Designing the moments where a premium brand becomes real

The room didn’t match the brand

About eighteen months into my role as Senior Online Marketing Manager at Bain, something became increasingly clear. We were investing heavily in how Bain showed up digitally, but the experience of the brand in person wasn’t keeping pace.

I remember attending one of the legacy recruiting events. It was held in a downstairs meeting room of a perfectly serviceable but tired four-star hotel. The format was familiar: a forty-five minute presentation, thirty-five slides, delivered by a senior partner in a suit. It was formal, linear, and largely one-directional. There was very little interaction and even less sense of what it might actually feel like to work at Bain.

Afterwards, my boss asked me what I thought. So I told him.

The content wasn’t the only issue. The people weren’t the issue. But the experience felt disconnected from the reality of the firm; the pace, the energy, the expectations. It didn’t feel like a premium brand. It felt like a lecture.

From online marketing to creative direction

My background at Jack Morton had been in brand experience and live environments, and as the digital work progressed, I found myself increasingly looking at the full journey rather than individual touchpoints. Not just how we attracted talent online, but how that interest translated into real-world engagement.

I began to offer a broader point of view; less about channels, more about the integrated funnel. How digital, video and live experience could work together to create something coherent rather than sequential.

That shift in perspective was recognised, and I moved into a Creative Director role, with responsibility not just for how Bain communicated, but how it was experienced.

Making events somewhere people actually wanted to go

The opportunity was obvious. If these moments were often the first physical interaction candidates had with the firm, they needed to feel intentional, not incidental.

The idea was simple: make the event a destination.

Instead of defaulting to anonymous hotel meeting rooms, we moved towards venues that carried their own energy and relevance. Fenway Park for students from Harvard Business School and MIT was one example; a setting that immediately changed the tone of the evening before anything had even been said. The same principle extended elsewhere; sports venues, art museums, and spaces people would choose to go to, not endure.

The format shifted as well. Presentations were reduced from thirty-five slides to ten. Speakers moved away from formal attire towards something closer to day-to-day reality. The emphasis moved from presenting to conversing; smaller group interactions, more questions, more dialogue.

Technology supported this rather than leading it. iPads replaced static materials, allowing content to be more flexible and responsive, but the real change was in atmosphere. The room started to feel more like Bain; more open, more direct, more human.

In parallel, changing the voice of the brand

At the same time, the approach to video was being rethought.

Much of the existing content followed a familiar pattern; polished, well-produced, but ultimately telling people how good the firm was. It was competent, but it lacked texture. It didn’t feel particularly human.

The shift was towards something simpler and, in many ways, less controlled. Let people speak for themselves.

I spent time across Bain’s US and European offices, filming interviews with consultants at different levels; their backgrounds, why they joined, what they found challenging, what surprised them. The intention wasn’t to produce a single campaign, but to build a library of real voices that could be used across digital channels. Many of these still sit on YouTube today, years later.

We also created a series of Q&A videos with the Recruiting EVP, designed to answer the questions candidates actually had, rather than the ones we assumed they should be asking. One of these films was viewed over a million times shortly after publication, not because it was heavily promoted, but because it felt relevant and straightforward.

One experience, not separate channels

Although the video work and the events programme operated as distinct streams, the thinking behind them was consistent.

Move away from telling and towards showing. Replace formality with clarity. Create space for real voices rather than relying on polished messaging. And above all, design each touchpoint with the understanding that it shapes expectation for the next.

The goal wasn’t to make events more entertaining or videos more engaging in isolation. It was to create a more coherent experience of the firm, whether someone first encountered Bain online or in a room.

In the end, people decide based on how it feels

The changes weren’t dramatic in isolation. A different venue. Fewer slides. A more conversational tone. A camera pointed at the right people. But taken together, they shifted something more fundamental.

Candidates didn’t just understand Bain more clearly. They recognised it.

And that, ultimately, is what matters. Not whether a message lands perfectly in a single moment, but whether the experience, across multiple touchpoints, feels consistent enough to be believed.