By Brian Walker – The Retail Doctor® Group @ www.insideretailing.com.au

CEO of Myers Department Store, Bernie Brookes shared many insights into retail success at The Retail Doctor “Fit for Business” Thought Leadership Forum in Melbourne last week. Amongst them was the simple observation that great retailers must create theatre to entertain both customers and staff.

Bernie’s point started me thinking about what constitutes great theatre that will captivate and excite our customers and whilst this is important all year round.

Many years ago I worked with a retail entrepreneur who always said that our shops are like theatre and each morning when the curtains lift it is “Showtime”. Nobody builds a stage set or visual image better than the professionals of theatre, and just as we recommend stage lighting designers for retail lighting, similarities also exist between visual merchandising and great visual impact in retail.

William Shakespeare famously said: “All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merely players.” This rings true in the world of retail where your store is your stage and customers and staff are your performers.

Great ideas don't come from doing the same thing over and over and with the help of Greg Allen of the neo futurists, www.neofuturists.org (which we have adapted) we present some tips for magnificent, awe inspiring, jaw dropping window and merchandise displays to excite and delight your customers.

• Don't create good theatre. You must intend to create great theatre. We don't need any more perfectly good productions of perfectly good standards. You are setting out to do something great or it’s not worth doing.
• Set that thought aside. Create the window and merchandise display you believe in. Become consumed by its uniqueness. Create your own show. Make it true to your brand and what you have to say.
• Know why you are creating the show. The display you create must be the expression of your unique business. Setting out to make “good theatre” is not enough. Take a strong stand –and challenge yourself to express it. Include your customers in this aim.
• Know your performance space and use it. All great displays should acknowledge, utilize, and endow the space where it is performed.
• Know your customer. Have some idea who you are creating the show for. Displays for “for everyone” are bland theatre and will not target your customer segment effectively.
• Contradict the assumptions of the customer. Don't cater to your customer and what you think they would like to see. Draw them to the theatre (store) with something that will attract them, but then, once they are drawn to your shop, challenge them and make them think and feel. Never back-pat or condescend your customer.
• Make sure no two performances (displays) are the same. Make sure the show is a unreproducible event – this is what people have come to see.
• Include a surprise. No one should be able to know what’s coming next, including the performers. Surprise keeps theatre a live event. Multiple surprises make great theatre.
• Make sure everyone in the audience has an individual experience of the show to take out of the theatre (store) and share and discuss afterwards.
• Change the material world. Keep your merchandising fresh and exciting for your customers and they will keep coming back for more.
• Include music. There’s nothing better for introducing new music to people than having it accompany stage action. Take the opportunity to re-contextualise known music through performance.
• Establish ritual through repetition. Give the customer a ritual or repetitive pattern with which to identify. Create a shared history for the customer. Once a ritual is established, you can speak volumes through tiny variations on a theme. The art is in the details.
• Break the rules. Don't do what anybody tells you. Make your own theatre, find your own way. Create your own art. Build great displays from the customer perspective that entertains and inspires, (form) not from the traditional product assembly (function)

Lateral or literal? You can be the judge although I also reminded of the words of TS Elliott who said: "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. To be truly innovative and inspired we must gain our inspiration from the most unusual and unorthodox of places”.

The Retail Doctor won a Top 50 startup company award at the 2009 Smart Company’s Awards

Brian Walker