This Sunday (May 6), Target Corp. will launch “The Shops at Target,” a curated collection of boutiques from around the country. Participating shops include such trendsetting boutique retailers as the Webster in Miami, Privet House in Connecticut, and The Candy Store in San Francisco.
The shop-in-shop concept will bow in over 1700 Target retailers and feature exclusive products from each of the five participating boutiques.
The trend for curating products from other retailer’s and incorporating them into one’s own store is certainly not new, but after the pop-up store phenomenon, it has been one of the strongest marketing trends and has brought positive results for such High Street stores as Barneys, Lane Crawford, and Colette.
In the past few years Target has enjoyed considerable marketing success from their collaborations with designers like Missoni, Jason Wu, and Proenza Schouler, among many others. But this is not just about marketing.
“With the launch of The Shops at Target, we’re able to create an ongoing sense of discovery and excitement for our guest,” says Jamie Bastian, a spokesperson for Target. “We were looking for shops with a compelling point of view and shop owners who could help us create collections that reflect our guests’ wants and needs.”
Target found one of those shops tucked away on Vallejo Street in San Francisco’s Russian Hill. The Candy Store has offered a remarkable assortment of classic and esoteric candies since 2007, and was a fairly local discovery – until along came Target.
“Target has been canvassing the globe to uncover distinctive shops –stores with a story –that offer something surprising and unexpected for our guests,” says Bastian.
“The partnership with Target has brought more awareness of our brand on a national level,” says Diane Campbell, the store’s co-owner along with her husband Brian. “I think Target was attracted to our carefully curated collection of sweets as well as our modern aesthetic and passion that we have for our business.”
That passion and ability to source unique candies made it that much easier for Target to collaborate with Campbell in developing new products for Target.
“The collaboration with Target was fantastic from minute one,” says Campbell. “They really worked hard to understand our brand and capture the feel of our store.”
Target’s strategy of co-opting someone else’s cool is a smart move and a primary reason for why big brands are courting small ones like The Candy Store. A short-run marketing program like “The Shops at Target” helps energize the over-arching brand and generate footfall and press. Even more importantly, it helps leverage new insights on the future of the brand. Target Corp. officially calls it a “design partnership program.”
“We most definitely leverage past merchandise collections and experiences when planning,” confirms Bastian.
Which is precisely the point here: a marketing “exercise” should not be designed to simply push product, but to act as a benchmark for the future of the brand, broadening its relevance in the mind of the consumer.
As more and more products become ubiquitous and available virtually everywhere, big brands will be wise to seek out the authentic little retailers who can bring cachet and coolness to their otherwise big box image, and in turn discover new approaches in product development, packaging, and customer service.
The first flight of “The Shops at Target” launches May 6 and features The Candy Store (San Francisco), Cos Bar (Aspen), Polka Dog Bakery (Massachusetts), Privet House (Connecticut) and The Webster (Miami). At select Target stores. www.target.com.
At last week’s opening event for an Alice+Olivia store in San Francisco, the star of the party wasn’t the designers or their new collections, but a sweetly humble blogger named Blair Eadie.
If you’ve been living under a pile of clothes from Old Navy then you might not know that Eadie is the vaguely 20-something year old Gap merchandiser who’s blog, Atlantic-Pacific, has become something of a phenomenon in the world of people who take pictures of themselves and post them.
Here we were at a party chock-a-block with women with names like Piper and Christy and Jenn, all 5’9” of them in heels and a halo of bottle blonde hair.
Rising above all of them was Eadie herself, a more polished and expensive-looking blonde beacon in a chartreuse blouse and purple palazzo pants (furnished by Alice+Olivia.) The roomful of women gazed at her over their glasses of pink champagne —- and yes, even admiringly.
This is very much the success of Blair Eadie. She is the big sister-best friend who is instantly approachable and who’s style is fresh without being too daring or too “edgy.” Eadie, who could easily be mistaken for Lauren Conrad or Blake Lively, has that wholesome gleam of America’s sweetheart, the girl who would never steal your boyfriend and might even let you borrow her Celine bag.
“Omigod I’m like, just so obsessed with her,” gushed one guest. “Do you work for her?” I asked, suspiciously. “God no, I just work down the street but I just think she has such amazing style.”
