World Building 101: The Real World Playbook for Brands

Transcript

Let's talk about the science of brand, the art of the brand experience, all those intangibles. In this episode, we visit Milwaukee, a 20-year-old Japanese gardening brand but founded in England with a retail storefront in London and a really unique approach to curation, product development, workshops, and community all built into one. Then talk to our friend Flo from Appear Here. There, she's the head of brand and has seen so many experiences of brands doing short-term retail and pop-ups inside major metros. We'll learn what it actually costs and how to make it good to do that for your own brand. Then we'll stop by Knees Up, a store and collective that's been on the forefront of running an active culture. All of this together will help show you how some of these actual intangibles are made with real-life examples of brands doing them in all kinds of different arenas. If you've ever wanted to host a pop-up, build out your own store, or just think through what community really means, this is the episode for you. Clayton's going to lead off with some standout retail concepts. Then we're going to get a full English, put on a kettle, turn up the Charlie XCX, get on the tube, go around town. So for years, all the buzz was online, but now more and more, both existing brands and new brands are leaning into unique retail experiences, getting people back outside. What's a few of those that are standing out? Yeah, to me, some of the most interesting examples of the brand experience done right are ones where you're inviting the customer into the creative process. And few brands are doing a better job at this right now than Arcteryx. Their new and famous Tokyo Creation Center has become a destination for people to enter into their world and participate in the product experience and not just consume it. This has become a common theme with other brands we're seeing in the space right now, whether it's Birkenstock's famous studio in East London or Topology, which has their own customization workshop spaces in both London and New York. I think the main theme and takeaway here is that you should be looking as a brand to help your customers participate in an experience and not just transact. So obviously it's interesting to see brands that we know and love participate in this new culture, but it's also been interesting to see brands form their identity around modern retail. And I think you have a good example there too, To me, Buck Mason is one of the best examples of this right now. And their approach to retail is something that should honestly be studied. It's actually a formative male experience to actually take a picture of a porch inside of a Buck Mason store. Men are magnetically attracted to pay. At a time when it feels like most brands over the last 10 or 15 years have opted for D2C and online only. They took the complete opposite approach by building out their brand and brand equity with retail. It shows you the power of merchandising. It's true that they've built spaces where the male consumer feels comfortable enough to step in and linger for a while. Every store is an extension of their own design philosophy. It feels thoughtful, neighborhood-y, residential, and timeless. It's worth noting that it takes an extensive amount of capital and energy to make something like that happen. But the upsides, if you do it well and do it can mean long-term success and connection with your own customers. One of the reasons we want to do this series here in London is there is a thriving retail scene, thriving pop-up scene. It's maybe one of the last great bastions of shopping in the world. And let's go explore that. Well, thanks guys for having me and also making me look extremely short in between you two. That's so flattering. It's crazy because she's actually like 6'1". I'm brand director at Appear Here. I'm also a fashion editor and a stylist. So I guess when it comes to retail, I know a thing or two. Appear Here essentially is Airbnb, but for retail shops in particular. So we're in London, we're in Paris, we're about to relaunch in New York. If you want to have a store, but you want it for a day, a week, a month, or you're even six months, you can book it online you would a hotel room. We're outside of the storefront of one of our personal favorite shops, Milwaukee. Maybe we just sit down and have a nice little chat, shall we? So what are some things that have stood out to you in terms of brands doing activations well, doing retail well? I think it's just increasingly obvious that everyone is super saturated from brands, from marketing strategies, and I think cutting through that noise is becoming increasingly difficult. And I think the most successful brands and the most successful stores are ones that really focus on that niche local customer, because that's what's coming across as authentic and organic now. What are the things you need to think about ahead of time? What do you want brands to come equipped with when they come talk to you? I think it's just really, what is the message that they're trying to say, whether it be with that product or that collection? And I think it's really having a vision of the person who's going to love your product. From your vantage point, what are some activations that stand out in your mind as of late? And this could be a big brand or a small brand that go beyond, hey, this is just a pop-up shop where you can just buy stuff, to this is a place where you can experience something more communal or do something beyond just spending more money. I really like About Blank. I really like their strategy at the moment., they've been doing a series of pop-ups, especially around East London, rather than just it being a clothing store. It's become more of a gathering point. They've got the cool cars parked outside. But, that's exactly what their consumer wants. They want to come, they want to chat, they want to actually just be in a space. They don't want to have a purchase and then leave situation. So we want to pivot a bit and talk a little bit about your role, what it is, and then how does someone get there in their arc? Yeah, that's a really good question. Because I was in the fashion sphere as a fashion editor and then went into tech. But I think the one thing that I truly love and still do to this day outside of my role of appear here is I love brands and I love shopping and I love retail. And I think brands, they're the ones that actually establish culture on our streets. So I think that's what