Think Retail

Any branded environment tells a story and a big part of that story is visual. Today, we’re talking to Cybelle Jones , CEO of SEGD , a not-for-profit professional organization for designers from all over the world who focus on shaping content-rich experiential spaces. Trained as an architect, she’s worked on many projects that involve historical and cultural environments such as galleries and museums, as well as working with brands to create memorable, interactive experiences.

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As disruption from the pandemic rises and falls in waves around the globe, retail brands are pivoting their business to try and make up for related sales losses. Many brands were in good shape to manage this with robust digital and omnichannel ecosystems already in place. Many luxury brands, however, were not as well prepared. Heavily reliant on an in-store, really personal customer experience model, luxury brands in North America are now scrambling. A drastically changed in-store experience, the loss of tourists from Asia, and inexperience in the digital realm are some of the key challenges they’re facing.

 

Fortunately, Casey Golden, founder and CEO of retail experience platform Luxlock believes that luxury brands have everything they need to get through this crisis and come out on the other side by leading digital transformation and setting a higher standard for shopping online. 

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Today, we’re talking about cash. Is it going to go away completely? Is it unhygienic? Should retailers still allow cash payments, or is it okay to push consumers towards cards and digital-only? Today, our President Jean-Pierre Lacroix is talking to David Fagleman, Director at Enryo, a consultancy firm in the UK that helps support financial services in times of change.

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Brainstorming is a practice that most businesses need to employ from time to time, but it’s not as simple as just getting a bunch of people together with a whiteboard and some sticky notes. It’s a real skill. It requires a lot of preparation, guidance, structure and a plan. You need to be able to help the team focus but also be creative. Brainstorming sessions can be invigorating and exciting, if not challenging. And with work from home being an ongoing reality, brainstorm sessions might seem impossible to manage. 

In this episode we speak with SLD’s brand strategist Ada Zhang about some foundational brainstorming tips and how to make the magic happen, even remotely. 

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For sports teams, the brand is everything, it’s massive. Fan behavior in which individuals feel their own self-identity is intertwined with a team, even to the extent that the team’s performance is felt on a deeply personal level, has been widely studied by psychologists and academics and has driven sales of billions of dollars of merchandise around the world. But relying on diehard fans for sales is limiting. 

 

Today, we’re talking to professional sports team brand expert, Anthony Partipilo, the Chief Brand Officer for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, about why sports teams need to reach beyond their inner circle of fandom to new kind of fan and how the Roughriders are doing just that. 

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We all know COVID has changed the game for many retail categories. Some have been obvious winners and others are feeling extremely strained. For the fashion industry, some are saying the pandemic may be a day of reckoning. Today, we’re talking to iconic Canadian fashion designer,  David Dixon , and his brother, interior designer,  Glenn Dixon  about the silver lining and how smart brands can use this as an opportunity to leap into the future. 

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The perks of operating your own independent business are often outweighed by the enormous burdens that come along with it. You become a de facto marketer, administrator, HR specialist. You work incredibly long hours and no matter what category you’re in, you’re facing increasing competition, both for clients and talent from larger organizations. For the Canadian Orthodontic Partners, the burden on independent orthodontic practices presented an opportunity. Founded by orthodontists, the organization has brought an initial 51 independent orthodontic practices under one banner in a new national brand. 

 

Today, we’re talking to Paul Abrams, Vice President of Marketing and Growth for the Canadian Orthodontic Partners and their new consumer-facing brand docbraces. Paul, thank you for being with us today.

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Design Thinking is a term that many of us have heard, but what exactly does it mean, and how can financial brands benefit from this approach?

Today we’re speaking with Janet Jones, a design thinker with an incredible range of experience in design, strategy, and innovation about design thinking for financial brands. Janet’s experience includes 25 years of interior design, as well as working as a strategic foresight consultant and an instructor in foresight and design, at OCAD. This experience led to working directly with financial brands as an innovator and the first design strategist with Scotiabank’s Digital Factory, to help implement a design-driven culture in the bank’s digital transformation.

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In the financial industry, security is paramount. As the world moves online and technology becomes more sophisticated, so do hackers and scams. The advantages of leveraging technology have just skyrocketed with the impact of COVID-19, but preventing systems breaches can make the difference between customer loyalty and customer attrition. In China, biometric security is rapidly being adopted as a safe and easy way to handle financial transactions securely. Will COVID-19 be the thing that pushes North American banks to begin implementing these security measures on a wide scale?

In this episode, we speak with Nick Hallas, Vice President of Sales at Daon – an innovator in developing and deploying biometric authentication and identity assurance solutions worldwide – about the why and the how of biometric security.

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As cannabis legalization sweeps through North America there’s been a corresponding race for brands entering the market in what has amounted to a gold rush turn green. And Organigram is one such brand, they’ve been in the market from the time that medical cannabis became legal in Canada in 2013 and they now offer a range of brands including that medical line Organigram, and recreational lines Edison, Edison Reserve, ANKR and Trailblazer.

Ray Gracewood is the SVP of Marketing and Communications for Organigram and he’s going to tell us about the roller coaster ride at the front lines of the cannabis industry.

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