Crea international host to a Travel Lab event, a symposium on “Temporary and Flagship stores: strategies on brand field to face crisis”

An event where Marco De Carli, strategy director of the physical-brand-design company, gave a speech with a special spotlight on some distinctive examples

Service design is one of the most important aspects on which companies have decided to invest as the key marketing tool in retail field, contributing to brand equity and customer loyalty.More and more brands should think about the physical space, working on an appropriate physical brand strategy to be declined on several physical touch points on territory in retail field, such as retail networks, temporary or flagship stores, according to the brand strategy of the company.

On this basis Crea International has been invited to the event to support the importance of Flagship stores as tools for retail positioning, to implement the customer relationship and loyalty, to centralize the flows and sales, and give awareness and local presence to the brand.

In Hotelplan’s headquarter in Milan, with a dynamic and interactive audience composed of top managers and entrepreneurs from the tourism industry and with, among the speakers, the direct store manager of Illycaffè – Elodie Horaist - and the holder of an important network of temporary stores - Paolo Comini of Sidecar Group - De Carli’s presentation has focused on Physical Brand Design’s way of approaching projects, starting from the brand identity, going to developing the design concept, always shaping signs and codes consistent with the brand, to get to the service design aiming to enhance brand positioning.

marco de carli bocconi flagship store wind

Talking about Flagship store, the presentation has explored, among the others, one of the most distinctive of the italian brand design company: Wind flagship store. The aim was to create a flagship able to make the successes of the company over the years touchable to customers, with an upgrade of image to make the brand more fashionable and cool.

Everything supported by a physical brand strategy due to the biosphere as distinctive sign of an innovative design, sensitive to the balance of different chromatic and morphological elements, perfect habitat for a new empathic community in a totally new landscape.A work that led to the opening of the two Wind flagship stores, one in Milano (C.so Matteotti) and the other one in Rome (P.za di Spagna).

He has also shown how the Physical-Brand-Design methodology applied to a project as Welcome Travel has led to the creation of a totally new design concept of the retail-travel-agency and can be used flexibly by the network to give to customers a new place of meeting and sharing where the purchase experience and concept within the agency are redefined.

Present to the explanation of the retail travel project Gian Paolo Vairo, Ceo of Welcome Travel, who has explained how this physical brand design project is perfectly integrated in a a new company vision which joined the retail travel agency with web and mobile areas. The new Welcome Travel aspires to propose to customers new standards of services which are lined up with those of the main European markets: quality, training, efficiency, technology and customer service in order to renew the methods of distribution of the tourism product and create a benchmark for the whole italian market of travel agencies. He has declared to be extremely satisfied of the work and the Group aims to join new satisfactory results thanks to this new store design innovation

marco de carli bocconi flagship store tim

marco de carli bocconi flagship store lavazza

De Carli’s intervention has then analyzed some other important cases starting from Tim retail network where PBD strategy has contributed to renew the whole network and distribution channels, in a consistent view with the historical values of the company of reassurance of the customer to reinforce brand identity and positioning; going to Lavazza coffe shop an international coffee chain supporting brand’s internationalisation, where the major challenge was to create a a service design concept which could be adapted to the international expansion of the company.

marco de carli bocconi flagship store airbank

And finally in Air Bank branch project he has presented to the audience a bank model where service design and customer experience within the branch play a central role in the start-up asset of the whole project.

An intervention that certainly showed how Physical Brand Design strategy can be declined to different fields, with different values and expectations but all with the same objective to give distinctiveness and uniqueness to the brand, in a market that is becoming more selelective and where consumers, despite the crisis, are paradoxically getting more and more demanding.

venerdì 3 febbraio 2012