Christchurch, a city rattled with complete devastation from the magnitude 6.1 earthquake just 12 months ago, has successfully developed a retail gem right in the middle of an otherwise dormant landscape. Christchurch suffered not only one earthquake, but locals will tell you that 10,000 more in the weeks and months since the first quake shocked this quiet city on the South Island of New Zealand in February 2011.

Although rebuilding in Christchurch will take years, an opportunity to reclaim a sense of retail normalcy has resulted in a quaint and unexpected high-end outdoor mall built totally out of steel shipping containers and landscaped pathways known to locals as simply “The Container Mall.”

This collection of retail stores is a vibrant and authentic collection of spaces. Typical city buildings and store fronts have been replaced with colorful, graphic one and two-story steel containers giving retailers such as 3 Wisemen, Cosmic and Mimco the opportunity to provide locals with a sense of celebration and positivity in an area otherwise surrounded by cranes, rubble and rebuilding.

In addition to retail stores, The Container Mall boasts coffee cafés that are so much a part of the Kiwi culture. Rooftop decks give locals the opportunity to have a coffee and a bite to eat amidst the hustle and bustle below – a stark comparison to the completely desolate and uninhabited city only blocks away.

By any measure, the Burberry brand would be considered a global powerhouse. The British fashion house boasts strong international recognition and differentiating attributes that resonate across borders and age groups. Although it’s a 150+ year-old heritage brand, Burberry knows it’s more than the past. It’s about the way people feel. The company has been generating excitement and desirability-not to mention sales-by doing rare and exceptional things. Thus making its audience feel the same way.

By Interbrand’s brand metrics, Burberry’s value increased 20% over last year and jumped five rankings, moving up from 100 to 95 on the 2011 Best Global Brands table. Interbrand believes brand is an asset and like tangible corporate assets it can be valued. Its value is a combination of three measurements: Brand Strength (equity; the ability to secure future earnings by competing well in the marketplace); Role of Brand (how much the mark counts in the consumer’s purchase decision); and Economic Earnings (no explanation required).

However, if you’ve been watching Burberry’s remarkable performance for the last couple years, you probably don’t need a detailed analysis to see that Burberry rose in the league table by investing in and leveraging Role of Brand. The idea of Role of Brand is widely understood at a general level. The specifics of Role of Brand — how it is measured, how it is changed and how it is used in management — are less understood by brand watchers.

Latin chicken chain’s new restaurants designed for American consumer

Shoppers’ preference for new physical channels — such as automated retail, airport kiosks or specialty store-within-stores — have retailers eager to adapt and diversify their store formats. And as shoppers shift to these other channels, the brick-and-mortar store is introducing new categories and reducing or eliminating others. In some cases, the reduced need for square footage has retailers subdividing their space for new tenants.

Subdivide and conquer
If your organization is looking to subdivide a retail space that is too large for current operations, start with this list of questions to help you avoid common pitfalls:

This is great video from Au Bon Pain describing where the brand is headed. We partnered with the bakery café to create an engaging and differentiating “marketplace” concept with a focus on giving the store more personality, distinction and improving the ease of shopping. Au Bon pain’s CEO, Sue Morelli describes the company’s focus on their three brand pillars and the importance of the environment and service to the brand experience.

The new concept gives the brand credit for the things that it does really well. We’ve created destinations for core competencies and we’ve made it easier for customers to navigate the experience, inviting them to buy more.

The new design is bright, welcoming and energized with color and comfort.Communication zones clarify the offer and enable customers to build their order with speed and convenience. The old pencil-and-paper sandwich ordering method is replaced with wireless devices. This new efficient system allows customers to maximize their dwell time in the space and explore the complete Au Bon Pain offering. New, deeper trays with handles enable customers to build their orders easily.

Australia’s health and beauty chain, Aesop, believes unequivocally that good design can improve your life. The brand collaborates with designers and architects to create the stunning showcases for their specialty products with materials of local origin.

The Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France features a hydroponic Vertical Garden System that allows both plants and buildings to live in harmony with one another.

