(Welcome to a Brand Experience Brief — insights and analysis from my audit of a new and interesting retail or restaurant concept.)

Walgreens is trying to “transform from a traditional drugstore to a retail health and daily living destination,” according to Joe Magnacca, the company’s president of daily living products and solutions.  Its flagship stores showcase its new approach.  Check out my audit of the new Walgreens in downtown Chicago:

other brand experience briefs:

• LEGO
• REI’s flagship in SOHO
• Walmart.com

(If you’d like your team to re-think your brand experience, sign up for a Brand Experience Day.  We’ll head out into the field to experience concepts like these, and then regroup to identify and apply the new insights to your business.  Learn more.)

brand as business bit: 

“A strong concept that has the potential to evolve into a brand”

is among the five criteria for a successful fast casual restaurant concept, according to Don Fox, CEO of Firehouse Subs.  Speaking at an education session at the National Restaurant Show earlier this week, Don shared his insights about growth.

His point resonated with me, as I had just commented to a colleague that many restaurateurs fail to realize that a successful restaurant brand has to be about more than the food.  Having worked in the restaurant business for over 20 years, I find that too often aspiring restaurateurs develop a new food concept and think they have a viable business.  Certainly the food has to be right.  But a brand is also based on all the other elements of the experience – service, presentation and packaging, pricing, facilities, ambiance, culture, personality, etc.  And restaurateurs need to ensure these elements are as differentiated – and well-executed and continuously innovated upon — as the food.

P.S. Check out my video recap of the show, including popular products, sound bites, and other highlights.

What makes a store more than a store?  What makes a breakthrough brand experience at retail?

These are questions that companies with brick and mortar assets wrestle with as they continue to lose share to online competitors or to those with mobile capabilities (smart phone-enabled mobile commerce as well as IRL roving mobile units and other non-traditional formats).  I’ve been tackling these questions through the last six months as I’ve audited over a dozen new and interesting retail and restaurant concepts.

I’ve been cataloguing my insights from my audits in a series of Brand Experience Briefs.  As I survey my reports so far, I find that the concepts which create memorable brand experiences in their stores have some things in common.  Here are nine criteria of breakthrough brand experiences:

1. a clear and compelling brand story and/or brand promise that’s brought to life. Stores need to embody the essence of the brand and make their differentiation and value clear and compelling.  The brand history and values are conveyed clearly in the design, signage, and lounge area at Patagonia’s Tin Shed store, while The Habit Burger Grill restaurant fails to express a distinctive brand platform or attributes.

brand mural in Patagonia's Tin Shed store

2. target appropriateness.  We’re all attracted to people who are clear about who they are. We respond naturally to their self-confidence. Brands are no different. Brands with integrity and clarity are attractive because they don’t try to be all things to all people or to be something they’re not.  The 77Kids NYC Style Lab is a great example. Everything about the store is targeted squarely to fun-loving kids.  Subway Café, on the other hand, aspires to offer an upscale coffeehouse ambience but that’s not what its customers want, and it doesn’t execute on the concept very well.

3. brand-right assortment.  Some of the strongest concepts are filled with tens of thousands of SKUs, while others offer very tailored assortments.  There’s no single “right” assortment size or scope – it really depends on the brand strategy.  Central Market aims to be a place for foodies, so it makes sense for the store to feature over 700 types of hand-cut cheeses.  Starbucks’s new concept stores use local wines and beers to convey the personal, intimate attributes that the company desires for its brand.

4. interactivity.  Although emerging technology has enabled websites to become more entertaining and engaging, brick and mortar still has the upper hand on interactivity. And the concepts that breakthrough are those that use interactivity to make the shopping experience unique, exciting, and memorable. The LEGO store stands out with features like its Pick-a-Brick wall for kids to dig their hands into cubby holes filled with LEGOs of all different shapes and colors.  However the Walmart.com store misses important interactive opportunities since many products were not available to try or play with.

