The little experiences, small stores, the boulangeries (neighborhood bakeries), cafes, small retail clothing stores still exist, even in small villages and towns as I saw in Pont-’lEveque, a small town in Normandy about 170 miles west of Paris, there are still the small stores but they also have the larger massive hyper markets on the edge of town. And I thought Walmart was big and then I saw Auchan.

The main shopping street in Point-'lEveque, Normandy, France

Auchan is a retail chain (hypermarkets, supermarkets, online sales, drive etc.) employing more than 210,000 people around the world. With many markets in France, this company is a power house of retail. The two stores I was visited had everything from food to clothing to books to appliances and outside it’s own gas pumps. Kind of mind blowing. Surrounding this massive store with over 50 check out areas, were a series of French specialty retailers, that covered everything from home and garden to outdoor camping equipment.

My question is will the small stores survive? Culturally I think they will. The French have very strong traditions but are willing to adapt to the practicalities of modern shopping but they love what is local and familiar.

Achen the hyper retail store that makes Walmart look small

Many clients are actually surprised that we do branding for both retail environments and e-commerce web sites such as SmithsonianStore.com. The reality is that for our firm we are all about shaping experience – the whole experience a consumer encounters with a brand or company. We can’t avoid getting involved in everything.

The Pizza Slice Approach

Many companies, large and small, end up going to one firm for brand creation, then another firm for their website or e-commerce experience, and then another to create their retail environment and still a completely different agency for advertising. And, this trend goes even further with different agenciesfor online marketing, PR and social media. How do they all keep it straight? Most companies don’t worry about the differences and the customers know it.

If you look at the marketing and creative agencies that are most successful at engaging, developing and nurturing customers for their clients, they see the customer relationship to their clients’ brand as one of a whole experience. Now in creating and nurturing this relationship there are a ton of services that are part of the game. In our process we start with research, interviews and a whole assessment of the market. How can even guess what direction to go in if we don’t know the landscape? Then we add to this an analysis portion, positioning and then a creative platform that results in further slicing of the branding pie with the development of a new identity, naming, creating a retail environment, and then there’s the web or e-commerce services that again focus on where the brands customer engages with the client.

The customer doesn’t give a hoot about how they get the brands they love. They care about the consistency of the experience and the delivery on the brand promise. It’s about cultivating consistency and delivery through language, messaging, environment and interaction that creates an ongoing and living consumer-to-brand relationship.

So, when we get asked about our services, I say you gotta buy the whole pie. It’s not better by the slice.

JC Penney’s move to more updated styles of clothing as well as exclusive lines have improved their market edge. In addition nto updating their products, they did some serious work in asssessing who is their target customer. The new value proposition for JC Penney was a big change, but they also are competing for style. So JCP is now focused on a younger demographic; teens as well as what I call the “underwear marketing” - the commodity-level items.

The other big thing that JC Penney has done is moved away from mall-only locations. This was a strategic shift from the 80’s when then were abandoning downtowns stores established in the 1920’s for shopping malls. In Berkeley, California, they closed their profitable store in 1985.

The big shift branding-wise I both like and am concerned about is how they’re new brand mark does not directly connect to the old Penny’s. There’s no reference to the old brand. It’s kind of an updated American flag look with the initials jcp. Who’s that? They also are touting no more discounting. They claim to have now lowered all their prices and they still have this strange first and third Friday’s extra discount coupon – what the heck does that mean? I’ve asked some avid Penny’s shoppers if that coupon would motivate a trip to jcp. The anwer — for what? Nothing specifically equated to value is there.

Good luck on the changes jcp but I’m worried you’ve abandoned the anchors of value that loyal customers were acting on, and completely changed the name without explainig where’s the value for me, the customer?

When you go to Starbucks and hang out, what value does that give them for $8 worth of a double moca-frappe and a pastry? It’s a whole new way to market to their customer. They not only bring you free wifi, they connect you with the New York Times, The Economist, news, sports and music downloads. They create an experience that’s more than just sitting at the table in your own world. Even if you only go to the “channel” to approve their terms of use, you are in “Starbucks World”; they have channeled you to an impression, communications and media.

Starbucks radically “gets” that they are not a seller of coffee and donuts. They really get that they are selling experiences and a location; a place to be and be with others in your own world and an environment that brings a world to you.

This does three things in the modern world of experiential branding:

1- It give you total control over the choices provided to you in a predictable way without any pitch to buy anything,

2 - It allows Strabucks to create and share experiences and media that they think will keep you connected to them, and

3 - It allows Starbucks to be a channel for other purveyors of media and content struggling to find to ways to reach their targeted groups. The Starbucks Channel provides Starbucks a new passive but ongoing revenue stream customized by their end customer.

Other retailers and businesses need to pay attention and find out how they can be the intermediary, giving their customers what they are searching for. It’s the perfect place to be recognized for your value and monetize content from third parties who are desperately looking for new customers.

The great thing about the cash mob concept is that it’s all local, usually led by a by local group with the intention of leveraging their purchasing power through a focused event to support local businesses. This both “brands” the local group as the resource as to what’s out there in the local community. It also presents a great opportunity to local business to expose large numbers of local folks to their store, restaurant or service without paying the extortion-level promotional fees of a Groupon (which takes half of what you make). So, as a small “brand” you can use a cash mob opportunity to connect with customers using special offers and deals, or feature foods you normally would not highlight, and collect the customer emails to market back to them to build your brand further.

