Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hi everyone, I'm Kevin Le Goff, founder of Lobby, an idea office dedicated to artisan hospitality, with which we create brands and spaces to make our places a real destination. And through this podcast, I'm happy to share with you the reading of those who give life to these places, share their story and the soul that we find in it. Conversations with architects, photographers, owners, designers and artists to feed us on how to make our places a real destination. A podcast to be found every 15 days on your favorite platforms. Thank you all. Vous écoutez...

• Speaker #1

  Il podcast de la lobby.

• Speaker #0

  Welcome to Lobby Talks, guys. This is a new episode in English. Today, I'm joined by Omar Boubès, founder of Studio Circa and partner at Siena Wines, joining us all the way from Canada. And in this conversation, we get into what a concept really means in 2025, how you define the brand that actually supports and elevates hospitality projects, and why that foundation defines everything that comes after, from... experience to meaning to community. Omar is someone who has thought deeply about branding, not as a logo or color palette, but as a strategic compass, something that helps founders make better decisions, tell better stories, and build something that really lasts. This episode is practical, insightful, and perfect for anyone building hospitality concepts today. Not the Pretty version of it, but the version that works in the real world. Thank you for joining. This is Lobby Talks and our new episode with Omar Boubass.

• Speaker #1

  So thanks for accepting the invite,

• Speaker #0

  Omar. I appreciate it. We've been following our work and each other for quite a long time now. And this is actually the first time we get the chance to connect and exchange. So as I was saying, you know, the... The idea is to actually speak about how do we craft a brand and try to dig a little bit in the definition of a brand in hospitality because it's like a huge topic, you know, and get your point of view on that and maybe share some tips to the people that are actually looking to open or already have a brand but are looking to empower it. And maybe we can just, you know, start by your background, what brought you to hospitality and, you know, get some insights on that. So thanks again, man. I appreciate it.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. And it's been great seeing your work. I came across the Humano project before we even met. So I really like your work and as well, kind of the approach that you take, which is simple. similar in the line of thinking that we come from in terms of building brands. It's not as first layer as many people think in terms of something pretty. Many people can do that, but I think the way that we both like to approach things is going multiple levels deeper. What makes the place special? So yeah, I appreciate you having me on. It's good to be here. And I think this is only, I heard the podcast with, I think his name is Carlos from Concept Hotel Group.

• Speaker #0

  Diego, yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Diego, sorry, Diego, yeah. I think that was one of the only ones in English, so I'm happy to be on in English as well. And I think if I wanted to have a translation of the French, I should probably learn more French myself.

• Speaker #0

  I mean, we're going to do more and more in English, so I'm glad you accepted the invite, and you're going to be the first ones.

• Speaker #1

  I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.

• Speaker #0

  And yeah, how did you end up like working in hospitality and all of that?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's kind of, I came through the back door almost. I didn't really work in hospitality myself. I have family work and my brother's a chef. And I have some cousins back in Lebanon who own some restaurants. So I was always around it. And I was really, really fortunate when I was younger to travel with my family across Europe and the Middle East. So I had some amazing experiences growing up around hospitality and things that always stayed in my mind. And when I started the agency, it was going to be more focused on more like a luxury as a category. So hospitality, food experiences, products across the board. But then. After a few months of thinking and I was talking to my girlfriend and we were sending each other all these places we want to travel, all these hotels and different countries, different destinations, and I came to the thought that actually the most things that have an impact on me were my travel abroad and visiting different countries and having the amazing service that we get to have when we do travel. And the goal with Studio Circa is to help shine a light on those people. on the the people who are on the ground who really make the difference we're just a vehicle to put them in a better place so guests can discover them to understand their story to understand really what makes them special so that the guest actually reaches there and gets to experience it firsthand so it's not really about us what we do our work it's more how do we translate what they do and what they makes them special so the guest who discovers them potential guests can really understand it and have the opportunity to realize whether they're aligned with this brand or not. So it kind of was a long, I'm not sure if you know this analogy, I always do this one where you want to scratch your ear, you put your hand over your head from the other side. It wasn't a straight path, it was kind of a long-winded one. And it's good to be in the industry. And like you, I've done some investments in a restaurant and in a wine. wine agency as well so slightly more uh operationally diverse now but uh not yet with hotels so that's kind of the next step and uh do you like so studio circa like what you cover

