Following a public consultation where over 2,000 people offered their opinions on the future of Alexandra Palace online and through social media, underscore have delivered a new design structure for their website.

As well as clearer navigation paths, leading users to their key area of interest and making booking events a much more enjoyable process, the venue is seeing a marked increase in visitors, so we have also updated the website back end to accommodate the need for more regular updates. The team at Alexandra Palace are now able to quickly and easily update stylish ‘Whats-on’ and ‘Events’ pages with rotating banners and individual background images; making the site far more engaging for a younger audience.

The new homepage also features a fully integrated social platform;  with a live Twitter stream more prominent, as well as auto-updates from the ‘Whats-on’ page and the ‘Events’ page. We look forward to reviewing next month’s analytics to see what has worked best, but if you’re curious why not pay a visit to www.alexandrapalace.com to judge the site for yourself!

Last week at BCSC saw Lunson Mitchenall reveal their exciting new business structure at the BCSC UK retail conference in Liverpool.

Underscore helped to articulate significant changes and the expansion of  their team by 25% in the past few months through a simple campaign message of ‘the bigger picture’ which was transferred across their exhibition collateral and website to inform and educate the great and the good of retail property in as few words as possible.

Richard Cripps at Lunson Mitchenall commented “We were pleased with the simplicity and consistency of our communications at this year’s BCSC event which helped us to communicate a period of significant positive change for Lunson Mitchenall to our retail clients and colleagues.”

High street favourite Topshop has found a way to bring LFW to the masses.

Linking up with Facebook, they have created an app that allows their catwalk shows to be streamed live, with a number of interactive features to make their 2.7million followers feel like they are in the audience.

Topshop promoted the move through their “Topshop Unique SS13” show and will continue to use the feature for further shows this week. The company described the digital move as its “most advanced immersive and engaging social experience”. Fashion enthusiasts are using social media more than ever to share new products and ideas and Topshop took it to the next level, inviting followers worldwide to engage not only in the show but in their brand.

Viewers could hit a camera button as the show streamed that would instantly take a snap of the catwalk giving people front-row seat shots that could then be shared across the web. It was not only the runway that was streamed, as viewers got to watch behind the scenes as models got their hair and makeup done.

Using it as an ecommerce platform, a fashion first saw people being able to order items as they came down the catwalk. Colours of the clothing and accessories can be changed and can be instantly purchased. Customers will receive the goods 3 months before the collection is made available, appealing to their fashion-forward audience. Runway playlists were also available to buy, with links straight to iTunes and Topshop’s website. Makeup and beauty products from their own range were also made available.

Adhering to other social media platforms, the brand launched a “Tweet off” competition to win tickets to further catwalk shows whereby viewers had to review the show in the standard 140 characters or less. These were streamed alongside the catwalk show and live on Topshop.com.

This interactive move comes from the new chief marketing officer Justin Cooke who moved to Topshop from Burberry earlier this year. His idea was to take the energy of the Oxford Street store (around the corner from Underscore HQ!) to the millions of customers around the world, saying of the idea “It’s social, it’s commerce and it’s entertainment all rolled into one”.

Topshop have taken a great step into harnessing the power of social media. Whilst many shows at London Fashion Week are seen as exclusive only, Topshop have brought their high-street brand to its young audience in a cool and functional way.

To discover how social media can benefit your brand, please feel free to get in touch!

Founded in 1990, Jackson Criss are today a leading UK retail agency and investment practice. To reflect their market position they needed a contemporary and state of the art website that could showcase their people, their capabilities and their properties.

Key features of their new site included: an enhanced ‘meet the team’ and ‘clients’ facility but most importantly, the new website has specialised functionality to allow a user to search for available property and then to refine their search to make the process of finding retail properties simple and intuitive. The site also boasts Google map integration, and auto-generated PDFs for each property which are used for marketing collateral as well as an easy download for interested parties.

The back-end of the site was developed with a Content Management System (CMS) control panel which can be used easily by non-tech personnnel.

The in-built CMS allows employees to quickly view, add and edit properties, and also features a dynamic, graphic display of the website’s analytics and viewing / performance statistics.

If you think underscore could be a good fit for your next digital project, retail or otherwise, please get in touch!

