How a great brand (Apple) opens a store
On Friday, May 19th, Apple opened its stunning Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan. The large underground store is entered through a striking glass “cube” aboveground in a spacious urban plaza, making the entrance itself an iconic beacon. It’s an immediate landmark.
The Fifth Avenue store is a showcase of the Apple brand. It has lessons for all brand builders.
Framing the customer
To aspire to greatness a brand must frame its customers on a plane of greatness. Apple knows how to do this. Through its innovative architecture, Apple makes a trip to this store the virtual equivalent of visiting the Louvre in Paris, where visitors enter through an equally striking glass pyramid. Apple thus frames its customers in the context of Europe’s greatest art. The “cube,” though, does not mimic the Louvre’s pyramid. It honors it symbolically while making its own distinct statement. It invites customers to become active creators of art using Apple technology, not just spectators of past creations. Customers who enter the glass cube experience both the homage and the daring break.
The event
A cardinal rule of retail is to make your retail space an ongoing event that awakens your customers to new experiences. Your store is a realm of customer connections, not just a door and four walls. And “event” means drama—lots of it. Thus, opening a store becomes an exponentially dramatic event, flush with new connections. Apple is a master of such occasions. The indefatigable ifoApple has some Fifth Avenue event details. Here is a snippet:
The short early line and thunderstorms translated into a huge line just before and after the opening. At 4:10 p.m. New York Times tech writer David Pogue showed up with a new black MacBook, with the iMovie recording feature running, and was interviewing people. At the same time, we could hear the store employees yelling and hooting inside the store. At 4:30 p.m. there were 915 people in line, stretching around the block. Security guards split the line at business entrances to keep them from being blocked.
At about 5:30 p.m. dozens of store employees came up the stairs and started working the waiting line, standing on the plaza and making like cheerleaders–the crowd yelled back. At the same moment, Steve Jobs appeared at the entrance, generating more yells, including from some young woman who told Jobs, “You hot!” Apple’s architects and retail execs also joined the group, standing to the right of the cube entrance. Johnson and Blankenship hugged again. The press had arrived and were positioned to the right of the entrance.
With just 15 minutes left before opening, the young man who was #8 in line turned to his female companion and proposed to her. She accepted, and that set off a ripple of “Awwww” back through the crowd, and up to the Apple staffers. Some came over to offer their congratulations.
The waiting line was in a perfect configuration to watch the show and create sidewalk buzz. The closest people were both those at the front of the line, and those at the end. Both groups were looking straight at the cube, which is raised up several steps, creating a stage. The pedestrian area was jammed, and there was a huge crowd of people across Fifth Avenue trying to catch a glimpse of what was occurring.
Retail as an expression of brand
Apple rightly considers retail to be an expression of the Apple brand, on par with other brand expressions such as “design” and “user interface.” In other words, “retail” channels the brand. It is not allowed to impose constraints that bend the brand.
Apple demonstrates that retail space is also a spatial extension of brand, a multi-dimensional platform for customer experience and growth. Retail is thus a workspace for brand. You build out from the brand. It’s what your brand does with—and within—that space that defines who you are, and where you lead.
More on the Fifth Avenue Store from Apple.
Photo source: openeye, flickr
UPDATE: ifoApple looks into estimated construction and maintenance costs of the Fifth Avenue Store.
May 23rd, 2006 at 5:48 am
Everyday 100s of stores open in the US and get noticed by small groups in local communities. The opening of a Starbucks in a small rural town is an event that they local community will have been looking forward to for months. The only difference is that national media doesn’t cover that story.
The Apple NYC story is all about spin and national media coverage- its store opening as spectacle for shareholders and potential investors. The lessons for all brands thing is tough. Not every brand can do what Apple does because they lack the experience, focus, discipline and creativity. The way the store opened is because of everything that went before it, not what happened on the day.
Apple is being used as an icon for brand experts, much like Nike used to be- the problem is that it’s pretty un-realistic and un-attainable. Brands want to do great jobs in their sphere of influence- most don’t believe they can change the world.
Apple is different, but you can count others with the sense of purpose on one hand.
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:14 pm
You make a good point about Apple. They definitely put themselves in the media spotlight, and spare no expense to make their stage presence second to none. The T-shirts that Apple handed out at the NYC store opening were packaged in pristine sealed boxes that opened like a Japanese flower. This would have been considered a waste of money for most companies, but for Apple, it sets them apart. With only 3% market share in personal computers, their “artistic sensibility” is one of their fundamental points of differentiation. They have to punch “above their weight” and they use art and media as two of their weapons.
Apple has always been this way, even when they were barely out of the garage. Their first home-brew computers used a fancy wood base to make them appear like works of art. It was one of the elements that got them noticed on their way to their initial financing.
I think many other companies have a similar sense of purpose and brand identity. They may not have the expressive character of Apple, or the media resources, but they do not shirk from seeking and maintaining a strong public identity. Ben and Jerry’s comes to mind.
In brands, financial resources obviously count, but what counts most is the integrity and character of a company. Many neighborhood coffee shops do very well competing against Starbucks because they are simply themselves. They have a truly local and original character that Starbucks can never attain.
I would also say that many companies have a very strong sense of purpose. Unfortunately, it is often buried beneath bureaucracy and/or operating chaos. Only when a company taps into that purpose will it be able to set its brand free.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:23 am
There are three mistakes in the opening sentence. You wrote:
On Friday, May 19 Apple opened it’s stunning Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan.
This should read:
On Friday, May 19th, Apple opened its stunning Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Joel,
Thanks. Fixed.