Why has offline store design become a battleground for brand marketing?

Have you taken a citywalk today? As this simple and comfortable lifestyle becomes popular among young people, the "third space" has become a new battlefield for offline stores to show their talents. This article takes a considerable number of store designs as examples to explore the brand marketing philosophy behind space design. It is recommended for those who are interested in brand marketing to read~

As we step into September, the weather is clear and cool, and another wave of travel craze is imminent. This year, not only is the tourism market booming, but the rise of CityWalk has also made city roaming and local store exploration a highly sought-after lifestyle. Recently, Mr. Bingfa noticed that new stores of many brands have been included in the must-visit list of local young people on CityWalk. These brand stores not only refuse to "copy and paste" in space design, but also pursue thousands of stores with thousands of faces. The concept of scene is also quite localized. As the boundaries of consumption scenarios continue to expand, offline stores are becoming an important place for users to interact with brands. Creating a "third space" may be the next battlefield for new consumer brands to roll into -

1. Breaking the boundaries of scenes: brand culture x space art

1. Starbucks

Recently, the 300th Starbucks store in Shenzhen officially opened. This unique independent four-story building retains the design style of the industrial era. The red brick facade forms a sharp contrast with the surrounding modern high-rise buildings, making people want to go in and explore. The interior atmosphere is full of artistic sense, and each floor has a different style. After drinking coffee, you can walk around and explore, and every shot you take is a blockbuster.

As a leader in creating the brand's "third space", Starbucks currently has many distinctive stores across the country. On the one hand, Starbucks' stores are visually diverse and open, not limited to brand colors, and the architectural styles are also very diverse; on the other hand, thanks to the brand's deep localization, today's Starbucks stores not only focus on high appearance and space experience, but also integrate local culture and humanistic characteristics of various places into the store, which is refreshing.

In August, coffee brand M Stand opened a new store in Chengdu. Adhering to the concept of "one store, one design", this new store revolves around the "retro ritual sense" and uses a European classical building with rich age textures, integrating retro and vitality, contrasting colors and classics throughout the design. Accompanied by the retro melody, passing the arc bar and stepping onto the elegant spiral staircase, it is like breaking into a retro movie scene and enjoying the taste of coffee in a lazy manner. As an important part of the brand culture, M Stand's offline store design has gradually become its competitive barrier. Through the study of local culture and insights into the preferences of local consumers, M Stand has endowed stores with diversified design styles and cultural creativity, continuously providing consumers with freshness, thereby promoting brand growth.

2. Aesop

This year, Australian skincare brand Aesop was officially acquired by L'Oréal Group and accelerated its localized marketing. Offline stores have become an important occasion for this foreign brand to communicate and connect with Chinese consumers. At present, Aesop has taken root in Shanghai and actively integrated into the local culture. The latest store is located in Jing'an District, Shanghai. It is quiet in the bustling city. Inspired by Chinese philosophy, it has a dialogue with consumers about humanities and art, and conveys the design concept of "roundness and harmony, reunion and rebirth". Looking at Aesop's global stores, no matter how the design style changes, there is a distinct and unified brand tone, a soft and gentle aura, the use of environmentally friendly materials, and a special preference for natural plant views. In Aesop's offline space, the brand conveys the brand impression of "peace of mind and healing" through the careful arrangement of materials, light, and display.

3. Summer Viewing

Guanxia, ​​a young aromatherapy brand, has a special liking for old buildings. Recently, Guanxia opened its first store in Chengdu. The store is located at No. 16, Citang Street, which is a brick building of Sichuan Fine Arts Society. The streets outside the building are paved with traces of the lives of old Chengdu people. According to the brand description, Guanxia invested more than 300 days and nights to repair and polish this old building, showing the brand attitude of absorbing light, taking root, and growing firmly in local culture. And Guanxia's ingenuity in store design will eventually be implemented to empower products. In conjunction with stores in different cities, the brand will simultaneously launch city-limited fragrances, such as Chengdu's city-limited fragrance "Floating Light and Bamboo Shadows" and Shanghai's "Oriental Literature Series·Shanghai" series of fragrances. Guanxia uses space and culture to give fragrance products a more layered and concrete sensory experience.