Today saw the opening of Burberry’s new flagship store in Regent Street; showcasing a modern move into the digital age.

At 44,000ft and spanning 4 floors, the shop has become their largest store in the world. Burberry has used the UKs finest craftsmen to renovate the classic Grade II listed building into a store pushing new technological boundaries.

Burberry tried to make the effect of walking into the store emulate their website as they brought the digital world to life in a physical space, channelling bespoke aspects of their brand. CEO Angela Ahrendts told Vogue the Regent Street store is a place where “customers can experience every facet of the brand through immersive multimedia content exactly as they do online”.

Boasting a 22ft high screen, 500 hidden speakers and a hydraulic stage, Burberry’s Regent Street store, which is just around the corner from Underscore HQ, has become a showplace for the brand; becoming a centre for promotional events and fashion shows and a platform for new collection launches.

Digital technologies have been used further in the clothes themselves. RFID tags have been placed in garments, partnering with interactive mirrors to allow customers to see what they would look like in the clothes. As clothes are tried on in the changing rooms, mirrors flip to show the clothes on the catwalk and on film.

Burberry, with such a classic, heritage-fuelled brand image echoed in the historical architectural design of the building, is taking a huge leap by incorporating the technology into their store. However, it creates a new and exciting shopping experience for customers ahead of  rival lines and will fast become a destination store for London’s fashion crowd.

September 12 saw the much-anticipated launch of what Apple themselves call ‘the biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone’.

Features wise this was their most leaked handset to date, although it appears the sleek new design has already silenced the Internet Doubting Thomases.

Lacking the much vaunted ‘transparent display’, slide-out keyboards and many other rumoured features, the latest model boasts a 4 inch display and new glass design, becoming the sleekest and slimmest model yet.

With a subtle upgrade to the exterior, Apple has focussed on the internal aspects. For the impatient user, a faster processor means apps, emails and web pages appear instantly.  Working with the EE network in the UK, the highly anticipated 4G has been incorporated.

Apple has developed a new 8MP lens, with the iSight camera being arguably the stand out feature of the new model. Whether it be a beautiful sunset or a glimpse of a Z-list celebrity, it is hard to go anywhere without someone taking a snap on an iPhone. The World’s most popular camera now has a stunning panoramic feature and Face time HD camera.

So yes, it looks smart and has a better camera but is it really any better? In the age where smartphones are set to takeover paying by plastic, Apple has failed to include Near Field Communication (NFC) technology which we at underscore are seeing more and more in our retail adventures. With over 400million active credit cards on record, has the brand missed out on something that rivals such as Blackberry have already harnessed?

Redesigning the charge point, moving away from the 30-pin wire in favour of the lightning port should lead to less cracked charge sockets, however it comes at a price to the user. No longer fitting on any standard docking stations, a Lightning to 30-pin adapter is available but you will need to dig another £25 out of your wallet.

Apple customers will already be forming a queue outside their nearest store as it becomes the new must have gadget, but with Apple’s smartphone rivals upping the stakes, is this highly anticipated release just going to attract the Brand followers? And have they innovated enough to make this the stand out gadget all it is hyped to be? We brand lovers at underscore will wait and see – probably right outside our nearest Apple store…

Last week saw a series of promising discussions between leading retail and restaurant brands and City Sentral – the new name for Stoke-on-Trent’s exciting new shopping and leisure destination.

The new centre is at the heart of the transformation of Stoke-on-Trent, which is reinventing itself as a dynamic, ambitious 21^st century city – proud of its past, but embracing its new future with enthusiasm.

The City Sentral brand captures the essence of that transformation – bold, new, exhilarating.

When building this brand we needed to get beneath the surface of what Stoke-on-Trent city centre currently has to offer and make sure that the underlying promise of this new development was translated into compelling creative communications that would make a bold statement that significant changes are taking place.

The new brand name was created by underscore to position the development as the natural ‘city centre’, while also reminding a wider commercial and consumer audience that Stoke-on-Trent is a prominent and centrally located city worthy of their attention.

The brightly coloured ‘asterisk’ icon reflects the exciting, dynamic nature of the project, with each of the arrows representing a different aspect of the City Sentral offer and a “new direction” for shopping, for eating out, for weekends, for public spaces, for leisure and for transport.

