MY METHODOLOGY
OF CULTURE DRIVEN NARRATIVE
EXPERIENCES & VISUAL MEMORY

For more than 25 years, I’ve worked at the intersection of branding, design, technology, film and culture, creating campaigns, immersive experiences and visual worlds for international brands. Throughout that time, one observation kept returning. Some ideas disappear almost immediately. Others stay with us for decades. Not because they had the biggest budgets or the smartest strategy, but because they created images that became impossible to forget.

The projects were different. The industries were different. The technologies changed constantly. Yet the same question kept returning.

Why do some ideas become part of culture while others disappear almost instantly?

The answer was rarely found in budgets, media plans or technology. It was found in human psychology. In cinema. In architecture. In art. In pop culture. In the way our brains remember images and experiences.

I found recurring patterns across disciplines that rarely meet in the same conversation. Advertising taught me how brands create relevance. Cinema showed me how stories create emotion. Art demonstrated the power of reduction and symbolism. Pop culture revealed how ideas spread through society, while psychology and neuroscience explained why certain images stay with us long after the experience itself has ended.

Over time, these observations evolved into a methodology built around three connected frameworks. Together, they move from discovering what matters, to designing experiences people can feel, to creating images they will never forget.

Many creative projects begin with a brief. I prefer to begin with a question. Why should anyone care?
Every memorable brand starts with something worth caring about. Not a product. Not a campaign. Not a technology. But a meaningful intersection between what a brand stands for, what people truly desire, what culture is talking about, and what technology makes possible.

I call this intersection the Passion Point.

It is the strategic foundation of every project I create. Because before people remember an experience, they first need a reason to care. The Passion Point exists where four forces overlap. Only when they reinforce each other can an idea become both meaningful and memorable.

The result, a Narrative Experience, means to create an experience that has a lasting impression on humans. It is about creating an environment for (brand) stories that become the story of those we’re telling it to. I try to offer people (on behalf of the brand) an experience that solves their problems, triggers them emotionally or simply becomes a valuable experience. Because relevance is never created by communication alone. It is discovered at the intersection of brands, people, culture and technology.

This leads you to spot gaps in the market and drive innovation, as well as to develop a better understanding of your target group and their mindsets based on a social and cultural impulse. Do things that matter to humans! Tell stories that become their story. I believe in Narrative Experiences that convert humans into fans and I aim to change the way brands communicate: by putting the human in the center of all communication and create stories that become the story of those we are telling them to.

Finding relevance is only the beginning. People rarely build relationships with strategies or messages. They build relationships with experiences.

Narrative Experiences transform the strategic foundation into something people can feel, explore and participate in. Whether through film, immersive installations, digital platforms, AI, spatial design or interactive storytelling, the objective is always the same: to create meaningful moments rather than simply deliver information.

Every memorable experience is built around tension. Between the familiar and the unexpected. Between curiosity and discovery. Between technology and humanity. Stories create movement, and movement creates emotion. This is where brands stop communicating and start becoming experiences that people genuinely remember.

People don’t want to consume stories anymore. They want to enter them. Today’s experiences invite participation. They reward curiosity. They encourage exploration. They allow audiences to become part of the narrative.

AI changes production. It doesn’t change storytelling. Artificial Intelligence allows us to create faster. But it doesn’t tell us what deserves to exist. The idea still comes first. Narrative remains human.

Every experience eventually ends, but memory remains. Looking across cinema, advertising, art and popular culture, one pattern appears again and again: people rarely remember an entire story. Instead, they remember one image that comes to represent it. The monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Jack Nicholson in The Shining. The pink guards in Squid Game. The unmistakable silhouette of the G-Class.

This is what I call Visual Memory.

Research in psychology and neuroscience helps explain why this happens. Images are remembered more effectively than words, particularly when they are distinctive, emotionally engaging and leave room for curiosity. Principles such as the Picture Superiority Effect, the Von Restorff Effect and Mental Availability all point in the same direction: memorable images create memorable brands.

For me, Visual Memory is the outcome of the entire creative process. The Passion Point identifies what matters. Narrative Experiences transform that relevance into something people can feel. Visual Memory ensures that the experience leaves behind an image people continue to recognise, remember and associate with the brand long after the campaign has ended.

Because in the end, brands are rarely remembered through everything they said. They are remembered through the one image that people never forgot.