Flagship Store in Madrid. Serrano Street
Since last November, Serrano Street in Madrid has the only European Flagship store of the Johnnie Walker brand. This wasn’t his first attempt. Previously 4 very restricted spaces were tested in different international airports supporting a greater premium character for the brand.
In this new space they are cool to face challenges that are common to most brands:
- Experience
- Interactivity
- Customization
- Cult of its tradition and legend (200 years)
- Themed with the new customer context (e.g. Game of Thrones)
Belonging to the Diageo group, JW is one of 200 different brands (including Guinness) that the group manages with more than 13 billion euros of sales across 180 countries. With a strong commitment to marketing (15% of the value of its sales), it has decided to spend 150 million euros for three years to develop a series of physical centers linked to its distilleries thus fostering an interesting customer-facing experience integrated with leisure/tourism.
A network of 12 distilleries in Scotland are the first to be incorporated. The ultimate exponent is the newly approved project for Edinburgh that will incorporate the lessons learned into its first Serrano store.
It’s not just in the physical store grounds that JW is innovating. According to a recent study by Gartner L2 (July 2019), Johnnie Walker is the alcohol brand with the highest degree of innovation in digital initiatives.
Mhe works for major chains and brands improving retail strategy and operations
The commitment of the Brands to be present in physical stores has been materialised in the different sectors with unequal success and in a variety of concepts:
- Traditional flagship shop
- Maximum exponent of omnichannel/technological experience
- Ephemeral pop-up units
- Advanced Showroom
- Integration with your production sites
- Implants in third-party environments…
Other brands as diverse as Dyson, Windows, Hershey’s, Hyundai, Kellogs or Samsung are also testing and developing their activity in Brand Retailing with disparate results.
Tradition and innovation are not incompatible. Johnnie Walker manages to get excited in Serrano Street and at the same time sell competitively on the shelves of the Mercadona supermarket round the corner.
With the brand connecting and … on the shelves selling !
More info: carlos.dominguez@mheconsumer.com
