boom,” with the psychedelic market projected to reach $10.7 billion by 2027, up from $3.8 billion in 2020, according to Data Bridge Market Research.

What’s more, several states have started to deregulate psychedelics and the medical community is touting the therapeutic benefits of LSD. Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind, which explores the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, has also played a significant role in legitimizing the market.

Travel restrictions due to the pandemic have made it difficult for Logan and Grover to work face-to-face with many clients. As a result, the Journeymen Collective has focused on serving people who live near their headquarters in Vancouver, Canada.

Clients from throughout the globe have started to return, and, unsurprisingly, Logan has noticed many people have a new perspective on life that they want to explore.

 

 

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