brand, retail Opening Destinations #RetailDestinations

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Opening destinationsHow to drive new store footfall from the word go


Opening destinations

Contents

Part 1 The evolution of ‘opening destinations’

Part 2 Making a destination as attractive as possible

Part 3 Storytelling’s role in creating memorable shopping experiences

Part 4 IKEA case study

Part 5 Opening is just the beginning



Part 1 The evolution of ‘opening destinations’

High-street and retail centre shopping has been at the heart of British culture for decades. Since the rise of e-commerce at the turn of the century, however, seismic shifts have shaken traditional retail to its foundations.

Today’s always-on, digital-savvy consumer expects convenience, instant gratification and personalised shopping at the touch of a button. To put this brave new world of e-commerce into context, total 2015 UK online spending eclipsed £114bn1.

In the midst of this evolution, physical stores are becoming destinations in their own right. Rather than focus exclusively on sales, stores and shopping centres are turning the ‘pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap’ retail mentality on its head by creating immersive experiences for consumers.

But there’s trouble brewing. In 2014, net closures of UK high-street stores trebled to 9872. More recently, consumer confidence tumbled in the wake of Brexit3, while retail footfall is set to drop by 1.2% in 20164.

In the face of wavering consumer confidence, declining footfall and stores pulling down their shutters, retailers and shopping centres are presented with both a challenge and an opportunity. To survive and thrive, they need to ensure that new destinations pique interest, spark engagement and convert sales opportunities. The blank piece of paper with which a new outlet begins is the chance to do something different to draw in droves of shoppers.

Yet the excitement of the planning stage is accompanied by palms made sweaty with the fear of failure. What if it all falls flat? The good news is, strategy, insight and statistics help ensure that store locations and customer demographics are spot-on.

Read on to discover how both individual brand outlets and large shopping centres can:• Use strategy and data to find and secure an ideal location• Market new stores and centres to become as attractive as possible• Deliver awareness in a catchment area• Use storytelling to create outstanding store experiences• Build loyalty and repeat purchase, ensuring footfall, dwell time and ROI

1. Internet Retailing – UK Online Spending Rises by 11% to £114bn2. The Guardian (PWC) – UK High Streets Running Out of Time as More Close than Open 3. Financial Times – UK Consumer Confidence Falls post-Brexit 4. FootFall – How Will UK Retail Change in 2016?



Part 2 Making a destination as attractive as possible

Brands no longer compete with just physical retailers and outlets. They now contend with smartphones, same-day delivery and the global reach of the Internet. New destinations need a potent proposition to tempt people through the doors from day one.

We’ve already mentioned a number of challenges that retailers face today. It’s important to remember that some brands and retail centres are excelling, despite what the overall figures say. In 2015, Westfield generated a combined £2.1bn in sales and attracted more than 70 million customers to just two outlets – Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City5.

This magnetic level of attraction can be achieved by your next destination opening, too.

APPROACH NO. 1:Shopping Centres – How to Attract BrandsClone shopping centres are living fossils eking out an existence in a rapidly changing world. To offer something new and exciting, brands need to understand what consumers look for in a new destination.

Consumer-led branding: Developing a clear brand architecture, mission, proposition and identity ensures the needs of your target market are matched in a clear and direct way. This process helps uncover business challenges and creates a blueprint for success.

Ideal tenants: Retail centres looking to attract clients need to find tenants that fulfil anchor and complementary roles. Anchor brands – department stores, large fashion outlets, etc. – should be courted several years before opening the new complex. Complementary brands will follow once you’ve established a need to be alongside the star players.

The rules of attraction: Being in the right place means understanding location, size, proximity to other stores, scope of customer base, level of competition in a given catchment area and the story behind an opening, which we’ll explore later.

Insight inspires: It’s important to situate these facets of opening within the context of wider insight. Workshops, surveys and data analysis provide the ammunition to craft brand positioning. This, in turn, helps generate a richer understanding of the area and desired customer base.

Tell your story: Give brands a reason to invest by highlighting the benefits of your offering. Communications pre-launch are essential; storytelling helps unlock the key benefits identified during the research stage. Full integrated marketing support, from brand planning, signage, digital marketing, PR to social media, helps turn vision into reality.

Surprise and delight: Within shopping centres, open and immersive spaces are the future. Restaurants, cinemas and other forms of entertainment draw footfall outside of the normal retail shopper catchment. Retail centres can replicate - and improve on - the high street within a single complex, and create a sense that behind each corner lies something new to be discovered.

5. Retail Times – Westfield Ends the Year On a High



Part 2 Making a destination as attractive as possible - cont.

Shopping centre investment remained strong throughout 2015, with a total of 86 shopping centres trading at a value of £4.3bn6. If you can tell a persuasive story, instil a sense of need and fuse retail centre benefits into an integrated marketing campaign, then retailers will want a piece of the action

APPROACH NO. 2: Brand Stores – How to Attract Customers Studies show that 72% of digital shoppers consider in-store experience the most important channel when making a purchase7. So despite what the doom-mongers will tell you, there’s plenty of opportunity to make bricks work alongside clicks. There are lots of tactics to make this happen.

Gravity modelling: A data-driven model indicating the highest-propensity area for a store opening. Retail research through third-party data helps identify successful stores and lookalikes across the country. Combine this with a retail footprint profile of potential customers, analyse the region at large and discover what areas are overserved by a particular sector. You can then identify gaps in the market and determine likely consumer engagement.

Tell all the people: Storytelling needs to bleed into outbound marketing campaigns, whether that manifests itself as outdoor advertising, billboards, leaflets, brochures, direct mail, PR or social media. Meanwhile, experiential stunts and events help to envelop potential customers in a brand’s purpose. This sets the scene for future engagement, and can leave lasting impressions that spur repeat visits. Destinations need to keep people entertained by offering a personalised retail experience – and this experience should reinforce the brand story pushed during outbound marketing activities.