• Speaker #0

  at the moment would you say that you actually craft everything from from scratch or as you're saying you you try to begin from the story that is already on and focusing on this kind of project or you actually have people that are coming over just saying, hi, we're going to open a place in a year or two and we want to craft something.

• Speaker #1

  It's a mix of both. There's some places that we work with that are already open that need to refresh. Maybe something isn't aligned. They know that the modern guests and the standards are... not where they should be in terms of how they're executing the brand and the experience. So we do get a mix of both new openings, but also people who are already open and maybe they're renovating or, you know, during the off season, they want to do a refresh. So it's a mix of both. Obviously, I think maybe you'd agree with this. It's always nice to start from the start to be able to shape the brand and the strategy and the concept. before they've done any kind of interior heavy work where you kind of have to fit a concept into an interior that's already been built materials have been ordered uh you know it can get like a square peg in a round hole kind of thing you kind of have to work into the structure let's say um that's the would you agree with that kind of like to start from the beginning beginning rather than have a refresh try to mold around it yeah yeah exactly and we have exactly this I mean

• Speaker #0

  I use the same the same do we say expression? Yeah. In French, we say put triangle in squares, you know? Yeah. And it's exactly the same. And I think that, you know, what people used to do, and it's changing a little bit, but the entrance door was the architect, you know, the interior design. So for people looking to craft a place, the the first you know idea and and and um and thoughts were on designing the place first so the first contact was the architect and then from that they were like okay so what should be the name what should be the you know the people that we want to gather in this this place and what we our job is to actually you know bring this step a bit before the entire design And as you're saying, you know, start from scratch is way better. But I think it's changing, you know, step by step. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  because it's a big investment. You know, when I understand the rationale of owners want to start with the architecture and the construction side of things because the timeline is so much longer, right? You have to order the materials, you have to get approvals, permits. There's so much that goes into all of that. When you have the idea and when maybe you get a certain investment or fund or something like that, you kind of want to go straight to that so that you can move things forward quicker in that regard and order materials and all the FF&E and OS&E and all that stuff. It's such a big investment that if you rush it and then you try to build a brand around something that hasn't been thought of properly, you're actually wasting the bigger investment on the construction rather than taking the time in the beginning to do two months, three months with a branding strategy, with concept, understanding the guests so that you know when you're ordering the materials and you're building it out and you have the interior design done, you're confident that it is made for that guest and for this concept rather than, like you said, the other way around.

• Speaker #0

  yeah exactly and would you say that the first steps are the concept or the brand you know how do you bring this on the table to your client actually concept

• Speaker #1

  first the brand i think because again i think we might get into this as well as like what is a brand and what defines a brand and what are the components of it so to speak um i think the concept is like the umbrella that the brand in quotes lives underneath. You know, you could even look at them side by side, but when people say brand, they sometimes think the identity. And that's why I want to make this distinction now is that the identity will come from the concept, not before the concept, of course. So in the best case scenario, we get to have that conversation with our clients. Sometimes they come with us, they have an idea. Like, oh, we want this boho, chic, you know, barefoot luxury style. They already have this idea. But I think it's also our responsibility as designers and strategists to challenge, like, why do you think this is the right choice in this area or for this specific guest? Like, there needs to be a bit of a conversation and less assumptions made. But yeah, the ideal process is concept and strategy, branding. as an activity so the designing of the brand tone of voice guidelines touch points and then execution comes after in terms of physical things like once you go to print and once you source like that's kind of the process we run do you where

• Speaker #0

  do you until where do you actually craft the brand like do you do you work on the operations and and and not just the you know the branding identity but Do you bring the brand into the operations?

