Examining proxemic as an instrument for experiential brand design in physical retail spaces

For luxury coffee shops to create positive and memorable brand experiences for their customers, they must carefully design, manage and maintain their brand image throughout the entire consumer journey. The store environment plays a prominent role because it strongly influences customers’ perceptions of the brand. Factors such as the social atmosphere and employee interactions contribute to defining and representing the brand identity to customers. Therefore, coffee shops must consider customers’ cultural identities to ensure their experiences are relevant to the sociocultural context. By integrating design, branding, anthropometry and proxemics, decision-makers can create personalized experiences that engage customers on physical, emotional, cognitive and cultural levels. This research focuses on using proxemics to design luxury coffee shop experiences in multicultural spaces. We propose an instrument to collect data on task patterns, task distinctions and user preferences in coffee shops. The tool consists of three sections that collect data on proxemic behaviour, proxemic perceptions (cultural) and proxemic reflections. We used a case study to exhibit the relevance of proxemics and proxemic behaviour in improving the interaction between person, object and space. The instrument offers the possibility to document proxemic factors that are imperceptible and intangible in the users’ brand experience and journey in a retail space. It also provides data to increase user engagement with different touchpoints, such as retail space, product design and identity design. Proxemic behaviour is relevant in addressing cultural, behavioural and sociological aspects of interpersonal situations related to spatial distance between individuals. These findings suggest the relevance of proxemics in promoting human-centred design in experiential spaces. Ultimately, the work aims to expand the available instruments and methods for improving user experiences in service-based industries within the experience economy.