Tuesday the 21st of July we set off by the underground and made our way to the London headquarters of Dalziel & Pow (D&P), a high profile retail design agency with a global reach spanning 50 countries.
We were met by David Wright, Associate Director – Marketing and Guy Smith, Associate Director – Interiors, who started with a presentation of their work with key brands such as John Lewis, Primark, Riverland, Top Shop and more. They explained how when they start working with a client they examine every customer touch point as they prepare their design work. By analysing the retail formats in this way they find that the solution they present is all-encompassing and very 'multi channel'. Once the solution is implemented in-store, the team then reviews and refines the concept with the ultimate goal of achieving better results for their client.
We were then given a tour of their offices meeting different members of the D&P team who outlined their roles in gathering information on trends and their work with retail clients in store layout and design. We were shown a program compiling an extensive data base of photos which would enable the D&P team to know what was happening visually in the market place of any of their clients worldwide. We then heard from Guy, who presented a trend presentation that the team has developed from their global travel and their work with many international retailers. Over the past 12 months the team had developed some emerging opportunities for retailers in the face of the economic downturn, including:
Retail real estate and the emergence of pop up stores within temporary locations and the changing relationship between landlord & tenant as a result of the changing economic climate.
The blurring of boundaries between online applications and stores .They spoke of how the traditional 4 wall concept in retail has now the addition of the 5th electronic wall
The new brand vision and the importance for corporate responsibility on environmental issues.
The need for business to develop an anything goes approach in order to stand out and create a point of difference.
Customers have an expectation that you look good sighting an example of websites not only looking good but the site also needs to work for the customer.
The D&P team then invited us to view some of their work and we travelled in some London cabs to Oxford Street where we soon found ourselves on Oxford Street amongst the hustle and bustle of a lunch time crowd. Our first port of call was Primark, a UK leading value retailer, and Guy and David discussed how they had assisted Primark to design lay outs and assisting with sub brand developments in certain categories. What became abundantly clear was how successful this retailer had become with queues at cash desks 30 deep and store traffic so dense that it became difficult to move around.
We then made our way past Riverland a client of theirs for 23 years and the guys told us how they had helped this brand reinvent itself and pointed out various wall treatments employed in that store to create definition. The Gap was another D&P client who was attempting to update the brand with exposed concrete floors and graphics in store. The entrances of these stores have been opened up with point of sale located at the rear and early signs of these new updated stores have been encouraging for the group. Our last port of call was the iconic British department store John Lewis where the D&P team had been working to revitalise the women's fashion area to retain existing customers whilst elevating John Lewis to be a leader in fashion in the British department store market. We then completed our visit with D&P having been given extensive access to their business and operations and thanked them for being so generous with their time. The group then took off to various parts of London to continue to take in all the amazing sights that this city has to offer.
David Wright, Associate Director - Marketing, Dalziel & Pow
Guy Smith, Associate Director - Interiors
The queue in Primark
The group hearing about the River Island rebranding
Reiss
The group in the Reiss store hearing about their strategy