• Speaker #1

  Less so in terms of operations, like team training and things like that, or even less so in terms of service flow. We work with a lot of restaurants. The bulk of our work is with restaurants, actually. But we have partners in our network who do... We don't do interior design directly in turn. We have partners who do that. We don't do operations. We have partners who do that. f&b and menu consulting in terms of actual recipes and building the menu itself from the sense of number of dishes what kind of pricing model like that's all we refer out to our partners but we go we build the foundations so before anyone can craft a menu like a chef can come in and create the menu they need to understand what the concept is exactly the main for it so we do that all that up until the point of needing to bring in other experts for their specific domain. Yeah, we don't like to claim that we're masters of everything. We're masters of what we do.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And so, yeah, I would like to talk about, you know, the definition of a brand. But at first, I would love to know, what do you think about, you know, the term passion and how passion can actually... uh giving gradients to the concept would you like i i just tried to put on on a table like few ideas um i imagine someone like listening to this podcast uh looking to create a brand like do they need to have a passion do they need to have a link with the concept or can they just you know be executives that's a very good question

• Speaker #1

  I think there's a place for both. I think the ownership or the operators who have the passion have the ability to create something much richer from themselves because they are passionate about it. And they will translate it to studios like yours or like mine to be able to take that into the design phase in terms of what does this look like. You know, they might have a lot of ideas because they're passionate about it. And this helps us obviously do our work in a much better way and create like a richness and depth to the experience. Many, and we've worked with, for example, many restaurants where we've created a really beautiful story for them about like an Italian restaurant, a story of a guy who makes hats and then he, you know, left the town to go to the city. And, you know, we can get really in depth to create this story and narrative about to basically to bring people into that world. Because you can have an Italian restaurant, which is very generic. But then when you have a story intertwined to it and then the design reflects it. you feel like it's a we like to say like a unified experience yeah there's no breaks in the experience but on the other side there might be executives or managers or operators who have the high level of the idea let's say okay we need an italian restaurant it's good for groups and families big sunday lunches you know everyone comes together if they give that idea to to a strong team, the team can take that and run with it. And obviously. being studios and being creative, we can take the seed of an idea and flesh it out in many different ways. So I don't think it's necessary that the upper management or ownership have to have like so much passion about this project. It helps a lot because it gives a richness to what they provide other teams. But it also gives them the level of detail I think that you need for a really high end and what's the word I'm looking for, impactful hospitality on the service front. Because you've probably seen this as well. Executives who just send, don't look in, they don't walk the floor, they don't really see what's happening and they just assume that everything is okay. But the passionate ones will come in and make sure those details are being executed on at every touch point. So I wouldn't say there's a right or wrong. It's just a level of...

• Speaker #0

  impactfulness that comes from more passion or more richness coming from the upper levels of management yeah that's interesting and at the same time you know like uh it can be dangerous to be like too passionate about the concept you know on the other side it's uh it's a balance and uh and yeah I mean we we I don't know if you had some project like this but um it can be very interesting and at the same time very dangerous for the project, for the team, for the people on the floor.

• Speaker #1

  It goes back to a bit what we mentioned earlier about being the presence that can challenge a bit the assumption about the concept or why it needs to be this way or what they think. And that's where trust between studio and the client really goes. support, you know, we don't want to put our name behind work that we've clearly demonstrated this might not be the best thing for you to do in this place. So it's a bit of a push and pull always with clients to make sure that your best interest is our best interest as well.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, exactly. And how would you define like this, you know, we talked about it, but we mentioned mentioned it sorry but the definition of a brand actually like you say that it was part of the concept and into this we have you know brand identity and some other stuff like because people always bring yeah you know the the brand on top of all of this you know regarding a place what would be your pyramid and and

