Table of content

Introduction and Foreword......................................................................................................... 3

Project Team..................................................................................................................................... 4

Concept – Background Information.......................................................................................... 5A brief and clear outline of the problem...................................................................................................5A brief and clear outline of a future scenario........................................................................................6Vision....................................................................................................................................................................... 7A short and clear description of strategic choices...............................................................................8

A representation of the target group in the form of a Persona........................................9

The concept..................................................................................................................................... 10Concept: sustainable...................................................................................................................................... 11Concept: family focused................................................................................................................................ 13Concept: technology....................................................................................................................................... 16Concept: art exterior...................................................................................................................................... 18

Storytelling:..................................................................................................................................... 20Experience tools............................................................................................................................................... 23

Offline and Online Channel – Promotional Mix...................................................................24The Multiverse................................................................................................................................................... 25“OMNIYOU Application for smartphone devices”..............................................................................25

Bibliography................................................................................................................................... 26

A. Krause, F. Maulana, A. de Reus, C. Silva & N. Tempelaars

Project 2.1 -

Sinnovative – Retail 2020 Almere

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Introduction and Foreword

Retail shopping is the selling of goods and services through physical store and online to a diverse market of consumers. Nowadays the growing number of online shopping has a tremendous impact on the consumer shopping behavior. Because of this, many physical stores are facing problems since consumers are now buying certain goods through online shopping. Well-known brands and chains stores are adjusting the demand of e-commerce. Furthermore, consumers are seeking for an experience when they are making these purchases.

Almere is a newly developed city in the province of Flevoland, Netherlands. It had its pioneer inhabitants from 1975 and before that Almere was an area of water. Currently, the city of Almere is facing a problem with its retailing industry since there are two retail areas, which are the new shopping district developed by two French investor UniBail Rodamco and Klepierre and the old shopping area with a Dutch investor, Corió Group. There is a visible difference between the two areas since the French investors are aiming to serve five stars hospitality and services while on the other hand the Dutch investor are building the retail area for a functional purpose with minimal services.

Furthermore, since Almere is located 20 minutes away from Amsterdam, its inhabitants prefer to shop in Amsterdam due to higher diversity in brands and better shopping experience. The task for project group Sinnovative of Leisure Management Inholland Diemen was to get better insights in various macro and meso level trends to be able to develop a concept, which can be, deliver to the commissioning clients that are Urban Solution and Nederlandse Raad van Winkelcentra (NRW).

The goal of this report is to advise the commissioning clients of a possible concept that can be implemented for the city of Almere. The project group Sinnovative has conducted in-depth desk research and field research in Almere and Amsterdam to make a comparison. Furthermore, the report contains a target group analysis and consumer values to understand and focus on the concept to a particular segmented market. In addition, the group adds in a description of “customer journey” that illustrates of how will the target group experience the new retail concept of Almere.

To conclude, Sinnovative intend that this report will be beneficial for the commissioning client to get another perspective of how to create a prominent shopping experience that are efficient, feasible and profitable for the inhabitants of Almere as well as the investors.

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Project Team

Firly MaulanaProject Leader 521743

Annabella de ReusCommunicator537869

Alina Krause Project Secretary 536499

Christelle SilvaProject Planner523625

Niels TempelaarsProject Archivist 525984

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Concept – Background Information

A brief and clear outline of the problemThe commissioning client, Urban Solutions is a city and shopping centre marketing specialist, which has approached the Leisure Management students of the Hogeschool Inholland, in order to come up with an innovative concept for the city center of Almere since they are facing several issues. Although shopping remains popular leisure activity among consumers (Inholland), the other hand, increasingly more retail premises are being vacated. Consumers are purchasing more and more online (Inholland). Almere is a relatively new city which had its first inhabitant in 1975. Because of the recent formation, Almere is famous for its known architecture. On the other hand, Almere has no history and therefore lacks in first position in social relationship, atmosphere and coziness. This is why the city marketing department of Almere has approached new ways in order to make Almere more attractive for the Dutch population. Obviously there has been also a big demographical shift among the Dutch population. By 2006, the majority of people on earth will live in urban centres – the number of megacities, defined as urban centres of 10 million or more, is projected to grow to 26 in 2015 (Solomon,Askegaard and Bamossy). This means that most of the consumers go do their shopping into the big cities whereby all facilities can be found on one place. Almere is a suburb and only located 20 minutes away from Amsterdam. In fact, 30 % of the inhabitants of Almere are from Amsterdam, since the prices for living are constantly increasing. But still this doesn’t explain the fact why the inhabitants of Almere spend most of their leisure time outside of Almere, meaning the big cities of the Netherlands. Almere has a new and modern shopping district, which still remains empty. The crucial question is, what has to be undertaken so that the own inhabitants of Almere stay in their area of Flevoland, specifically Almere?

