Sense & Sensibility
Image © Maeve Larkin
"You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality." Walt Disney
This quote inspired me to become an interior designer, and made me believe that good interior design can enhance life experiences. In all my designs, I visualize how people will use the space, and then inject it with design elements that will make the interior come alive.
Through investigating the benefits of creating a sensory branding experience, I realized the important role the five senses play in the design of interior spaces. The senses can create emotional ties between a brand and a customer, not to mention an experience the customer will want to re-enact.
Image © Maeve Larkin
Sight
Sight is the first and most powerful sense used in merchandising. It catches a passerby’s attention through window displays. It attracts customers to different parts of stores. And it can be achieved just by creating something visually striking. Scientific research affirms the importance of sight: Half the brain is devoted to processing visual images and as high as 80% of learning is based on visual input. This means sight is incomparable to any other sense; it’s the first and most important element by which retails environments can get the attention of customers.
In January of this year, Selfridges department store on Oxford Street began a No Noise campaign. The campaign focused and getting rid of the visual ‘noise’ in retail design and gave birth to a Silent Room and the sale of Limited Edition Products with no brand names. Compared to the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street, the Silent Room was immediately refreshing. The simple interior was designed by Alex Cochrane, with low lighting levels and limited use of materials creating a beautifully serene mood. Customers have to remove their shoes and turn off all mobile phones and music devices before proceeding down a dark corridor, through a gap in the wall and into the space. The whole journey and approach creates a space which feels secluded and silent, but background noise from the store did manage to creep in. The Silent Room was created as a space to sell anything but as a place for people to escape the madness of the outside retail world. It’s a space for people to relax and think of what they actually want without the influences of advertising or sales staff. After this experience, customers then move on to the Quiet Shop. Visually speaking, this is an exciting experiment resulting in the majority of items still being easily identifiable even without being named. Taking the visual ‘noise’ out of the retail experience is thoroughly refreshing, and considering most retail interiors are becoming visually busier and busier it is refreshing and almost calming to see products sold like this.
The interior design of the new Mini Store in Westfield Shopping centre, Stratford, London, is another retail interior which visually attracts customers’ attention with really good design. If the big red mini on the wall of the exterior isn’t enough to entice you into the store, the beautiful backlit product display stretching up the wall and over the entry ceiling might work. Having previously owned a Mini, I was surprised by the amount of products available, many of which I had never seen. Everything from bags, clothes, and jewellery, to parts and accessories were available for purchase. When it came time to try on some of their cute mini branded clothes, I was welcomed by a touch based interactive mirror which allowed me to ‘try’ on products without taking my clothes off. The brilliant use of innovative technology really gave the space an almost futuristic feel. The design of this interior is bold and exciting, mixing different products types within creative displays and incorporating ingenious interactive section and simple navigation.
Image © Maeve Larkin
Touch
Touch can spark many different emotions, and these emotions can be evoked by different cues with touch being the most emotionally charged. Touch is one major sense which retail interiors can offer while increasingly popular Internet or digital shopping forums cannot. The Internet may be able to show the look, shape and colour, but touch is the only way to experience the texture, weight and feel. This weekend I was shopping in All Saints. Having checked out their website and ruling out most of their autumn offerings, I decided to try on a dress. The fabric was to die for and, of course, once on it looked great. I immediately had to have it. This deeper experience with a product (actually wearing it) sparked further emotions.
One challenge inherent to online shopping is that while some sites even go to the extent of having a catwalk model strut in the outfit, you can never see how it will look on you. And since that is going to be its primary function, it seems absurd not to try it on before buying it. I say this even though I have to admit I have done much shopping on the Internet. But if my experience has taught me anything, it’s that my choices are always better when I take the time to go into a store to shop. In an effort to embrace this, it’s vital that the retail interior design allows for such interaction to take place. Shelving should be at an attainable height and display items should have a touchable option nearby. These little details can allow stores to build on the emotions touch can evoke. This is a simple way to building strong relationships with a product and in a world that is being more and more reliant on Internet shopping it’s something the retail interiors must embrace.
One good example of a retailer embracing touch is Ted Baker. This retailer has been building up its brand over a number of years, and now in one retail space they offer Fashion, Shoes, Ted Baker Workshop, Sweet Shoppe, Male Grooming Spot, Female Beauty Spot, ‘Second Scent’ range and ‘In Bed with Ted’ range. Having discovered the benefits touch can have on our emotions it’s a very impressive marketing tool to contain a beauty spot beside a retail spot. Thinking how good I feel coming out from a nice pampering, I can imagine I would be much more likely to splurge on a brand new dress. This fashion brand has created a full ‘Ted Baker’ experience which by appealing to all the senses expresses the brand lifestyle superbly.
The Cloth House is a cute little fabric store on London’s legendary Berwick Street which is famous for fabric shops. The interior of this space is perfectly designed; there is an extensive selection of fabric on ground floor and basement all easily accessed and touched by customers. Large wooden tables are in the centre of the room for staff to cut desired amounts of fabric as required, the mood is relaxed and functional and makes it feel like you’re just popping home to you mothers for some beautiful fabric.
I’ll explore the importance of the other senses in part two of Sense & Sensibility.
