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.

Latin chicken chain’s new restaurants designed for American consumer

Today’s “store” is no longer a quaint building with neatly stocked shelves, it’s a vast network of touchpoints that’s complex and expensive to maintain. However, the one thing about retail that hasn’t changed — indeed it seems to be timeless — is the need to get the right message to the right person at the right moment. A proven analytics process can help you do that.

Three-dimensional Shopper Insights: The Cube
Retail has always been a game of chess. But now its complexity makes it more like three-dimensional chess. Luckily, we have analytics, which have allowed us to design a tool to show us the appropriate insights for any touchpoint network: The Cube. Imagine a data table with three axes. One axis lists out all of your potential touchpoints. The second axis lists potential messages you may want to deliver. The third axis represents the fact that you need to repeat this exercise for all of your key target segments of customers. The content of the table shows which messages are most important to your customers and where they work best.

The Cube is a brilliant way to use the shopper data you’ve collected. With it, you build a fact base of what your customers want to hear and where they want to hear it. It helps prioritize your opportunities and gives you a jump on what your touchpoint experiences should look and sound like.

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.

New showroom offers unique window and door shopping experience

Even though studies show that as much as 80 percent of shoppers’ time is spent meandering through the store in search of their desired products and only 20 percent in selecting items for their baskets, stores still resist optimization best practices in favor of cluttered aisles and obscure SKUs. A dependence on impulse purchases — pile it high and let it fly — often proves less productive than working to reverse that 80/20 ratio.

Shoppers enter a store with a notion of how much time they intend to spend on that particular mission. If a retailer could help a customer find items faster so they could accomplish their shopping mission quicker, there would be time left over for more browsing, especially if the space is engaging.

Fitting SKUs, space and customer time together is the key to optimization and a more productive store. Without spending too much time on how to optimize SKUs, there are a few things to remember when going through this exercise.

Few brands arrive fully formed. Especially in retail, there is a lot of early trial and error to find that sweet spot where customers really get it. The size of your space might be too large initially, requiring excessive effort to define the right mix of products or services. Or perhaps the space is too small with customers tripping over products that can’t seem to find the right home. And then there’s the service and how your customers get treated as they begin to experience what you have to offer. There’s a lot of things to consider when baking a new brand. At some point, you make the choice to be hands on, or hands off-either interactive or transaction-oriented.

A transactional experience might be all that shoppers expect if that’s the only option they’ve been given. Similarly, a brand that has historically demanded intense interaction has set up its own shopper expectations. Brands have a tendency to follow the paradigms set forth, in essence, by the category. If I’m in the drugstore industry, then I need a corner site with the entry on the corner. The pharmacy needs to be at the back, greeting cards next to this or that, etc., regardless of the name over the door. It seems the mode of sale you choose can also be dictated by your category.

What if you looked at it from another perspective?

As someone who keeps his finger on the pulse of the QSR industry, I feel like the “breaking news” of McDonalds spending US $1 billion dollars to renovate its restaurants is so “2000-and -late!” Design and experience is something McDonald’s has been paying close attention to for some time. Way back in 2008, while doing global tours of QSR concepts, it was clear that McDonald’s had discovered that investing in the brand experience would pay off.

A visit to its freestanding prototype in Munich proved to engage customers of all ages with an innovative and comprehensive collection of experiences under one roof. The MacCafé space had a modern but friendly vibe with comfy seating, dramatic lighting, and even highly productive working space for those Wi-Fi squatters. A kids zone, with its whimsical décor and private party rooms created a place just for youngsters. Finally, the over-the-top play area appealed to kids and teens with a climbing structure, basketball hoop, and rideable video games.

In fairness to all the “other guys” McDonald’s has triple the locations of the number two burger chain and boatloads of cash. And these Taj Mahals are lab restaurants where many of the innovations will not be rolled out. What is impressive to me is that for an industry where speed of service and operations are such a laser focus, it is still willing to think creatively about the “front of the house” – in other words, what matters to the customer. Over the years it has been methodically exploring through prototype after prototype: What will make customers pass up Panera and the other fast growing fast casual players, in favor of a burger joint. Well, in case you haven’t noticed, McDonald’s is not a burger joint any more.