This can be associated with the fact that in our recent economy has been a shift from service economy to experience economy. A process of dematerialization has begun in which the consumer values the experience more than the possession of the product from the market offering. In addition, firms to differentiate their offers, beyond simply making and delivering services, they are creating and managing customer experiences with their products or company (Kotler, Armstrong and Wong). As a consequence, Almere lacks in offering experiences. A city like Amsterdam attracts their consumer through an experience of culture and history combining it with leisure.

In addition, has the VVV Almere Tourist information informed about the fact, that Almere’s new shopping district is organized in a well structured manner. In other words, the shopping district is categorized in different facility sections. The restaurants can be finding all on one spot while the shops are on a different spot. This may appear to be well structured, but could result for the daily consumer as unusual since in the big cities there is a big mix of shops, facilities, leisure and culture. As a consequence, it’s deducted that the problem of Almere is, that it’s too structured. Customers who take a journey out to Amsterdam find

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themselves doing shopping first, and are being seduced by some fries right next door. In Almere this mix of functions is not presented.

Lastly, digitalization has made its way to the consumer. Cash is being substituted by electronically payments and Smartphones and Apps play an important role in the everyday life. But also, has the revolution of the internet brought up that the consumer, after he or she has recognized the need of a certain product or service, he or she usually starts the customer journey on the Internet. With the Internet online shopping was born and now it’s impossible to image a word without a business being active on both online and offline channels. Because of that, the commissioning client wants to know how to make various offline and online channels available. The answer can be found by adding experience and more effectively matching the needs of the consumer (Inholland).

To conclude, the retail industry is experiencing difficult times (Inholland). But nevertheless, Almere is willing to adapt to the constant changing and complex environment.

A brief and clear outline of a future scenario Sinnovative is concerned about the fact that the target group of Almere is not as technologically advanced as other big cities in the Netherlands. Still Sinnovative believes that until 2020 Almere will have made a huge progress in the field of technology, not only will the target group be up-to-date, added to this, the city will have been gone through a technological improvement and be by then the most modern city of the Netherlands. As the project is focused on the field of retail, the driving force will therefore be related to shopping. But still, this driving force is very unpredictable but has a high impact on Almere as well as the work of Sinnovative. As a consequence, the chosen force is: increase and decrease in e-commerce.

Besides, the e-commerce had a huge success because the internet revolution has produced that many consumers start shopping online. This is caused because online shopping is comfortable, easy and sometimes even cheaper because the costs are less than a physical store. And nowadays the recession has caused many consumers to cut down on costs. Although the Netherlands finds itself in a stabile healing process, it’s still very unpredictable what will financially wise happen. Therefore the chosen driving force is: increase and decrease in e-commerce.

DECREASE IN E-COMMERCE + INCREASE IN WEALTH: the experience factor On the first square, it’s displayed that online shopping will become less and the consumer will value the direct contact with the physical store. In addition, there will be more shops available because of the increase in wealth, which will accelerate demand and offering. Furthermore, e-commerce sales were just 6.4 percent of total retail sales for the second quarter of this year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, up from just 5.8 percent the same period 2013 (Heller). In other words, the consumer will start his costumer journey in a shop rather than online. This can also be explained because it’s easier to create an experience at a physical shop than creating a flow throughout a complete online experience. Added to this, shopping has become a more social activity. The consumer enjoys

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a beer after he’s done with his functional shopping or the family enjoys a dinner out after a long day of purchasing cloth for the kids. Lastly, the increase in wealth boosts the client to demand for higher quality in exchange for a higher price.

