A Message to Master Planners: Fun Matters

This story was originally published in Builder.

Sometimes two completely random instances relate.

They may start out as occurrences clearly and unquestionably set apart by time, by space, by an onslaught of meetings, tasks, and matters that separate one from the other.

Then, alchemy happens, as from each instance's stored place in memory tendrils spear through all the different kinds and degrees of separators, and find a way to weave together, connecting in the mind as coincidence.

For example.

Instance No. 1 features, Mollie Carmichael, long a much-respected guru on what makes consumers tick, especially when it comes grasping what it is about homes and communities that get consumers' juices flowing and hearts pumping. Mollie very recently became a colleague, through new ownership that has put Meyers Research, where she's a principal, together with BUILDER publisher Hanley Wood, also the owner of Metrostudy.

When faced with the question, "Do brands matter?" when it comes to those factors that cause consumers to pick one new home builder's offerings versus another's, Mollie's response was almost matter-of-fact.

"We need to remember that it's the consumers who are the brand, not the other way around."

This was her way of saying, yes, brands do matter, but not necessarily nor only in the sense of the marketer's intended messaging and impact. When it comes to how brands work, all marketers can do is to hold out a promise and deliver on it. However, it's the consumer's experience of both the promise and its delivery that makes a brand what it is. That's why, in Mollie's mind consumers are the brand.

Which brings us to instance No. 2, a brief, fascinating, everything-under-the-sun-in-30-minutes conversation with an icon of architecture and community planning, Andres Duany.

If you're not familiar:

Andrés Duany, architect, urban designer, planner and author, has dedicated over three decades to pioneering a vision for sustainable urban development and its implementation. He has influenced planners and designers worldwide, redirected government policies in the U.S. and abroad, and produced plans for hundreds of new and renewed communities of enduring value.

Bottom line is, a Duany obsession is what makes communities work, in real time and over time. A common denominator for ones that do both means people self-identify and willingly "own" the living, breathing pieces and parts and systems and structures that make a place a place.

Like, fun, for instance. What strikes Duany as fascinating and profound is that, for all the social engineering, amenitization, programming, and plotting 55+ communities normally offer, one has stood out strong as a clear beacon of phenomenal power.

Margaritaville may have been born as a place in singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett's laid-back repertoire, but 41 years later, the song and the lifestyle have become a true people's brand.

"They want fun, the life of fun, and food, sweet melodies, and worry-free days and nights," says Duany. "That's people making a community, not the other way around. It's fascinating."

And so, the tendrils of an early morning session with Mollie Carmichael and a late-afternoon one-on-one with Andres Duany began to burrow from their respective homes in different parts of the mind, and weave forward, clearing a way to join one another.

Never underestimate--especially in planning communities--the business value of fun, with a tad of hedonism. It's a need we have, that we can often forget as such.

Also, as both Carmichael and Duany note, each from their own distinct vantage point, it's people who make brands, not the inverse. And it's people who make communities vital and resilient, not the inverse. And people--amid all this gravity and seriousness--need fun.

This story was originally published in Builder.