Design

The retail market today is a highly competitive and fast moving, online shopping has changed consumer culture and is a significant threat to traditional bricks and mortar-shops. Customers are enjoying the convenience of sitting at home and having access to fashion and goods from all over the world at discounted prices. This space is becoming highly competitive and online retail brands require focusing on building a strong and unique brand presence, to differentiate themselves from competitors and encourage long-term customer loyalty. We have the obvious big success stories of online business and brands such as Amazon and Net – A –Porter.

According to Wikipedia, “sound branding (also known as audio branding, music branding, sonic branding, acoustic branding or sonic mnemonics) is the use of sound to reinforce brand identity. Sound branding is increasingly becoming a vehicle for conveying a memorable message to targeted consumers, taking advantage of the powerful memory sense of sound“.

In today’s saturated markets, the process and methodology through which we communicate brands requires constant innovation and evolvement, methods of reaching out to consumers are required to make the brands stand out and communicate effectively. Retail brands have taken efforts and investments in building environments and spaces that inspire and encourage pleasant customer experiences.

Oscar Wilde famously said “Youth is wasted on the young.” Today’s market research, however, suggests otherwise…and companies are sitting up and taking notice.

Kids are an incredibly influential consumer group having both a direct and an indirect impact on a wide range of product categories. Over the past few decades this power has been extended by the principle of “family democracy”, where parents now actively encourage the involvement of kids in brand decision making, whether it be for lunchbox snacks, technology or the family holiday.

Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos once famously said, “Your brand is what they say about you when you’ve left the room”; ‘they’ in which case can be your customers, your competitors, your stakeholders, and – an important but easily forgotten category – your employees.

Countries, cities and holiday destinations require to successfully build a memorable brand for themselves to make an impact on and influence their audience’s perceptions. They compete at a global level for tourism income, resources and business. Some of the most memorable brands and advertising campaigns have been for travel and city destinations.

It’s been 10 years since Facebook launched, and whilst we’ve seen many design and development changes, the one concern that has remained constant is its invasion of people’s privacy. It is no secret that the tech giant’s key revenue generator is targeted advertising, possible solely via the large volume of personal data it possesses. Continually under such privacy-related duress, it interesting to learn about a new feature released just a few days ago – ‘Nearby Friends’.