According to Shopify, 64% of shoppers build relationships with brands because of shared values. This means brand identity is extremely important for retailer success. It also gives retailers an opportunity to distinguish themselves from their competitors. A retailer’s brand is their narrative, their story that they tell the public. It is the values that they hold and how they build connections with consumers. For physical retailers, the customer’s shopping experience and experience being in the space is increasingly important to brand identity.
Building Brand Identity with Architecture
The goal with architectural design is to create a place that is both functional and stylistically suitable for its purpose. While an innovative design may capture attention, immediate brand recognition can communicate a client’s identity. Retailers, corporations, and more exert their unique identities through branding.
Business owners should first identify what emotions they want to evoke when a customer comes into their business. How can the architecture enforce those feelings during the customer’s shopping experience? From this point, consistency is key. Touch points that tie back to the brand such as the color schemes, the fonts, logo, and look all present a unified message. When real estate in your business is of the utmost importance, each item in the store must be considered carefully to make the most of your space and build your brand.
You neither want to overwhelm nor underwhelm your shoppers. The colors of the logo and of the physical space can have a psychological impact on customers as certain colors evoke certain emotions.
In order to nail brand identity, be consistent with your messaging and the feelings that you wish for your brand to evoke in shoppers. The architecture of your storefront should work in tandem with this. What kind of experience do you wish for your customers to have in your physical space? What feelings do you wish to evoke? Successful brand identity and architecture work together in this regard, to convey the brand’s values and identity through design and function.
