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

Hi folks!  Trying a new feature this year — a monthly round-up of my published content.

It’s a mental buffet of ideas that may seem schizophrenic at times (I do work on fast food restaurants as well as fitness brands, after all!), but it’s all in the service of helping companies understand and apply the “brand as business” management approach.  Enjoy!

retail and restaurants:

• 12 truths to guide retailing in 2012 – a slideshow success in retail from speakers at NRF’s Retail BIG Show in 2012
• Vickie Achee on the Grand Retail Experiment at Patagonia – an interview with the head of Patagonia’s retail marketing
• Brand Experience Brief: Patagonia’s Tin Shed – photos and notes from my audit of the new concept
• Killing Retail Giants – guest post by Stephen Denny, author of Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry.
• New Retail Opportunities – my post on Stephen Denny’s blog
• Picking a Marketing Firm for Your Company – advice from my QSR Magazine column
• J C Penney to Revise Pricing Methods and Limit Promotions – quote in New York Times article
• Is J C Penney Stuck with Stores? — the thoughts behind my NY Times quote
• How Wendy’s Found Itself, Slipped Past BK Into No. 2 Spot – quote in Advertising Age

digital health and fitness:

• Digital Health and Fitness at CES 2012 – video recap of highlights from CES
• Will 2012 Be Like 1984? – a bit inspired by the 3D TV hullabaloo at CES
• Digital Device Manifesto – a call to arms to get and keep the industry’s focus on the user
• Crossing the Health & Fitness Tech Chasm – article published by CE Vision magazine
• Fitness Technology: It’s Not Just Entertainment – a write-up on the panel I moderated at CES’s Fitness Tech Summit

other brand-building topics:

• Brands to Watch in 2012 – my prediction of brands that will make headlines this year
• Brands to Watch – a brand as business brief (e-newsletter) highlighting another brand to watch in 2012
• Lesson from Kodak – a bit about companies shedding their legacies and reinventing themselves
• Differentiation through Specialization – a bit about how to differentiate
• Brand-building for Small Businesses – an excerpt from the course I taught for Marketing Profs University, “Why Small Businesses Need Brands and How to Build Them”
• Learning at Lego – a bit about using anthropological research methods to understand users
• Sam Palmisano’s Legacy: Teaching a Giant to Run – a bit about Palmisano’s four question framework

(Here’s the latest “brand experience brief” — insights from my audits of new and interesting retail and restaurant concepts.)

Check out this video featuring photos and my notes on Tin Shed, Patagonia‘s new retail concept — and then check out my interview with head of retail marketing at Patagonia, Vickie Achee, which I posted a couple of days ago.  She calls Tin Shed “a grand experiment” for the company and explains the thinking behind the concept.

recent brand experience briefs:

• ihop express – a fast casual concept from the venerable pancake chain
• Walmart.com – a shopping mall retail storefront for Walmart’s online business
• 77kids – a style lab in New York City’s Times Square for American Eagle Outfitters’ kids brand

(If you’re Interested in learning how to improve your in-store experience, sign up for a Brand Experience Day. We’ll head out into the field to experience retail concepts — good and bad — and then regroup to identify and apply the insights to your business. Learn more.)

Today’s interview takes a peek behind the curtain at an extraordinary company, Patagonia. 

Patagonia is known worldwide as an outdoor clothing and gear brand, but I wanted to better understand the company’s retail strategy.  Who better to ask than the head of marketing for the North America Retail Division at Patagonia, Vickie Achee. A twenty-plus veteran of the company, Vickie has held many marketing and branding positions throughout her tenure and has the inside scoop on the company’s current push to grow retail (opening 15 stores this past year), including its new concept, Tin Shed.

Take a listen to learn how Patagonia is taking on a grand experiment in retail, opening its mindset to different types of markets and retailing models.

Later this week I’ll be posting photos and notes from when I visited the Tin Shed location in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so check back soon to get even more inside scoop.

related content:

• What Your Underwear Says About You
• Brand Value Creation — Learning & Growth
• Tiffany Vandemark on Chobani Fit

My Patagonia catalog arrived in the mail today and I was reminded once again of all the things the Patagonia brand does that don’t seem to make sense — but they do.  The catalog’s inside cover spread,

featuring a picture of fallen rock climber Zoe Hart and the story about her breathtaking fall and valiant recovery, captivated me…and yet it seemed to have nothing to do with Patagonia.

I mean, perhaps the clothes and shoes which Zoe is wearing in the photograph are from Patagonia — but there was no indication of such — and even if they are, you can’t really see them very well or read any information about them.  Plus, they’re shown on Zoe as she lies in agony after her 30 foot fall –  I’m guessing most brands wouldn’t want their products shown in such a graphic context.

But that’s the point — Patagonia isn’t like most brands.  In fact, one could argue there is no other brand quite like it.  The company does things which leave most other businesses baffled.  Recently it got some buzz from its move to remove all packaging from its underwear  — take a look at the video from Fast Company in which Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard explains how much pushback he initially got from his team when he suggested making this change.

