Project Overview
With more than 110 million tonnes of textiles going into landfill each year and modern slavery rife in third world manufacturing, the global fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world… second only to big oil (Eileen Fisher).
And while most fashion brands are struggling to come to terms with the reality of the challenges faced by global fashion, the op-shop industry is sitting there with a solution - recycled fashion.
The problem is, we take op-shops for granted. They are dusty, smelly and drab places. But what if we could change that? What if we could transform the shopping experience into an inspirational place for treasure hunting, while celebrating the social and environmental good the stores deliver.
In November 2020, we launched a completely transformed brand platform for one of the best known op-shops in the world, Salvos Stores.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
The General Store
Chris Scott, Creative Director
Julia Elton-Bott, Art Director
Luke Mathers, Designer
Darren Bailey, Producer
Matt Newell, Partner & CEO
Madeleine Livesey, Partner & COO
Tanya Green, Group Account Director
Renaud Frisé, Digital Director
Caroline Resseguier, Store Design
Andrew Kohn, Project Director
Project Brief
Our brief was to breathe new life into second-hand shopping.
This was such an important brief because if we handled it right, we could inspire millions more people to buy second hand, to donate their unwanted goods and, ultimately, to keep products out of landfill.
To really fulfil this goal, we needed to broaden the brand appeal to a new audience who would shop at Salvos Stores for good (sustainability, community impact), rather than just customers who shopped because they had to (to save cost). But we had to evolve the brand appeal without losing the core customer on the journey.
The process included the following stages:
1. Customer segmentation and insights research
2. Brand strategy (workshopped interactively with a cross representational team)
3. Brand identity design
4. Store design
5. Website design
6. Advertising
Project Innovation/Need
The brand idea revolves around the idea of circularity.
A glowing red circle sits at the core of the brand identity, representing the circular economy, the coming together of community and gives a nod to a spiritual halo that underpins the Salvation Army (the parent organisation).
The red circle also forms the basis of the new store design concept, which features a round service desk in the heart of the store. This is the community hub, where customers can come for help, just pull up a stool, chat to team members, and get a cuppa. It’s also the place where people donating goods can deliver their gifts, ensuring that all donors get some human contact and a ‘thank you’ rather than just dumping products in ‘bins’ out the back.
We solved the challenge of how to build an ecommerce site for an op-shop brand that had unique products with decentralised supply. By flipping the traditional e-commerce back-end into a marketplace back-end and teaching store staff how to upload products, we created the category’s first e-commerce store in Australia.
And we launched the entire platform with a Christmas campaign that encouraged people to buy second hand at Christmas, to help drive the circular economy. We even flipped the Santa experience on its head by encouraging kids to name gifts they wanted to GIVE at Christmas, rather than gifts they wanted to GET.
The entire brand evolution was centred around the brand idea of circularity.
Design Challenge
There are so many challenges in a large-scale brand transformation like this one. But perhaps the biggest one was around PEOPLE.
We had to design a process that would bring a 100+ year old organisation on a journey of massive change. We had to invite people who had been with the business for decades to think differently so that we could collectively seize the opportunity that exists for the op-shop category today. And we had to find a way to attract a new audience to the brand without losing its core customers.
This could not have been achieved without the vision of the senior leadership team at Salvos Stores and The General Store takes great pride in the role we played to support this journey. It was a seamless combination of process design and delivery, strategy, and creative all coming together to deliver this important design project.
Effectiveness
Since launching the new brand platform in November 2020, our story around the circular economy has reached an estimated 18 million people across national news coverage, social content and the store network of 350 stores.
National store sales have been hit hard by COVID lockdowns but the store concept in Marrickville traded up 126% (avg. daily sales) before being closed for COVID.
Christmas 2020 set a new national sales record for Salvos Stores - despite the challenges inflicted by COVID on the core customer base.
Online sales exploded in their first year with 84,000 items listed and 64,000 items sold since launch. Online sales have beaten budget by more than double.
The brand platform is currently under review for a global rollout.
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding - Community
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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