• Speaker #1

  what would be your definition i love this question because i think there's so many different perspectives on it and i think our work as studios and creatives is successful when what we want to achieve like i try to think of it i don't know if this is going to have video but i try to think of it like on the one side you have what the brand ownership management want to express through the The other side is the guest and what they want out of a trip or out of a visit or out of the experience. There's kind of projected images from both sides. And our job and our success of translating barefoot luxury as just a very generic term, let's say for now, for simplicity, it's only successful when the guest sees it that way. It's not successful when we see it that way only, when the ownership see it that way, because we can have very similar ideas. but if we build this brand and this concept and the storytelling and the copy and even the interiors the service style if the guest doesn't perceive it as that the work isn't necessarily as successful as it should be so the brand itself i believe is a reflection of what the guest thinks or what the customer client whatever you know in terms of the whole industry let's say it's a reflection but the branding activities we partake in to create this perception is what we do So we have elements such as copywriting, brand identity, like colors, tone of voice, photography, video. Those are things that we direct as studios and creatives to help build a perception that if done correctly, the guests will look at it and see this is right. This is what I'm expecting. And this is what I believe X category definition is, what luxury is to me or what, you know, boho chic. So there's activities. And then there's the external execution of those activities. And then there's the final piece, which is the perception, which I think that's where the brand is built. It's built in the public sphere. It's not built in the mind of a creative or an executive.

• Speaker #0

  That's interesting because in your definition, the definition of the brand is perception. So it's not your job. It's not my job. Our job is to actually create the...

• Speaker #1

  bridge between you know and that's that's interesting um that's just how we see it everyone yeah i'm sure you have a definition and everyone you know has their own way of describing it but that's at least how we like to think because the success of the work and the business success as well for a hotel or restaurant comes from the right perception of the guest not our not just our perception we hope that our perception and influence is creating these assets that

• Speaker #0

  give the guest that vision of this is right and what what yeah i mean i i totally agree and uh what's interesting in this is actually the the fact that our job is um and when i say our job is as an agency or even a place owner is to actually create this perception and In this definition, we actually move the brand to the guest, which means we're not crafting a brand for us. We're crafting a brand, you know, for the guests. And which is a big difference. And what we also try to, I wouldn't say explain, but this is what we try to build with our clients also, is to get what they love, you know, and why they're doing this. but also like you know make them understand that we are doing this for guests so it's not you know the idea is not just to craft some things for ourselves and uh and our job is not to do that you know yeah because their job is and ours is to create perception so as you're saying so that's that's interesting because it gives the you know the the straight away the the the definition of

• Speaker #1

  of their job you know what i mean and they don't have to be separate so again i want to make sure that like i'm not speaking as someone who's only concerned with the guests of course the the management and the ownership they they're the ones who are taking the risk to build the business you know they need to see the returns and they have their own passions about what they want to see but those things don't need to be separate yeah that's where the magic happens when someone with an idea and ownership a team come in and they have this loose plan let's say loose idea or even passionate idea and then we help we as in creatives designers studios whatever it might be help translate translate that the right way so that the guests can perceive it the right way and it doesn't mean perception is like a fake facade it's just everything is perception in the end you know so you can have both what the ownership want and what the guests want that's that's the beautiful thing about it

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, exactly. And how do you see actually the evolution of concept and brands in hospitality today? I would love to, because it moved super fast in the past three, four years. What's your point of view on that?

