Enhancing The In-Store Experience

The Challenge

With the beauty category leaning hard into DTC lately, a cult cosmetics brand with an eye on global expansion sees some serious opportunity elsewhere. This brand came to The Sound to help optimize its free-standing store experience and to identify if it could be further enhanced to appeal to the needs of a coveted audience––Make-Up Junkies. 

The Approach

If you know someone obsessed with make-up, you know they know their stuff. In order to dig into what makes them tick, we carried out immersive shop-along interviews with these Make-Up Junkies in Los Angeles to understand people’s initial perceptions of the stores––and identify which areas were eliciting excitement, as well as which areas could work even harder for the brand.

We then facilitated focus group discussions to deep dive into brand perceptions, explore the changing dynamics around what ‘professional’ means to the category (surprise! it’s different from what you might expect), and explore reactions to a new range of ideas and services, designed especially with the Make-Up Junkie in mind.

The Impact

Our research helped the brand identify the core values to leverage in their free standing stores to inspire and better connect with their target audience. We also developed a framework for the brand to evaluate new in-store services and fixtures moving forward.