Great consumer insights, experience design, product innovation, brilliant marketing, all continue to evolve the McDonald’s brand. This is what keeps it on the right path and my guess is that it will pay for itself faster than the Wall Street pundits think.

When you ask an architect to envision the Store of the Future, their mind races with the opportunities of the clean sheet of paper, unlimited budgets and unlimited resources! The reality of the store of the future is altogether different.

The Great Recession has left us with smaller budgets, dwindling resources and consumers who shop less. And according to the 2007 Economic Census, there were 1,122,703 retail establishments in the United States and a total of 14.2 billion square feet of retail spaces. With such an abundance of existing shopping space, the question to solve is: How will the existing retail environment of today be transformed into the Store of the Future, enticing the shopper and energizing the store personnel to provide a greater return on investment for the retailer?

Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers an exciting platform for renovating retail space, when it is appropriately used by design, construction and executive teams. Building models are constructed from digital representations of parts and components used in construction, complete with quantities and physical properties of the materials used.

These information-rich models allow simulation of things like heating or cooling loads, or physical weight loads. They allow an owner to tap into a robust database of information for use in identifying maintenance needs or merchandising opportunities over the life cycle of a building. In the future, BIM will drive a shift in construction towards premanufacturing or panelization of building components, reducing construction time and waste to provide tighter and more accurate bids.

It’s a great time to be a consumer. We have more choices than ever and we wake up each morning to even more. Something tells me that the future, either near or far, will be no different. Endless choice, however, has become the Achilles’ heel of brick and motor retail.

Imagine if Amazon.com had a physical store carrying everything they had online. They would need a skyscraper to contain the stock, and they’d have to add a new floor every week or so, just to keep up. Some stores seem like they’ve actually tried this, and it hasn’t been working out so well. Border’s recent woes are a sign that their stores are just too big. They try to balance a merchandise mix that has the drawing power of new and urgent, yet satisfies a book-lover’s fondness for browsing and the rewarding sense of, “Hmmm, this looks interesting.”

But what percentage of that browsing space is effectively selling? I would wager the turn on some titles must be once a year, perhaps some less than that. Similarly, on a recent trip to Blockbuster I saw plenty of dusty niche titles that might never be rented again, if they ever had been. All taking up shelf space that wasn’t being productive. The store of the future has to change size and I think it has to be smaller.

A bit of a paradox, expanding choice and shrinking space to merchandise it.

Today I met a new client client for the first time, and it’s an encounter that I doubt I’ll soon forget. I looked across the table and saw unbridled courage looking right back. Not long into our meeting, the CEO stood proudly on his soapbox and proclaimed that “Wowing the customer is a moving target,” and then proceeded to give us complete freedom to explore what his brand could be, not what it should be. No implementation parameters. No site conditions. No “handcuffs” as he put it. What a terrific feeling, what a terrific opportunity for our company, but more importantly, what a terrific opportunity for his brand.

When I thought about it, it took great courage to hand over the very successful brand he has built by years of hard work and determination. He explained that it didn’t matter if he liked it at all, the only thing that mattered was that the customers whose hearts he had won over in the past would be reinvigorated and that he would attract new customers by giving them something worthy of their attention. The people, the bullet-proof operations, the care that had been baked into the brand would take it from there. Unbridled courage, coupled with the faith of doing things right and for the right reasons. Wow.

Retailers and manufacturers are constantly on the lookout for new ideas and strategies to spur growth. And while smart companies are giving digital serious consideration, they’re not doing it at the expense of the store experience. Likewise, in our excitement around mobile shopping, let’s not overlook our physical spaces and the tactile experiences they offer. Yes, stores have been our retail workhorses for centuries, but don’t make the mistake of assuming we’ve wrung every bit of growth to be had from them. What can be done to spur growth from the fleet of branded spaces that currently exist? Plenty.

