With COVID-19 now in the rearview mirror, the retail industry is experiencing a renaissance of cultural expression and transformation. Our team is back on the road, traveling the globe to meet with clients and experience the change of the past few years firsthand. What better place to start than London?

This fall, two of NELSON’s top retail leaders crossed the pond for a week of exploration and discovery. They returned to report on the dynamic shifts that have occurred, showcasing how culture is making a beautiful comeback. They discovered how individuality is at the forefront, pop-up shops have become permanent fixtures, dynamic color is celebrated, street culture reigns supreme, and visual theatre takes center stage. To offer a glimpse of this resurgence, we take you on a journey through the vibrant city of London, a hub for creativity and innovation in the world of retail.

Dynamic Color and Individuality

The streets of London have witnessed a remarkable transformation. People are once again venturing out and expressing themselves through personal style rooted in vibrant and dynamic colors. A city once defined by formal dress and polished shoes has embraced the diversity of a more casual dress and sneakers. From neon hues to pastels, Londoners are donning footwear that reflects the best versions of themselves. Faith Huddleston, Studio Leader for Lifestyle/Wellness, points out that the streets are now a canvas for self-expression, where individuality is not just encouraged but celebrated.

Street Culture Takes the Lead

The subculture style of street skating is experiencing a remarkable resurgence, making its way into the mainstream in an artful manner. Principal and National Business Leader, Sean McCorry reflects on the transformation, noting that at first, he had mixed feelings about it. However, the beauty of this movement lies in how it brings retro moments forward, serving as a springboard for modern individuality. In a world that often gravitates towards nostalgia, street culture captures the essence of rebellious creativity, inspiring a new generation of consumers.

Pop-Up is Permanent

One of the most intriguing changes is the evolution of pop-up shops. Once considered temporary and fleeting, these brand portals have now found a permanent home within the retail landscape. Word-of-mouth recommendations have given way to the power of social media, which propels brand momentum. Pop-ups have become hubs of innovation and experimentation, constantly reinventing themselves to meet the evolving demands of the modern consumer.

Visual Theatre in Retail

A hallmark of the London shopping experience, visual theatre continues to be ever present. Yet, even when you think it can’t get any better, it does. Leading retailers such as Selfridges, John Lewis, Liberty, and Conran Shop have elevated their window displays to new heights. Movement and bright colors have become tools for storytelling, with luxuriously sculptural visuals creating a sense of wonder for passersby. Fixtures have transformed into pieces of jewelry, and props are carefully articulated to resonate with brand identities. Visual theatre now extends far beyond traditional displays, turning shopping into an immersive art form.

From London to You

In conclusion, the retail landscape in London offers a glimpse into the resurgence of culture in the post-COVID era. With dynamic color, individuality, permanent pop-ups, street culture, and visual theatre at the forefront, retailers worldwide are embracing a new era of creativity and expression. As we spread the word from London to you, we invite the global retail community to explore these transformative trends, adapt, and create unique, immersive shopping experiences that engage and inspire customers in this exciting new retail landscape. Culture is indeed turned back on, and the possibilities are limitless.

Since 1979, Sweetwater has provided musicians with the best selection, service, and support needed to create music. Read more on commARCH.

At NELSON, our vision is to boldly transform all dimensions of the human experience. Our unique values fuel our culture and inspire us to constantly evolve and innovate. In celebration of our values, over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting the experiences that allow us to bring out the best in our teammates and clients. This week, we’re sharing how we THINK BOLDLY. 

As e-commerce continues to alter the way companies do business, we believe that innovative architectural solutions for warehouses and industrial facilities are the answer to meeting the demands of today’s consumers. As a result, one thing is clear:  the future of these developments is vertical. Keep reading to learn about how our team has used “think boldly” to disrupt the industry.

To understand the impact of the e-commerce revolution, look no further than the streets of American cities. Scooters, small delivery vans, and rideshare package delivery cars buzz around in increasingly larger numbers to fulfill the gotta-have-it-now urges of convenience-hungry consumers. The new buzz on the streets is just one symptom of a broader change that is pushing industrial development in new directions.