New showroom offers unique window and door shopping experience

Shopper centricity has inspired countless innovations over the years and is largely responsible for the mature retail channels we have today.

The contemporary shopper is looking for a volume knob when it comes to full service versus self-serve shopping. This is a fertile area of opportunity for retailers looking to upsell or reduce abandoned carts and baskets.

Thanks to today’s digital tools, brands have the opportunity to provide a range of customer service, from highly interactive selling to a quick simple checkout — even devoid of paper receipt. There’s a persuasive argument for exploring the way your company handles transactions. Imagine there was a sales associate in the wine section of your grocer. He or she could act as a sommelier and help you plan your dinner party, by walking you through wine and food pairings (and upsells)— with the aid of a digital device. Or, the shopper could decline the help and simply grab their usual table wine. There’s no pressure to interact if you don’t want to.

There has been some resistance on the part of retailers against allowing independent digital research and market-wide price comparisons into their spaces, online or instore. But for products at the higher price points, there’s a greater need for consumers to inform themselves of the options. Don’t be afraid of it. Your customers have already researched cars, electronics, appliances and luxury items before they enter your store. While digital tools can’t replace human interaction, they can support the store associate with data. A great sales associate still has opportunity to close the sale if they understand the process.

Exactly what is it that gives a brand, a product or experience so much appeal that I can’t resist the urge to indulge? How can something not even remotely on my radar find its way into my heart and charm the dollars out of my wallet? Obviously, fulfilling a need is a basic driver to purchase, but I’m also convinced the drivers to many purchases are fueled by what I see as the three Laws of Attraction: appeal, attach and attain.

My first theoretical Law is that of appeal. If your brand wants to be noticed, it has to generate appeal. For me, appeal starts with the visual, something eye catching, which may be created through the use of an interesting color, a fun shape, or something aesthetically new and different. Disruption can play a role in appeal, something so startling, unique and outside your expectations that it pops off the curb, the screen, or the shelf. If your brand blends in, especially in a crowded segment, it is by definite devoid of appeal. In the consumer packaged goods world, Tide laundry detergent’s genius is the orange color, disruptive and unique in a sea of sameness. I have always admired retailers who leverage a color that other brands rejected. The pink and orange sign on a Dunkin’ Donuts is hard to miss. But that’s just the first law. Once you’ve attracted attention through a strong appeal, your brand needs to attach.

Attach, the second Law of Attraction, is about establishing a kinship, striking an emotional chord, or capturing the imagination. Once I walk in the front door or pick your appealing product from the shelf, that’s the cue for your product to attach itself to me. J. Crew’s Liquor Store in Tribeca had me at hello. The second I saw it from the curb, I was hooked. Such an innovative, offbeat approach! I had to go inside. Attachment manifests itself with the impression that, “Hey, this brand really gets me,” or “Wow, I want to be a part of this.” A storefront that easily communicates its proposition in a new and exciting way elicits these feelings from me, while a product with attributes that incorporate my individual sense of style can create attachment. Attachment can be a powerful force. It’s what puts a brand into a consumer’s consideration set, often times at the top.

Inspiring new ways to inspire people. This challenge seems like a circular argument in the making. For a craft store or a home center, its a challenge that’s part of successful everyday merchandising and storytelling.

But what exactly is inspiration anyway? Perhaps to successfully inspire people in-store, we have to take a look at how shoppers perceive themselves. Imagine a simple world of two shopper self-images: the “I’m not very creative” versus the “I am very creative” types. To go a step further, we could say that the “not creatives” have insecurity about the decisions they make about self-expression, whereas the “creatives” are confident about the rightness of their choices. So if we want both of these types to be inspired, we probably can’t expect only one approach to work.

In my career on both the creative and analytical sides of things, I have seen my share of both these types, and what I see is excitement, or inspiration, coming from two distinctly different positions. “Non-creatives” get inspired by the completeness of an idea, and the endorsement of that idea by those they trust. In this scenario, inspiration is actually more about modeling behavior. “Creatives,” however, get inspired by new tools, techniques and materials that allow them to express themselves in new ways. This scenario is more about empowerment.