The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Well, maybe not ‘cute’, but certainly charming and noticeable.

Now I appreciate ‘cute’ or ‘charming’ doesn’t automatically mean it will translate to sales, however doing something that actively attracts people to explore your store – or at least remember it for a time when they may be in need for their product or service – certainly improves the odds of conversion compared to thinking just opening your doors and sticking a few ‘sale posters’ in the window [like everyone else] will have them queuing outside.

Of course, creating elaborate external building aesthetics like this locksmith has done, may be impossible [though I’d argue his company will be remembered more than if a competitor launched an ad campaign] however I am amazed how many companies spend masses of time and money trying to identify what ‘their brand uniquely stands for’ only to execute it at retail level in a way where you would imagine the architects brief was ‘to be as bland as possible’.

I once met the head of window dressing at Harvey Nichols.

She was amazing.

Her view was that she was not there to ‘sell the products on display’, but to ‘let the people outside the window feel excited about life’.

Sure, you can say that’s a load of bollocks, but if you looked at her work you saw a person who approached every task with total openness and imagination which definitely had an influence – regardless how big or small – on the success of Harvey Nichols.

Jesus, I’ve gone off on one again haven’t I?! I can’t even remember what the purpose of this post was supposed to be. OK, you never know what the purpose of my posts are but I’ve literally forgotten what I was trying to say.

So let’s leave it with this.

If part of our job is to encourage people to want to engage with our clients brands, we might be better off trying to bring the brand ‘to life’ at the place where people have their most meaningful – or important – interaction with them as opposed to focusing all our energies on creating the ultra-TV spot or social media campaign.

And yes, I do appreciate economies of scale, but that is also used way too much as an excuse to always think the TV spot is the perfect answer.

Sometimes it is. But not always.