Dolby soho

in house strategist @ Dolby

Challenge

Handpicked by Dolby's new CMO as one of 12 people to plan and execute the company's first ever consumer-facing brand experience: a popup in NYC's SoHo neighborhood, with only six weeks of lead time. The challenge wasn't just logistical. Dolby had spent decades as a B2B technology brand invisible to everyday consumers. This popup was the first real test of whether Dolby could connect with a general audience who did not know the brand and had no reason to walk through the door.

opportunity

While the rest of the task force focused on the physical buildout , such as content planning, space design and window displays, I identified a critical gap nobody was addressing: the consumer experience. How do you get distracted NYC window shoppers to stop, come inside, and actually care about a technology brand they'd never thought about before? How could I use this opportunity to introduce Dolby’s technical products in a way that resonated with the everyday consumer? I recognized that without intentional UX and consumer journey mapping, the most technically impressive space in SoHo would still fail to connect.

solution

I developed a two-part strategy: make the space irresistible to enter, and make the brand impossible to misunderstand once inside.

For the first part, I pushed for the inclusion of vibrant art walls, neon signs, and interactive visuals that would make the popup “Instagram-worthy'“ and compel social sharing. I made the case that earned social media impressions from visitor content would dramatically amplify our limited marketing budget and drive sustained foot traffic beyond opening week.

For the second part, I owned the entire messaging and communications strategy throughout the space. I simplified Dolby's highly technical product language into bite sized, consumer-friendly copy that communicated benefits, not specs. I wanted to show consumers why the brand mattered vs what Dolby did. I designed a signage system that created a coherent narrative arc as visitors moved through the space, ensuring every room built on the last rather than functioning as isolated product demos.

I also developed comprehensive training materials and a brand handbook for the ambassador team hired to staff the space, traveling to New York personally to run the trainings. This gave front-line staff the language and confidence to explain complex audio-visual technology in human, conversational terms, helping each visitor interaction be a moment for brand building.

result

The popup, initially planned for just one month, ended up lasting over a year to great reviews, closing only due to COVID-19. It attracted more than 175,000 visitors and became one of Dolby's most effective brand building tools, generating sustained earned media and social content far beyond what paid advertising could have achieved at equivalent cost. The space became so desirable that major partners including Netflix and Amazon requested exclusive use of it for their own launch events, which was an unprecedented validation of Dolby's first foray into consumer brand positioning. The success of the popup helped Dolby expand beyond CES and start showcasing at major events like SXSW, marking a shift for the company into the experiential space.

The training materials and messaging frameworks I developed for the space were subsequently requested and adopted by other teams across the organization, showing that the consumer first communications approach I'd built had broader organizational value beyond the activation itself.

expertise

The ability to identify strategic gaps in complex, multi-stakeholder projects and fill them proactively. Consumer journey design. Translating technical complexity into human language at scale. Building the internal case for a non-obvious strategic investment and delivering measurable results against it.

Dolby SoHo Promo Video

Photos From Monthly Exhibits, Including Partner Events

“The Contenders”: an “Oscars” Event with Netflix