Overview
Dalziel & Pow is an independent creative agency based in London. Starting in 1983, David Dalziel and John Pow designed pubs, clubs and bars. Not so long after, they shifted into working with high street brands such as Timberland, Volkswagen, Google and more. These guys along with the creative agency they built have changed the game for a retail and brand experience. They come alongside these businesses to strengthen their brand by using much more than a logo and flyers to engage the companies audience.
As an agency, they have four different areas of expertise:
- Strategy & Transformation
- We define insights, strategies and bold, new ideas for consumer engagement, brand differentiation and growth.
- Branding & Communications
- We invent and reinvent brand personalities, and bring them to life across physical and digital channels.
- Digital Experience
- We create digital journeys and touch points to serve, sell or inspire, telling brand stories in ways that captivate audiences.
- Brand Environments
- We design engaging spaces that meet the needs of the new consumer and forward-thinking brands.
Each area of expertise has the same focus of engaging the whole brand. Like any equation, they are presented with a problem and with their team present a solution to encompass the identity of the company’s brand.
Aside from Dalziel & Pow’s website being exceptionally organized and appealing to look at, the examples of their work make what they do so special. I am going to walk through three examples of their work and focus in detail on one.
Work
- Marie’s Baby Circle
- https://www.dalziel-pow.com/work/maries-baby-circle
- After watching the video or reading the name of the client, you can assume this project has something to do with babies. Marie’s Baby Circle is a store based in South Korea that focuses on coming alongside first-time mothers in their journey of parenthood.
- Challenge: This company came to Dalziel & Pow with the challenge of creating a place for mothers to find “knowledge and reassurance” in their journey along with making a trip to the store a more appealing option than ordering online.
- Solution: D&P used all of their areas of expertise to create a multi-function store that does way more than sell baby items. They built an interactive wall of animated characters that react by just a touch. Each section of the store has design elements according to its specific area whether that is strollers, baby food, clothing, sleep, baby showers and more. They created a “rest” room for mothers to breastfeed, change diapers and take a breather from the chaos that comes with shopping.
D&P accomplished the company’s goal of making first-time mothers feel welcomed along with creating a space that is engaging to visit.
- Eobuwie
- https://www.dalziel-pow.com/work/eobuwie
- I tried to look up the definition of the word, Eobuwie, and I came up empty. Either there is not one or I did not look hard enough. Nonetheless, Eobuwie is one of the largest footwear retail companies in Central Europe.
- Challenge: Focusing on their store in Poland, Eobuwie came to D&P wanting to engage their customers in-store rather than the usual online ordering.
- Solution: D&P’s concept behind the store is very clever. There are two sections of this store. The first section is known as their “arrival zone.” This is for quick transactions and searches on their built-in tablets. The back end of the store is a relaxing space for a slower-pace journey of shoe shopping. Customers sit on the couch and browse on a tablet to see hundreds of shoe options. If they want to try on a pair, they simply type it into the tablet and a worker brings out the pair. They also use a screen that wraps around the room that rotates through different shoes to create a minimalistic approach to the overwhelming abundance of shoe options.
D&P accomplished the company’s goal of engaging their customers in an in-person retail experience.
- Volkswagen
- https://www.dalziel-pow.com/work/volkswagen
- If you did not recognize the first two companies, hopefully this is a brand you are somewhat familiar with. Volkswagen is a car company from Germany. In German, the word, Volkswagen, means “people’s car.”
- Challenge: For a long time, people loved having the pleasure of owning a car. Nowadays, people prefer using app-based car services over owning one. Volkswagen came to D&P to see if they could bring back the joyful narrative of owning a car.
- Solution: “Human stories beat technical specifications.” D&P represented passions, dreams and everyday experiences throughout this store with Volkswagen. They set up wall length lightboxes that displayed “..everyday benefits of owning a Volkswagen…” They had ipads where you could personalize your own vehicle. If you wanted to test drive one of the vehicles, there is a space for that in their parking lot. Last but certainly not least, they incorporated light projection animations on a wall. These animations were playful ways to tell different stories of Volkswagen.
D&P accomplished the company’s goal in creating a very hands-on experience that represented a fun narrative of owning a car.
Work In-Depth
Out of the few pieces of D&P’s work I presented, I want to put the microscope over the Volkswagen project to see how the goals accomplished made an impact on the brand.
Audience
The Volkswagen product is normally geared towards adults because they are the ones who can drive and purchase it. Though this is true, D&P saw a greater message that includes more than the adult audience. Adults, teenagers, kids, and entire families experience transportation in a vehicle everyday. Even though not everyone in the audience can purchase the product, they are still involved in the experience of it. If younger kids do not like the comfort and experience of a vehicle, that has the potential of changing an adult’s choice in a car. Therefore, some of the design of the store was geared towards younger and older audiences alike. For example, the interactive light protections on the wall was fun for the customers to press the buttons and see things move. When families walk into this store, the kids are just as entertained as the adults because they are both interacting with the design. D&P did a really good job in helping Volkswagen identify their audience.
Story-telling
Similar to the idea of knowing who your audience is, everyone loves a good story. If someone walks into this store with their family who loves to go on road trips and sees interactions, pictures and stories gearing towards road tripping with the family, they might be more inclined to buy the product. People like products but I think they value the experience they’ll have using the products even more. D&P showed customers different ways they can use a Volkswagen car (road tripping, packing, shopping, etc.) and the joy that comes when you do own one. D&P did a great job showing the things you can experience by owning a Volkswagen.
Hands-on
Have you ever watched a How-To video? Those videos usually consist of how to make a product or attain a certain outcome. In a way, D&P took customers through that experience by their design. By using the ipads in the store, you were able to customize your own Volkswagen car. In the store, they had different fabric and parts of the car to display the items that make-up the vehicle. One of the light projections they had was changing the outside color and design of a car by a click of a button. This process of building something engages customers because people love seeing how things are made. Going back to the idea of knowing your audience, the hands-on experience is also for kids. Kids love to touch things, therefore, when they see the color of the car change, they experience can enlighten and engage them. D&P did a wonderful job of including the customers in the experience of building cars.
Overall
Dalziel & Pow do a wonderful job of engaging the whole brand of a company in their work. Their work is clean, intentional, purposeful and engaging. I am blown away by the experiences they create and how they engage people into those environments. I would love to work in a creative environment such as this one!