When I look across most categories, I see great similarities between competing brands. Brands get stagnant and complacent. All it takes is a little courage to get beyond the safety of sameness. I believe innovative thinking can only happen when you take a long hard look at your brand and ask, “What if?” What if we look at things from a different perspective? What if we do things a new way?

Customers get excited by new. We see this time after time when we open a store, especially if the exterior has had a makeover. Inevitably, customers who have forgotten about you will try you again. “New” attracts attention.

Our creative team is often asked about the efficacy of kiosks in stores, and I have come to the conclusion that the mighty kiosk has had it’s day in the sun. Once upon a time, kiosks served a purpose. They were the first baby steps of digital media in the store. Over time, the screens that once held so much promise eventually went blank. Content wasn’t updated with any frequency. The constant repetition enticed employees to turn the volume down or even worse, turn the screens off. They broke down. The intentions were good, but the executions suffered.

Then something unforeseen happened. Customers started bringing his own kiosks with them.

So let’s talk about my kid for a minute.

Like many other 15-year-old boys, he likes his video games. When he was a bit younger, games sold for $15 to $20. If we bought one that didn’t suit him, it wasn’t the end of the world. Now, however, his games are much more sophisticated and expensive, some upwards of $70. Now when a game doesn’t match up to his standard of play, he’s not so forgiving.

So, he takes a different approach. While cruising the game aisle at the mass stores or Best Buy, he asks the advice of hundreds of people he has never met using technology that he brings with him, his iPhone. He launches an app aligned with his type of gameplay that lets him access hundreds of reviews on virtually any title, instantly. If the title isn’t awarded a certain number of stars, he passes it up. He is leveraging his own kiosk to get exactly what he needs to make the decision to buy. So why would he use yours?

On a recent trip to Tel Aviv Israel I ran across something that totally stopped me in my tracks. Just before entering the Duty Free shops area of the airport (after making it successfully through the 12 security checkpoints) at the end of a long hallway was a huge three-dimensional display from Diesel shouting “BE STUPID.”

It’s not often that something–a brand for that matter–tells us to “be stupid” so I stopped and read copy-laden display further, and was INSPIRED!! The idea (as you can see from the image) is that some people let their brains decide for them, and some let their hearts decide.

When asked for my favorite brand, I am always quick to respond with Nordstrom. In my mind they achieve highest honors on my list of favorite shopping venues. I have several reasons for loving them so much (and driving over an hour to get to the nearest one).

The sales associates are not only helpful in locating items, and friendly when checking out, but they are thoughtful – they provide new ideas and bring items you haven’t seen to your attention. The stores are well organized and easy to shop – fixtures are typically spaced well enough apart to allow for viewing of all the product, the product itself is organized into meaningful departments and sub-groupings, and the fixtures are not so overstuffed that you can easily pull out and replace items you are considering.

And unlike some of its luxury department store competitors, it’s not so elitist feeling that you’d be ashamed to walk in wearing jeans and a t-shirt on, a non-designer handbag on your arm. In general, the brand makes you feel like you deserve to shop this way, that you are a treasured customer and guest.

So given all this, imagine my shock and horror when the Nordstrom brand promise that is so clear and well articulated in their stores came crashing down when I entered a Nordstrom Rack. To be fair, I didn’t expect it to be the same level of polish, finish or service, but I did expect it to deliver against the familiar organization and level of quality that the products it sells deserves. Instead I was greeted by a flea market environment punctuated by product strewn all over the floor and on top of fixtures, barely enough room to walk between rounders, and an overwhelming desire to run from the space that felt like nothing better than a “last stop outlet where clothes go to die.”

There was little hope of finding a good deal unless you were willing to commit hours to the task of searching. Any warm and fuzzy feeling I had about Nordstrom itself and what it could offer me, was destroyed in the 95 seconds I could tolerate being in the place.

Using digital media in retail really isn’t a new concept, the idea has been around for years. Recently though, “going digital” has gotten a lot easier, cheaper and more meaningful to both companies and customers. It’s easy to caught up in the new digital revolution and want to implement this “cool factor” into your brands retail experience in every possible way, however, be smart about it.

