Extending Corporate Branding to Retail Experience
There are thousands of brands flashing in front of us each day, and at times, it becomes so common that people might even forget that the advertisement is corporate branding strategy.
Like the panadol, aspirin, prozac or actal, it can even become a “word” that we use to represent cures for our headache, migraine or gastric pain. Therefore, many corporations are looking at other interactive ways to build their mindshare, using online branding and offline branding.
Here are some samples that i’ve come across.
The Coca-Cola store in the Mixc shopping mall in Shenzhen city, China. This is the first Coke store i’ve visited, and i was tempted to buy the T-shirts, caps, and also the mini-fridge.
In corporate events, where companies give out this similar merchandise, say a company polo shirt, most guests are unwilling to wear the shirt, thinking that they look as though they are promoting the Company for free. Here in the Coca-Cola store, people are paying money to wear apparel, and lifestyle home decor items.
If you are not attracted in buying products splashed with the company’s logo, you can always get a Coke! Have you bought a coke from the vending machine in a Coca-Cola store? From the early beginnings of just a soda drink, it has grown to different interest groups, for instance, fans who collect coke-cola cans or bottles (collectible merchandise).
Mixd is a brand new shopping center that was built in 2005 where you can find Versace, Emporio Armani and more brands. You can also opt to catch a movie at the cinema, or check out the various dining outlets there.
Esprit, the popular brand of clothings store all across Asia, has extended to also a Hair Salon. Customers started off buying nice clothes, and then Esprit launched their own brand of cosmetics, Red Earth. So now customers can buy cosmetics to match their brand new clothes. That was not enough, so in selected areas like Shenzhen, they have hair salon to complete the whole image building for their customers. This don’t come cheap either, with hair treatment packages in RMB290, or more hair services at RMB699. Compared to the little chinese hair salons, or barber shops, which might just cost RMB15 for a hair cut…. you can see how much the Chinese spending power has increased in recent years.
In Beijing’s WangFuJIng shopping mall area, you can easily find similar brand concept stores, like the BMW lifestyle store. Apart from apparels, you can buy the kids version of the BMW convertible or the BMW motorcylcle.
You can even have BMW branded luggage bags. Basically, brands are trying to reach out to their customers and incorporate their brands into various portions of a client’s life.
Alternatively, if you just want to make a statement, you can come up with an outrageous display of your merchandise, and Super-Size it. Check out the huge “ball” of Calvin Klein Jeans on display in one of the Beijing’s shopping mall in WangFuJing area. I bet everyone who walked past, knew Calvin Klein was selling jeans!
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November 5th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Great to see new address soon !
Regards,
Fione
Becky Fung
February 14th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
advertisment is they key to all product sales. a catchy song or slogan can actualli etch the beand’s image in a customer’s head. so whenever the song slogan is heard, the first thing that comes to the customer’s mind is the product.