Sense & Sensibility, Pt 2
Image © Maeve Larkin
This is part two of Maeve Larkin’s blog Sense & Sensibility, exploring how good interior design evokes the senses to forward a brand message. Read part one here.
Scent
Scent is an extremely important sense because it is wired to the emotion-processing part of the brain. “All of the other senses, you think before you respond, but with scent, your brain responds before you think,” says Pam Scholder Ellen, a Georgia State University marketing professor. It is also powerful, as it can trigger associations and draw upon memories of other smells, an important quality for most brands relying on repeat customers. Ambient scenting is becoming hugely popular with certain brands; customised distinctive well researched smells are used subtly in retail interiors, restaurants and hotels. The purpose for this is to increase customer spending, attract new customers and above all create a memorable brand experience.
Coco Chanel created the signature Perfume Chanel Number 5 in 1921, but initial sales figures of the fragrance in her boutique at 31 Rue Cambon were not very good. I’ve heard she told all the sales girls to spray the perfume all over the interior from the changing rooms, to the displays and most importantly the entrance. Such a strategy was very forward thinking on Coco’s part, because it made this scent instantly relatable to the Chanel Retail experience, which all women already adored.
Jimmy Choo stores uses a combination of spicy cardamom and ivy; the Sony Store uses combinations of orange and cedar; Thomas Pink opts for tang of fresh linen and the Lexus Showroom uses a scent of chocolate chip cookies in the waiting room and green tea and lemongrass at the front entrance. All these interiors are appealing to a different emotion and help in making a sale.
Last year the biggest M&M store in the world opened in London’s Leicester Square. The shop is a chocolate lovers heaven with four floors of everything M&M’s related. One would expect this retail interior full to the brim of chocolate to be oozing with a chocolate aroma, but initially that was not the case. "What they sell comes pre-packaged," says ScentAir UK's managing director Christopher Pratt. "So although it looked like the place should smell of chocolate, it didn't."
Well it does now thanks to ScentAir, which created a special scent for M&M’s interior to ensure customer get the expected smells of beautiful chocolate.
Image © Maeve Larkin
Sound
Sound is probably the third most considered sense after sight and touch. The fact that music has the ability to affect the mood of customers is something designers tend to use to their advantage. However designing the sounds that people hear is just as important as designing the sounds that people don’t.
The Soundscape of an interior can support a retail brand and can make that connection with desired target markets by using appropriate demographics, such as age, gender and income, mixed with psychographics, such as personality, lifestyles and attitudes. By understanding these target markets, interiors can be designed with matching soundscapes that put customers at ease, make them comfortable and entice them to stay longer and hopefully spend more.
Beyond Retro is a vintage retail boutique which is located around London. Walking into the space to the swinging sixties tunes playing in the background immediately sets the scene for the experience ahead. Vintage clothing and accessories are becoming more and more popular and these interiors celebrate them for all their unique qualities.
Image © Maeve Larkin
Taste
Taste is a sense which is not applicable to most retail environments. When you think of a high end fashion boutique or a sports store, the last thing you’d expect to find is an incorporated café. However, if you were handed a glass of champagne or given an energy drink to enjoy while you browsed the collections, this would probably make you more relaxed within the space.
Taste can make an environment more inviting and welcoming; it can make the shopping experience less rushed and more enjoyable. Large department stores have long featured a café for people to take a time out, but in recent times smaller boutiques have begun to include a café area within the design.
The Rapha Cycle Club in Soho, London has created a unique space within which people can hang their bicycles on the walls while they check out the store for cycle wear, grab a coffee or watch the live racing shown on the surrounding screens. This space is an ideal example of how taste can open up opportunities for the retail environment.
Pitfield London is a retail and exhibition space that was opened last December by Interior Design Shaun Clarkson and Textile Designer Paul Brewtser in Shoreditch London. This ‘curiosity shop’ as it is dubbed is an interior space which has a cafe, community space and shop all in the same space. The shops stock and exhibitions are constantly changing making this space super exciting to visit. There is a beautiful mix of local designer and branded goods, vintage pieces and classic designs so whatever you’re after your sure to find here. The unique space is bold and eclectic, welcoming you with beautiful tastes and once you’re in, actually giving you the opportunity to buy anything you see even down to the chair you’re sitting on.
The journey of a customer in a retail interior is a simple journey.
A retail interior is predominately a space dominated by visual content and this can be enough for some retail spaces to create an impact. In a day and age when we’re faced with such high end technology and advanced knowledge of how the human brain works it seems silly for interiors not to take advantage of this and enabling us to create spaces which become more than just retail interiors but destinations, memorable experiences which create distinct personality for brands and products.
 | Maeve Larkin is passionate about life; she loves style, people and places. A lifelong cosmopolitan, she has travelled worldwide and worked in Dublin, Sydney and now London as an Interior Designer. Her flair for fashion keeps her on top of all the latest trends. Individuality in design is something she seeks out and aims to achieve in all her projects. Hugely inspired by the close relationship between the retail and hospitality design—a combination of two of her great passions—she believes their integration is the way forward for Retail Offers. Currently she is a team member of Gensler London’s Retail and Hospitality team. Contact Maeve atMaeve_Larkin@Gensler.com. |
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