NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
July 30, 2010

Media Contact:
Beth Ling
Director of Public Relations
Interbrand Design Forum
(937) 312-8803
beth.ling@interbrand.com

Interbrand Design Forum Hires New Leader for Digital PRACTICE
Digital business continues to grow as clients seek expertise in creating an ideal shopper journey online as well as offline

Dayton, Ohio—Bruce Dybvad, CEO of Interbrand Design Forum has named Dave Nixon Executive Director, Digital Strategy. In this role Nixon will lead the growing digital practice for the retail design firm.

“The digital brand experience is a key component of the shopper’s journey. Retailers are increasing their attention on these touchpoints and should be focusing on aligning them with the in-store experience,” said Dybvad. “We’re excited to have Dave Nixon join Interbrand Design Forum to lead the digital practice. His broad perspective around digital strategy will be an asset to our clients as they consider new opportunities for their brands and he’ll be a leader in extending our expertise in the physical environment to the virtual environment.”

As the leader of our digital practice, Nixon will be responsible for helping to find and fix the client’s pain points through the development of strategies that allow them to leverage technology within their business models, and help them execute those strategies to generate revenue, become more efficient and increase their brand value.

Nixon’s team will leverage the company’s strength in research, analytics, shopper sciences and design to deliver an emotional connection with brands in a way that delights consumers and creates measurable results for clients.

Nixon began his career as a designer focused on retail brand experiences. From there, he decided to learn more about technology solutions, and began working in web design and digital media development. Most recently he helped to found Ardor Consulting, a visionary company that combined his creativity with technology solutions and a belief in customer service with integrity.

“This is an exciting move for me because it links my design and consulting background with my digital expertise,” said Nixon. “By understanding the shopper’s moment of interaction with any digital touchpoint— whether it be in-store, mobile, social or web—we determine what can be accomplished within that dynamic, and then ensure that the right information is available at the right time to deepen the customer experience and close the sale.”

Dave has a B.A. in Visual Communications Design from the University of Dayton. He
and his wife Kim live in Miami Township with their three daughters Emily (18), Olivia (13) and Isabel (6).

About Interbrand Design Forum
Since 1978, we have been creating retail brand experiences for companies around the world. Interbrand Design Forum’s talent for game-changing innovation led us to create a business model that integrates brand strategy, shopper sciences, retail design, digital, documentation and rollout to provide clients with a comprehensive offering. By bringing together a diverse range of insightful thinkers, we deliver solutions that are rigorously analytical and highly creative through a network of 1,200 associates in almost 40 offices around the globe. For more information, please contact Beth Ling (937) 312-8803 or visit www.interbranddesignforum.com.

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
July 29, 2010

Media Contact:
Beth Ling
Director of Public Relations
Interbrand Design Forum
(937) 312-8803
beth.ling@interbrand.com

Interbrand Design Forum Creates new Manhattan brand experience for H&R block
Brand billboard designed to take company into the future

dayton, ohio— Interbrand Design Forum worked with H&R Block to create a new Times Square flagship office, which blends technology with the heritage of the 55-year-old company to create a dynamic brand experience that capitalizes on its high-traffic location.

The flagship opened Jan. 14, 2010 at 555 Seventh Ave. in New York. The 2635-square foot space represents a significant change for the office which transformed from stark white walls to a colorful and energized branded experience.

“This space leverages the equity of the H&R Block brand and creates excitement around the tax experience while driving awareness for the brand in an environment worthy of Times Square,” said Scott Jeffrey, chief creative officer, Interbrand Design Forum.

One highlight of the new space is the giant “smart wall” that guides clients through an interactive tax experience. The wall is visible through the front windows and provides a dynamic presentation. It can serve a variety of functions from counting down the days until April 15 to highlighting brand messages and introducing employees.

Upon entering the space, users can interact with the wall to learn more, get specific questions answered or print tax tips. Visitors are welcomed by staff at the concierge desk and can wait in the café area, which offers a media center, coffee bar, laptop stations and free Wi-Fi.