Be the talk of the town: Positioning new stores as destination ‘experience hubs’ pivots them away from the mundane and moves towards the magical. Bespoke, creative interactivity will increase footfall and dwell time. The motive should be to cultivate a space where consumers come to explore, even if they don’t purchase on the spot. Social sharing means that information can spread quickly. If you can get people talking about your store, that’s half the battle.

6. Savills – UK Shopping Centre and High Street Report7. Business2Community – 10 Notable Omnichannel Trends and Statistics



Part 3 Storytelling’s role in creating memorable shopping experiences

Gone are the days of stores focussed solely on sales. The market is awash with immersive in-store experiences that put the consumer front and centre of interaction. These ‘experience lounges’ not only reinforce brand identity and values, they tap into social sharing and word of mouth.

From this launch pad, brands can begin to implement rational insights to bring values and destinations to life. But how can this be achieved? Well, storytelling helps to unlock unique brand attributes, bringing values and missions to life.

Great stories have the power to inspire and influence generations. We’re exposed to wondrous and inspirational tales from an early age, leaving an impression on us. The same logic applies to retail. If you fail to clearly explain why your store matters, it’ll be difficult for consumers to buy into the wider purpose behind your business. Get it right and you fuel people’s imagination and curiosity.

“Research shows our brains are not hard-wired to understand logic or retain facts for very long. Our brains are wired to understand and retain stories. A story is a journey that moves the listener, and when the listener goes on that journey they feel different and the result is persuasion and action.”

Jennifer Aaker Marketing Professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business



Part 3 Storytelling’s role in creating memorable shopping experiences - cont.

Rational DecisionsResearch from CEB found that brands that simplify customer decision-making are 86% more likely to be purchased8. Storytelling helps simplify and streamline brand messaging. To appeal to rational decision processes, brands need storytelling to clearly outline practical benefits. This could mean emphasizing location, talking up key products or highlighting in-store offering and pushing promotions.

Data becomes more effective when woven into cleverly crafted and well-timed stories. For example, Bicester Village attracts hordes of foreign shoppers by telling a rational story. Its marketing message is: “Located just an hour from London, Bicester Village is a luxury destination, home to more than 130 boutiques of world-famous brands, each offering exceptional value with savings of up to 60%.”

Location, price and quality are all addressed in a simple, succinct and attractive sentence. By creating a personality, the retail outlet is able to connect with consumers and outline benefits in a more attractive and persuasive manner.

Emotional EngagementAccording to the latest statistics, there are 290,315 retail stores in the UK. To stand out from the crowd, it’s imperative that you strike an emotional chord with your audience.

Make clear: this destination is new, this is what we stand for, this is how we’re expressing it and this is how to get involved. Workshops with leasing teams, architects and community members helps ensure the story you tell is unique and engaging. Two-way dialogue and a call to action can drive interest around launch dates.

Remember, communications need to highlight fresh shopper offerings and situate these within the context of emotional drivers. Westfield, for example, hosts free customer events, cookery classes, and even provides style experts to help improve your wardrobe. These inclusions are all part of the story – to improve the lives of clients and customers by offering exceptional shopper experiences. Shoppers today don’t want to feel obligated to purchase. If you can provide activities outside of shopping that capture emotional interest, you’ll see a notable uptake in footfall and dwell time.

8. Harvard Business Review (CEB) – To Keep Your Customers, Keep It Simple



Part 4 IKEA case study

In 2015, IKEA came to us with an exciting proposition. The retailer wanted to open in Reading, its first new UK destination in seven years. IKEA was looking to overcome shopper assumptions – Swedish meatballs, navigation issues and flat-packed furniture – to create a fresh face for the opening.

To celebrate the launch with a campaign that served the whole catchment area, we created a three-level IKEA-themed Husbåt (house-boat) that toured the Thames. The Husbåt reflected IKEA’s business principles and customer mission, allowing this vision to be experienced first- hand by potential customers within the direct catchment area of the store.

Bedecked with Swedish culture and sustainability, the boat reflected the significance of water to a nation of 95,000 lakes. We invited children aboard to take part in interactive educational activities. An estimated 30,000 youngsters were reached through our school outreach programme.

A host of marketing collateral – including social media activation, leaflets and flyers – led to free IKEA Family Evening Cruises selling out on the first day. In total, we distributed more than 28,000 leaflets to drive footfall to IKEA Reading.

In a month, we successfully connected the residents of Thames Valley to the Scandinavian way of life. Through immersive storytelling, we engaged some 7,500 people within the catchment area.



Part 5 Opening is just the beginning

In an era of considerable retail change, it’s vital to align strategy and insight in order to dazzle with your next destination opening. Data-driven analytics (gravity modelling and retail footprints) serve as an important benchmark for making educated decisions about location.

Once the stakes are in the ground and the story is told, the doors are open and customers are enjoying the experience, it’s important not to lose sight of the future.

It costs six times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one, so building loyalty is all important9. The challenge lies in driving repeat visits by setting a lasting plan for the future, evolving the story and continuing to give people reasons to choose your shopping destination.

9. Harvard Business Review – The Value of Keeping the Right Customers

Contact

To find out more about how you can open successful, attractive and engaging destinations, or to book an immersive workshop, get in touch with us:

BWP Group Jubilee House, Third AvenueGlobe Park, MarlowBuckinghamshire

SL7 1EY

+44 (0)1628 625 900

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brand, retail Opening Destinations #RetailDestinations