Pick-a-Brick wall at the LEGO store

5. overt promotion of product quality.  Retailers should stage experiences and use store signage and displays to promote the quality of their products.  The REI store in SOHO sets the standard for this with its areas that enable customers to try products (like an incline walkway in the hiking boot area); Uniqlo uses eye-catching signage to highlight features of its products; and messages about product freshness are sprinkled throughout the Pie-o-logy location.  Steak n’ Shake Signature could learn from these examples, since they have great burgers and shakes but haven’t figured out how best to merchandise and present them.

6. passionate and well-trained employees. Staff who are disengaged (employees at the Walmart.com store seem more interested in figuring out the products themselves than in interacting with customers) or clueless (an order-taker at Subway Café doesn’t know the menu) detract from the experience and damage any hope of brand integrity.

7. distinctive design and décor.  The most memorable brand experiences use design and décor to create a sense of place.  They take a fresh approach to layout and architecture to create a brand world of sorts, they employ interesting materials for surfaces and fixtures to appeal to all the senses, and they use details and decorations to express the brand personality.  REI integrates the historic features of its unique location (the historic Puck building) with digital signage and other contemporary design elements, while Pie-o-logy created its distinctive environment, including mod furnishings and a wall of fun quotes, from the ground up.

Pie-o-logy's distinctive design and decor

8. attention to detail.  The devil is in the details when it comes to retail brand experiences.  Details like Starbucks’s hand-written welcome message incorporating its wi-fi service communicate volumes – so do the plastic utensils at ihop express and the drab dressing rooms at Uniqlo.  Breakthrough retailers sweat the small stuff.

9. extension beyond the four walls.  Retailers that extend their brand experience outside their store make a bigger impact and create longer-lasting relationships with their customers.  A couple of examples:  REI’s active involvement in its community through service projects provides authenticity and personal engagement; the content in Uniqlo’s magalog connects people to its brand attributes and values.

Uniqlo's matalog

I’d love to hear your feedback.  What other criteria contribute to breakthrough brand experiences?  What new and interesting restaurant and retail concepts should we take a look at?  Comments are open!

Also if you and your team need to re-think your brand experience, sign up for a Brand Experience Day.  We’ll head out into the field to experience concepts like these, and then regroup to identify and apply the new insights to your business.  Learn more.

related posts:

• would you like a coffee with that wi-fi
• 12 truths to guide retailing in 2012
• six best practices in retail

(Here’s my newest Brand Experience Brief — insights and analysis from my audits of new and interesting retail or restaurant concepts.)

It’s always interesting to see how product companies create retail experiences for their brands.  That’s why I’m eager to share my download on the LEGO store.  It’s a solid experience for the LEGO brand, but they missed some opportunities to make it even more engaging.  Take a look and let me know if you agree:

other brand experience briefs:

• Pie-o-logy
• uniqlo
• 77kids

(Here’s the latest Brand Experience Brief — insights and analysis from my audits of a new or interesting retail or restaurant concept.)

Pie-ology, a new pizzeria concept inspired by Chipotle, delivers a remarkable brand experience — check it out:

other brand experience briefs:

• The Habit Burger Grill
• uniqlo
• ihop express

Last week, the Wall Street Journal featured a piece about Lululemon Athletica’s “secret sauce.”   Although many stories have been written about the retailer of yoga-inspired athletic apparel, this one succinctly relayed the elements that distinguish Lululemon from other brands.

The article talked about the “mystery” of the chain’s strategy, which has propelled it to become a $10BB retailer in less than 15 years.  It’s clear Lululemon practices what designer Marty Neumeier preaches in his book, Zag –  The #1 Strategy of High-Performance Brands.  Marty explains, “Differentiation, the art of standing out from the competition, is not front-page news. What is front-page news, in a world of extreme clutter, is that you need more than differentiation.  You need RADICAL differentiation…When everybody zigs, zag.” [emphasis mine]

Here are three ways Lululemon zags:

1. It doesn’t do formal market research or customer relationship management.  “Instead,” the WSJ piece reports, “[CEO Christine Day] spends hours each week in Lulu stores observing how customers shop, listening to their complaints, and then using the feedback to tweak product and stores.”