• Speaker #1

  It's very exciting, for sure. I think there's many teams who are seeing the extent of what can be done, even with the hotel. Like all the collaborations, the lifestyle collaborations with fashion, with experiences, with local partners. I think there's teams who are seeing, I like to call it, extending the brand, in quotes. Basically, you're not just a real... piece of real estate that hosts guests and gives them good experiences even though in first principles that's what we think about but by extending the brand through partnerships through media in general social media whatever kind of media documentary is really cool like the belmont one hour train videos you know that's it's so uh non-conformist to the sell, like room rates, discounts, all that. It's like, here's a video of a one hour train with no just video of our train. You can watch it. You can, you know, be at peace with it, experience a little bit of the destination, just extending and thinking about creative ways to put the values of the brand in different places. That's what I think is the key point is that it's not just about the website and the state. But now you can put the brand in so many different places that not only increase the eyeballs on the brand because you're doing partnerships, for example, but also, again, from our perspective, I'm sure you might agree with this, is that they cement the values of the brand. You know, if a brand says we're charitable, we're giving, we're all that, but they're not doing anything to actually show that. That's one thing. But if they do. beach cleanups or certain sustainability initiatives with the community they're extending their reach they're doing a good thing of course but also the values that are always on paper in the beginning in a strategy document are cemented through action which gives the guest or potential guests for local community even like they stand for this and they are consistent with actually acting on it so it builds trust it builds the consistency consistency and experience And I think it elevates the perceived value of the brand as well as the whole.

• Speaker #0

  And do you think that people care much more about concept and brand and crafting, putting some details into an address because we have more and more addresses? Or because people are looking for... you know guests are looking for a purpose and and and values and you know i don't know it's it's an open question but yeah i think you hit the nail on the head i think people care about themselves and brands that reflect what

• Speaker #1

  that individual cares about will win over that person especially if there's more than one element that they care about within that brand so i see you have a surfboard in the back there i see you have a speaker in the back of your room there so assuming very into music, you like surf. So a brand that speaks that language to you, and by language, not only written, but visual, service language, things like that, people only care about themselves, really, and how they relate to the world. But that's not a bad thing, because understanding how these people function, how a guest functions, and how they think, and their dreams and desires, what they want to experience, helps us. create deeper and richer narratives for them to have that good association with the brand. So I think, as you said, it's purpose, it's values, especially now, community, shared spaces, interactions with new people. The brands that are doing it right, I think, are trying to pull from all of these areas to create a rich world and not just your room.

• Speaker #0

  And so would you say that this is actually people caring about themselves that made brands, I mean, made places like caring about brands and concepts? Yeah. Instead of, you know, like people like more and more businesses looking, you know, getting into hospitality in a business way.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I think that's a good point. That's a good point that you mentioned as well, just about how much more people are getting into hospitality as well in terms of building. I think that's a function of...

• Speaker #0

  in the modern age people are only buying from brands they trust right no one's buying from a brand that didn't earn their trust over multiple touch points you know especially when you're talking about hospitality 250 euros per night you're spending 500 600 euros and then travel so it's a big investment but i think the proliferation of more brands is because the general world is now getting more niched in its communities yeah so like you could have a very specific type of hotel that's surf oriented and has a bit of you know maybe more spiritual aspect to it and then you could have another surf hotel 10 kilometers down the road that has more of a party atmosphere to it so even within surf you have two different distinctions between someone who is going to surf for a more spiritual experience with the water and how they feel in the waves and the community and then someone else would surf surfs um maybe more leisurely and then wants a bit more of the active party lifestyle or you know so i think that the the more brands that are being developed is coming from our world becoming more niche like you're like auto of china in terms of the cars and the the property i think that's a really fantastic direction because car culture is huge and i think even within culture car culture you have the porsche lovers you have the people who are only about like the the g-wagon so yeah i think people are realizing some opportunities but i think there's also a downside when you get too niche that in the in the whole world maybe there's 600 people who maybe come here come to your place so there's

• Speaker #1

  there's always a balance there exactly but that's interesting to say that actually we as you're saying you know we we used to consume globally and now we we actually consume like more as a, you know, how would you, would you say that like as a, not an expert, but kind of, you know, like a passionate guy, an expert digging into a niche. And that makes, you know, the, as you're saying, you know, the, the brand's getting more and more niche in every, every domain actually, you know, and. And I mean, I get the fact that we got more and more places because this is a question I have, you know, and I don't have the answer. But when I look at the hospitality industry, I'm like, it's crazy, you know, to see all my friends entrepreneurs that used to be on the tech scene and startup scene all moving into the hospitality scene. right now uh and i always get this question why you know why why because um and and you you gave a you gave an answer to that um