Beyond the amenities, the new comfortable feel comes to life in the waiting area which features warm wood floors, rugs and residential style lamps. Here, the prominent history wall reminds visitors of H&R Block’s long-time status as a trusted advisor. Historical company photos decorate the walls, and as the official tax preparer of the New York Yankees, so does an autographed baseball bat from team captain and shortstop, Derek Jeter.

A reworked floor plan and fixture layout improve the client experience. To create privacy, there is a more distinct separation between the front of the space and the work areas. The new plan also includes spaces for various levels of interaction and service, from conference rooms for private consultation to casual café tables for quick discussions.

Work spaces feel more personal with a shared desk that allows the computer to be visible from both sides so that the tax professional and client can better interact. Translucent partitions provide privacy, but allow natural light to shine through. Pendant lights punctuate each work space and improve illumination.

The brand green is used at key customer touchpoints, while orange is introduced as an accent color to warm up the space and make it friendlier. The square shape from H&R Block’s logo is key to the design language which comes through in the furniture shapes, lights, graphics, checked fabric patterns and the design of the front desk. This subtle reinforcement of the brand ties everything together and creates an inviting atmosphere, while curves bring a balance to the space in the form of gently arced flooring divisions, soffits and fixture walls. To add additional warmth and personality, specially commissioned artwork depicting people working on taxes throughout the ages is hung throughout the space.

To keep the space uncluttered, the use of graphics is purposefully minimal. Each consultation area has one tastefully framed piece that is focused on reinforcing the brand pillars. The main desk has one designated area for promotion, and other media—from screen savers to the check-in kiosk— is used wherever possible to convey important brand messages. The blue wall at the rear of the waiting area provides a canvas for customer satisfaction quotes to be projected upon.

H&R Block will open nine other new offices in New York in 2010. In addition, 300 of the company’s offices across the country will be remodeled to share some of the contemporary features of the New York flagship.

About Interbrand Design Forum
Since 1978, we have been creating retail brand experiences for companies around the world. Interbrand Design Forum’s talent for game-changing innovation led us to create a business model that integrates brand strategy, shopper sciences, retail design, digital, documentation and rollout to provide clients with a comprehensive offering. By bringing together a diverse range of insightful thinkers, we deliver solutions that are rigorously analytical and highly creative through a network of 1,200 associates in almost 40 offices around the globe. For more information, please contact Beth Ling (937) 312-8803 or visit www.interbranddesignforum.com.

On a recent trip through LAX, feeling like a co-star in the George Clooney flick Up in the Air, I began the habitual routine: head to self check-in, find a seat near the front of the plane, drudge to security, get my identity squared away, enter the waiting game, strategize about which line is shortest at the security check and prepare my belongings for scrutiny.  

I’m pulling out my computer and liquids; taking off my shoes and jewelry; and—what’s this?!  The security bins aren’t the normal smudged grey. Rather, each display a shiny, newly installed advertisement—for none other than the Skechers Shape Ups.

Putting aside the misconceived brand marriage of health and wellness with Skechers, let’s consider the advertising locale: the airport security bins. At no other point during my airport visit do I feel more vulnerable, valueless and at edge than when standing barefooted with my personal belongings projected for the viewing pleasure of four complete strangers. While I grow increasingly more concerned about how the TSA agents stare at the x-ray of my purse like it’s this summer’s blockbuster while I’m waiting there shoeless, Skechers wants me to consider wearing Shape Ups. I almost feel mocked.

If the viral marketing hasn’t made you aware: Skechers has entered the workout authority arena. You read that right: Skechers, the manufacturer of sub-par street shoes, claims you don’t even need to really work out. Skechers’ Shape Ups gives you toned legs and buttocks by doing nothing more than routine walking. Adidas, Nike and Reeboks—move over! Gym membership—sayonara! Beach body, here I come! Pardon my sarcasm, but you get my point. It feels like a major brand misstep to me. 

