Strategic repositioning of Korea's leading beauty brand through flagship store design
Innisfree is Korea’s no.1 natural beauty brand and part of the AmorePacific family. Their CEO had set the ambition to become a global SPA brand and they approached us with the brief to design a new flagship store, that would help them to explore a future direction for the whole business. With the key to this fast-retailing market being able to react rapidly to changing consumer tastes and have the infrastructure in place to respond immediately.
We helped Innisfree to create a unique customer experience through the total design of an entire flagship store, from the redefinition of the proposition to make it appealing for Global markets, to the design of a distinctive, organised and relevant store experience that celebrated natural ingredients and innovated in the way that customers experience them.
Services
- Trend Forecasting & Vision Setting
- Ethnographic research
- Design & innovation workshops
- Colour, material & finish
- Retail Design
Learning
Together, the design teams in London and Seoul carried out extensive consumer and retail insight research; visiting stores, interviewing customers and retail staff and collaborating with visual merchandising experts to gather valuable consumer intelligence.
We identified that the company needed a new guiding design strategy, to shift Innisfree’s brand identify from a regional concept that was too closely linked to Jeju island – a volcanic island in the Korean Strait – to something bigger and more globally relevant in the mind of their customers. tangerine proposed a new proposition ‘Real Natural Living’, which communicates Innisfree is not just a natural beauty brand but a lifestyle choice.
The new flagship store had to reflect this shift in strategic direction, and we planned the zoning and designed the visual merchandising to choreograph their experience and change the pace of discovery as customers move throughout the store.
Leaping
The new direction permeates every dimension of the store experience; from how present and new ranges are organised, encountered and displayed, through to the choice of all interior fixtures and the design of the exterior architecture.
Bespoke designed floor-to-ceiling fragrance diffusers give customers an innovative way to rapidly test and select scents before purchase, and the design of visual merchandising changes form and character to enhance zoning and discovery.
The company’s environmentally sensitive outlook is tangibly communicated through the Green Café, where the food and beverage menu features fresh natural ingredients used in Innisfree’s natural skincare ranges.
Bespoke seating booths and chairs made from 100% reclaimed plastic and responsibly harvested wood, provide sustainable cafe seating. And real tree trunk columns break up the seating areas, to create a natural sanctuary for diners.
Landing
The store journey introduces customers to Innisfree in a captivating and immersive way. It has become a multi-sensory and guided experience where shoppers can more easily find what they are looking for, browse and discover more about the essential ingredients and products that best suit their skin type, desired performance or lifestyle.
Merchandising walls and displays form part of the architectural expression of the interior, enhancing the shopping experience and changing the pace or communicating purpose. The whole ambiance is clean and natural but also confident and powerful, expressing both the subtle and yet powerful dynamics of nature.
Discovery of natural ingredients used in Innisfree’s beauty products within the Green café, reinforces in the mind of the customer the benefits that are derived from the brand’s expertly crafted natural products and the Innisfree lifestyle, and commitment to a sustainable and more natural future.
Our new flagship store in Seoul helps to position Innisfree as a lifestyle SPA brand with an international appeal. tangerine is helping us to create a blueprint for a unique retail experience that’s underpinned by an effective digital infrastructure.
CEO at Innisfree
