What Does It Mean to Your Marketing Team When 3 Billion People Watch a Game Played in a Populous Stadium?

It means that’s a lot of eye balls on what we love to do – and that’s to create great experiences for folks to come together for a common cause. We have the opportunity to create the memories fans will keep for generations to come. As a marketer, the story can’t get much more poetic than that, can it? But what’s even better is internally, our staff really buys into this culture. Every one of us has a real passion for what we do as Populous, and we have a lot of fun with it. When your employees get the big picture, it makes marketing much easier.

Are You Able to Enjoy a Game Without Analyzing Every Detail of the Venue?

Well me personally, yes, because I’m not an architect – I’m not even good at Pictionary! But I have to know the details in order to sell the experience, so I do pay attention. We are spending a lot of time these days looking at user demographics: how different generations experience our venues, and how we can create a unique experience for each individual user. A great example of this is right here in Kansas City at Kauffman Stadium, at Sporting Park, at the New Arrowhead, or at our new renovations to the east side of Faurot Field at Mizzou. Every detail of those places is a planned experience. At Kauffman, for example, you have the outfield experience which features the Hall of Fame for those who love history. You have the carousel for the kids. And you have the sports bar which has become a hot spot for Millennials. When you know the business of sport better than anyone else, you can create these moments that help create affinity for a brand, which keeps fans coming back. Sporting Park is just a wonderful example of this. You look at the stats there and it’s really remarkable. When you give a face to the people for whom you’re designing, and you think through the experience you want them to have, it makes the work that much more meaningful.

Populous as a Brand Is Still Fairly Young. How Are You Evolving the Brand From a Messaging and Position Standpoint?

Well, Populous is a new name but the firm is 31 years old and was formerly an independent Kansas City division of St. Louis-based HOK Group . That history laid the foundation for who we are today. Populous is all about where we are headed. More on that in a second but I’d love to reminisce for a bit …

I was brand manager for the firm when we changed our name in 2009. It was a bit like running a political campaign. Intense. Emotional. Personal. Gratifying. When we landed on the name Populous with the help of Milkshake out of Austin, it was kind of this eureka moment for me – we could use a brand to tell a story about the people who enjoy our buildings, whether that be sport, or convention center, or an airport experience. And the word just sounded fun and it was very visual. But it certainly wasn’t conventional, amid the alphabet soup of architecture firms.
We had about 7 weeks from selecting the name Populous to roll out. We intentionally tightened the time line to ride the international momentum of two marquee projects opening that spring in the States, Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, and the new roof on Wimbledon. It was also at the height of the economic downturn. So it was an enormous challenge to roll this out on a reduced budget and in a tightened time frame. We had to really focus our efforts on what could get done in that time frame and where we would get the biggest ROI. What’s most interesting for me to look back on is how drastically social media has changed the landscape, even in just the 5 years since we launched the name. It was such a small piece of our strategy then – I can’t even imagine how much more we would have been able to do with the proliferation of social media.

So back to how the brand has evolved. The whole purpose of the rebrand was to broaden our focus. We absolutely believe we are the best at creating great experiences where large people gather. What we wanted to dive into was how we could take that message on a broader scale. So we’re looking at the entire campus experience – or the passenger experience at airports around the world – or an entire community’s experience with the iconic touchpoints that make their communities unique. That’s what the brand Populous has allowed us to do. By reaching more broadly, it has allowed us to really hone in on what we do best. It’s quite fun right now to spread our wings with a clear focus on building upon our brand.

What Marketing Opportunity Are You Most Excited About Right Now?

I’ve got three quick ones:

The growth of our brand. Our firm is built on a foundation of innovation and entrepreneurship. We never settle, and we’re certainly not status quo. What the Populous 5 years from now looks like is going to be so much more robust than the Populous of 5 years ago. That’s exciting.

The growth of Major League Soccer. We’ve spent a lot of time the past few weeks studying the spectacle of the sheer passion around the World Cup. For us, that’s what it’s all about. Globally, soccer has really been the proliferation of our brand essence, of drawing people together. The passion at these events is what has hooked the next generation of sports fans, and I think we’re just at the tip of the iceberg with MLS.

Telling the #KC story. Here in Kansas City, I would love for Populous to have a crack at re-imagining the passenger experience at KCI. And not just to look at the in-venue experience, but the experience you have in our city from the time your plane touches down til the time you leave. With our background in understanding a convention goer’s path, we have learned a lot about how to connect all the iconic moments a city has to offer. Kansas City has such a great story to tell – it would be an honor and so much fun to bring that story to life.

What Is Your Latest Epiphany?

It’s about authenticity. We have to own our brand and believe in it in every facet of our existence. It’s in the way we interact with clients. The work we produce. The way we market. The ideas we share. The stories we tell. The legacies for cities we create. No one else can tell that story the way we do.