• Speaker #0

  what do you think especially i think i have a thought about what you'd say but in terms of your your friends moving from from tech to hospitality especially as as their main business why do you think that's happening many things

• Speaker #1

  you know, regard in type of answers I could say, I could, I could give regarding that first is, you know, we're getting older first. So some of them made money and are now able to actually get into the hospitality scene, you know, because the industry needs a lot of money to actually start a project. So you need money for that. Um, so some of them, you know, sold their company and are now able to get into it. Um, Others actually lost a lot of money and want to invest in stuff that, you know, real estate that are a bit more tangible. So that's the second part. The third part would be community. You know, and as you see, you know, it comes at my third answer. I would say people that actually love gathering people. Some of them are really into that. They want to be part of a niche, they're part of a community, they want to craft a place for them, and they actually launch the address that was missing on Earth regarding this niche. Yeah, that would be my three types of... people moving from another business to hospitality. But yeah, I would say that, you know, I don't know how it is in Montreal, but in France at the moment, it's crazy to see like the number of house collections that are popping up, you know. It's every week you have a new brand that, you know, is opening a new. new house or new house collection and i think it's a good good thing and i'm just asking myself you know why like are they doing it for people like are they bringing something new on the table you know to actually i don't know like gather a new type of community or is it just real estate and yeah it's um you know the question of the moment

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, it's really interesting to hear that. And all three points that you mentioned are, I think, spot on, especially when you have, it's a big upfront investment to do a hospitality project, especially not just a restaurant, but like a hotel or a boutique, you know. I find it very interesting. I think in my perception, at least I could be very off of this. But your second point about tangible. tangible assets i think relates to another point about not just spaces but businesses that are person to person or human you know it's great to create an asset in tech or in finance that just prints prints money but you realize that if the grid goes down your your technology fails for whatever reason the places that endure are restaurants, hotels, community places that actually bring a social factor that other businesses don't have. So yes, it's an attractive asset, even from a business standpoint, but also from a longevity standpoint about what do we humans need to live properly. It's not just my Stripe account or my Netflix. We need people and we need people who we enjoy being around. We need good food, we need new places to see. So I think there's even within that answer, there's like two parts to it. There's the business side and there's the community side. Like you said, it's really, really interesting.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And it's an industry, like very interesting to see how it's socially moving forward. I mean, as you're saying, we want physical stuff. we want to to connect with people like physically you know not not just online uh but at the same time you have some crazy project going on you know that are very like inspiring inspiring and uh and at the same time we have project that are looking to erase like all the etp of a place you know just to make sure that we're gonna have an ai agent to do the check-in and and um and it's funny to see like how like a scene especially like a tech scene is getting into hospitality and try to get the same codes but it's not working the same way you know we we actually have uh people we work with um that we're into this um like you know the hundred percent digital stuff in term of check-in and and experience and we actually you know uh moving back into something more physical in terms of experience and and and social touch point that we actually need to make the place alive you know so that it's super interesting to see that it's it's changing a lot it's it's um improving i mean the the the scene is getting more and more like a modern in terms of experiences but at the same time you know it's still a business that just need to focus on on people and i like this you know this idea of we cannot do whatever we want with the mentality you know and uh and

• Speaker #0

  i like that you know it's interesting i think there's there's a place for technology in the same way that decades ago when they introduced their like the the computers that check into type of guest name like that was technology right that did something to improve the process but i think at the core like like we've been talking about The human connection and also at least in our industry, in our work as studios, it's not just the human connection on site, but it's the buildup of desire before. How does a guest decide where to go? I don't think it's that much price related. That's the logical. not judgment, the logical conclusion after, like they rationalize it. If the price is okay, if the room has X balcony or whatever, but even before that consideration, they need to feel something. Even in a business hotel, even in a small inn, there's still something emotional or something in the writing that draws them to this place. It's never just about square footage of a room or a mini bar. Like it's very rarely that.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  So. The emotion and then the human, I think, are the core things that will never be really taken away from technology. No matter how hard people try to do that.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, exactly. And I had this question, Omar, regarding Studio Circa, but you actually produce a lot of content.