The next time you’re in Best Buy, stand in front of the TV department and look at all those screens. Hard to focus, isn’t it. Now imagine those same screens each playing different content and messages simultaneously. My brain shuts down just thinking about that! The point here is that when it comes to integrating digital signage or interactivity into your retail experience, don’t overdo it.

The focus is always about your brand, not how digital you are.
The best way to approach any digital integration in retail is as an enhancing element, not a distracting one. Consumers are already bombarded with messages from different angles. You can inadvertantly add too much digital content and end up with “noise” when you are merely trying to help with a purchase decision.

The central question here is: how much digital is too much? While digital is appropriate for many aspects of the shopping journey, there are moments when it isn’t. Also, and to my earlier point, too much digital content can become very overwhelming and even detract from the real focus of the experience (your brand, services and products).

Several years ago, the concept of ‘ideating’ was given much notoriety by a television commercial that showed a group of people lying on the floor doing what appeared to be a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

“We’re ideating,” I remember the young lady in the commercial saying to someone who apparently stumbled upon the session. After that, the use of the word “ideating” was met with muffled snickering and if you used it in a meeting you ran the risk of being subjected to many unsavory references to that commercial. For good reason. It resonated with folks who had actually been in ideation sessions where little was accomplished. A common thing, perhaps, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

As I write this, I am fresh off a very successful “ideation” meeting where new thoughts were flying. People were allowing themselves the freedom to act and think differently than they had in the past. The devil’s advocate–who has a nasty habit of throwing monkey wrenches into so many good ideas before they germinate–was nowhere to be seen.

Ideas, good ideas, were flowing and it made for a session that was terrifically fruitful. It was so energizing!

Though I do not own one, my feelings toward the iPad are bordering on covetousness. And while there are myriad uses for an iPad, I primarily want one to replace the 6 short boxes of comics that I have in storage.

I’ve recently been testing out a few comic book apps from the app store. My favorite, as far as user experience goes, is the PanelFly app. Lately, however, I find myself primarily using the Marvel Comics app because of the titles available and ease of access to the free downloads section. I think comics are perfect for this new form factor. The size is right. The colors are vivid. The potential for enhanced content is through the roof.

Also, the target demographic is primarily older adult males, the kind of consumer that generally has no problem rationalizing half a grand or more for a slab of sexy tech ware.

However, many comic retailers are already gathering their pitchforks and torches and assembling at the village square to put an end to this perceived strange, new threat.

Their main argument against the iPad and comic apps? “Why should customers come to my store to purchase their funny books on dying trees when they can have it zipped to their iPad in seconds?”

This question has gained increased urgency since publishers have recently been testing same-day digital and print releases.

My answer to this perplexing question is: Yes, why should they?

CNN.com recently ran an article in their tech section on this very subject. They quoted publishers and retailers and while everyone is quick to praise the iPad experience, they fail to mention what is fundamentally wrong with the retail experience that has driven customers away in the first place.

While our annual 2010 State of the Retail Industry report delineates the challenge for retail brought about by consumer behavior changes in reaction to the great recession and the rapid adaption of mobile technology—many of those challenges will take several years to address. To find seven things that retailers can do right now, we asked our experts.

Scott Jeffrey, Chief Creative Officer

Push for differentiation. There is no time to rest on your laurels. Realize that innovation isn’t a stage, it’s an ingrained brand behavior. In fact, stop thinking of innovation as a “next step” all together–”step” as in a phase of something that stops and starts, or merely cycles through.

My ideal retail brand would be one that never completes a store design prototype. The “never done” mentality is always asking, “What else? What else can we do to make it better?” That type of thinking requires courage. Belief in the importance of change. Granted, not every one of your new ideas will be a game changer, but once you entertain doubt and back off, you pretty much lose momentum. Particularly now, when the customer expectations are so far ahead of what most retailers are delivering in terms of the brand experience.

