Retail Design Management: The Creation of Brand Value

The aim of this paper is to establish a framework for a new set of research tools and knowledge management techniques, to assist designers, brand strategists and educationalists to understand the ways in which management of the retail design process creates brand value for retailers and manufacturers. In an increasingly ‘virtual’ and media-neutral world of brands, retail design must satisfy a complex network of stakeholders. One aspect of this complexity is the development of brands and brand management, and the place of design in this process.

Collaborative working practices identified in Knowledge Management research form the basis of a new model for retail design management. Three case studies demonstrate the different ways in which brand value is created by design. Strong, consistent visual identities enhance the image of the retailer in the consumer’s mind. They also highlight the problem of harnessing the knowledge of a wide range of stakeholders to create brand value. The increasing complexity of stakeholders in retail design and the development of knowledge sharing practices, implies that detailed planning is needed. This research develops a new model of retail design, in which the dynamics of the market are emphasised, and the pragmatic responses to the workability of design solutions are balanced against designers’ visions.

The project has continued with a paper on The Body Shop: the Role of Design in Retailing at the international EAERCD conference, 2006, and published in the International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management in 2007 and a further paper “Creative Space: Design and the Retail Environment” published in the same journal. The research themes were developed in two international one-day symposia “Metamorphosis: The Changing Face of Design Management” which I organised in London, in May and September 2007.