At the same time, the arrows converge on a central point, reflecting a colourful and bold new direction and future for Stoke on Trent city centre.

Our branding was again on show supporting a series of very strong commercial messages up at BCSC (the UK’s leading retail convention) in Liverpool last week, and it was great to see the level of positive interest that the scheme is deservedly receiving from retailers and restaurants alike.

Here at underscore, we’re often asked “What is Social Media Marketing, and how should we brand ourselves in the social space?”

Social Media Marketing refers to the process of improving key performance indicators (KPIs), through social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to name a few. Which KPIs are best suited to social media marketing is an on-going debate. For example, we at underscore feel that when managed properly, social media marketing can benefit all aspects of your business.

1) Insightful and compelling content shared through Facebook or Twitter work extremely well as inbound marketing tools. If you update your blog with fresh, high quality content, not only is this great from an SEO perspective but when shared through social media, will keep visitors coming back for more.

2) But what about businesses which operate off-line or in a physical premises, can social media benefit those too? Of course! Image sharing sites such as Pinterest or Instagram offer the opportunity to share images of products and, even better, allow your clients and potential clients to share these product images with their friends – you can read a great article on using Pinterest for business use here: Improving Retail Sales Through Pinterest

3) Last but not least, social media marketing is a great way to get your brand out there! Traditional advertising mediums such as print or television can be expensive and limit marketing efforts to larger brands; social media marketing has levelled the playing field for smaller businesses as effective use of social media marketing can be a cost-effective way of gaining exposure for your brand.

To find out more about how social media marketing can benefit your business and grow your brand, please get in touch!

Image source.

Leading brands should not only be looking to continue delivering value for shareholders, but should also look to be a positive force for sustainable change in the communities in which they operate.

This is the view of OLAM, a global integrated supply chain-managing firm, whose goals are to generate economic prosperity and to contribute positively to the social welfare of its producers’.

Underscore has been working with OLAM throughout 2012, delivering advertising to inform consumers of the brilliant work that they do, and their achievements and successes thus far.

The campaign pin pointed OLAMs’ credentials, highlighting that they have operations in 24 African countries, that they sustainably sourced 4.1 million tonnes of material last year, and that their sustainability initiatives reach 1.35 million farmers. It also demonstrated how much money would be invested by the year 2015, with $2.2 million being earmarked as the figure for Africa alone.

In a world where consumers only seem to care how sustainably friendly a product is after they’re satisfied with its’ quality and price, the approach taken by OLAM is extremely refreshing. Placing sustainability alongside continued profit making, suggests how important of an issue it is.

There are currently great examples of companies who are appealing to consumers to take notice of the impact a more sustainable world would have, most notably Marks and Spencer and B&Q. But we believe more brands should utilize the loyalty that they have with consumers, and become their mentors on sustainability issues.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that consumers would welcome further brand-based guidance on how we, together, can create a more sustainable world. And it is obvious that brands are best placed to raise the profile of sustainably friendly products, in order for the public to gain a deeper understanding of the issue, while not completely changing the way they consume.

How can sites like Pinterest improve retail sales?

Social Shopping is a term which has been coined relatively recently by the online community, born of the partnership between social platforms and online retail. The more digital savvy of marketers will see this as an opportunity to advance slaes and brand loyalty.

In terms of brand, your followers on various social media sites often go well beyond your friends and family, meaning your outreach is extended through effective social media campaigns. But what about driving sales? Despite the fact that search and email marketing show better conversion rates than social, Sara Kowel of Forbes still predicts that “social shopping will play a big role in driving the next innovation in online retail, as well as companies’ sales”.

For example, Forbes go on to point out that 90% of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know. Seeing a friend or colleague post a pin on Pinterest is in itself a demonstration of a social recommendation, which suggests that one would then be more likely to trust a product or service.

Operating in the digital space and tackling campaigns on sites such as Pinterest require staying ahead of the game. As such, a business owner aiming to market their brand within the social space needs to go beyond simple ‘share’ buttons and become actively involved in the conversation; from these efforts, engagement loyalty and even social ROI can be improved.

To find out more about marketing your business through social media, get in touch!