If you build it, they will come.
That may have been the mantra behind the reincarnation of Clinique’s new counter at Macy’s Herald Square, which was unveiled Thursday morning to much fanfare—complete with a DJ mixing tunes and dozens of brand consultants transforming faces with Clinique’s foundations, lipsticks and eye makeup.
Anthony Battaglia, Vice President of Global Retail Design and Visual Merchandising for Clinique, said that as the largest grossing beauty counter in the world, the state-of-the-art space needed to have all the bells and whistles to capture the attention of the store’s 20 million annual visitors.
“This was a brand-building effort for Clinique globally. And, we knew we had to reinvent ‘Service As You Like It’,” Anthony said, referring to Clinique’s customer service initiative launched in 2009.
The 620 square-foot space, which staffs between 20 to 25 brand consultants at a time, has been designed to compartmentalize all of the different products within Clinique’s portfolio in distinct spaces to make them easy to shop, browse and interact. And, consultants are armed with iPad minis—it’s a part of their uniform, along with their classic white lab coats—so information is at their fingertips, literally, at all times.
Some of the Clinique counter’s new features include a Pencil Bar stocked with Clinique Chubby Stick Moisturizing Lip Colour Balms, Quickliner for Lips and Chubby Stick Shadow Tint for Eyes.
Then there’s an LED, high-definition six-screen video wall showcasing various elements of the brand in multi-languages. Below the screens are Clinique’s new Storytelling Units which are designed to tell the brand’s stories regarding the treatment of pore refinement, spot correcting, brightening and lines and wrinkles. Also here is the evolution of Clinique’s Skin Diagnostic Tool on an iPad (available in nine languages) to provide product prescriptions based on one’s skin type and skin concerns. The prescription of recommended products prints out on the spot, and can also be emailed as a gentle reminder of what should be bought for the next shopping trip.
A Men’s Bar offers Clinique’s blossoming selection of men’s items; a Happy Bar serves as a one-stop for the fragrance’s loyal customer base; and a Sexy Neutrals Bar offers varying nude sku’s for different skin tones, along with how-to-apply videos that can even be emailed and viewed at home.
Check-out has been made more seamless, too.
“Clinique is an accessible brand so there are lots of transactions. But we didn’t want there to be registers in the middle of the makeup,” Anthony said, so registers have been supplanted on either side of the counter, along the busy alleyways of the department store’s cosmetics department.
Materials such as polished stainless steel, lacquered wood, stone and Corian comprise the fixtures within the new counter area, things often found at a home, a word Anthony said he had in mind when designing the area.