The Five Senses of Your Brand: Taste

Last week, I talked about the increased importance of creating stunning visuals at your events, not only for the guests while they are at the event, but for sharing on all social media platforms (user-generated content has 6.9X more engagement than a brand’s owned content).

So, you are comfortable with your brand pillars and all visual elements of the event and you’re pretty sure you have created just the ‘wow’ factor that will have your clients coming back for more. What comes next?

The next easiest to decipher is taste—literally, how your guests will digest your event. What makes sense for a wellness brand may not make sense for a law firm, or a sports marketing company. If you’re hosting a yoga event, it may not make sense to serve BBQ Pork Ribs (unless, of course, that’s your thing), just the same way it would likely be confusing to serve wheatgrass shots at your firm’s holiday happy hour.

If you are a food brand, whether a restaurant, catering company or CPG, this part is easy—whatever is new, your chef’s speciality, or whatever your heart desires will be just fine. For a brand that sells sustainable clothing or inflatable pool toys, the lightbulb moment might not happen right away.

For a brand that makes clothing out of hemp, maybe it makes sense to showcase the other ways that hemp can be used—hemp seeds in the salad, hemp milk with the coffee. For the inflatable pool toy company, serving real pepperoni pizzas and glazed donuts with pink icing and sprinkles can really make the brand come to life.

What about if your brand is more Mr. Big than Aidan? (You knew there’d be a Sex and the City reference in here somewhere). If your firm balks at the thought of serving anything but meat and potatoes at an event, maybe there’s a new way to serve it that will add a little pep into your attendees’ step, and give them what they want while still walking that very fine line.

You may decide to add some action stations (just as interactive as they sound), some creative food displays (the old Mashed Potato Bar had its moment for this reason), or even a celebrity chef. It’s up to you to determine how far you can go—but in my experience, if you add one or two small new elements to the mix, your guests will thank you for it.

What is the absolute best food memory you have? What made it different? I want to hear everything from the donut walls to the dessert sushi in the comments below.