• Speaker #0

  And do...

• Speaker #1

  Are you doing it to actually educate the market and the perception of crafting a brand or a concept? Sorry. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

• Speaker #1

  No, no, no. I mean, it's always interesting to actually understand the effort of why are you doing that much content as we do also. You wrote a book. Yeah. And I'm very impressed about what you've done. I think the first time we got in touch was you had a white book or something like that I subscribed to. And yeah, I was impressed by the content. So why are you actually doing it? Is it education? Is it... And...

• Speaker #0

  you know it's definitely part of it is education because there's i'm sure you've seen this as well there's a misconception about what branding is kind of got into that a little bit and the value of branding and its kind of uh sequence in the order of things as well as the roi of branding quotes again i won't use that word like as an umbrella but um yeah there there's just seems to be because of the tech that's coming in. You can get... go to a logo maker online and get your logo for your hotel for $5. And there you go. You're off to the races, right? And that's fine. You know, some people need that. And those businesses, I think, are, again, I don't know the intricacies of those websites that do those things, but people use them clearly because they're still active. But I think for the owners, operators, the managers, the people who want to do it, I think, with the intention, with the right intention, because this also... seeps into how they also do service right so if you think of one thing is going to be fast easy quick without any thinking about it like build the logo in five in five minutes on this website sometimes that translates into fast quick easy thinking into building a service manual or building the flow or the programming and in the end it doesn't really capture the attention of the guest or it actually has a negative effect so we really like to work with with with the businesses who have that intention but also appreciate the the depth that we can go into because again we're talking about emotion emotion is the driver and how do you build emotion it's not from a five dollar logo or you know a copywriting agent you know there's there's certain things that you can do with those things for sure if you're doing high volume content it helps you write a bit but at the foundational when you're building a building, the foundations of it need to be strong and they need to be true. One small chink or one misunderstanding or one misdirection can cause the whole building to collapse. So everyone will go about their way in their own way, but we try to educate to really help people because some people can take our content and go, you know, do their own thing. We have audits, we have a bunch of tools for that. But I think it also attracts the right people. um over the long term yeah actually doing business with them it's a kind of uh

• Speaker #1

  I mean, it's a matter of education, but at the same time, it's a kind of filter, you know.

• Speaker #0

  Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Just to make sure that the people that, you know, knock back the door, you know, the one that understand the fact that you're going to go deeper and deeper into some subjects. And you just talked about ROI, you know. It's very interesting because you might have the question. you know from your clients uh and we we try to bring answers to to those questions regarding the the kpis that we can measure and and the return of on on investment uh how