The minute you rest on your laurels and let your brand and your stores get outdated, you have a really big, hardest-to-do maneuver on your hands: a turnaround. If you have a fleet of any size, you’re in danger of being too big and too rigid to manage a turnaround. But if you’re a constant seeker, a brand that remains loose and nimble, the maneuvers are much smaller and easier to manage. Your creative adjustments and transitions will be happening all the time. Knock down any silos in your way and get to that mindset as soon as you can.

Bill Chidley, Senior Vice President, Shopper Sciences

Consumers’ rapid adoption of the smartphone means it’s time to start thinking about connecting and communicating through that little screen. To make the most of the opportunity to drive demand, mobile optimization should be a top priority for your brand. It’s all about being in the game. Don’t try to justify mobile initiatives with ROI. Move forward with a reasonable hypothesis and prepare to learn and adapt.

Don Rethman, Senior Vice President, Architecture

Consider doing a site survey. Do your shoppers expect to share their shopping experience instantly? Do you plan to make fast calls to action in the store? Your building needs a wireless-based backbone to support that, with wireless connectivity that allows for transitions. This goes even beyond the creation of mobile hot-spots. Buildings must have a distributed, robust and flexible IT infrastructure which will allow technical access to all spaces. It helps if you’re working with architects who are aware there is such a thing as a path to purchase so they can help create a store that increases productivity and doesn’t skimp on the brand experience.

Amanda Yates, Vice President, Strategy & Analytics

It’s vital to map the “customer journey” to understand where best to make the wireless investments, as well as other investments that help your brand drive choice. Mapping will provide the insights that will help you gain advantage and protect sales by offering shoppers what they want in the modes they desire. Not every retailer will need a full-blown program, but each must understand the needs of its customers, what information and access they are looking for and where or how they want to access it. Once these insights are known, the appropriate level of investment and how to spend it will become much clearer.

Dave Nixon, Executive Director, Digital Strategy

The multi-channel ideal is a seamless transition from the physical shopping experience to the virtual experience through every digital touchpoint–one that’s painless for the shopper and profitable for the retailer. However, for most retailers that’s not the first thing you can do. There will be silos to take down, brand strategy work and brand engagement initiatives to adopt before that nirvana is reachable. I’d like to elucidate further on what Bill says (above)—“Get in the game.”

Companies that spend too much time planning their next technology steps will find themselves playing catch up to those that are already moving. One of the main benefits of digital is the ability to deploy it quickly and then modify or adapt the solution depending on the performance metrics for success. In that respect, adopting new digital platforms into your channel strategy is less expensive and presents less risk than physical channels. The time is now to leverage digital technologies for increasing revenue, efficiency and customer loyalty.

Kris Medford, Ph.D., Director of Shopper Sciences

Get to know your shoppers again. Segmentation that is a few years old is downright archaic so make sure your insights are recent and actionable. Who are your shoppers—both those in your store today and those you want in the future? What’s important to them from a digital perspective, and how can you use digital help to make your brand be more relevant to their lifestyle?

Justin Wartell, Senior Consultant, Brand Strategy

The physical store needs to evolve from its position as the “jewel in the crown” to a “tool in the arsenal.” For retailers, the most important thing that can be done right now is to (re)examine the relationship between the physical brand experience and all of the other expressions of the brand. Brand experiences are inter-connected organisms that create an overall customer feeling about the brand. By understanding the role that retail plays in the context of the other touchpoints that are, or can be, deployed, retailers can drive loyalty, reputation, efficiency and value across their organizations.

My kid will tell you that I make a mean chocolate chip pancake, but that’s only due to my ability to follow the directions on the box. I’m not much of a cook, I’m afraid. I think the most difficult part of cooking a meal is the timing. I admire the planning that goes into starting one thing while thawing another all the while mixing something else and like magic, they all come to the table at the same time. I tried baking a layer cake once and didn’t make it out of the frosting phase unscathed. I ended up with a sticky mess and a birthday promise that went unfulfilled. Thankfully, the local bakery bailed me out.

