How to brief a customisation station for a brand activation
A guest picks up a charm, holds it against a trainer, changes their mind and reaches for another. Someone beside them has already chosen every detail. Both should have a good experience at the same station.
That is where a useful customisation brief begins: with what people will actually do. For an agency planning a brand activation in London or elsewhere in the UK, the brief should explain the occasion, the guests, the available time and what they will take away. Brand references matter too, but the shape of the experience gives those references somewhere to live.
We work across creative experience design through Studio TROVE and jewellery and personalisation through My Trove Jewels. Here is what helps us turn an agency brief into an experience that feels particular to the client.
Start with the guest’s part in the experience
“A customisation station” can mean several things. Guests might sit down and make a piece with guidance, choose components for us to assemble, or add a finishing detail to something prepared in our studio.
Think about where the activity sits in the event. Is it the reason people are coming, or something they can enjoy between other moments? Will everyone arrive together? Are they staying for a workshop, browsing a launch or heading back to a screening?
For Amazon Prime’s London season-premiere watch party, we prepared small-batch bag accessories and hand-knotted rope pieces in advance. Guests could explore the selection and customise their combination in a grab-and-go format. The making had to fit around the evening.
A seated jewellery workshop gives the activity a different role. There is more room to try an arrangement, ask a question and see what the person next to you is making. Decide how much of the event you want the making to occupy before choosing the format.
Give us the shape of the event
A total guest count is useful. So is knowing how those people are likely to reach the station. A steady flow across an afternoon needs a different plan from a room arriving at once.
Share what you know, including the parts that are still open:
- The event date, location and the hours the experience will run.
- The expected guest count and likely arrival pattern.
- The audience, occasion and wider event schedule.
- The space available, access arrangements and existing furniture.
- The budget or working range, including what it needs to cover.
- The people approving the concept, artwork and final details.
You can send an early idea. We would rather understand what is still being decided than build a proposal around assumptions that turn out to be wrong.
Show us what makes this client distinct
Send the campaign references and brand assets, then tell us what you love about them. A particular colour combination? The texture of a collection? A character, a product shape or a detail that the client’s audience will recognise?
At the MAX&Co. × RÆBURN launch on Regent Street, that thinking reached into the components themselves. We made beads by hand in the brand colours, developed custom knotting styles and prepared distinct strings using rope, suede, leather and mixed media. Alphabet beads gave guests another way to personalise their piece.
That is a useful conversation to have early. The experience can carry the client’s identity through the materials and the choices on the table, as well as the signage around it.
Decide what happens in the studio and what happens on site
There is a lot of creative room between making everything from scratch at the event and choosing a finished object. We can prepare intricate elements beforehand and leave a meaningful part of the composition to each guest.
For Nike on ASOS, we made bespoke charms in-house and helped guests compose details on trainers, caps and accessories. For Lattafa, commissioned by Gulf Trading Corporation, the bespoke studio-made charms, tool-free attachments and velvet jewellery pouches were developed together.
Talk through the object people will leave with. How is it attached, worn or carried? Who finishes it? Does it need packaging? Those decisions belong in the brief alongside the visual idea.
Leave space for the person making the choice
We love a brief with a clear point of view. We also want someone standing at the table to find a combination they would choose for themselves.
That might mean a tight brand palette with different textures, a recognisable bespoke charm alongside personal letters, or several prepared elements that can be combined in different ways. The client gives the experience its character; the guest gets a part in how their piece turns out.
If you are putting together an agency brief, send us the outline and the questions you are still working through. Explore our work with brands and agencies, or start a conversation about your activation. A date, location, approximate guest count and an idea are a good place to begin.