Branding 2.0: Another Level of Branding

As if dressing like a Mac weren't enough ("Dress Like A Mac"), the latest convergence of technology-branding and real life is happening in Apple's retail stores, specifically its SoHo store:

"Sex and the Apple Store"

The store has become so hip that young, creatively-minded singles are apparently, ahem, hooking up after meeting there! This seems like an interesting paradigm for the future of corporate branding in the world of technology, and a social phenomenon heretofore not previously observed in that industry. While the article attributes some of the store's allure to the cachet built up by "Sex and the City"'s Mac-toting SoHo resident Carrie Bradshaw, the people who congregate there — young, hip, upwardly mobile, bright and self-motivated individuals — are attracted to the store's welcoming, art museum-like ambience and coffee-shop-like layout. In fact, the store has subtly become an offline extension of the online dating experience — yet still removed from traditional dating by its close relationship to the very product — the computer — that enables online dating.

Now that digital media is beginning to coalesce around lifestyle hubs such as integrated home media centers, I wonder whether other technology companies will pick up on the opportunity to actually build the shopping experience itself into the brand in order to powerfully influence even the people we meet and hook up with.