Evolving a brand into a new, more engaging incarnation can be just as magic, or if improperly handled, just as messy, resulting in a brand promise that goes unfulfilled. Expectations are always high when we embark on the path that leads to transforming a brand, from both our friends on the client side as well as ourselves. Designers inherently embrace a challenge, and we see every project as an opportunity to make a brand all and the very best that it can be. A lot of teamwork goes into executing a brand—that is, following the recipe we’ve created for an engaging shopping experience. If the recipe isn’t followed, your outcome can suffer.

Curious. In a world where we can create our own unique looks by shopping anywhere we want, or by building our own virtual worlds, we still desire the approval of others and want resassurance that we fit in.

If you want to make sure you are being noticed by the right people, check out your recent witty status post on Facebook to see how many “Likes” you got from friends.

Wondering which outfit to wear tonight? Check with the masses via Go Try It On. Post photos of your look(s) and get fast feedback on which outfit makes you look cool and confident—most like the type of person who doesn’t need approval. There’s been a significant rise in the number of mobile instant fashion advice sites that play into this need.

It seems we are constantly looking for peoples’ opinions of where to shop or how we look. When it comes to apparel, of course, some of that need for approval stems from the fact that today’s fashion trends are very tricky to make work in a flattering way, especially for women. Seeking honest feedback can keep you from spending unwisely. So we are using technology to get advice quickly, right outside our closets, or often at the very point of purchase.

So it’s that time of year again. Over the next three months, you can find me at my kid’s high school athletic field, watching his soccer team practice four nights a week. I rather enjoy those days. They’re a combination of fresh air and pride watching my kid trying to be the next great Springboro High goalkeeper.

As I sit here this evening, there is a slight wind that keeps the flag flying, pulling its cable against the flagpole, creating that hollow metal pinging sound. At the far end of the bleachers, a runner is doing some stair work. Her shoes make a sharp pop, I can feel the vibrations down my row as she hustles up and back down again. The evening sun is warm and the smell of freshly cut grass fills the stadium. Based on these sensations, you could blindfold me and I’d still know where I was.

A few retail brands stand out when I think of sensorial experiences. How many times have you smelled a Cinnabon before you saw it? You can smell and usually hear an Abercrombie before you come across one in the local mall. A similar volume of music (not to mention the genre) somehow seems very out of place in an Orvis store. Bath and Body Shop does a nice job of seasonal scents to grab your attention.

As retail designers, we rely a lot on the visual sense to communicate to consumers. But let’s not forget that those brands that engage all of the senses create the most memorable experiences.

When people ask me what I do, somewhere in the description I inevitably use the “S” word: signs. However, in today’s experience-based socially driven marketplace, brands, retail brands especially, need to move beyond signs and think about wayfinding in terms of the whole experience of the built environment, and how every element in a space can play a role in defining what we like to think of as intuitive wayfinding.

Intuitive wayfinding, means a customer or staff member is able to navigate a space without stopping to think about it, and does not need to consciously keep track of where they are in the space. If a customer needs to look at a directional sign to figure out where to go, you’ve already lost the battle for an intuitive wayfinding experience. The intuitive wayfinding experience relies on a system of well organized, strategically placed visual cues to guide the consumer to their destination.

Space planning plays a key role in maintaining an intuitive navigational experience. In the planning stages, if your plan looks like a lab rat’s maze then there is a pretty good chance it will feel like that when it’s built. However, a layout with the proper adjacencies, strategic departmental hierarchy, and ample common navigational walkways is well on its way to achieving intuitive wayfinding right from the start.

A: When I’m shopping at my local Kroger.

No, not the “Post” as in Raisin Bran; I’m referring to the physical post, or column, that is in the cereal aisle at my store.

The scene is this: my wife asks me to go get the Multi-Grain Cheerios so she can shop in peace for 10 minutes. She says, “Get the big box, unless the smaller box is on sale,” adding, “The Cheerios are close to the post about half-way down the aisle.”

