In this article, we’ll be discussing:
[Image Credit: Luxe Digital]
If you’re a brand either launching into retail for the first time or expanding your current retail presence, knowing which activation to choose can be challenging. Choosing the right retail activation strategy for your brand involves carefully considering and assessing various sectors to ensure alignment with the brand’s objectives, target audience, and overall marketing strategy. With the ever-changing retail industry, it is important to know which activation will best fit the industry’s current state to maximise its impact.
At Design4Retail, we have the ability to translate a creative concept into any retail format, but knowing which format lies in your hands is important. To help determine the most suitable retail activation, we have outlined five indicators to consider…
[Image Credit: Dior]
# 1 Understanding brand objectives
Clearly define your brand objectives and what you aim to achieve with launching into retail, whether it’s increasing sales, brand awareness, customer engagement, or launching a new product.
#2 Know your target audience
Identify your target audience and understand their preferences, behaviours, and purchasing habits.
#3 Consider budget constraints
The boring part but, of course, essential. Different activations naturally come with different price tags and understanding the budget will ensure no corners are cut and bigger projects don’t fall short.
#4 Evaluate timing and seasonality
Consider the timing of your retail design project. Seasonality, holidays, and industry-specific events can impact the success of a campaign. Choose a timing that aligns with your brand message and resonates with your audience.
#5 Utilise data and analytics
Leverage data to inform your decision making. Analyse past performance data and customer feedback to identify patterns that can help guide your retail project.
By carefully considering these factors, brands can make informed decisions about the most suitable retail strategy for their specific circumstances. It is also important to stay adaptable and be willing to adjust strategies based on ongoing feedback and changing market dynamics. Below are a number of retail formats that we at Design4retail can create, from research, strategy and concept through to production and implementation.
When you design a shop, you make a big statement in your industry. Therefore, investing in in-store design is perfect for international brands who are looking to tap into new markets overseas, for example. Physical stores are a visual representation of a brand’s identity. A well-designed store can arguably convey your brand’s personality, values, and aesthetic more than any other activation. A holistic interior design helps to create a strong and memorable brand image, contributing to brand recognition and customer loyalty.
It might be that your brand already has a retail presence in the form of a store, so the design needs tweaking or translating into a new retail space. But for those brands who are launching into retail for the first time, they will want to invest in what we call a concept store. A concept shop could be a one-off store or the start of a larger retail project. A concept store interior will physically represent your brand, harnessing tone of voice, brand messaging, colour palette and customer journey all in one place.
The benefit of creating a store, among many others, is that it allows brands to create a fully immersive experience and control the design that being a shop-in-shop within a department store may not allow.
Learn more about the secrets of store design here!
As part of your wider brand strategy, pop-ups give brands the opportunity to be more flexible and to experiment. They also offer your customers with something unique and different from their usual visit to a store. Pop ups can be an outside retail experience, a travelling pop-up like our MAC Roadshow for example, or part of a marketing campaign to promote a new product or upcoming launch.
Pop-up events have the ability to generate hype and create buzz for a brand. As well as this, pop-ups provide an opportunity for brands to engage directly with their customers. These face-to-face interactions can lead to a better understanding of customer needs and preferences, while also fostering more meaningful relationships. The temporary and ephemeral nature of pop-ups, whether that be one week or six months, can create a sense of FOMO, encouraging consumers to visit and engage while the opportunity is available. This can directly impact the online presence of a brand when visitors capture and share the in-person moment with online consumers. The answer to an omnichannel experience.
A shop-in-shop is a retail strategy where a brand is granted a dedicated space or section within a retailer to showcase and sell their products. This may also be known as a branded space, store-in-store, or concession, which is more specific to beauty retail. A shop in shop is a great way to experiment with experiential retail concepts before committing to a standalone store, to test and gauge consumer interest in particular regions or locations.
A shop-in-shop concept provides brands with a physical presence in a high-traffic location, increasing visibility among potential customers. This can be especially beneficial for brands looking to enter new markets or demographics. These high traffic locations are usually department stores or large retailers which automatically adds credibility to your brand.
When it comes to beauty, legacy names are still investing in beauty concessions as well as the next gen newcomers, which just shows how impactful they can be. Beauty counters can disrupt the department stores interior design with their concepts while befitting the multiband environment.
Shop in shop retail allow for the possibility of national, international, or global rollout depending on its success. Our success in this sector has been recognised by the creative retail awards where we won an award for our branded space with Haibike.
Category design allows brands to stand out from the competition, within a distinct, sector-specific market. Instead of competing with existing players in that category, brands can use category design to become a leader within that industry and dominate the category. Category leaders do this through the use of in store messaging, point of sale displays and retail graphics. These in store comms are used to educate, build awareness, and develop trust among customers, reasserting your brand as the go-to retailer for that category.
This may be suitable when a brand is starting out in its retail journey, with an exclusive product range that is specific to beauty, wellness, sport or baby categories, for example, and is looking to target a certain demographic that would be shopping in larger high street retailers.
Brands may be given the opportunity to take over a window space on the exterior of a retailer or this may be part of a wider brand-only store design project. If we first take the latter, creating a visually striking window display can capture your customers attention and drive footfall in-store. The design of a store shouldn’t stop at the interior and the window display should be an extension of the overall store design. It is arguably the most important part as it is the first impression for customers.
If a brand is taking over a window in a larger retailer it can be the perfect opportunity for your brand to promote particular products, for examples when stella McCartney’s adidas took over Harrods, or to showcase a sprinkling of seasonality.
When it comes to ideas for window displays, aligning with seasonal holidays, events and promotions can promote your brand as one that understands the wider context. The flexibility of windows allows storefronts to be kept fresh and relevant.