Retail

How to Ensure Your Digital Experience is Inclusive

Brand Engagement, Brand Strategy, Design Innovation, Design Psychology, Digital Experiences / Sebastian Maynard

Digital experiences and communications, including websites, social media and digital content, play an essential role in influencing shopper decisions, but first it has to reach the right audience. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, online interactions have increased, as has competition for your consumer’s attention. Inclusive communication and marketing design is now more important than […]

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What Retailers Need to Know About COVID Vaccines

Brand Strategy, convid retail, Customer Experience / Sebastian Maynard

The distribution of COVID-19 vaccines has begun, and with them come a welcome light at the end of the tunnel for retailers who faced unprecedented challenges in 2020. Even those that did well, such as grocery stores and big boxes, have faced unforeseen challenges – who would ever have imagined that policing hand sanitization or

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Six Things That Will Define 2021

Brand Strategy / Sebastian Maynard

It has been a long time since we have experienced such a disruptive year. Many of us are wondering if 2021 will bring with it the same level of uncertainty or if the dust will settle, and what a new normal will look like. To that point, at the end of each year, we provide

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2021 Trends and Implications for Retail Brands

Brand Strategy, convid retail, Customer Experience, Design Innovation, Digital Experiences, Environmental Design, Food and Beverage, Packaging Design, Retail / David Magnus

If 2020 taught us anything, it is that predictions and best laid plans don’t always come to fruition. While many brands learned this the hard way, there are countless success stories from the past year – stories of brands that adapted, listened and inspired. As we look ahead to 2021, the unknowns and challenges that

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Looking Ahead to 2021 With the SLD Team

Brand Strategy, Customer Experience, Design Innovation, Digital Experiences, Environmental Design / Sebastian Maynard

At the end of every year, it’s tradition to reflect on the things we’ve loved, hated, and what we’re looking forward to for the coming year. 2020 was obviously pretty unusual, and although 2021 promises to be an improvement, it will also certainly be a year to remember. In this episode, some designers and thinkers

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Packaging Design Strategies for 2021

Design Innovation, Food and Beverage, Packaging Design / Sebastian Maynard

2021 brings an air of tentative optimism as we near the distribution of an effective COVID-19 vaccine. We all look forward to putting this year’s challenging times behind us – but it is important that what we learned in 2020 is not lost, because consumer behavior has changed and will not return to pre-COVID “norms.”

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Digital Marketing Strategies for 2021

Brand Strategy, Digital Experiences / Sebastian Maynard

Back in 1964, Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase the medium is the message. For McLuhan, he hoped the phrase would help “draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral–it does something to people. It takes hold of them.” Oh, if only he was alive today. Almost 60 years

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Self-Service Innovation Virtual Summit

Matthew Wilson

The Self-Service Innovation Summit took place between December 8-9, and examined the many technological advances that are changing the retail landscape. With a focus on self-service, kiosk and vending solutions that can be applied everywhere from airports to hospitals, the virtual event covered topics such as ATMs, endless aisles, micro markets and way finding. SLD’s Jean-Pierre

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The Ever-Evolving World of Digital Marketing

Brand Strategy, convid retail, Customer Experience, Digital Experiences / Sebastian Maynard

TikTok and Snapchat, Google’s antitrust lawsuit, AOC versus Zuckerberg, it seems like every day there’s a new factor that could change digital marketing, making it a moving target for brand marketers. With so much to stay up to date on, it can be hard to know where to focus your efforts. Luckily, our guest today

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The Shifting Values of Beauty and How Brands Can Adapt

Brand Strategy, Digital Experiences, Health and Pharmaceutical / Sebastian Maynard

The financial and social uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racial injustice, and widespread unemployment has meant that consumers are now reconsidering their priorities. As a result, any discretionary spending has been reprioritized and shifted elsewhere. A Mckinsey study from June 2020 found that consumers are pulling back spending in categories such as apparel and

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SLD’s Definitive Guide to In-Store Activation

Sebastian Maynard

Despite COVID-19 and improvements made to online shopping, countless studies have reinforced the fact that consumers still prefer to shop in-store – especially when it comes to groceries. The way in which consumers learn about products and make purchase decisions is changing though, and for retailers and CPG brands a fresh approach is needed to

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What Brands Can Learn from the COVID-19 Vaccine Trials

Brand Strategy, convid retail / Sebastian Maynard

The world continues to struggle to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, and in its wake, consumer behavior, and therefore, brand service design, is being rewired. The good news is the recent announcements by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna regarding the viability of their vaccines energized financial markets and provided a much-needed sign of hope. The race to

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What Artificial Intelligence Means for Retail Design

Design Innovation, Digital Experiences / Sebastian Maynard

One of the buzziest and most debated tech terms of the last 5 to 10 years is artificial intelligence. To start off with, what does the term artificial intelligence actually mean? If you just Google “define artificial intelligence,” you’ll discover that even computer scientists and engineers don’t entirely agree on what to call everything that

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How Chatbots are Changing Consumer Behavior

Brand Engagement / Sebastian Maynard

It is mind-boggling how far the technology of chatting has come. Turn on a movie or television show that was filmed earlier than 2007 and you may find yourself thinking “if they had a smartphone, this conflict wouldn’t exist” – something I recently mused about in the context of the Shakespearean classic, Romeo and Juliet.

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Digital Distrust: How Brands Can Navigate a World of Disruption

Digital Experiences / Sebastian Maynard

Technology has been a salvation during the pandemic and has thrust us into the age of omni-channel once and for all. And yet, there is a looming threat to the digital brand experience: a growing sense of mistrust in technology and the cyber-verse. Fanned by the flames of fake news, online hate and political interference,

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Tips for Implementing Digital Signage on a Dime

Brand Engagement, convid retail, Customer Experience / Sebastian Maynard

COVID-19 has accelerated many of the digital transformation behaviors that were already in progress before the pandemic. While many larger retailers had the resources to adapt quickly, smaller retailers often had a tougher time in updating their physical stores. Unfortunately, this inability to adapt in-store digital signage undermined the delivery of effective communication with customers

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Playdium

Matthew Wilson

#LIVEWILD Cineplex Entertainment is rolling out the new Playdium design across Canada to offer exciting, afforable fun for the whole family. CLIENT Cineplex PROJECT Playdium Experience Design RELATED SERVICE Brand Strategy Retail Design Environmental Graphic Design Service Design THINK Our research revealed that Gen Z and Alpha are united in one key factor: a desire

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The Three Pillars to Fostering Retail Pride

Retail / Sebastian Maynard

What was your first job? Mine was as a teller at a big box store and there’s a very good chance your first job was also in retail. Maybe you were a busboy at a restaurant, or you bagged groceries or sold shoes at the mall. The retail industry is massive. In the U.S. one

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Using Strategic Foresight to Understand the Future of Large Gatherings

Leave a Comment / Brand Strategy, Customer Experience / David Magnus

Any business that relies on bringing people together has been forced to pivot quickly in 2020. In some cases, innovation and resilience has shone through. In other cases, a lack of preparedness had meant closures and bankruptcies. At SLD, we have decided to take a longer view of how current trends and events have altered

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Digital Ecosystems and the Future of Retail and Banking

Brand Strategy, convid banking, Customer Experience, Digital Experiences / Sebastian Maynard

Digital transformation was something retail organizations and financial institutions were already talking about before COVID hit. The pandemic has accelerated the trend and brought with it more challenges that were not anticipated. While brands have adopted many makeshift processes and systems to address these needs, companies are now wondering what’s going to stick after the

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