That “style” rests somewhere between Greenwich, Connecticut, New York’s SoHo, and that short block of Santa Monica in front of Fred Segal. Which is probably why the young women of San Francisco felt so in awe of her super stylishness (in this circle, “super” is added in front of many words. Super-fun. Super-cool. Super-cute.)
“I’m just so like, touched that they’re here and that they read my blog,” said Eadie, gazing at the crowd. But what’s next? “I really don’t know what’s next, you know I’d love to get in the magazine space or styling…” Her voice trails, as though to leave her options open. And why not?
In the meantime, outside her role at the Gap, Eadie has had stints as a host for a Macy’s New York party for Fashion’s Night Out, model for Cover Girl makeup, and been featured in a legion of posts from other fashion bloggers who in some cases, grudgingly commend her for her style.
For now, though, Eadie could easily just stick with hosting store openings and still turn a profit. Brands are indeed keeping their eye on bloggers like Eadie because for that wildly important Millenial demographic, the fashion blogger can have far more credibility than a Suzy Menkes or Sally Singer. Already Eadie’s blog has racked up a healthy handful of advertisers, and it’s no wonder.
Why? Simply because bloggers like Eadie are “real” people who are inventing their own style and discovering brands and ways of dressing that has less to do with the runway, and more to do with their mood or pop culture references.
They effortlessly mix and match, high and low. Never mind that the majority of these “it’s just me and my daily looks” bloggers are so frighteningly on-trend that one can’t help but wonder how many brands are sending boxes of clothes to them. By and large, they are the People’s Fashion Editor, sifting and culling looks obsessively and efficiently. Their narcissism has turned them into a commodifiable product — they’re selling clothes, and themselves.
Alice + Olivia is a brand so perfectly suited to the “girly-girl,” that urban ingénue in search of her self — a description which not-so-coincidentally describes Blair Eadie. Here in just one night, several dozen girls drained four cases of pink champagne and raided the store’s clothing racks, thanks in large part to the pull of a blogger named Blair Eadie, who made it all seem so effortless and so very, super-fun.
“A Woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting.” So said couturier Christian Dior, at a time when fragrances were much less the backbone of a major design house as they are now.
Today, the “juice” business is critical to driving brand image, an invisible but immediately discernable status symbol and seductress, and a thirty billion dollar industry that can often generate as much revenue as the designer collections and accessories combined.
“Fragrance can be a tremendous platform to extend the reach of a brand,” says Kelly Kovack, co-founder of Purpose Built, a personal care and branding firm in New York. Her portfolio includes co-creating two Odin New York fragrances including one of the brand’s newest fragrances, 06 Amanu which won this year’s Indie FiFi Award.
The process for developing a brand’s “scent” requires equal parts strategy and instinct. “The first step is always to ask the client for pure inspiration which can be anything from actual fragrance benchmarks to completely esoteric references,” says Kovack. From there she and her team establish fragrance benchmarks and gradually narrow the scent down to its purest essence, and equally important, cost of production.
For many so-called prestige fragrances, the rare ingredients they use can be incredibly costly and, combined with bottle development and marketing, can make launching a new fragrance a major corporate investment in an already crowded playing field.
The world’s most iconic fragrances happen to be as famous for their name as for how they smell. Christian Dior’s Eau Sauvage. Chanel No. 5, and 2010’s top selling fragrance, Chanel’s Mademoiselle.
So perhaps it comes as little surprise that Louis Vuitton has decided to enter the fray and launch a fragrance. The last time the brand had a fragrance was in the 1920’s and 30’s.
Scent is extremely personal, so how does a brand decide on how it should smell?
“It seems that consumers relate to scents more in terms of a feeling or sensibility – such as ‘sexy’ or ‘feminine’ or ‘fresh’ rather than a specific item like flowers or spice,” says Karen Grant, vice president and senior global analyst for NPD Group.” So a brand like Burberry or Gucci or Chanel may make consumers think of feminine or sexy or expensive but what that means may differ greatly from younger consumers to older consumers.”
Exclusivity, of course, is a hallmark of top designer brands, with price points hovering in the $100 range — and upwards to several hundred. But in a quest to offer even more exclusivity several brands have created limited-edition fragrances, either available by invitation or only at its flagship boutiques. Hermès has Hermèssence, a collection of ten pure fragrances including Rose Ikebana and Paprika Brasil, while Dior offers it’s ultra exclusive (and even more expensive) La Collection Privée which features 10 fragrances that include such homages as New Look 1947 and Granville (Dior’s hometown.)