Our industrial team has spent years with their ears to the ground on this trend, conferring with key real estate leaders, building tenants, city officials, entrepreneurs and even looking abroad to understand how industrial architecture must change to accommodate the realities of retail in the 21st century. As a result, our team designed, developed, and successfully built the first urban multi-story facility with dock two-level loading docks in the U.S.  Our award-winning project for Prologis at Georgetown Crossroads is a success story born from three years of intensive effort. We studied and analyzed a variety of state-of-the-art solutions to produce a first-in-class, trendsetting development.

Prologis Georgetown Crossroads | NELSON Worldwide

Disrupting the industrial landscape, the facility has helped a variety of delivery tenants reduce the cost of the “last mile” or the last leg of a product’s delivery journey. Located conveniently between Seattle-Tacoma Airport and Seattle’s central business district at Georgetown Crossroads, the building’s key innovation is its ability to run loading operations across two levels at once. Not only does this mitigate the cost of expensive urban land, but also transportation costs, by utilizing smaller delivery trucks with quick turn-around. The first story of the 589,000-square-foot facility was designed as a double-loaded,  28-foot-clear distribution space. The third story houses manufacturing and research and development, with three freight elevators, and the entire facility is supported by a detached, three-story parking structure. 

As consumer needs evolve, we look forward to continuing to think boldly.  As pioneers of this new solution, Prologis at Georgetown Crossroads is one of the many instances where our core values came to life and an example of our teammate’s passion for problem-solving, creativity, and curiosity in everything they do.

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At NELSON, our vision is to boldly transform all dimensions of the human experience. Our unique values fuel our culture and inspire us to constantly evolve and innovate. In celebration of our values, over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting the experiences that allow us to bring out the best in our teammates and clients. This week, we’re sharing how we EMBRACE GROWTH. 

After years of strategic mergers and acquisitions, our 2019 brand reset was a pivotal time that brought all our teammates together as ONE NELSON. To celebrate, our teammates collectively embarked on The Legend of 1,000 Paper Cranes, a Japanese tradition that says anyone who folds 1,000 origami cranes will be granted a wish. Here’s the story:

Origami is the ancient art of folding paper, and Senbazuru, the art of folding origami cranes and stringing them in a line, is one of its most popular forms. In Japan, there is an interesting tradition of getting your wish granted, but it isn’t as easy as throwing a penny into a fountain. It is a task that requires patience, dedication, and hard work. Anyone who can complete this will have their wish granted. So, collectively, NELSON teammates set-out to fold over 1,000 paper cranes for a wish.

Before launching our new brand, teammates in all 25 offices across the country helped fold tiny white cranes and creatively installed them in their space, each office with a different interpretation. The white crane symbolizes coming together as a flock to begin a new journey. After our brand launch on January 31, teammates wrote wishes on a blue pieces of paper and folded them into more cranes. The blue cranes, mimicking the striking blue in our new logo, were then added to our installations, symbolizing a stronger, more unified NELSON, made up of hundreds of unique individuals.

From coast to coast, these paper crane installations were a creative way to unify our teams and offices. Turning the page to ONE NELSON, the cranes were symbolic of our growth for the past, present, and future. 

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As more first-time retailers and digitally native brands transition into physical environments (as COVERGIRL did with its opening in Times Square), and existing retail brands compete with larger flagship destinations and more experiential pop-ups, a new breed of consumer immersion is emerging … the “Brand Home.” Brand homes are the quintessential opportunity for the most immersive manifestation of your brand purpose, personality and assets. Brand homes are in a class all their own—an underutilized asset with priceless potential to drive brand equity and buzz, strengthen loyalty and create one-on-one experiences with consumers.

These destinations have the potential to draw guests from miles away and keep their attention for hours at a time—enabling brands to deep-dive into storytelling, unabashedly celebrate people, products, and services, and, ultimately, create lasting emotional connections and memories that turn interest into loyalty, and loyalty into passion. We define brand homes as irreplicable experiences that are long-term investments owned entirely by your brand, and often located near company headquarters.