I've always enjoyed. So the appear here role felt like an evolution of something I already liked. If you were a creative director of a brand for a day and you had the opportunity of opening a space in London, you get to pick the category that you want, the neighbourhood you want, and what you would do to get as many people as humanly possible there. Right. If I could be the creative director of any brand, it would be Marnie. I would do an activation that completely blew everything out of the water. And I would almost choose an activation in the Outer Hebrides. And you've got to like go to a very specific craft making house where they've woven a fabric by hand. And you can only get like a limited edition drop of this collection. But you would have had to travel to this one specific place of craft. And, is it the entire like village gets wrapped in Marnie fabric or something like that. Not only a beautiful visual, visual like content series, but like everything is very focused on the making. Jake, good to be with you. Thanks for inviting us into the Milwaukee shop. We've been hanging out on Children's Street. Your shop in particular is fascinating to us and want to get into more of the story of how you started it and how you've decided to build and grow the brand itself. But first things first, what's a Brit have any business starting a gardening brand? We started Niwaki, my wife and I, nearly 20 years ago. I worked as a gardener in Japan. I started sculpture at university. And when I got there, I then fell in love with the trees and realized that what I liked about the trees was the craftsmanship that trained them and shaped them. So I was interested in this sculptural sense of how you make a garden. And from there, I got into the tools that you need to do so. When I came back to England, I realized there was a gap in the market and we slowly started to fill it. And so this store is, you walk in, it's unlike anything else on the street. What were some of the guiding ideas or principles or concepts that led to this?, to make a shop that felt like Japan. Without being a replica of Japan. It's a very Japanese business, but we're British. One of the most interesting things you've done as a business is offering courses and workshops. So I was doing a lot of work for people and a lot of people wanted, either they wanted to buy our shears or our tripod ladders, because they saw me using them and realized how they were, how good they were for their work. Or they thought, wow, how are you clipping so well? How do you get that nice straight edge on your hedge or whatever you're doing? But they're tools, they've got to be used. And the fun thing is showing people how we use them and the opportunity of how to use them. Really interesting mix of products you mentioned. How do you think about the curation of that? Or what's the process that goes into deciding what you're going to have in the store? Well, within the store, we tried to get a little bit of everything. It's not having too much. It's trying to reduce it down. It's trying to steer the customer into,, we've made this decision for you. We've got rid of all the faff and all the lightweight stuff. This is the best bit to go for. It's more about having a range of what we want the customer to buy. Yeah,, if someone comes into the shop and they don't know what they're there for, we'd steer them towards our gardening range and a pair of secitus. Yes, what makes this special from a product perspective?, well, it's forged from one piece of steel and it gives you a weight and balance and a strength that you don't get from a two-piece secitus. So we would hope that a customer who didn't know Niwaki came out with a pair of secitus. If they didn't, we'd want them to buy a Hori Hori. A weapon of gardening. Yeah, it's for weeding and digging and planting. Those are our core products. But I said,, I'm wearing our Niwaki Kojima jacket today. A lot of people try the work we're on and that's a new thing for us. We're not into dramatic surges of energy. It's more it's hard work., really keeping the detail, keeping the focus one step at a time and absorb it slowly. It's refreshing to hear that take because I think you see the hype cycles of brands going in and out, shuttering. Start a business, sell a business, do this and that. Sometimes it's more of a longer purpose of life. And if you set two ambitious targets and you don't reach them, it's,, does that mean you failed? It's nice just to see how you go. I don't really think of Niwaki as a a brand, as in a commercial shopping brand. It's more of a, it's more of a lifestyle or a movement even. Appreciate you showing us around and talking through some of the lore of what you put together. It's really wonderful. Thanks for coming. Yeah. Clayton, what's up bro? Good to see you man. Thanks for having me. My name is Ethan. I'm head of retail here at Kneez Up. We're a multi-use concept retail space. We derive from the a running background essentially, but also work within sports more widely. So we have a wide range of running retail as well as some other sportswear apparel. And we have a cafe, as you can see behind me here serving specialty coffee and some great food. This is our retail section, all the apparel, magazines, accessories, comfy couch. Our day-to-day trade would look like runners coming in early in the morning, come to grab a coffee or a pastry post run. But then we also do a lot smaller, more in-house programming as well. So maybe that might look like a yoga class, a film screening, a run of our own that we're hosting from here. And we also try and integrate the retail into part of that as well. So after two or three years, brands started to cotton on what we were doing really. Matt and Ollie, the founders, were really good at capturing energy and the feeling of the community through photo and video. And people were drawn to that within the wider community and wanted to join, but also brands wanted to be a part of that. Natural evolution of that was that we were starting to work more and more with brands and businesses. Fast forward to now or two years ago was the inception of Knees Up really. And we always wanted a space where we could create the energy that we always wanted post run. That was something that was really important to us. But we wanted to take it a step further and build ourselves. And we're also really into design and music and fashion. And we wanted to create a space that encapsulates all those different things. And that's what Knees Up became. We're spending a lot of time