I understand that airports allow brands to reach a great number of diverse individuals from a variety of locales hourly. However, brands risk being associated with one of the most time consumptive, potentially frustrating and blasé modern day institutions. When the weary traveler trudges through the airport in detest, your brand might well be smeared into the mud if it does nothing to lighten the load or provide much-needed respite.

Delightful disruptions do make the monotony of airport travel bearable. Conveniences like replacement headphones, culinary treasures in greasy bags and intellectual fodder in the form of trashy magazines provide a welcome distraction for travelers and lucrative income statements for brands alike. However, brands should tread lightly when entering the airport showground.

When pondering advertising locales, brand alliances and implementations, be certain to ask yourself: what value is our brand delivering to consumers?  If you can’t make a proper case for consumer delight, I insist you reconsider.

They say that having no presence on mobile devices in 2010 is like not having a website circa 1999. So true! The digital age is in hyper-drive. 3G access continues to increase, and 4G is already here! Some stats say that up to 99 percent of the population will have some sort of data capability on their mobile phones by 2011.

So what does this mean for retailers? It means the need for a whole new view to their digital strategies. When a shopper can enter a store, scan a barcode, see that the same product is cheaper at a nearby competitor and click a link for directions to take them straight there, the game has suddenly been changed, so to speak. There is an ever-expanding catalog of apps out there to enable this type of shopping behavior (in the store, in the car or on the run), and manufacturers like Apple are training customers via commercials and advertisements about how to use all these apps to simplify their lives.

It might be easy to dismiss this trend given the relatively small percentage of people with iPhones or Droids today, but now is the time to start investigating and investing in individual strategies. Almost one third of Americans are already shopping via their mobile devices, and the number grows when you talk about Millenials and their mobile shopping habits.

So what’s the next move? 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.

Two examples of retailers getting it right

Two brands getting it right are Best Buy and Target, which both have useful apps. Best Buy’s app not only lets you browse its extended online product assortment, but allows you to actually purchase via your mobile device (not many retailers are doing this yet).

It also lets the user locate stores and provides a map that leads you right there (the icon actually moves while you’re moving so you can see where you are in relation to the store). Finally, it makes it easy to navigate, providing a “deals” page, as well as “ideas” and “gifting” pages, not to mention access to your “Rewards Zone” account.

While Target’s app is very similar, it doesn’t let you purchase via mobile, it provides a barcode scanning option that can be used in and out of the store to allow shoppers to find out more information about a product. Beyond price, it offers product information, customer reviews, and availability in your local store.

Both brands understand the needs of their customers and are creating opportunities to enhance the customer journey.

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.

Secondly, large-scale landmarks of all kinds, both three-dimensional and two-dimensional, play a big part in developing an intuitive wayfinding experience. What says “Men’s Suits” better than a giant photo of a man in a suit? Large-scale landmarks also provide great support when staff members give verbal directions to customers, such as, “Walk towards the giant photo of the man in the suit.”

Third, a high level of visual activity can draw consumers in and give a sense of excitement and identity to a space. Focals packed with merchandise arranged interestingly, a collection of items that obviously belong to the adjacent department, announces all by itself where a customer is in the space. With these kinds of intuitive visual cues playing a larger role in the system, signs become the wayfinding back-up plan, the safety net, the last resort for a customer who can’t find their way.

With an intuitive wayfinding approach, brands can think more about how all elements in the environment can support wayfinding and less about which way the arrow should point on that “S” word with the list of departments hanging from the ceiling.

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. I go to get a 12 pack of Pepsi. No need for her directional advice in the beverage aisle. I masterfully scan the 40 feet of shelf as I walk. “Nope, nope, nope… bingo!” I find the big blue block of Pepsi products.

The folks at Pepsi understand that the central color brand block draws shoppers down the aisle, and makes de-selection faster and easier; quantity comparisons are simpler to make. If only the breakfast aisle followed this example. There’s got to be a way to orchestrate the shelves that allows shoppers to navigate and deselect with greater ease. I can’t imagine the flakes-makers are driving much trial and category growth with shelf principles like these, or the lack of them.

