Branding, Experience and Story

July 20, 2005 | 8 Comments

In Imperfection and The Human Brand a great post by James Archer, he leads off with a very true statement:

Compelling stock photos, catchy slogans, and memorable marketing copy have just a fraction of the branding power of a single human being.

Branding shouldn’t be solely about your visual identity, although it’s important. It should be about your voice, your face, your humanity and your story. It’s should be real. In an experience economy it’s the experience that matters. To illustrate that, I’ve got a story about one of my favorite brands and the supplier of some of my favorite experiences: The Majestic Bay Theatre.

Why I Love The Majestic Bay Theatre

A small, family owned movie house located in a small neighborhood in the heart of Seattle; The Majestic Bay is where I watch most of my movies. I’ve liked it ever since I first saw a flick there. It’s small. But it’s also orderly, clean, has great seating, a great ambiance and just feels good.

They don’t show commercials and they’ve got these great custom made spots before the movie. “A Trip To The Movies” is your typical theatre etiquette bit, but it’s done in a very charming 50’s style that has the audience laughing every time. And the “Running Horses” spot, to introduce Elttaes Theaters (the ownership group) has Staci quoting along every time.

As much as I liked it, and knew it was a cut above the rest, I didn’t have a special connection with it until one night, just before War of The Worlds when I, and the rest of the audience, had the opportunity to meet one of the owners Kenneth (Kenny) Alhadeff.

Just before the film was ready to start a smiling, smartly dressed man walked up to the front of the theater asked for the audience’s attention. He introduced himself as Kenny Alhadeff and asked if he could say a few words about the Majestic Bay before the movie started. He then proceeded to regale us with a tale about a small neighborhood theater with a long, glorious history and a family with a passion for art and movies.

He spoke of how this family wanted to bring “The Magic” that was the small neighborhood theater back and that The Majestic Bay was the perfect place for it. He talked about how they had to recreate the Majestic Bay almost from scratch, and at great expense, because it literally fell apart when they tried to refurbish it. He told us how they will never show a commercial on their screen because we already paid for the show and the screen should be reserved for “The Magic”. He told us how the Elttaes theater intro is a digitalization of the first movie ever made and how the horses actually do have all four legs off the ground at once and he told us that Elttaes is Seattle spelled backwards.

His passion for his work infused the air and there were smiles and faces rapt with attention all around. At the end he grabbed a wide eyed kid in the front row and asked him if he wanted to go “start the movie.” The kid ran up the isle to where a beaming usher waited to take him back to the booth. Then Kenny heartwarmingly thanked us all for choosing The Majestic Bay, tossed out a few tee shirts and left to a hearty applause.

It took all of 10 minutes, and you could tell he enjoyed every minute of it. He has a passion that was undeniable. Thing is, I doubt he enjoyed it half as much as the audience did. His story and the story of The Majestic Bay made my night. It made the experience that much better, and every time I go there I’ll look back fondly at the experience and I’m sure it’ll enhance my movie going experience forever more.

Oh, and you can bet that I’ll go the extra mile (figuratively and literally) to catch movies at The Majestic Bay in the future. In the mean time, I recommend the theater to all my friends and I tell them to try and get there for a Friday night flick, where they might get the not-so-unique opportunity to meet a great guy and hear the story of a special place and special people.

That, my friends, is the power of story. That’s the way a brand should be built and that’s how you design an experience.

Filed under: Experience
Keyword Tags: the+majestic+bay branding story marketing business passion experience

Comments

1. Harry said:

I love that theater also. And what a great experience you had. In addition to the topic of connecting with your customers on a personal level, I think it speaks volumes to the notion of loving what you do.

That is, when you love what you do, you seek out those connections.

Posted on July 20, 2005 11:56 AM | #

2. Philip said:

I think nice restaurants have this figured out. I was dining with a couple friends, we were dressed decently as we had just come from church, but being college students were probably not the most formal threesome in the restaurant. After our food had been brought out and the waiter was seeing to other tables, I found a small hair in my food. I did not know whether it was mine or not. I discreetly let my friends know and was unsure if I should bring it up and call the waiter over, after all, it wasn’t very big, it could have been mine, and I didn’t to make a fuss or scene (having never had this situation before). However, the waiter noticed that something was wrong and came over to see about it. I explained the situation and he immediatly took my food from me. A few minutes later a man smartly dressed came out and began talking with me, it didn’t click at first that he was the manager. He was very polite (which I thought was great since we were just some kids hanging out) and expressed that they would be bringing me another plate of food and that I would not be paying for my meal today (talk about a good way to score free food I thought).