If she wouldn’t have given me that navigational pointer, she probably would have bought herself 15 minutes of peace. The merchandise presentation in the cereal aisle is such a mess, so lacking in organization, I could easily have squandered more time, forced to scan every package, not finding what I was looking for. But since she gave me the post as my pole star, I managed to navigate past the lions and tigers and bears to the Cheerios. After a moment of anxiety while I scan the shelf for validation—Ta-dah!—I find the Mutli-Grain big box not on sale!

Contrast this with my second mission, during which my wife gets only a few minutes of peace.

Having read the article about the half-mile-long beaver dam in Alberta, Canada, it occurred to me that those beavers exemplify something frequently overlooked in the retail design business, the idea that it’s okay to fail.

You would have to imagine that over the reported 2800 linear feet of dam in what is basically a flat terrain, there’s the likelihood that sometimes it just doesn’t work the way they intended. The colony has to react quickly to failure to ensure the safety of their habitat. If any of you beavers are reading this post and would like to broaden your portfolio, by all means, give us a call. Failure is an option in design as long as it’s smart failure and failing for the right reason. If it helps the idea move forward, then it might just net out the absolute best result.

In today’s market, retail brands developing a new design concept rarely have the luxury of time. Business pressure demands short design-and-build timeframes, followed by testing and refining.

While I spend my days understanding shopper behavior and applying rigorous research and analysis methods to help companies “grow categories,” I spend my weekends shopping like crazy. With my bank account being the victim of all of these great growth strategies! As you know, retailers and manufacturers are always finding new ways to create incremental growth or, simply put, make shoppers spend more.

One of my favorite places to shop is Target. Before I even make it into the store I have generally blown $20 on the dollar spot. After piling my cart with a bunch of stuff I really have no use for, my second stop is always the shampoo aisle. Regardless of need, I always stop. Something about the colors and the arrangement of the shampoo aisle just makes me feel so clean and orderly and I generally end up picking up something guaranteed to fix frizzy hair or give me more volume.

Well, much to my surprise, my venture into the shampoo aisle a few weeks ago yielded a fantastic new surprise! The new Pantene display! Aisle violators grabbed my attention as they organized the offering by color and hair solution. That’s right, hair solutions–easily found! And not only did the aisle violators frame up the offering, but the bottle packaging was new and perfectly coordinated with the signs. You can image my excitement as I quickly zeroed in on the “fine” solutions area. I left the aisle with a whole new system of hair care.

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend some time in our Madrid office collaborating with a cross disciplinary team to brainstorm and develop a cultural food destination concept that would be a reference point for the city of Madrid. So far project and our ideas are having great success with the client and we are really excited about the potential of the concept.

The experience of working abroad, for however long a period of time, in another office is fantastic! If you ever get the chance to work in another office, especially globally, drop what you are doing and go! It’s a great way to get a fresh perspective on what we do by seeing how other offices/cultures work and engage with each other and their clients. Anytime you can get exposed to new people and fresh processes and ideas it’s really energizing! This is true from both parties perspectives as well. The creative tools I brought were greatly appreciated by everyone, since it was a fresh way of working for them. So, the door swings both ways. I conducted a brainstorming/ideation session with the internal team only, and it was great to see everyone get excited by this “new” way of digging through ideas to discover the concept. By the end, our brains hurt, we were a little sweaty and tired, so we went off to the bar to refresh our creative minds.

Ok, I have spent the last five years convinced that the marketing hype was just that—hype. Mostly from reading countless advertisements for LED lighting products that play on unsuspecting readers with questionable claims, such as Long life! Excellent color! High efficiency! Brighter!

Well, what were previously exaggerated claims are now coming to be real. LED lighting products are here to stay. And the bubbling pot is about to explode. After years of refinements, and new industry regulation, the products are consistently better performers than the previous generation.

The US Department of Energy has developed a labeling program (I think it is voluntary) that provides a means of consistency for describing LED performance. It addresses Light Output, Watts, Efficacy, Color Rendering Index and Correlated Color Temperature. Or Brightness, Energy, Efficiency, Color Accuracy and Light Color.