• Speaker #0

  do you answer to that well i think there's certain ways again i don't know there's no exact answer i think there's many ways to pull from different experiences that you've had as a company as well but also other studies that have been done about this so with branding it's a bit harder because it's very there's a lot of conceptual parts to it yeah you only really feel the roi of it after months or years when the guests are saying like this brand feels so much like me or they understand me and all that stuff but there's two other points i would mention on the website it's much easier to track conversions and what a website is performing like because that's data and you can track a previous website that didn't have the brand in consideration and no story versus a new one that does like it's kind of easy to do that even if you don't change anything in your ad spend or targeting you can just look a or b there's also a very interesting study that i think you might be interested because i know you do interiors it's called the dqi index i'm not sure have you heard of this no DQI Design Quality Index there was a study, I can't remember his name something wolf they did a study with Hayat and it was all about the space, it wasn't about branding because obviously it's Hayat, but it was about the space and they tested it on, they did this index with 30 hotels and they showed that better design on the interiors and the construction increased customer satisfaction but also interest increased employee satisfaction.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  So the overall, there's a whole article about it. I can send it to you after. We'd love to. But yeah, that's just showing the space. So the emotional well-being of the staff and the guests increase because the space was designed well, but also the ROI of the assets, the physical asset, and the long-term. And I like to think that we can apply the same thinking to branding and design. the visual language of the brand because the principles are essentially the same yeah yeah so it's hard to explain but there are uh ways to pull like the website i think that's a good way to show you know roi in terms of increased bookings or dwell time interiors the dqi study is a good one with brand it's more like a feel uh kind of feeling thing that's that's this is something that's built for a specific guest and will last It's not a kind of trendy design that will last three months, and then it will burn out. So it takes a bit longer to show the ROI of the brand. But by that time, the financials have already caught up to show that it has been a good idea.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And actually, you have metrics like the repeats, the fact that people are coming back to your place. We have a funny measurement. I mean, funny data that is used. It's actually the online store, you know, for places that actually has some products or some collaboration with other brands that they actually sell online. It's also a way of measuring the engagement in terms of price. And sometimes, you know, we discussed about it with one of my friends in the fact that we were not supposed to do an online store but we're gonna do one just to actually gather get get some data from the brand you know and the engagement and the and just like see how it looks um and how people are actually interacting with the the the website uh but as you said it's you know coming back to the website and to actually measure some some data from it and it's really this one.

• Speaker #0

  I like that because that's that's what you're talking about there in terms of the shop is what they're buying is not related to their main reason for staying in a place. It's an association. It's like they're proud to have this item and pay for it and represent on themselves what they believe the brand represents to them and to the outer world, which is really, really powerful. I love that idea. It's smart. It's really smart.

• Speaker #1

  And you know, like some places, I know that because you've got two teams in this kind of stuff, it's the merch that you can do, like the first level one. the you know the cap the t-shirt and whatever so that's that's a team and then you have the other team uh actually like working on purpose and collaboration and get the right brand to associate to your own brand and what they do is actually the before putting the stuff online they they just do the kind of a pre-order stuff um or just like

• Speaker #0

  let me know when it's online just to see the interest of you know the the the collaboration and uh and and then they measure that you know yeah so that's interesting i like that and even with that just to add a small point there like that's such a great uh kind of mini campaign to test to do like a small landing page registering if you're curious about this but the other side side of is obviously with bigger brands or more well-funded let's say and they have the audience like aman has the their furniture line that they do custom which came from guests asking them about like this piece uh in a room like do you is this from another company they're like no no we made this so they have that and if you know uh do you know ash hotels yeah yeah their line and they're promoting this now for christmas their products like their their soap their their ottoman chair their products and even even the way they promote the products is top notch. Yeah, I like your approach, especially for more testing to see if there is a good taste for it.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  People are interested before you spend money on merch and products and design.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly. And as we were saying, the idea is to get some KPIs and then understand if the brand we're building is drawing interest. So, yeah. and yeah I mean so much stuff to say about brands and concepts but we already spent you know 50 minutes and yeah and how can we actually you know get in touch with you if we you know we can reach you on LinkedIn through studio what's the the

• Speaker #0

  the domain again for yeah so linkedin just uh you can go to my name omar bubes um and for the for our website it's studio-circa.com amazing and um and so you're based in montreal canada yeah between montreal and a little bit more in cyprus as well just for to have a kind of footprint in yeah just say it by the most time as you can see back there it's not true amazing

• Speaker #1

  Thank you very much, Omar. I mean, we'll definitely know.

• Speaker #0

  A big thank you for listening to us up to here. And if you enjoyed this exchange, don't hesitate to leave a note and subscribe to your favorite platform. It helps me to go back in the rankings and to make the podcast known. We'll see you very soon for a new exchange. See you soon on Lobby Talks. I think...