Though not always mutually exclusive, we see brands experimenting with four types of brand homes:

1. Branded Marketplace

Resembling flagships of many leading retailers, this type is often utilized most by CPG businesses to create an ownable, experiential, retail-centric destination that brings product portfolios to the forefront while overcoming barriers of traditional retail channels. Some brands, like J.M. Smucker, celebrate product assortments from several brands under one parent company story.

Others amplify environmental design and programming to push the marketplace concept into more of a true experience. The Tillamook Creamery in Oregon has an expansive store to merchandise its countless dairy-based products, a food hall that features a local chef’s interpretation of Tillamook classics, in addition to an educational exhibit about farming.

Tillamook Creamery 

2. Brand Immersions

Inviting exclusive, behind-the-scenes access where consumers have the opportunity not just to interact with the brand, but to become part of it. A simple, yet highly on-brand example is the Ben & Jerry’s Factory Tour where guests can go on a 30-minute tour to get a view into the manufacturing process, learn about the company’s values, browse the quirky gift shop, and of course, enjoy a sample. The experience is littered with photo ops, and the iconic Flavor Graveyard is easily the most memorable moment. For a fee, guests can also opt into a private, hands-on Flavor Fanatic Experience to help craft what’s next in ice cream.

The Bourbon Trail in Kentucky is perhaps the highest concentration of brand homes in the world—though not all are created equal. One to mention is Maker’s Mark Distillery, where you can tour the distillery and cellar, dine at their featured restaurant and even dip a bottle of bourbon into the signature red wax yourself.

Maker’s Mark Distillery Tour

3. Brand Museums

Dialing up history, heritage and storied exhibits, this type celebrates the brand’s past, alludes to its legacy and highlights its impact on culture. When the Cincinnati Reds wanted to celebrate the team’s 150^th anniversary, they partnered with FRCH NELSON to reimagine the Reds Hall of Fame. Recently re-opened in downtown Cincinnati, the team created a dynamic series of galleries paying tribute to players, historic memorabilia and our record-setting teams. Interactive exhibits engage guests, including opportunities to create custom baseball cards and simulate broadcasts. Gucci Garden also recently debuted its renovation to the previous Gucci Museo in Florence, Italy. Designed by the brand’s creative director, the stunning Galleria showcases classic and obscure artifacts across the brand’s tenure, while the adjoining boutique and restaurant both resemble those you might find in a world-class art museum.

Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame

4. Branded Platforms

The most intensive of brand homes, this type illustrates how the brand fits into consumer lifestyles through meaningful adjacencies and strategically leverages the brand home touchpoint as a way to extend its brand positioning. The Guinness Storehouse has become a central destination in Dublin, Ireland with its Taste Experience, World of Advertising exhibit and six bars and restaurants that often host rugby game pre-parties, food festivals and even an Airbnb stay. The Henry Ford Museum in Michigan has redefined what it means to be a brand home by making its experience a celebration of innovation of all kinds, not just those directly connected to the brand. Guests can certainly see a bounty of old Ford cars, but they can also enjoy the Museum of American Innovation with exhibits from civil rights history to agriculture, as well as visit Edison’s Lab and Henry Ford’s Birthplace. The Ford Rouge Factory Tour also culminates in a highly sensorial experience that showcases the engineering behind a Ford F-150 truck.

Hershey has expertly leaned into statement retail and a completely unique expression of brand homes between Hershey’s Chocolate World flagship in Times Square and Hersheypark in none other than Hershey, Pennsylvania—establishing the brand as a leader in demonstrating the importance of a vast portfolio of unique brand experiences. And Eataly has exceeded its own best-in-class stores with the opening of FICO Eataly World, the world’s largest “agri-food park” located in Bologna, Italy, just over three hours away from the company’s headquarters. From markets to restaurants, farms to workshops, sustainable installations to themed activities, this 20-acre destination is a benchmark in bringing a deep-rooted brand manifesto to life in a truly tangible experience.