Now, they could easily have posted a sign somewhere that said, “Fly in your soup? No problem, let us know and we’ll replace it and you won’t pay for your meal! 100% Guarentee” and all that. Instead they treated us with the utmost respect in person. I was impressed. I’d go back again…

Posted on July 20, 2005 11:59 AM | #

3. DaveMo said:

In Corvallis, Oregon we have an old theater, the Whitesides that’s been empty and up for sale for several years now. (I think the last movie I saw there before it closed was Harry Potter 1!) The national chain that owned it couldn’t bother with the upkeep. Although we have a couple of “art house” theaters, the city is dominated by Regal and Carmike multiplexes.

There was some talk that McMinneman’s would buy the Whiteside and open one of their famous pizza/pub movie houses, that has not materialized.

I would love to see someone like Mr. Alhadeff assume ownership of this lovely Deco era movie palace. But alas, I suspect that it will eventually be sold to a developer and coverted into an antique mall or something.

I LOVE going to the movies, but anymore it’s a cold, emotionless and EXPENSIVE experience. Therefore, I only go when it’s a movie that I know would be best experienced on a large screen. Which, given the quality of the average Hollywood product these days, is pretty rare - maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

Hearing the big studio hacks crying that their box office profits are down this year draws no sympathy from me. They need to sit down with your Mr. Alhadeff for a much needed education on “The Magic” of the movie experience!

Are you LISTENING Hollywood???

Posted on July 20, 2005 12:50 PM | #

4. Jim Rutherford said:

What a timely post. I’ve notice this contrasting article circulating the blogsphere today:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/07/declining_movie.html

The author explains that declining movie revenues should not be blamed on piracy, but rather a decline in the overall movie going experience (cell phones, no ushers, etc).

Posted on July 20, 2005 12:53 PM | #

5. David Chen said:

A year ago, my now ex-boss recommended a theater in the Seattle area, but I had since forgotten the name. He was the sort who was pretty passionate about doing things right, so I was sorry that I had forgotten his recommendation, being somewhat disgusted with most theaters. The Majestic Bay Theater was the one. Thanks for jogging my memory, heh.

Posted on July 20, 2005 06:10 PM | #

6. Alistair said:

You are right about a story making a difference.

The founder and ex-CEO of the company I work for actually wrote a book, that told the story of himself and his best friend participating in the Sydney to Melbourne Footrace. For those that don’t know, its a little over 1,000km between the two cities.

Well after reading the story of a man that ran for six and a half days, for 22 hours per day at nothing less than 12kph running speed - I just couldn’t help but be absolutely impressed.

Then you find out why he is running it; to increase awareness of a very rare illness his best friends daughter had.

Inspiring.

Posted on July 21, 2005 07:02 AM | #

7. Nick Finck said:

Keith, as you know I take trips to Portland all the time. Having been in Seattle for a year I was caught off gaurd by the service at Oregon gas stations.. never mind I had experienced this service for years as a child growing up there.. but being away gave me the opertunity to experience it as if it was a first for me all over again.

Now, people will say they don’t have self-service gas to keep jobs in Oregon, and this is true.. but there is also something to be said about that extra touch. Granted it’s not quite at the level you see in older era movies with five guys running out in clean overalls servicing the car from top to bottom, but it’s more than we get most of the time in Seattle.

I start to see the whole self-service gas, self-service grocery check out systems, the ATMs.. heck, has anyone been into a bank lately, the tellers are closer to ATMs, they only thing they do now is hit the buttons on the screen for you… you swipe in your card to tell them who you are, the money is automatically despenced in a little catcher, cash and even the change.

I predict that pretty soon we will have almost no human interaction when we go in to make a purchase for a product or service. What does that say about pride in what you do as a business?

Posted on July 23, 2005 10:35 AM | #

8. Philip said:

I’d like to give a shout out to Oregon gas stations also! Though I’m currently traversing Europe, I love the fact that Oregon is one of the two states (include New Jersey only if my memory and the facts still serve me) that still has gas station attendants. Love it.

And Nick, I agree about teh bank’s and ATMs. Somewhere while going through links about this (can’t remember where now) someone mentioned the experiences they used to have at their bank, with the more rowdy, young, evening tellers (before they were told to ‘be professional’ - I loved going into my bank and seeing the kids who were interning through a highschool program. I always wanted to have them be available when it was my turn. I feel like I can chat with them easily.

Posted on July 23, 2005 03:48 PM | #