It also trains its employees to be customer advocates (a role I recently wrote about in “The Sales Associate of Tomorrow.”)  Salespeople eavesdrop on customers as they fold clothes near the fitting rooms, so they can overhear complaints and pass them along.  And, customers themselves are invited to give input to the company by writing suggestions on a chalkboard that are sent back to headquarters.

Of course research and CRM are valuable tools for most companies – but, sometimes there is no better way to understand your customers than to simply listen.

2. It uses scarcity instead of discounts to generate demand. 

“The goal is to sell gear at full price and to condition customers to buy when they see an item rather than wait.  ‘Our guest knows that there’s a limited supply, and it creates these fanatical shoppers,’ says Ms. Day.”

Lululemon has trained its customers to “buy now” instead of waiting for promotions or looking for redlines.  In fact, the WSJ reports that it sells 95% of its gear at full price and it never puts its core items on sale.  Scarcity is a much more sustainable and brand-building approach to stimulating purchase conversion.

3. It doesn’t offer top-notch customer service. 

The piece quotes CEO Day as saying, “We aren’t Nordstrom.  We aren’t your personal shopper.” Lululemon’s return policy is “very strict,” according to the WSJ:  no products accepted after 14 days, and all must be unwashed and unworn, with original tags.

This is not to say that the company isn’t friendly or doesn’t care about its customers. A quick spin through its blog, tweets, and Facebook page and visits to its stores prove otherwise.  But it’s clear it’s not trying to be something it isn’t.

Zag-ing is really at the core of Lululemon.  The company was started by a guy, a surf, skate and snowboard business veteran.  He created an underground yoga clothing movement by selling products made from performance athletic materials out of a design-studio-cum-yoga-studio.

The company has enjoyed extraordinary success every since.  I’m sure Marty Neumeier isn’t surprised.  In Zag, he writes, “Traditional differentiation is an uphill battle in which companies lavish too much effort on too few competitive advantages:  the latest feature, a new color, a lower price, a higher speed. Radical differentiation, on the other hand, is about finding a whole new market space you can own and defend, thereby delivering profits over years instead of months.”

related posts:

• differentiation through specialization
• differentiate your way to success
• companies to keep an eye on in 2011

(Check out my latest “brand experience brief” — a report with insights and analysis of new and interesting restaurant and retail concepts.)

Fast fashion retailer Uniqlo is on a roll.  I visited the company’s Herald Square location, one of three stores it has in New York City.  Here’s what I thought of the brand experience there:

more brand experience briefs:

• REI in SOHO
• The Habit Burger Grill
• Patagonia’s Tin Shed

The folks at Deloitte recently released, The Next Evolution: Store 3.0,  a report on the readiness of retailers for the store of tomorrow.  Although the report offers a somewhat limited and biased perspective since it is based on a survey of only 39 current retail executives, it raises some important questions about the requirements of the future store.

One point caught my attention: the role of the sales associate.  “As customers’ purchasing behaviors evolve, the sales associate role must evolve with them,” the report rightly stated. It laid out primary salesperson tasks/skill sets:

• POS assistance
• Purchase selection assistance
• Specialized product knowledge
• Technology savvy
• Brand ambassadorship

“Today the top three most important responsibilities and skills of the sales associate are POS assistance, purchase selection assistance, and specialized product knowledge,” reported the survey respondents.  “As we look to the next three to five years, survey respondents pushed specialized product knowledge and brand ambassadorship to the top of the list, ahead of POS assistance, as a store employee’s most important roles.”  And the report predicted that, “Five or more years from now, the sales associate is expected to become a technologically-savvy brand ambassador with specialized product knowledge.”

