Creating brand fanatics.
Experiential design that makes brands famous.
Hello 👋, my name is Christopher Stubbs.
I work alongside the C-suite and lead cross-functional teams to define and understand the brand they work for and how to use experience design strategy to look at consumers’ problems differently to their competitors. This approach uncovers how businesses can boldly stand out from the crowd and offer experiences that turn customers into loyal brand fans.
What I do
Defining “The What” you need to do.
Brand and experience strategy creates the blueprint that details customers' tangible and emotional experience while interacting with your brand. Think of it as a holistic approach combining all elements of user experience, customer experience, your people and brand identity all in one, to deliver commercial success and hit your business’ strategic goals.
Brand experience encompasses consumers' feelings before, during, and after interacting with your brand. Discovering ‘value’ customers (and employees) desire is vital so that you can turn creative ambition into validated business cases and real life experiences customers fall in love with… and are willing to pay more for.
Brand and Experience strategy creates the “North Star” for start-ups, supporting their initial investment plan and post funding execution roadmap. Larger organisations continue to need brand and experience strategy to ensure the whole business is aligned on key investment and improvement priorities that will support its business goals.
Brand and Experience Strategy
Product & Service Development
Defining “The How” you are going to do it.
Product and service development turns creative ambition into defined business cases and operationalised solutions. Business survival relies on companies reliably delivering products and services that customers value.
Whether it is building something new from scratch, or evolving current solutions to maintain competitive advantage and/or business growth, product and service development ensures the whole business remains insatiably curious about how it can better deliver value to its customers to drive commercial success.
Oh.. and catching the eye of a few excited journalists who rave about your epic products and experiences provides some well earned icing on the 🍰!
Internal Brand and Culture
Ensuring brand authenticity shines brightly from within.
So many companies each year ask “the car” to go faster (make more money) yet they forget about optimising the engine (its people) to achieve those faster speeds.
Successful brands ooze authentic passion from the inside out, as employees “live” the brand and feed off the internal energy it provides.
In the past customer and employee experience teams were often separated and at times seldom interacted. I believe in combining the two experience creative hubs into one team. A team that can “think customer” and employee experience. Having highly trained and engaged people (front and back of house) delivering your service is critical to create and deliver mind-blowing customer experiences.
Some examples of my work
British Airways
Club World London City
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Design and launch of the exclusive end-to-end guest experience for BA’s 32 seater A318 - all business class service - from London City Airport to New York.
Services launched in September 2009 until the final flight in March 2020. Nicknamed “Son of Concorde” these services operated under the iconic supersonic flight numbers BA001-004.
Due to the short runway at London City Airport limiting fuel uptake, westbound flights from London to New York made a stop at Shannon Airport for refuelling, where passengers cleared US Customs and Immigration, arriving in New York as domestic passengers making it the most efficient way to fly city to city.
Virgin Australia
Brand Book
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Part of the transition of Virgin Blue to Virgin Australia was to elevate every aspect of the airlines’ experience design to enable it to complete head to head with full service Qantas.
The Virgin Australia brand book was designed to enable internal and external stakeholders to see, hear and virtually smell and taste how the brand came to life in its full service glory.
Virgin Australia
It’s “The Business”
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Design and development of Virgin Australia’s ultra long haul business class and premium economy experience.
Launched in 2016 the new premium cabins quickly become known as the best way to fly the pacific between Australia and the USA.
'The Business' cabin picked up both a Red Dot and Good Design award, in addition to winning Best Business Class in the 2017 AirlineRatings.com Excellence Awards.
Virgin Australia
iLab
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Introduced a new platform of Innovation capability, across all areas of the business.
Innovation Champion recruitment and selection through to innovation training and toolkit design that could be deployed into any aspect of the business to create “change that adds value”.
Virgin Voyages
An award winning sailing experience
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Design and development of an award-winning, end-to-end sailing experience for the modern sailor.
Breaking industry norms from retail to food & beverage strategy, through to entertainment and beach club experiential design that won Cruise Critic’s Best New Cruise Ship 2021, just 4 months after launch.
The experience continues to sweep multiple awards; Cruise Critic 2022 Best Dining, Best Nightlife, Best for LGBTQ+ Travellers , Cruise Critic 2023 Best Overall Dining, Best Service, Best Value for Money and has earned the most 5 star reviews on TripAdvisor.
Virgin Voyages
Crew (Employee) Experience
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Design and build of the internal culture at the start-up business, including the brand creeds (values) and welcome experience to set Crew up for success.
Development of VV’s Performance Enablement Experience - Leadership capability and behavioural frameworks, performance cycle design (including the launch of the Lattice people performance platform), coaching for all Crew provided by BetterUp and associated reward and recognition programmes - to support Crew to be the best versions of themselves and deliver the best work of their lives.
What others say 🎙️
“Chris the remarkable...!
I’ve had the absolute pleasure of working with Chris for a few years now and his endless supplies of inspiration, perspiration and dedication to building a brand never cease to amaze me. Believe me, if ever you need to have a person that can light fires and create real changes to an organisation’s customer experience, Chris is your person!”
— Mark Gilmour, Founder Rising Brightly
“Chris Stubbs is one of those special kinds. He knows when to step up and when to stand back, a quality that has been invaluable in Chris bringing great brands and consumer experiences to the World.
Having the courage to step up to the challenge, Chris has embraced seriously tough problems and brought the right people together to transform Virgin Australia and drive its competitive edge.
He has a superb talent for creating the right environment for creativity, while his modesty lets him to stand back, but never too far, to allow it to flourish.
Through a unique combination of vibrant personality, drive and skill, Chris has made innovation thrive at Virgin Australia.”
— Matt Round, Chief Creative Officer Tangerine
“Simply put, the world needs more people like Chris. Super creative, highly inutitive and strategic communicator. Always exciting to have him in a meeting -you know it will be an adventure. Constant curiousity, forensic insight and a brilliant mind help him agitate for change and innovate both brands and customer experiences. And such infectious enthusiasm that you can’t help but follow his lead...”
— Charlotte Goodman, Purpose & Strategy Consultant at Virgin Group
“Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.”
– Aldo Gucci
📬 Get in touch
Looking for help designing your Customer Experience (CX) and/or Employee Experience (EX)? Got a customer and service experience challenge that needs solving? Need help thinking outside of industry norms? Have a bold ambition but cannot yet articulate how it will come to life in market?
Drop us a note to say hello.
📨 hello@StubbsCDesign.com