this week checking out physical spaces and studios and retail shops. And one of the key components that we're seeing of retail that works really well is when it's a space that you can build that's more than just transaction. It's more than just spending your money on a product, but it's a place where you feel welcome to hang out. And then you buy product as a byproduct of actually being in the space that you feel comfortable in. I think retail has had to evolve so much over the years and people want a hangout. They want experiential retail. It's not easy to do. I won't lie., we have to work really hard to make it feel welcoming and and a place that people want to genuinely spend time. In a niche market that's actually quite a big market like running. You're working with a lot of different brands like Saucony you mentioned on, you mentioned Hoka. But you've also got a lot of people who are not necessarily fashion heads, not necessarily into trends or algorithmic dressing. How does that influence the way that you use this physical space? I think a lot of the people and the brands we work with come from very different walks of life. They don't always come from a typical fashion background. And that's sometimes really refreshing where the ideas are new. They're not playing along to a playbook. And I think that comes cuts through with their marketing they do or the ideas they bring or even just practically down to the way they're sewing one of their garments together. Nothing's really off limits. We're not afraid to take everything out and, throw a big pile of mud in the middle and stick a pair of shoes on top. Like there's nothing really out of bounds. And I guess that's the benefit of being a young business. Anything goes and there's no bad ideas. It's trying to create a space that's not all things to all people, but it's maybe all things to people similar to us,, that have the same interests. I think we're doing a good job of it so far. I'd say so too. Nice, brother. So this episode, we explored a lot of retail stores, but even if you don't have a store or aren't considering doing a pop-up, what takeaways can you have for your brand? And one thing that's worth noting is the deep connection all of these brands actually formed with their customers. And that's the first thing I want to talk about. In the era of AI, an era where e-commerce feels so distant, what can you do to make real connections? And while a physical space where people can gather and form some community helps, really it starts with just that one-to-one connection. I feel like as brands shift to AI, customer service, and just feeling more and more disparate, the ones that stand out are going to have concierge relationships with their customer. If you can all meet with them at a space like Knees Up, that's great. But even just having that one-to-one email, text message, really getting to actually know people. The way you have a rep at a luxury brand seems like the path that will actually separate small brands that really know their consumer, that really form connection from another person just selling a good online. It's also important to talk about brands shifting roles in our lives. When I was growing up, we didn't expect a brand to educate us or give us content or be providing us news or a place to hang out. We would just be getting something transactionally. And if we got an inspirational quote or moment the way we did from Nike, that was an upside, a bonus. But now a lot of the traditional institutions we have are changing. There's all this conversation around third spaces, that younger people don't have any place to hang out. who's filling that gap? Brands, run clubs, places like Knees Up, coffee shops and cafes, inside of a brand where people can actually go and know that consumers there share something in common with them. This also is happening with journalism. We've seen degradation of that experience. If you go to a website to read the news, it is a terrible experience. No matter how modern it is, interstitials, pop-ups, ads everywhere, that's not how we consume on the modern internet. And with that, we lost trust in a lot of the people that provide that information because honestly, the best of them have just shifted to creating content. And brands are filling that gap. We're now realizing it's often better to turn to a brand that lives and breathes that, who's turning out great content. And brands are leaning into it, building out their own media ecosystems. And this is okay. We know what we're signing up for. We purchase a brand's product, we build affinity, and in return, they give us extra value. And brands need to think about their role inside of this. Is that establishing a space? Is that giving people some education? Is it forming a community online? We're just at the beginning of this trend, where all of these traditional mediums, from television to journalism to the media sites that we read online, can't be monetized nearly as well as a lot of that experience being presented by a brand. And every brand needs to really think about where they live in that ecosystem and how they can participate genuinely and share the things that their and their teams are passionate about and have it be a collective experience. One last point about brand experience is this concept I'm going to call an offline anchor. We see more and more now some brands that are saying, hey, we want to create an offline experience or even be purely offline in our marketing. There's boutiques that are sending out their catalogs only through mail, or people that don't have an Instagram page for their archival store, saying that there's some secrecy, some experience to having something that feels that real. And whether that's just one part of your brand experience or its core, it's knowing you have this entire toolkit of how to think about something different, something exciting for people. So anyway, this is definitely the most intangible of the episodes that we've done here. We want to really get you thinking out of the box. What does the new modern brand experience look like? And also be able to consider the options. It's incredible that there's opportunities for brands like what you have with Appear Here, where you can have a few hundred pounds to be able to actually do a pop-up or an activation. Some of this didn't exist years ago. You have this full toolkit available, and it's a super exciting time to be building something. As always, thanks for watching. You can get the full creative ops guide in the link in the description.