Brand with Light
The building that houses your business and the land that it sits on are yours by virtue of outright ownership or secured for a period of time through a lease. What you choose to do with this asset to increase visibility and potential profitability is for you to decide. I would challenge you to conceive of a more cost effective improvement to your property that could create instant awareness and therefore traffic for your goods and or services.
The use of lighting, more specifically LED lighting, as a “branding iron” can distinguish your business from others that are located in local proximity. LED lighting with its’ extraordinarily long life as well as efficiency and exhaustive product offering make it the ideal light source for defining and portraying your brand image tastefully. Signage is specific, as is your logo and its’ color(s). Branding with light is always purposeful, precise, and arouses emotion. The monetary outlay involved may justifiably be expensed either as a building improvement or as an advertising expense as current budgets allow.
The tops of prominent buildings, major regional landmarks, and national edifices have been enhanced to draw dusk to dawn awe and awareness through the use of aesthetically pleasing lighting. Similar benefits now extend to Main-Street business. Buildings, landscapes, hardscapes as well as entrances into complexes are all excellent candidates for branding with light. With the economy ever tightening, traditional methods to gain potential customers’ attention are less effective than just two years ago. Seeing even the best in category in a “different light” might be the visual prompting that stimulates the mind into action by immediately considering purchasing your products or services.
To uniquely and elegantly identify your property with light one would need to decide which architectural or landscape elements lend themselves to greater focus. The next step would be to blend these items into a unified, purposefully orchestrated nighttime portrait that might define and extend the architecture at your disposal. With the newly available LED light sources that are now on the market it is possible to have customized “Identity Lighting” that will be exclusive to your specific enterprise and individual taste.
Building outlining, horizontal or vertical facade illumination and RBG (red/blue/green) technologies are just a few ideas that can be incorporated into a specific individual theme. Remember that increasing aesthetic appeal is the dominant goal of “branding with light” or Identity lighting. A thirty-year-old, four-story office building that is 60% leased can take center stage among neighboring newer construction by lighting the forty-foot pillars incorporated into its exterior facade. Proper tasteful execution is destined to cause months of rubbernecking and command years of increased attention by infusing new visual life.
High-end residential subdivisions can highlight their entrance monuments, fountains and clubhouses with the use of newer non-traditional lighting techniques. By shifting focus from the functional to the optimal design possibilities a builder can create an after dusk appearance of higher quality, elegance and desirability that might pull potential buyers from competitive builders. Enhancing your properties strengths is a practical, timely offensive strategy in an increasing competitive marketplace. It is just good sense.
Apartment and condominium complexes can also use these techniques to foster increased traffic into their offices. Elegant lighting at entrances, along perimeter focal points and at community facilities can foster a sense of security and wellbeing and aid in renewed leases. Individual condominium owners will have these benefits as well as a greater advantage when attempting to sell their unit because of the enhanced nightly curb appeal.
Colleges have been upgrading their campuses for the security of the student body with LED fixtures as of late. By choosing whiter color temperatures the grounds take on a new crispness while striving toward a greener environment. By adhering to the above suggestions regarding perimeter, entry and focal point lighting a sprawling campus can resonate with a more unified and absorbing nature. Student visitors are also more likely to carry mental snapshots of intriguing and uniquely lit statues, facades, and safe park-like landscapes. Again, differentiating by branding with light has positive financial benefits lasting years.
Main-Street retailers from car dealerships to furniture stores with large picture windows showcasing their wares can benefit from simply retrofitting existing sockets with varying color temperatures of LED PAR style lamps. Those passing by will do a double take when they see a purposeful mix of warm to cool hues throughout the showroom. Up to a ten times lamp life multiplier with as low as ten percent of the required energy makes LED a “game changer”. Sockets that are burning for twelve hours daily call out for LED.
Restaurants might consider LED architectural outlining around the top edge of the roofline. Small channel set LED sign lights can produce neon-like glow for a fraction of the cost. Several color choices are available that would complement individual trademarks. One product that we provide uses only forty watts of energy for every fifty feet of length and has an eight-year life at dusk to dawn operation. Another available option is to use specific lighting additions at specific times of the year for specific events, all at the flip of a switch. Low rise corporate office buildings that line freeway arteries can employ a variant of this method and highlight distinct portions of the structures walls.
Whichever above reason that might trigger your competitive marketing sense to look into creating and defining your businesses’ optimal night-time identity, I would encourage you to seek out a LED provider that is knowledgeable of new LED light sources as well as one that is skilled in application and installation of these products. Finally, I would urge you to open your “creative” eyes while doing a thorough walk around your property after dusk. Ask yourself if many of those driving by are seeing your business, whether it has retail hours or not. If realtors continue to profess that location is key, it probably is a pretty good idea to have your potential customers finally see yours. Wishing you higher visibility in 2020.