4. MELT SEASON

As a fragrance brand, MELT SEASON chose to unfold the oriental narrative in another way. In the brand's new store in Hangzhou, "Floating Inkstone", MELT SEASON uses the green of Hangzhou as the background to stretch out the natural strokes of reading life. Feel the natural flow of smell, and the true self slowly emerges from it. The most worth sharing is the "Dust Realm", a store that MELT SEASON opened in Shanghai last year. This Spanish-style garden house was once the former residence of Ms. Zheng Nian, "the last socialite in Shanghai". Following the cultural context of Shanghai in the past, the brand has created a simple and elegant space to reduce visual noise and enhance the overall look and feel, allowing customers to temporarily stay away from the disturbances of the outside world and bring a pure olfactory experience.

5. Huaxizi

The Chinese cosmetics brand Huaxizi is also actively exploring the creative spatial expression of offline stores. In Huaxizi's first offline experience store, the brand continues the cultural gene of oriental aesthetics and combines local culture to create an art gallery-style beauty garden.

Originating from the Eastern philosophy of living in seclusion in the city and inheriting the landscaping aesthetics of Chinese gardens, the store space design uses gardening techniques such as building mountains and managing water, combined with landscape composition techniques such as borrowing scenery, hiding scenery, and exploring seclusion, so that every space construction has culture to explore and creates an immersive garden experience.

5. Lululemon

Lululemon, which is famous for its community culture, has also begun to migrate its brand stores from commercial boxes to more independent and personalized spaces in recent years, providing users with a more diverse and rich brand experience through more creative expression of space with a sense of design. Taking the Shanghai Guyuan store as an example, lululemon uses the city landmark as a carrier to preserve the historical architectural style of old Shanghai. At the same time, it uses a modern lifestyle to collide with the nostalgic atmosphere in the space, bringing a refreshing offline experience.

It is worth mentioning that lululemon uses store space to expand sports retail, using offline stores as private spaces for brand community gatherings and interactions, and carries out various in-store activities to further consolidate user loyalty, enhance community vitality, and deliver an energetic brand experience.

2. Brand space marketing: N ways to impress consumers

Through the above cases, we can see the creative trends of offline stores:

1. Localization

Whether it is a domestic product or a foreign company, localization has become an important factor for offline stores to quickly establish links and resonate with local consumers. At the beginning of the design, it fits the temperament of the city, grasps the cultural texture of the city, and constantly brings freshness to consumers. The localized design concept brings a cordial feeling at the first impression, which is also an important way for brands to show sincerity and win favor.

2. Cultural Sense

With the development of mobile Internet, consumers can easily access the latest global information. In terms of brand perception, empty high appearance is losing its audience. Therefore, injecting brand culture into space, integrating humanities and historical elements, or using artworks and environmentally friendly materials can not only allow consumers to understand brand culture in an immersive way, but also increase the time consumers spend in the store through this experience, thereby triggering consumer behavior.

3. Functionality

In addition to paying tribute to culture and enriching experience, some brands also increase space utilization efficiency, expand store experience, and extend brand activities through store design. In addition to the lululemon mentioned above, which has set up exclusive spaces in stores to provide sports and social venues for brand members, McDonald's also gained a lot of goodwill by setting up a special area for study rooms during this summer vacation.

In short, offline stores of brands are no longer just sales places for displaying products, but diversified spaces that embody brand concepts, expand brand culture, and provide product experience. Today, as scenario-based marketing continues to break through boundaries, physical contact is obviously not enough. How to establish spiritual connections and resonance with consumers may be a topic that all brands will face in the future. After this cloud citywalk, which brand's offline store do you like best?

Author: Mr. Bingfa

Source: WeChat public account: "Marketing Art of War (ID: lanhaiyingxiao)"