“The limited edition fragrances are perhaps a better articulation of the brand,” says Kovack. “They make a statement, are usually very complex, and challenge the senses.”
Case in point my personal favorite from Dior’s collection, Bois d’ Argent, which at first smelled of what can only be described as amber-soaked metal shavings, warms to become an intoxicatingly sexy and musky smell that quickly blends with one’s own, er, odors. I instantly decided that this was my Fragrance for Life.
In May 2012, Dior will relaunch its famous Eau Sauvage, which was created in 1966 by Edmond Roudnitska. “To describe Eau Sauvage, I would simply use Monsieur Dior’s definition of elegance,” says Dior’s in-house perfume creator, François Demachy. “A balance of simplicity, attention, natural style, and distinction.”
I’m not entirely sure what any of that means but when I smell Eau Sauvage, I just think of Alain Delon on a motorcycle speeding along the Corniche on his way to dinner, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a bottle of champagne wrapped in wet newspaper on the back.
Dior generated a lot of buzz and increased sales with J’Adore, their top women’s scent, with a TV ad that featured Christian Dior fashion legends,” says Grant. “Perhaps they are looking to leverage the heritage of Eau Sauvage for the men’s category.”
Ultimately, a well-branded fragrance baptizes the aspirational consumer and anoints the disciple with a sense that the fragrance is truly theirs. “By connecting with a consumer through the senses [a scent], a brand has the opportunity to trigger memory and emotion,” says Kovack, “fortifying the brand’s connection in the consumer’s mind.”
Learn more about Purpose Built at www.purpose-builtnyc.com. Keep up on retail news and research with NPD at www.npd.com.
It’s been almost a decade now that the financial services sector has looked to balance their online brand strategy with a more robust retail strategy. After years of telling consumers to do everything online, it was time to bring them back into the “store” (the word “bank” is rarely used anymore.)
Bank of America is one mega-corporation that saw early on the opportunity to capitalize on their branch experience.
A few years ago I worked with the firm to develop a retail prototype that would maximize not only the perception of the B of A brand but showcase the different products and services the bank offered in a compelling, interactive bricks-and-mortar environment (to learn more about this project see the case study on our portfolio page, or click here.)
Similarly, Charles Schwab capitalized on the idea of demystifying investment banking by creating clean and modern environments where clients can go to “Talk to Chuck.” The more relaxed approach has paid off.
In a brief dated July 8, 2011, Bain and Company described the firm’s turnaround as “a dramatic recovery” after several years of negative losses in customer retention.
What are they doing right? They have fortified their online experience and a relatively ordinary portfolio of services with a robust and dedicated retail strategy that exponentially elevates the customer experience and in turn, the perception of the brand.
ING Direct is arguably, younger, hipper, and bolder in how it markets its products. For the past 12 years the brand has invested heavily in creating what they call “cafés,” casual spaces that are open to the public and which less overtly market their products and services.
The newly opened San Francisco café at 101 Post Street features conference rooms that can be booked for any purpose, free of charge, and a children’s area where they can be taught the fundamentals of saving and investing. Equally important, though, is its location directly across the street from Schwab’s flagship.
To view them side by side, the casual observer might think ING’s space is an art gallery or event space, and depending on your age and demographic, you might be drawn to one over the other. ING is betting their concept will win on innovation alone, not to mention the fact that they offer a vastly different approach to talking about money.
On our visit, it was a largely post-boomer generation who were using the space — as well as business start-up kids who were using the cafe as their office. While not all of them were engaging directly with the brand, they were soaking in it: signage, digital dashboard monitors, books by ING founder and CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann, and miscellaneous freebies were everywhere.
“We believe banking shouldn’t have to be complex and intimidating,” says Jeff Mirabello, spokesperson for ING. “It should be simple — like having a cup of coffee. The idea [of the café] married well with our mission and our brand message.”
The ING café features lots of open space and natural light, polished concrete floors, casual seating, and bursts of ING’s signature orange. The espresso bar anchors the entire ground floor and offers sandwiches, and healthy snacks (ING has subcontracted the F&B to Peet’s Coffee.)
We saw a half-dozen or so visitors who were using the space as if it was an ordinary café, surfing the internet (thanks to the free WiFi), and even having meetings. ING Direct staffers float around casually, using the open space plan as their office. Corner areas equipped with computers and informational material offer staff a place to talk about products with prospective clients.