Hershey’s Chocolate World Times Square

A brand home is certainly an investment—but as with all investments, when strategically developed and well-designed, a brand home can provide invaluable opportunities for consumer engagement, a solid return on that investment and even additional revenue streams. Here are a few principles to consider when investing in a brand home experience:

• Go All-In. Brand homes are the biggest opportunity for the purest, most expressive version of your brand. Give your experience a distinct name and visual identity (à la Gucci Garden), and invest in architecture and interior design to activate your brand assets in a compelling physical environment.
• One Destination, Countless Experiences. Create several smaller experiences within the brand home to ensure guests spend more time (and perhaps more money), feel like the trip was worth their while and encourage repeat visits.
• Make it Exclusive. Invite guests behind-the-scenes, sell one-of-a-kind souvenirs and design unique experiences that guests can only encounter at the brand home.

In a recent article with Forbes, teammate Anne Gibson discussed how she urges organizations to shift their philosophy from Activity-Based Work (ABW) to Behavioral-Based Work. Doing so would empower workers to choose how to work to enable their best performance.

“The future of office design should also support non-work-related activities that might appeal to introverts,” Gibson says.  Settings “such as meditation space, makers rooms, outdoor seating or nap pods . . . signal that the office is about reconnecting for everyone, not just those who thrive in high-energy social settings.” Read more here.

Fast Company’s 2nd annual Innovation Festival brought together an amazing line-up of innovative thinkers-and-doers from across a wide spectrum of industries. Of particular interest was a session with Danny Meyer of the Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) and Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker, to discuss the impact of technology on customer experience, both in retail and restaurants. Along with creating a stimulating discussion on the topic of technology, the conversation also highlighted the growing importance of a “hospitality” mindset far beyond the world of restaurants and hotels.

Among the many interesting exchanges, several themes were highlighted:

• Using technology as a way to “increase human touch”: From Meyer’s “technology should never be used to remove people from the process” – to Warby Parker’s use of only implementing customer-facing technology for “low value” interaction (payment), in order to increase critical staff time for “high value” customer interaction (product selection), both speakers view technology as a tool to create efficiencies that allow for more human-to-human contact, not less.

• Collecting dots, knowing your customer: Both Meyer and Blumenthal agreed that one of the keys to creating successful customer interactions, whether in retail or restaurant, is knowing as much about your customer as possible. Both implement low tech solutions but agreed that digital technology is creating powerful tools that allow them to do so much more. Meyer cited his ABCD rule – “Always Be Collecting Dots, so you can be Always Connecting Dots”, as his technology agnostic mantra, to use every opportunity to know more about your customers, so that you can anticipate their wants and needs. Take for example the USHG partnership with Resy (the online reservation group) to connect their reservations database with their POS system in order to create customer profiles – to know not only when and where someone ate but now what they ordered, dietary restrictions, wine preferences and more. With these types of digital tools a level of personalization can be created that once was only available at five-star restaurants and luxury retailers.

• Social media, being part of the conversation: Dedicating significant resources to it, both speakers understand the importance of social media to their businesses. From USHG’s use of Venga technology to collect and aggregate all the digital conversations happening about their restaurants, to Warby Parker’s use of staff video responses to Tweeted customer questions, they both understand how critical it is to always be part of the conversation. Meyer specifically discussed the ability to respond in real time to an issue, so that masses of people don’t hear about it before the brand does. The sooner they can hear about an issue, the sooner they can fix it and transform that customer’s experience. In longer time frames, it also allows them to collect information and pick-up on any patterns that might arise, good and bad, and help them embrace or address them. In the case of Warby Parker’s video Tweet responses, beyond using them to “increase human touch” in the communication, which has proven to be a great tool in defusing contentious moments, the videos have become great marketing opportunities, retweeted tens of thousands of times.

• Staffing, use good tomatoes: Finally, both speakers drove home their belief that the wide variety of technologies they utilize are only tools and in the end only as good as the staff that uses them. From Warby Parker’s, “proactive, curious and passionate” hiring profile to USHG’s “High HQ (Hospitality Quotient) Profile”, they both are passionate that it comes down to people interacting with people. Using all the tools at their disposal, from artificial intelligence to eye contact, a great team uses every opportunity to create connections with customers, connections that transform those moments from “commodity exchanges” to a unique and memorable brand experience. Meyer strongly feels that there is a direct connection between staff happiness and customer happiness, one can never be greater than the other. Summing up this staffing philosophy with something he learned from his chefs … “the best tomato sauce recipe is only as good as the tomatoes you put into it”.