How Lululemon, Starbucks And Google Boost Brand Engagement Though Community Retail

Retailers are rethinking ways in which they interact with shoppers, with 2023 marking an acceleration of brands experimenting to elevate the brick-and-mortar experience and create valuable interactions. One way to deliver a differentiated and attractive type of retail proposition is through in-person community engagement, a concept capturing a brand’s efforts to offer unique experiences and tailored product offerings to its local community.

Despite e-commerce continuing to grow, with 26% of transactions expected to take place online in 2024, physical retail is enjoying refreshed dynamism, with brands launching innovative concepts and store experiences to drive footfall and strengthen loyalty. With community at the heart of new brands’ strategy and new store launches, here are examples of how brands can revive neighborhoods, engage with local shoppers, bring their values to life and deliver differentiated experiences powered by humans.

Lululemon Drives Brand Awareness And Loyalty By Thinking Beyond Product Offering

Sports retailers seem to be ahead of the game when it comes to building engagement with their customers through their retail stores. From its beginnings, Lululemon started incorporating community events and engagement as part of its strategy to acquire and retain customers. By offering free yoga classes or monthly talks and events in its stores, Lululemon has stood out from the rest of its competitors to become an active, community-driven brand around the world. With a true “think global, act local” mindset, the brand has hosted yoga events across the markets where it is present, whether at the Royal Opera House in London, One Paseo in San Diego or in front of Hong Kong’s harbor, quickly giving it cult brand status.

Of course, showcasing these events on social media highly contributed to growing the brand’s popularity, and this combination of online and in-person engagement has created consistent and appealing brand equity that has gotten individuals who enjoy fitness to take advantage of the brand’s free events and instantly become part of its community. They also are given the opportunity to attend talks featuring speakers who talk about their health journey, helping attract interest and raise customer education about the connexion between health and fitness.

Overall, Lululemon is very much invested in offering more than athletic apparel to shoppers, sharing experiences focused on wellness and putting its stores at the core of its local community-building strategy, which has been one of the key pillars of its strong brand positioning and recognition. Research shows that 40% of shoppers become more loyal to a brand after participating in a brand activation or experience, highlighting the long-term strategic value of creating strong brand engagement. This is likely why other sports apparel brands such as Outdoor Voices in the U.S. and Sweaty Betty in the U.K. have taken inspiration from Lululemon by offering free yoga classes and community events to foster brand loyalty.

Starbucks Incorporates Local Community-Centric Values Into Brand Strategy

Back in 2015, Starbucks
SBUX
unveiled its Community Store Program, an initiative under which certain stores are brought to life to support economic and social activities in local communities. Now present across 150 locations, these community stores are designed to “create environments for Starbucks partners to connect with, engage and represent the communities they serve in unique ways around the world” according to a recent Starbucks post. They enable local residents to receive training, hire and serve individuals with disabilities, attend events and give back to local nonprofit organizations. Starbucks recently committed to opening 1,000 community stores across the globe by 2030, and create engaging experiences that are also more accessible, through new inclusive design standards meant to cater to the deaf, hard of hearing and sign language community. Each of these stores is currently designed to deliver a localized, relevant experience based on the community it is present it.

A few months ago, Starbucks opened its first “Signing Store” in Jakarta, Indonesia designed for the Deaf and hard of hearing community. Customers will be served by Deaf and hard of hearing baristas. They are also able to place orders using a writing tablet and interact through sign language lessons and coffee workshops in sign language. The space is designed to support and celebrate this community also thanks to an art mural painted by Deaf artist Indira Natalia and a large oval community table encouraging exchanges and conversations. This is just one of the many examples of how the coffee chain giant is leveraging its retail footprint to better serve local communities and create welcoming, engaging and inclusive spaces for individuals.

Google Uses Retail Design To Promote Community Engagement

Thinking beyond the sports and ready-to-drink coffee industries, any brand could rethink its physical stores to include more space designed for community building and engagement. Last year, Google
GOOG
opened its first neighborhood store in New York. On a Google post, the brand’s director of retail operations David Williams shared: “The Google Store Williamsburg will be the first of our “neighborhood stores,” offering similar hands-on experiences with our products and services as our flagship store, but in a more intimate setting that celebrates the unique neighborhood we’re in.” The location showcases art painted by a local artist, couches to lounge on and test Google products in an at-home environment, desk stations that offer various services and areas designed to welcome events and workshops.

Since the end of covid, shoppers are looking both for a sense of togetherness as well unique and engaging brand experiences. Putting a new spin to retail spaces by creating sections in store that are people-centric rather than product-focused facilitates community-build and is set to boost brand equity, loyalty and organic growth, and acts as a great way to compete with e-commerce. Brands must be comfortable with the idea that not every square meter will deliver immediate ROI, but that creating new types of interactions with customers will eventually drive conversion and retention.