Mondays Review - CONCEPT

Today we came back after researching speartly, and found that we had been researching the similar sort of ideas and concepts in general. To begin with we both agreed on the idea of a shop. From the research I had done, i could fairly confidently deduce that from the sales rates that Hotel Chocolat have compared to Green and Blacks, the shops plays a big role because it engages the customers. So this was one idea we connected on.


HOWEVER..
There was one big problem i had with it, and that was time. We do not have enough time to produce a pitch for a whole retail outlet geared towards promoting Green and Blacks limited range. So instead i suggested the idea of creating a retail stall that could be put in shopping malls, where people could then engage with the product and take something away from it. This was we encompass the idea of customer interaction as well as promoting brand awareness and selling there goods. The idea of it being portable means that it could be taken through all the large cities in the UK. Both Nick and I were really happy with this because it meant we could design something we really wanted to AND it encompassed a campaign that people could actually get involved in which is what the brief was asking for.
Another concept i suggested was the idea of having a promotional good alongside the chocolate itself and the retail outlet, this was because of an inspired idea that i saw with Magnum (here). They produced a small promotional USB stick in the way of a ice cream, this meant customers were constantly aware of the brand and it had a use. Nick really liked this idea, and we bounced ideas back and forth about what would be appropriate. Again thinking about our audience, the young professionals who have disposable income, generally they have iPhones/blackberrys because these are all status symbols. So we decided to jump on this band wagon and create an iPhone case which related to the chocolate.

After this very successful brain storming session, we decided to divide our skills and tackle each idea. We both decided Nick would design the look of the retail outlet, encompassing smooth designs etc that we had seen from our research and I would tackle the iPhone case. Because I have an iPhone it just makes it easier because i can look at my old cases and play around with them to see what works.

So the next stage for me is to look into iPhones, see what cases have already been manufactured. Look at whats applicable and the restrictions on designing the cases. Also to have a look at packaging them and do some basic designs for tomorrow.