At the end of the day the cash mob is a consumer-led campaign that improves visibility for local business, promotes business loyalty, and that benefits everyone by building local relationships.

These are Quick Response codes, and QR codes have become a common thread for call-to-action type ads. I first saw them in the New York Subway about four years ago. Standing on platform or in a train there were ads for technical schools or nursing programs with QR codes. When I first went used the QR reader on my mobile phone to scan them, the codes threw you in the middle of a website and let you sink or swim from there. Now QR codes have become a creative link to messaging, humor and video clips. QR codes can be used as a powerful extension of your brand.

The key to using QR codes effectively is understanding what you’re trying to do with them. Don’t spend your time getting someone to scan the codes using their phone only to bring them to a giant, unreadable website. Or worse, to a deal or offer that’s completely a waste of their time. Or THE worst is to send them to a form that they have to tediously fill out….on their phone?!

The best uses for QR codes are to link consumers to a simple and memorable “experience” or to information that completes some thought or need that they may have at that given moment.

Here’s are some examples:

LINK TO A VIDEO — With the right tie-in to an ad, a question or a suggestion, you can have the QR code direct visitors right t a video that actually could be a short TV-style ad or promotion. If it’s a humorous video, it will get attention and if the call to action is clear it will work to get more than that. Plus you will see who responded, liked it and voted for your video on YouTube.

LINK TO AN OFFER – A link to a simple offer, a discount  coupon or website with an offer gives visitors a direct connection to the call to action and, again, you’ll know what worked.

LINK TO A SIMPLE MESSAGE — So, perhaps you’re not trying to get someone to buy today, but you want to differentiate your product or brand, or promote an event. Your QR code should link right to that message or event date with the ability to easily sign up for reminders or ask for more information with a simple email sign up.

So that’s my take on the value of QR codes. They are simple, and can be valuable, but like all good marketing promotional tools they have to be used correctly to deliver results.

It is the epitome of brand recognition and loyalty when you can take icons of a business or product category and make them into a doll.

What more could the most passionately loyalist Applephiles crave more than their own personal Steve Jobs sitting next to them as they ponder the use of their new iPad or Macbook Air, looking over to see Steve watching with approval; what could be better?

Jobs symbolizes so much for people who use Apple products. He clearly represents a departure from the “corporate” mindset of technology, which is driven by the IBM’s, the HP’s, and Microsoft’s who are focused on selling faster, better chips and software designed by engineers who think like, well, engineers. Steve Jobs served as our personal advocate for the technology that worked for us; that supported what we as consumers loved. This sense of advocacy is what drove loyalty to Apple and made it the company that it is today.

Unfortunately the “powers that be” representing Apple and Steven Jobs don’t share the same evangelical view of allowing a “brand” like Mr. Jobs hitting the shelves by the thousands to coach us on to new glory with our iPads and iMacs. So the manufacturing company has promised to withdraw the product from the market. However, look for him on eBay while you can.

The latest location is in San Francisco’s Financial District, near Union Square, and it’s a radical departure from a traditional bank in its look. It’s more of an experience more than a functional location.

It’s a cafe, a hangout place, and really a place for the local community. Like Apple, ING gets that the “store” environment isn’t just about pushing product. It’s about letting you browse, connect, get conformable with who they are. Since ING only exists online, how do you create a positive storefront experience for the brand and promote confidence in banking with them? This experience becomes associated with trust, connection and hopefully promotes more visitors to become customers.

If marketers and retailers really understood more about inviting customers in and letting them play, hang out, and experience, they would open and build stronger relationships with their customers and forgr a stronger connection with their brand, not just sell products.

Now how the heck does Grand Central Station create what Fifth Avenue in New York or Union Square in San Francisco has going for it as a shopping mecca? The key is to understand buying behavior and shopping environments and how you define the and attract customers. It’s the goal of any retailer to be in the right place; where customers show up. High-end retail centers work very hard to identify what attracts customers by studying the demographics and travel patterns. They look at other stores already nearby and the real estate moguls try to sign key anchor stores to promote customer traffic and to bring in other major stores. The objective is to create the kind of synergy that will draw in similar types of customers. For example, the shoppers who go to Pottery Barn often will go into The Gap or Banana Republic as well. The idea is to get those same shoppers to behave in ways that will benefit all the similar retailers.

So how does Grand Central Station fit in? You have one of the busiest transportation terminals in the world with people all coming together, arriving or leaving with some time between trains. And we are not talking about just a few people but millions annually. And not just any old folks. You’re seeing professional people who live in the suburbs and who have more disposable income, and who also happen to have a little time to shop and look around before that next train. And when they do catch that train they may get on board with that new iPod or iPhone or Mac computer. Even if they don’t buy an Apple device then and there, they get to experience the products to see how the world of Apple and iTunes works. This begins the conversion of a potetnial customer to an Apple customer. I’m willing to bet that probably half the people who will go through this Grand Central location will end up buying at another Apple store. But what Apple brilliantly did was to provide that browsing experience - that moment to see and interact with the products. This is what buying a car is all about - seeing it, testing it and eventually buying it.

So, as the Apple store becomes part of the Grand Central Station commuter experience, I will be watching to see how other retailers will consider train stations, airports and other terminals as major opportunities to promote their own sales experience.