INCREASE IN E-COMMERCE + INCREASE IN WEALTH: the digital super consumerCo-creation will develop mass customisation for many targeted consumers. The consumer starts his costumer journey usually on the internet since most of the sales happen on cross channel commerce. This means, that the consumer recognizes a need but consults first the offers on the internet before starting his way to the shop. In many cases he also opts for the version to having delivered the product at home since glocalisation is ever greater expanding. Added to this, the consumer is willing to spend more money on a higher quality product because wealth increases. Besides, the client wants a sense of exclusiveness added to the products or services, whereby co-creation enters again. In conclusion, the phone wallet becomes an easy purchase trap for many consumers but added to the mass customization, but yet the customer satisfaction remains high.

DECREASE IN WEALTH + DECREASE IN E-COMMERCE: the precision shoppingIn times of crisis, retailers have to make constant improvements on their customer relationship management to maintain trust among the consumers. The decrease in wealth causes that money isn’t loosely spent and the purchases are rather on necessities than luxurious goods. Added to this, the decision-making process has become more complex. The decisions are made more together as family and are also done on a more local scale. For example, the need of buying food is inevitable. The consumer wouldn’t survive without food, therefore it’s a necessity. But on the other hand, quality plays a less important role. The consumer enters in a local supermarket or buys food directly on the market. Hereby the negotiation also can benefit the consumer. Customer relationship management again, is becoming increasing importantly since the remaining consumers are easier to reach than new clients.

INCREASE IN E-COMMERCE + DECREASE IN WEALTH: the easy clickSince the e-commerce increases a lot of business will focus on selling online since it saves large amounts of fixed costs. In addition, will a lot of imitations be available in the market. This will make the consumer be actively purchasing for the constant cheapest price. Physical shops will become increasingly vacant and at the same time unemployment will continue to grow. Nevertheless, the retail sector will have to manage good their customer relationship management if they want to keep up the business.

VisionIn order to come up with the right vision we deliberately use different elements of brainstorming and multiple brainstorming sessions. At first we did the vision by handling it to one person of the group, eventually it did not went very well since the focus was more towards the city center itself and not to improve retail shopping experience. Problem analysis has significant importance towards a well-done vision; therefore our focus was more towards finding the right problem rather than focusing in finding the right vision. After problem analysis was made clearly, we derived an outcome for the vision and mission.

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“Almere city, the shopping experience of tomorrow”

Consequently, our vision was focused on retail shopping experience, because that is the main aspect that Almere actually wants to improve. It is also to make the shopping center attractive and therefore make the residence of Almere interested in spending more time in the city center. This was a clear vision for the commissioning client since we make it simple and understandable. The way in which we derived the final outcome of the vision was by using Diverge-Converge Method. This method was applied during the brainstorming session, and ideas were also given by the fourth year students to come up with the final outcome. The divergent session was all about giving ideas, no matter how ridiculous it was, therefore from that on as a whole we chose which one suits the problem that we are currently facing. The driving forces that we chose for Scenario Method, made the vision more visible because it suits our problem and future scenario that might arise. By having the suitable vision, we then see feasibility of the vision and therefore mission was made based upon the vision. Our mission is stated as follow:

“By 2020 the shopping district of Almere will be transformed into an artistic, colorful, and sustainable community”

This mission in this case was derived partially by the feedback we received from the consultant/dragon’s den. The feedback made us think clearly that the concept should not be complicated and futuristically advance, but it should be simple, understandable, and yet innovative. Throughout the whole brainstorming session, the ideas that were taken were mostly the simplest ideas yet it gives a great outcome.

A short and clear description of strategic choices First of all, Sinnovative believes that in the next years there will be an overall increase in wealth as well as in e-commerce since technology continually advances and electronic devices become cheaper. Therefore, from the future scenario analysis, ‘the digital super consumer’ was chosen as point of departure. Added to this, Almere is already architecturally advanced, the mix in technology and the fact that the city is relatively new, make it attractive to add more technological revolutions to the city and thus the shopping district.

