Branding is not just a nice logo and good advertising. The brand reflects the personality of an organization with everything that is part of it: products, services, employees, history, customers, advertising, packaging, logo design,... and location. The attention location received as part of the brand image, is a rather new phenomenon and was probably first explored by luxury brands. They found each other all over the world in certain places, streets or avenues. Good examples are the Champs-Élysées in Paris, New Bond Street in London, Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, the Fifth Avenue in New York or The Bund in Shanghai.
However, also technology brands recognized the potential of prominent locations with Apple once more leading this development. Sport brands started to build their own shops, like Nike, Adidas, Puma and are not happy anymore to be simply sold by department stores. Even M&M's has its own store, one that all the tourists find very easily when visiting London with its amazing location at Leicester Square and spread over 4 floors.
In all the countries I have been so far, I always visited a Starbucks. It has somehow changed, since Starbucks opened so many stores, but in the beginning of their launch in countries around the world, they always rented very beautiful buildings at very attractive locations. For me this was part of the Starbucks brand experience. You drank a good coffee, were served by lovely staff and had a very nice painted ceiling or a stunning view out of the window. The quality of the Starbucks locations has decreased dramatically since they started to grow so quickly, which is a pity, but not really part of the topic I want to cover now...
Tate Modern has one of the most beautiful locations in London. The Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron transformed the Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern and the museum receives now 5 million visitors every year. In the same year Foster & Partners built the Millennium Bridge, which now connects St Paul's Cathedral and Tate Modern and is a very beautiful walk with amazing views of the City, Tower Bridge and of course the Thames. Tate Modern can also be approached from both sides along the Thames either from Tower Bridge or from London Eye and Southbank. Two walks I would strongly recommend to everybody visiting London.
The building itself is very impressive and the architects managed to keep the character of the old power station, but make it a place where the paintings and sculptures come into their own. The Turbine Hall was left as a huge hall, which can be used for large installations, maybe also laid out with 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds (a project by Ai Weiwei) or it is just taken over by visitors which sit down or walk around and enjoy the architectural masterpiece.
Tate Modern's location has definitely also an impact to make it the world's most visited museum for modern art. It is just such a good experience to come here and after you have been once in Tate Modern you want to come again and again. From every floor you have a stunning view on St Paul's Cathedral, the most beautiful one in the restaurant on the top floor.
The open space makes the art also more accessible for the visitors and walking through the rooms you get the feeling that people start a communication with the pieces exhibited in Tate Modern. I have visited a lot of museums in different cities around the world and Tate Modern is one of the most beautiful one, where the art starts to come alive. My favorite one is still Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, though, with its extension designed by Jean Nouvel.
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