Other examples of Patagonia’s unique operations:

• it doesn’t confirm to industry practices — 16 of the 60 pages in its most recent catalog (over 25%) did not feature any products (2 of the pages were devoted to whooping cranes — yes, birds)
• exceeding generosity to its employees — it has an on-site child care center which it started back in the early 1980′s long before the practice was even considered by most companies — and it subsidizes a portion of the center’s operating costs so that employees can pay lower rates than they would elsewhere
• a faithful corporate steward — boom or bust, it gives 10% of its profits each year to small groups working to save or restore habitat
• willingness to be transparent and vulnerable to criticism — a few years ago it introduced a groundbreaking program, Footprint Chronicles, which allows people to track the carbon footprint of its products from manufacturer to point of purchase
• some pretty unbelievable innovations — the fabric of its Synchilla fleece is made out of post consumer recycled plastic soda bottles

I could go on — but instead, I’ll simply recommend you read the book, “Let My People Go Surfing,” a memoir/manifesto from Chouinard.  It is one of the best studies on “brand as business” — that is, how a company operationalizes its brand values.  The stories and principles relayed in the book provide a strong challenge to the way most people build a brand and run a business.

Which brings me back to my original point:  the Zoe Hart catalog spread which stopped me in my tracks was such a departure from the product- and sales-oriented catalogs du jour — it seemed to have nothing to do with Patagonia, but in fact, it had everything to do with it.

The Patagonia brand is all about courage, commitment, and challenging conventions — in everything it does.

related links:

• brand as business
• using your brand as the North Star of your business
• operationalizing the brand

Today my series on brand value creation comes to a close with a look at companies’ Learning and Growth.  Previous posts have examined how brands create value for companies from the Customer, Financial (2 posts) ,  and Internal Business Process perspectives.

The Learning and Growth quadrant of the Balanced Scorecard asks, “To achieve our vision, how will we sustain our ability to change and improve?”  The results produced by a strong brand relative to this quadrant may be the most difficult to quantify, but they are perhaps the most significant.   Here are 3 ways a brand creates value by impacting an organization’s Learning and Growth:

1.  When the “brand as business” management approach is engaged, the purpose and values of the organization are clarified.   Using the brand as the North Star for the business, your company not only adapts to outside changes appropriately but also create its own changes and use them to its advantage.

• Patagonia provides an example of a company which uses its brand — their “philosophies” — to be prepared for change. Yvon Chouinard, the company’s founder and owner, says, “What good does having a fixed set of written philosophies accomplish when everything else in the business world is so dynamic?…The answer is that our philosophies aren’t rules; they’re guidelines.  They’re the keystones of our approach to any project, and although they are ‘set in stone,’ their application to a situation isn’t…We have made many mistakes during the past decade, but at no point have we lost our way for very long.  We have the philosophies for a rough map, the only kind that’s useful in a business world whose contours, unlike those of the mountains, change constantly and without much warning.” (emphasis mine)

2.  Your brand can help you actually change the way business is done if you adopt a bold and differentiated brand platform.  Jim Collins, in his book Built to Last, describes how “Bill Hewlett and David Packard envisioned HP as a role-model corporation, known for progressive personnel practices, innovative and entrepreneurial culture, and an unbroken string of products that make a technical contribution.”  So they instituted many practices to manifest this bold vision – for example:

• HP introduced a profit-sharing plan which paid out the same percentage to the janitor as to the CEO and created a catastrophic medical insurance plan at a time when such actions were virtually unheard of.
• Beginning in the 1950’s, HP forsook the hiring of engineers from industry and recruited less experienced but more talented graduating seniors from respected engineering schools.
• Self-imposed rigorous standards led HP to bypass high-volume markets like IBM-compatible personal computers for a period of time because of its commitment to reject me-too or copycat new products in favor of those representing a technological contribution.

Clearly the “HP Way,” as the brand’s tenets became known, drove that organization’s learning and growth.

3.  Your brand can fuel the development of a robust organizational culture, by explaining why you do what you do in a way that gives more meaning to your relationships with customers and stakeholders alike.   After dissecting the factors that have driven the success of some of greatest organizations in recent history, including Apple and the Walt Disney studio, management author Warren Bennis concludes in his book Organizing Genius, “[They] think they are on a mission from God…they believe they are doing something vital, even holy…their clear, collective purpose makes everything they do seem meaningful and valuable.”  Your employee’s work can be transformed into more than churning out products; stakeholders can see themselves are more than functional cogs in the company wheel.  Rather, they can see themselves as contributing to something that has more substantive and lasting impact.

This motivates them embrace and execute change more effectively.  As the consultants who contributed to the late 1990’s turnaround of Best Buy explain, continuous improvement and growth flow naturally out of an emotionally satisfying culture:  “’Why is this important?   What’s in it for me?  Can I be successful?’ To be ready for change, people must develop a compelling conviction that there are positive answers to these questions,” they state.

So a strong brand increases an organization’s ability to change and improve — thus creating long-lasting and far-reaching value.

I hope this series on Brand Value Creation has been a good one for you.  By running it, my intent has been to make the case that brands produce substantial positive results for business.  And, perhaps more importantly, to present a different point of view on what a brand is:  what a company does and how it does it.