Now trending: Why Google, Netflix and Buzzfeed are embracing the physical store

For social media and editorial brands, a fine-tuned physical retail offering provides the chance to keep their brands front of mind for users – even while they are not on their phones.

The brands not only benefit from this in-person experience, but also from the demand for product ranges they are confident their shoppers will want to see. This is made easier by the fact that sites such as Google have collected swathes of data on those who frequently log on to their sites.

Doug Stephens, futurist at Retail Prophet, says: “Physical stores become a really great platform for storytelling about your [media] brand that you don’t have the opportunity to do online – to actually capture a consumer’s attention in a physical space.” 

“Media companies now are looking for new revenue streams to grow,” adds Mike Chapman, partner and Americas media lead in the communications, media and technology practice of Kearney. “One of the first areas they are exploiting more is data and their intelligence on the consumer. The second is their ability to create experiences.”

Selling the dream

This also becomes particularly relevant when a media brand expands beyond its online platform into selling products.

Stephens adds that commanding a physical space gives online media brands the chance to “expose the consumer to the full ecosystem of products you carry”.

While not all media brands will be confident enough to dive into a permanent outlet immediately, despite detailed knowledge of their users, the larger players have gained insights from first investing in pop-ups.

Last year, Google unveiled its first permanent store in New York City after years of temporary space and offers lessons to other brands on how to approach this next step. 

“Google gives us a good steer,” Stephens explains. “Google [experimented] for years with pop-up and temporary concepts if they had a particular product or line-up of products to bring to market.

“They were clearly experimenting to find out, what are the boundaries here, what can we do as a brand, where can we compete, what sort of retail experience would we launch?”

This knowledge resulted in the store today that focuses on creating settings where customers experiment with products in dedicated rooms, which Google’s vice-president of direct channels and membership Jason Rosenthal said allows visitors “to experience how our products and services work together in a variety of immersive ways”.

Netflix offers a different approach that brands can take to reach online subscribers offline. It has invested in licensing partnerships with retailers globally without having to create its own outlet. Its latest partnership is with George at Asda, with a flagship concession in the Milton Keynes branch.

Netflix benefits from these agreements as it provides fans with an opportunity to own a piece of the action after they finish binge-watching their latest favourite show. Similarly, the advantage of such collaborations for retailers is the broad array of shoppers that are compelled to visit stores to see – and purchase – the merchandise. 

George at Asda senior buying manager Scott Macrae says: “We see longevity in the partnership with Netflix as they have a mix of licences that all generations can enjoy and offer something for all the family.

“The range covers everything from fashion to board games and homeware as part of a multichannel proposition, which has broader appeal and offers greater accessibility to a wider range of customers.

Diversifying its offer and keeping Netflix at the front of consumers’ minds is now even more necessary after the streaming giant reported it lost 200,000 subscribers in its first quarter – its first decline in 10 years.

Travel retail

Editorial brands are also looking at travel hubs as areas for experimentation with new stores. It offers an opportunity to connect with a vast number of target consumers in one area to see what works – and what does not.

“Airports play well in terms of traffic; it may be travellers who are well off from an income standpoint,” Stephens says. “Airports desperately want different things. It’s the same cast of characters across airports.”

Buzzfeed has begun a long-term partnership in the US to open dedicated outlets selling travel supplies, snacks and magazines in American airports. For the media platform, its wealth of brands presents an opportunity to connect with consumers across all of their potential needs – something it can predict through data. 

Buzzfeed senior vice-president of consumer products Melanie Summers says: “Our brands can be represented really well through a convenience store. We have two strong news brands in HuffPost and BuzzFeed News; we also have two super-varied entertainment brands in BuzzFeed and Complex. And finally, and maybe most importantly at the airport, a great food brand in Tasty.

“We know what is trending and what people want and using our data we can help curate collections to bring together the items that consumers want, which means the offering in the store will change with the needs of the customer.”

“The airport stores felt like a natural place for BuzzFeed to have a presence. If you do a quiz with friends, you’re likely to be excited by seeing the BuzzFeed brand while waiting for your flight”

Melanie Summers, BuzzFeed

This detailed knowledge of what Buzzfeed readers want to eat, drink or read will create a new tailored airport retail experience for millennials. 

“Buzzfeed has a very technology-centric audience so an airport is a natural location to target those who are looking for products and services on the go to consume and, in some cases, are impulse buyers,” says Chapman.

For Summers, it was the obvious move: “The airport stores felt like a natural place for BuzzFeed to have a presence. If you do a quiz with friends on your lunch break at work, you’re likely to be excited by seeing the BuzzFeed brand while waiting for your flight.”

This is not the first time an editorial brand has used its knowledge to create a tailored retail experience.

Allure magazine opened a tech-driven store in New York last year that featured beauty products from 150 brands recommended by its editors.

This approach allows media brands to not only build relationships with their users, but also with the brands their readers are fans of.

Highsnobiety is following this strategy in Zurich airport by opening a store showcasing luxury goods for travellers. The online editorial platform explained in a statement: “Travel retail environments are full of luxury brands and products but none of them focus on the new generation of luxury consumers like we do.”

With Gen Z and millennials expected to make up 70% of the luxury market by 2025, according to Bain, this investment benefits Highsnobiety in creating relationships with these consumers, as well as the brands they favour.

Beyond sales

Some of the physical spaces that leading media moguls have inhabited are not focused on selling a product but on bringing the online experience into an offline space.

When Westfield revealed that it would host a TikTok For You House pop-up last year, shoppers wondered how a video-sharing platform could make a mark in a physical space. 

Harita Shah, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s marketing director for UK and creative, media, events and brand Europe, led the project and told Retail Week: “We look at what our consumers want and TikTok has become a huge phenomenon that people take inspiration from.

“The idea behind this really came in terms of us wanting to be able to bring a bit of the online into the offline space.”

The team then created a series of themed rooms based on content that users would typically film, providing tutorials from leading influencers and permitting visitors to create their own content around food, fashion or dance.

Netflix has also seen value in bringing the online content it creates to life in physical settings. To coincide with the release of the second season of Bridgerton, Netflix unveiled experiences in Los Angeles and London where fans donned gowns, learned to dance like the characters and even meet the queen, with tickets from £55. The experience will move to Washington, Chicago and Montreal, and is Netflix’s largest real-life event to date.

“You get so immersed in [shows] and then it’s over and then you have to wait for a whole production cycle,” says Lara Marrero, global leader of Gensler’s retail practice. “The next retail is not just looking at retail but giving an experience to those who consume media.

“It’s about how we take these movies and shows that we binge-watch and want nothing more than to experience, and then create a physical environment we can be part of,” she concludes. “[They can] draw footfall and be something that people will pay to have the experience of.”

For media brands, opening a physical presence brings the online connection honed for many years offline. It also allows them to use the data an online user willingly provides to offer the items or experiences the brand is confident they want to see. Focused hubs, such as airports, provide the footfall necessary to see if such an experiment can work. However, for media brands thinking of making the next step, building relationships with the brands their users are already excited about can boost the appeal of the store to consumers.