Why most shop window displays are rubbish. (And how to fix them).

The shop window display is as ubiquitous as the marketplace itself. Walk down any high-street or shopping mall and you will see them everywhere. A precious opportunity to articulate your brand, gain attention, promote specific products, you would think. Yet most leave almost no impression in a consumers memory. Why? And does it really matter?

Look at almost all shop window displays. They exist in two-dimensional space. Just you and the objects, looking back at each other. Take a clothes shop. Several featured garments are positioned front and centre within centimetres of the side-walk. Perhaps there are some artistic touches: staging, backdrop, lighting and text. All sound familiar I hope.   

What’s so wrong with this? Firstly, this design is deeply predictable. Our minds have become so conditioned to its form (we have grown up with it all our lives), that we no longer really notice the content. An epidemic of invisibility – who wants that. Secondly, in the 2-D setup, our focus as consumers is directed onto a product or service. This literal and metaphorical narrowing of the consumers view, ensures only one limited part of the brands story gets told. If it is the part that connects with the consumer, then good job. But consumers are not all the same, purchase for different reasons and exist beyond two-dimensions.  

So, as a rule, the shop-window concept features shapes and forms often unimaginative and dare I say outdated. It is as if convention is driving the design rather than creativity. 

What’s the solution? Think of an Apple store. How is their shop window structured? That’s right, they don’t have one. When you see an Apple store from outside, your sight is pulled all the way inside, to their products, people and brand. They tell their story in 3-D. Now you may say, it’s the sheer strength of ‘brand Apple’ that encourages us instore and removes the need for a window display. You are probably right. But can’t we take something from this approach?

Of course, you don’t have to get as radical as Apple. One approach is the lower-third framing. In the vertical shop display frame, a lower third display (floor to waist height) should be sufficient for the eye line of the shopper, to be drawn from the window display items into the shop inside, where there is more real-estate to better articulate your brand’s story. 

The evening and night-time too is often a missed opportunity. Try to think beyond the spotlighted 2-D space, and more of strategic illumination of set focal points down the length of the shop, to tell the brand story from the outside more creatively.   

Now of course much of my framing of this post has been oriented around designing to encourage consumers in and discover your brand. For some brands (luxury designer labels etc), the polar opposite maybe the desired strategy. Keeping some people out, ensures the right ones come in. Also, clothes shoppers often care more about the item, than the broader story of the organisation selling it. I acknowledge that that shop-window displays serve many purposes, and it is a field that is more complicated and multi-dimensional than I am making out.

However, if you take anything from this, it is that to question and interrogate established design and commercial convention. If there is a more effective way to articulate your brand’s story and value, explore it. As more often than not, competitive opportunity is lingering in plain sight!