Yes, a better aisle experience would cause me to return to my wife and the shopping cart in record time. But she can always send me over to wait in line behind the elderly persons at the deli counter.

On June 18, Pixar Animation Studios released the third installment in their flagship franchise, simply titled “Toy Story 3.” Now that the reviews are in, Pixar just missed the mark in producing the first movie trilogy to receive 100% fresh ratings on the popular movie rating site Rotten Tomatoes. A 100% rating is near impossible for any individual movie, considering the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are not a single opinion but an aggregate of hundreds of movie critics’ ratings.  Doing so for all three movies in a trilogy, or even coming this close, would seem to be an impossible task. And yet, they came within inches.

Also, this eleventh feature-length offering from Pixar has all the indications of another smashing financial success. While any individual moviegoer may have some negative opinions about some of Pixar’s movies, it’s hard to argue against the overall universal acclaim and the respective worldwide box office returns.  

So how does Pixar do it? Three simple words: Story is king. From the very beginning, Pixar has followed one simple mantra, which is engraved in stone at their studio: “No amount of technology can turn a bad story into a good one.” Eleven critically acclaimed feature movies, eleven financial successes, all based upon original stories and characters. This seems to fly in the face of the current Hollywood thinking that if you use more special effects, they will come. Make the movie 3D and they will come. Cast the actor-du-jour and they will come. Base it on an existing property (book, TV show, remake of older movie, video game, board game) and they will come. In many current Hollywood offerings, story and characters take a back seat.

Tell a good story with compelling characters, and they will come. It seems so simple and common sense, yet it seems to be forgotten. Pixar’s track record speaks to the effectiveness. They single-mindedly stick to their mantra and always strive to deliver against it in all they do. Now that’s a lesson that any brand could take a cue from.

I love Apple. I fiend over the stickers they give me when I buy a new Apple gadget. I’ll talk about why I love Apple with total strangers. And I’m quite sure my family and friends think I might be emotionally unstable with my constant pro-Apple rhetoric. But one of the reasons I like Apple, is I get Apple. And I believe that “getting” a brand is the all-important step that must be in place before we can love a brand.

We interact with thousands of brands every day, some by our choosing, some not. At any given moment you can step back and identify several brands you’re engaged with—the one you’re wearing, what you’re using, what you’re watching, eating…it goes on. What are these brands about? What do they stand for? Do you love them, hate them? Do you care? And ultimately, “Do you get it?”
 
I would like to offer up a 3-step formula that leads to success and the coveted “getting it-ness.”
 
1 Be Passionate. No, be wildly passionate about something, not 10 things. One great, brand defining something. What is the basic thing your brand does? It’s great when that idea is differentiating, but even if it,s not, what is it? And once that idea/attribute/principle is identified, talk about it, make sure it’s not a secret. Internally and externally, it should be the signature thing that your employee or customer would say the brand is.
 
2 Simplify. Get rid of everything that doesn’t deliver on that one great passionate idea! Stop trying to do everything for everyone. I know, you want every 15-year-old and 55-year-old to enjoy your brand, right? Wrong, what you really want is a core set of customers that connect with your brand in a powerful way and so they can mutually feed off of the engery and passion both of them create. When that magic happens, an amazing thing happens. Those customers demand that their friends, family and anyone who will listen to them use your brand. But if the brand’s message isn’t simple, then no one will ever understand or care enough to be excited.
 
3 Ruthlessly Execute. That works on a couple of levels, be ruthless with killing any and all parts of the brand that confuse, contradict, or fail to build the brand. And make sure every touchpoint can in some manner link back to what the brand stands for. A customer should get the same experience in-store, on-line, from an ad, or opening a package. Every time a customer has an interaction with the brand (no matter how small) the experience must deliver that special passionate idea.
 
Most brands have an incredible amount of information that talks about their values, attributes and mission, to help articulate the brand essence. I have been trough my fair share of day-long presentations to help me understand what some brand is all about and many times I find myself saying, “Okay, great. I don’t get it.” And if I don’t get it, your customers won’t either.
Love
R