Does it bring them more business? “It’s a different approach but it’s one we feel has really paid off,” says Mirabello.
Zachary Beattie, the San Francisco café manager, agrees. “Most of our products are pretty transparent, so the issue of a traditional environment doesn’t really apply. That’s what this open space is about.”
Virtually everyone working in the café — that includes the baristas — is able to talk about ING’s services. “If someone’s paying with a Bank of America card, we might ask them ‘how is the bank treating you?’ ” says Charles Heston, the café’s assistant manager and head of business development.
At 17,000 square feet, the cafe is a major commitment. The building has three floors, one of which will eventually operate as an art gallery. The San Francisco location is the company’s eighth in the United States, and it’s largest cafe to date.
“As more and more financial business is conducted online, people need a place to help anchor their belief in the institution,” says Mirabello. “The cafes were created as a means to provide first-hand experience of the ING Direct culture.”.
Indeed, “Culture” is the very essence of what any brand hopes it can impart on consumers, which is why they spend millions of dollars a year on advertising and marketing to communicate their distinct brand experience — and while the cost of a retail space isn’t cheap, it has the power to function as a three-dimensional controlled environment of total brand purity.
Still, consumer advocates have charged that ING’s café strategy is more an effort to avoid federal regulatory requirements under the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that requires banks to lend money to low and moderate-income borrowers. The cafés actually bypass that law by allowing the cafés to act as “agency offices” — in other words, they’re not officially operating as a bank — which is why ING likes to underscore the words “cafe” and “community” when they talk about these spaces.
Either way, ING’s café is an innovative approach to brand marketing that redefines how financial and brokerage services are sold to the consumer, and a sign of how the services sector will more than likely transition into the lifestyle sector with retail spaces that are hyphenated and function beyond their actual intent.
ODE Magazine in partnership with ING Direct presents, “Financial Innovation 2.0” featuring ING founder and CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann. February 1, 2012, 5-8 P.M. at Fort Mason’s Cowell Theatre in San Francisco. To register, click here.
(February 1, 2011, SAN FRANCISCO, CA) Retail strategist and branding consultant Bertrand Pellegrin announced today the official launch of b. on brand™ from his new offices in San Francisco’s historic Flood Building.
Pellegrin, who previously worked as a strategist for Gensler and as marketing director for Hong Kong’s luxury department store Lane Crawford, said the newly created firm would emphasize integrated solutions in business strategy, retail design, and customer experience.
“There’s no denying that now is perhaps one of the most exciting times to be doing business,” said Pellegrin. “To compete today, brands need to take a more holistic approach to how they position themselves in the market.”
Mr. Pellegrin has consulted for such clients as Louis Vuitton (LVMH), Lotte Shopping Group, Bank of America (BAC), The North Face (VFC), Yum Brands (YUM), and the San Francisco International Airport, among many others.
“There’s no denying that now is perhaps one of the most exciting times to be doing business. To compete today, brands need to take a more holistic approach to how they position themselves in the market.”
Previously he was a senior retail strategist with the San Francisco office of Gensler Worldwide where he was instrumental in the development of major placemaking projects throughout the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Pellegrin developed the naming, placemaking, and brand positioning for such projects as the Shanghai Tower in Pudong, China, and New Songdo City, in Incheon, South Korea.
Mr. Pellegrin’s leadership experience in Asia included positions as the director of marketing for Lane Crawford (Hong Kong) Ltd., Asia’s premier luxury department store, where he oversaw the growth and expansion of the brand’s Hong Kong and Mainland China presence. Prior to that he was a consultant and senior executive with Lotte Shopping Group in Korea, for whom he orchestrated the development of Avenuel, a 32-story luxury multibrand and entertainment experience in Seoul, South Korea.
Mr. Pellegrin is the author of Branding the Man: Why Men are the Next Frontier in Fashion Retail (Random House/Allworth 2009), which examines the evolution of the male consumer and offers a strategic branding approach to men’s retailing. He is a regular contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle where he writes about fashion and design.
ABOUT B. ON BRAND™
b. on brand™, who’s tagline is “beyond brand,” offers a comprehensive set of services in branding and positioning, retail and product development, and creative direction. Headed by Bertrand Pellegrin, the firm includes a roster of experts and consultants that are customized for each client project. For more information, visit www.bonbrand.com.