Why we do it
It's all about Commerce, Culture, and Community
Since our inception in 1990, Pompei A.D. has been a leader in the development of transformational environments that merge Commerce, Culture, and Community (“C3”). Through this integration we empower some of the world’s leading brands to connect with their audiences through experiences that forge emotionally-based relationships and speak to personal, social, and cultural values.
Brands exist within a broader cultural context, and their success is dependant on an engaged community of customers. The C3 approach starts with empathy for people, their values, and their aspirations. By gaining a deeper understanding of the community, and recognizing the broader cultural landscape of which the community is a part, brands can introduce new meaning and relevance to their offerings. This invigorated brand experience transforms customers from consumers into empowered co-authors.
Our approach
Pompei A.D. creates experiences that engage people on an emotional level, and develop long-term relationships with our clients. Within the venues we design, services are provided and value is created as human needs are met in content-rich and stimulating ways. The experiences are integrated: there is a place for commerce, with amenities for business transactions, a place for relevant culture to be produced and experienced, and a place for community, where people can gather and share experiences. Utilizing the C3 approach, we create projects that provide interactive, personalized journeys and immersive, content–rich, narrative encounters.
We build relationships between our clients and their audiences that recognize and integrate emerging values, while supporting our clients evolving interests and unique needs. Our creative perspective draws upon insights derived from our broad experiences, ongoing qualitative research, and on the ideas of a wide range of thinkers across different fields. We research our client’s culture and markets extensively, and look beyond passing trends to better understand what motivates people, and how their values are expressed. Pompei A.D. does not have a signature ‘style’: each solution we create for our clients is unique for their customers, based on an authentic understanding of both the brand and the community. In our creative process, we focus attention on the psychological, social, and kinesthetic dimensions of the visitor experience, and we use psychographics over demographics to gain insight into our clients needs. We focus attention on the visitor experience rather than on abstract design principles. We look beyond passing vogues to grasp the values that truly motivate people. We devote time to understanding how people empathize, and make sense of an experience. The environments we design are site-specific and contextual.
Our tenets
Pompei A.D.’s approach to developing concepts and design is based on our philosophy and on the three tenets that are at the heart of our approach: Authenticity that addresses the universal desire to experience and understand the real and the meaningful - that which is true to the human condition. Authentic design resonates with audiences on a deep, subconscious level, and inspires feelings of comfort and trust, thus establishing the essential connection with visitors empathetic pathway. Relevance - a design that aligns with personal and social values. This cuts through the clutter of messages by taking into account the conditions of a community or business on many levels -- time, place, values, history, and stories -- and allows the design to evolve with the community. Intimacy within a design acknowledges and addresses people’s deep physical, emotional, and symbolic needs. It allows them to feel like they belong, and establishes a deeply felt trust that encourages the possibility of genuine transformation.
Experiential branding
Brand perception is cultivated as much by the customer’s personal interaction with the brand, as it is by the customer’s exposure to advertising campaigns, catch phrases, and logos. With this in mind, our holistic approach towards branding involves developing multiple opportunities for brand evolution through compelling customer engagement. These opportunities might include physical environments, audio/visual media, live events, cultural partnerships, and interactive technologies. Through these creative experiences, the customer community effectively collaborates with the brand in discovering the qualities that will make the brand great.
Cultural entrepreneurship
We define Cultural Entrepreneurship as a continuous symbiotic relationship between a brand and the culture of which the brand is a part. The most successful brands empower the culture, which, in turn, supports and inspires the evolution of the brand experience. Ideally, this is an ongoing dynamic relationship that develops organically over time, allowing the brand to adapt effortlessly to the demands of perennial cultural shifts.