A perennial problem for any noteworthy brand with a reputation built on an icon is the development of a wider commercial proposition away from the sanctuary of its established safe-haven.
Hunter rules the rainy roost for premium Wellington boot buyers and is currently circumnavigating the choppy waters of expansion developing an assortment for the wider world of inclement conditions, encompassing everything from jackets and jumpers to a full range of rugged and resilient rainwear.
Its new store concept, as illustrated by London’s Regent Street, is not only intent on evoking the atmosphere of the outdoor world as a setting for its offer but developing a dynamic statement adding value and transforming the trusted manufacturer into a desirable designer brand.
The essential element of the new store concept is the use of digital graphics to create an environment as changeable and unpredictable as the English weather. The store is coated in screens acting more as a shell of visual opportunities that the traditional grid of monitors. The screens are most powerful in combination with product displays where they feature strikingly simple monochrome landscape textures, against which to set a rainbow of rubber; or visually intense colour swatches of vegetation to lift and breathe life into a range of best selling brown and green.
Store focal points deliver graphics in more traditional ways communicating brand heritage messages with acclamations of quality and craftsmanship, but it is the static digitisation that steals the shower. In a world of dynamic opportunities not all that glitters is gold.
The high streets are changing from “a world of selling into a world of telling” as brands and retailers maximise the footfall of highly trafficked areas to tell their stories and gain essential awareness in a highly competitive market. New technology linked with creativity and imagination is being used to create a brand difference.
Should your brand transform its selling spaces into something more extraordinary?
Should your first steps onto the high street be as a marketer as well as a traditional retailer?