What Design Strategy can do for a lifestyle furniture brand?

The THE LIFE SHOP is a locally founded brand in the lifestyle category. In this category, they sell household items like furniture and even baby wear (LIFE baby). Their theme is New Asian. Part of its strategy is to define and sell this meaning to customers. Not everyone who walks into the store gets it but they are not targeting everyone. The brand is targeting mainly white collars who appreciate finer things in life.

For any Design Strategy, it is closely related to the brand and business strategy. It is a close relation that complements each other. What THE LIFE SHOP has captured is a synergy of the three. At closer look, let us investigate what a Design Strategy can do for a brand like this.

Clear Design Theme: THE LIFE SHOP had a clear design stance. It seeks to define new meanings of items that they sell rather than just being a channel or distributor. Most, if not all of their items are designed in-house. This consists of an eclectic mix of sofas, beds, sofas and household furniture.

Synthesis of Design Experiences with the Business: This brand is a close merger of design and all aspects of its business. From the painting of a lady to the coasters on their table, THE LIFE SHOP business merges the entire experience of their items with their brand identity.

Innovation Driven: The founders and merchandisers are constantly seeking new ways to innovate new designs. So as to constantly remain relevant to their brand identity and consumer climate. Last year, their LIFE baby sub-brand is one of the fastest growing in the challenging retail climate.

THE LIFE SHOP is on the foot path of brand growth regionally. It is not a bed of roses. As Asians become increasingly wealthy, competition for their dollar gets increasingly intense. Brands that do not have a clear brand identity or proposition fade quickly.

The demise of Barang Barang is a cautionary tale. Stellar growth but unsustainable in the long run. I do believe that a Design Strategy would have helped with its growth strategies.

Images and Logo taken from The LIFE Shop .Please leave your comments, if any.

How do we become more innovative?

Aeron Chair from Herman Miller Inc.

Attract more Design Centers, less Business Centers. Design leading businesses.
Build a proper Art School. Uplift the notion of being a designer. We need design maestros.
Brand innovation as a culture rather than an approach. Creativity is never an algorithm.
Gather tribes to promote innovation, TED.
Put a designer in every business meeting.
Design thinking with T-shape employees.
Encourage Validity over Reliability. Take risks. Fail forward.
Advocate design consultancies.
Government to rally in.
Involve the SMEs.

Please leave your comments, if any.

The meanings behind

Saturday was another COPE Saturation visitation to Toa Payoh households and dropping leaflets door-to-door. We are informing the elderly of an up-coming CNY activity. Saturations are labour intensive and time consuming. It involves patience and leg power (not every floor has a lift stop). We want to inform all elderly living across 12 HDB blocks.

Saturations also allow me to observe many gates and doors of HDB households. Yesterday brought me to the doorsteps of about 210 households. From the months of Saturations I have done, a total count of about 1500. None really stood out in their designs but I made some interesting observations.

Each of these gates represent a variety of different design patterns, materials and shapes. What draws me to them are the different modifications that majority of owners made to their doors and gates. For example, one would attach plastic panels at the bottom third of their gate to keep dirt out. Another would use a mesh to keep the pet dog from getting too adventurous. Another plastered the entire gate with clear plastic panels to keep flyer distributors like me out.

What I found was that each of these owners have attached different personal meaning(s) to their gates. The variations are rather astonishing. Their chosen and after sale modifications reflected their own taste, culture, religion and personal messages.

As a consultant, who is advising my clients on their brands and products, this is the exact perspective of attaching meanings to products which I would like my clients to position their offerings. A milk brand should not be just claiming it has high calcium and low fat (like everyone else). Perhaps a graceful way of aging?

The challenge I pose to gates and door manufacturers, does your design brief specifies 'salient' constraints like corrosion-free, stainless steel and 5 years warranty? Or are you looking at meanings that represent culture, family security, comfort and longevity etc? If it is the latter, you will have designed them quite differently. Also, be able to innovate new designs that differentiate yourself from competitors.

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The coolest tribe around

YAMI Yoghurt is arguably one of the most successful, soft serve, take away yoghurt brand in Singapore. It  delivers not only consistent products but also continous innovation in its range of localised flavours.

More importantly, YAMI marketers had started their own tribe or ardent fans which rank in the thousands today. Yes, they are possibly the 'coolest' tribe around in Singapore; The YAMI tribe. Here are more examples of their marketing strategies using some of the concepts I mentioned earlier like Brand Platform and Consumer Stardom. Drawn from their very own tribe influences to promote the brand!

Brand Platform: YAMI FaceBook Page, YAMI Twitter and even a recently launched YAMI Times for e-coupon cutouts and deals. A multi platform approach that singularly point towards creating buzz and talk for the brand. All these without spending tons of money on ads, ads, ads. Good job. 

Consumer Stardom: You can find these YAMILebrities displayed at their counters featuring their very own tribe members. She looks pretty hot in such a cool tribe. :)

Picture taken from YAMI Yoghurt FaceBook Page


I have got a small request. Can we have YAMI yoghurt that does not look like a regular soft serve ice-cream? Some innovation please? If  YAMI can reinvent their unique way of serving YAMI yoghurt, it will surely be another remarkable product like the cone pizza. Same product but different delivery, worth taking another look. Let YAMI tribe followers have more things to talk about the brand and hopefully spread the word. YAMI's future looks promising in the days to come, scoring in brand engagement.

Please leave your comments, if any.