While this direction is absolutely on-target, there are some key tasks/skills missing from the report’s list of qualifications of the sales associate of tomorrow:

salesmanship – Retail salespeople need to be skilled in the art of selling, i.e., establishing rapport, explaining value, overcoming objections, etc. This may seem like a no-brainer, but with the current trends like reductions in training and moves away from commissioned sales, salesmanship at retail is becoming a lost art (see another post of mine on this subject.)

customer relationship building – In retail, salespeople are a critical piece of a company’s customer relationship management program.   A robust customer database is only valuable when it’s used, and not only by corporate folks.  Salespeople on the floor need to understand who their customers are, what their specific needs/wants/preferences are, how to provide personalized service, how to foster continued loyalty, etc.

customer ambassadors – Salespeople glean valuable insights about customers since they’re interacting face-to-face with them every day.  As such, they can serve as customer ambassadors to the company.  Fast fashion retailers like Zara use input from salespeople to inform product design.  Store layout, service policies, product quality, and assortment are other areas where salespeople’s perspectives are invaluable.  Companies need to train salespeople so they know how to integrate customer insights with company priorities when giving input, and they need to develop processes for incorporating salespeople insights into the company’s strategies and plans.

Rising labor costs are squeezing already thin margins and so retailers may feel a need to scale back on sales floor coverage, salesperson training, and infrastructure enhancements that help salespeople do their jobs effectively.  And with shiny new objects like mobile devices, augmented reality, and social shopping apps, retailers may be tempted to favor technology investments over people ones.

But it would be shortsighted to discount the importance of sales associates in the store of tomorrow.  The Deloitte report closes with a strong exhortation for retailers to revive their talent management strategies:

“As customers increasingly demand a more personalized experience, your sales associates become even more critical in achieving that goal. That means investing in your employees by providing the necessary skills, training, education, compensation, and career-development options to increase product and technical knowledge, among other skills. It also means equipping them with the right technology so they can easily and conveniently provide customers with instant product information, purchase history, or customer preferences. The renewed investment in the sales associate as a brand ambassador will bring back the confidence in retail as a profession, and convert browsers to buyers.”

In other words, a skilled salesperson could quite possibly be the final bastion against the showrooming trend that looms large over brick-and-mortar retailers.

related posts:

• retail tensions
• 12 truths to guide retailing in 2012
• retail evolution

(Here’s the latest in a series of “brand experience briefs” — reports with insights and analysis of new and interesting restaurant and retail concepts.)

The Habit is one of the many “better burger” chains generating a lot of buzz these days. Although its charburgers do taste good, the company needs to work harder to differentiate the brand from all the other options.  Here’s why:

DLYohn Brand Experience Brief: The Habit from Denise Lee Yohn on Vimeo.

more brand experience briefs:

• Steak ‘n Shake Signature
• ihop express
• Subway Cafe

brand as business bit:  There’s been a lot of reporting on the rankings from Interbrand’s Best Retail Brands 2012 report – but I’ve been spending more time on the consultancy’s commentary that’s sprinkled throughout the report.

The comments have made me aware of the tensions that now define retail:

• efficiency vs. responsiveness – “Now that consumers decide how, when and where to interact, the only location for retail is where the customers are…Responsiveness now trumps efficiency. When a brand is responsive to its shoppers’ behaviors and expectations, it adds value to its goods and services.”  I don’t disagree – but retailers still need to exceed at efficiency if they want to maintain profitability.
• accessibility vs. exclusivity – “Now that retail has the ability to be accessible to everyone everywhere, some clever brands have worked the reverse of the trend to their advantage. Exclusivity can still be counted on to generate excitement, convey status and stroke the shopper’s ego.”  I suppose the opportunity is to be accessible only to those customers you want.
• digital advancements vs. simple solutions – “Technology enables and encourages personal connections [but] today’s customers gravitate toward simple solutions and more efficient shopping. In that respect, most retailers still have unrealized opportunity to delight their customers apart from digital channels. Improved customer service, easier merchandise returns and a reduction in out of stocks, which still reach up to ten percent in stores on average, could have far more relevance.”  I just wrote about this the other day — see “would you like a coffee with that wi-fi?“