Stay ahead of rapid expansion
Singapore, Seoul, and Mumbai are cutting edge markets and this means high expectations. Going into a project as a designer in these cities is intimidating. Shoppers live in aesthetic cultures where every imaginable design has been popularized. These cities are changing organically. It almost seems instantaneous. Within 3 months of being away from Singapore three new malls have opened. It’s all about knowing past/ present memes and looking toward ways of either (1) creating a new twist or (2) breaking the boundaries all together.

Stand out
In most cases Western design tends to fit in with its surroundings. Success in Asia is all about being bold. Whether it be a silly chewing gum commercial or neon signage that puts Times Square to shame, there is always something screaming for your attention. When you consider how busy people are in cities like Beijing and Tokyo, getting someone’s attention takes a strong effort. In my opinion, the solution to this is a simple design that allows for a detox from all the noise.

For years, the majority of cash at quick service restaurants has gone “through the window.” The growing car culture has dictated a focus on drive-thru efficiency to the point where the dining room has become an afterthought to operators and subsequently a barrier to customers.

The cost of updating and maintaining a dining room has seemed cost prohibitive to many QSR chains and their franchisees, especially in light of the high drive-thru ratio. But by not offering a unique, pleasant dining experience, they have let the brand image wither on the vine. And it’s now coming back to haunt them. I contend that the high drive-thru ratio is in large part due to customers avoiding the “ick” factor of enduring outdated, smelly, deteriorating environments with no sense of place or brand personality. The dining room is the brand.

While I was listening to WNYC Radiolab the other day I came across an interesting episode centered on choice and decision making influencers. Being a designer, I am always searching for new ideas and concepts to weave into my work, so I clicked on the link. In an hour the host took me through a whirlwind of studies examining the variations of why we choose the way we do and what factors can influence our decisions. And what does it all boil down too?

Stress has a tremendous affect on our ability to make appropriate selection.

To quote my mother, this over-simplified answer is an “astute observation of the obvious.” However, when broken apart, the program’s individual experiments struck me as simple learning blocks that could easily be applied to a retail environment.

Basically, if a person is over-stimulated in an environment a simple decision of what apple to buy can become ridiculously hard because there is too much information for them to just make a choice. They start to tune out their fast moving intuition to make a more educated selection on an item that they could really care less about. In the end, those who were over-stimulated tend to be disappointed.

So I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Sacramento CA waiting to meet with the city planner regarding a new building design and notice the building across the street has an HVAC unit mounted at the peak of a bowstring truss roof. You’ve got to be kidding me! As they say on “Modern Family,” What the face! Where is the enforcement?

You would think they were trying to make a mechanical engineering cupola statement as part of the design concept or something. Wow, who does that and what city planner or inspector approved that?

As design professionals, we go through great pains to design buildings that screen ugly mechanical equipment to improve the look of the street scape at every juncture.

So with much fanfare, and at least as much controversy, Apple’s iPad has been released to the masses. Okay, I admit it, I ran out and bought one the day the 3G model was available and I also admit that I’m a bit smitten with it. I have no doubt that it will change my behavior in much the same way my iPhone did. But as much as the general public was anticipating the launch, I wonder if retail wasn’t equally as excited about it as part of the digital retail experience of the future.

From what I’ve seen so far, I can use it as a creative tool (no more losing my pen cap thanks to the sketch app). And I’ll be more efficient with my time away from home. I can imagine that, put to the right use, a device like this has the ability to bring a different set of efficiencies to retail.

Maybe the iPad and the inevitable wave of competitors will have the ability to transform my experience at checkout. Maybe checking in at a hotel will be easier.

Carpenter to focus on Interbrand North America

Recession or no, our research shows that shoppers enjoy finding something new in the store. It’s human nature. Whenever retailers bring energy and inspiration to the game—even when shoppers are thinking long and hard before opening their wallets—they still give the store credit for a better shopping experience. And from a better experience comes all

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