Shareable Retail Store Windows

Visibility on Instagram is increasingly crucial for brands. So how can Instagram influence brands’ retail store windows?

Just like people, brands want likes and shares. Every like or share creates an organic link to targeted customers and high organic rates are the most effective and compelling way to advertise. The brands that recognize this opportunity use the power of shareable store windows to raise their prestige and to reach potential customers. A brand should express its identity in its store window, an initial point of contact with customers. If the narrative a brand expresses in its window reflects your tastes, then you would like to shop there. 

Like brands, individuals also have virtual windows where they express their stories and it is called Instagram. We create our profiles by sharing the things that express our identity.

What if a brand understands its customers so well that it can create an Instagram window that expresses their tastes perfectly? Then, when they see it on Instagram, their fingers will click on the share button to express their tastes through that brand’s window. These shares rapidly reach thousands of potential customers similar to us because each person tends to follow people similar to themselves. Isn’t that great?!

So, what should brands do to create readily shareable windows?

1) Instead of using all your materials choose one, strong message at a time and use a theme appropriate for your customer segment. 

2) Avoid thinking product-centered designs; strive to find the common ground for your brand and your customers’ identity.

3) No one will share a window composed of clothes. Give them more than mannequins and clothes. Turn your windows into an art statement.  

4) Use the right lighting and enliven the window with color. 

5) Support your organic content with sponsored ones. 

For a successful example of shareable windows, take a look at COS’s collaboration with Snarkitecture in California. Snarkitecture experiments with art and architecture. With insightful understanding of the COS brand, Snarkitecture developed an attractive instore design for COS stores using cutout silhouettes of COS brand clothes. Customers were drawn to take selfies with the silhouettes and, with one click, instantly share their experience on Instagram and, with the hashtags, the posts reached thousands of potential customers. 

With such vision, blending art and creativity, brands use store windows to make statements about their identities. With Instagram, great windows can reach beyond the streets to virtually anywhere.