Added to this, the problem analysis and the future

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scenarios, result in that Sinnovative choose ‘the digital super consumer’ as point of departure for the innovative retail concept for Almere. Besides, Almere was recently formed, in 1975 and yet remains to be a small city, still hundreds of hectares of nature and water had to be removed and destroyed to build a place where humans can live. Although, Almere is completely surrounded by a green landscape and water, humanity and technology expand every day more. This fact will be taken into consideration, added to the trend that sustainability plays an ever important role to the society. Last but not least, the goal of Sinnovative is to make the shopping district lively and differently, hereby attracting mostly the inhabitants of Almere but as well consumers of other cities throughout the development of a unique and contrasting experience.

The shopping district will be transformed into a distinctive retail experience, being by 2020 the most modern shopping district of the Netherlands. In addition, co-creation will be added. Therefore shopping becomes a whole new adventure. It will be an experience easily applicable to the current retail. Because Almere is already famous for its unique architectural buildings and the non available Multifunctionality will be seen as an advantage to being different as other shopping district. As a result, Almere will be transformed into a strong recognisable differentiation from other shopping districts of the Netherlands, making hereby the differentiation strategy as its advantage.

A representation of the target group in the form of a Persona

Marieke Female - 34 years old Single Mother Works part time at a Housing Agency

Marieke is a recently divorced woman with one son. She works at a housing agency as a broker. Marieke is a hard-working woman that likes to spend more on a product to get high quality standards. In her free time she likes to spend time with her son and take him to the park. She enjoys the occasional wine and dines out with her friends and relatives. Marieke graduated from a Hogeschool in Amsterdam. She and her son moved to Almere to get a nice, quiet and family friendly atmosphere. Marieke strives for success and the well being of her son. She is very involved in social media and the current trends due to her job that requires her to promote vacant houses.

Anton Male, 28 years old

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Lives together with his girlfriend and newborn daughter Assistant Manager at Hugo Boss

Anton is Dutch born Surinamese who lives in the Netherlands since he was 2 years old. He grew up with Dutch and Surinamese culture. He lives in Almere since he was still an infant and now he moved in with his girlfriend and daughter. Anton works at Hugo Boss Amsterdam and travels to Almere where he resides. His girlfriend is a stay at home mother since his daughter is still a couple of months old. Anton enjoys sports such as football and he enjoys house music. Anton never left Almere because he likes the cozy atmosphere. He however shops in Amsterdam because he thinks Almere does not offer many product varieties. Anton is into technological products such as Play Station, Smartphones and Tablets.

The concept

Before the changes Almere was a grey city with a lack of atmosphere. Besides of this fact, Almere is composed of an older and a new part which makes the city doesn’t feel connected and decreases the coziness. The shops are really big and there are no authentic shops. In addition, the separated area of shopping and restaurants makes the area being even less attractive. Moreover there are no activities and the feeling of life is missing. As a consequence, the inhabitants of Almere leave to shop in the Leisure City Amsterdam.

With the new concept the city will be different than other popular cities in the Netherlands. By making it the city of tomorrow, people will go to Almere to perceive a new way of shopping experience. As soon the customers enter Almere city center they will see a big board where they can find all the shops they need and in which direction they need to head. It does not matter how they come to Almere whether it’s by train, bus or car. As soon as they have decided where to go a light path will lead them where they want to go. This is already something new and the customers really will like it, but also the fact that the buildings are not any longer one color but that some roof tops have been changed in different colors makes the city feel cozier. Of course the architecture in Almere was already new and quite spectacular but the added glass roofs to stop the wind are seen as a spectacular improvement, it’s almost art. Next to that the old grey and boring stairs above the parking lots have all different kind of paintings on it. Those are made by locals and therefore customers will feel a certain connection to the city and district evolving the feeling of that everybody is welcome there. Also the Cherry Blossom tree park will give the customers a welcome feeling; normally they see those parks only in movies and now it’s really there in the Netherlands. Next to that normal trees are wearing something similar to a ‘tree shirt’, of course this is similar to the trend wild knitting but this is still different because now the whole trees are wearing a shirt. Besides all the new things the customers still can shop at Almere, with the new OmniYou app, the customer is up-to-date about where to find the discounts as well as background information behind the products. Additionally, the customers now will also have the choice between brands and authentic shops. The pop-up stores make the shopping in Almere adventurous because every time the customers can

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explore new shops with new products. Furthermore the problem of going to the toilet while shopping is also covered; the consumers are challenged in mirror glass toilet on going to the toilet. As all the shops close at 18:00, the solutions is that every two weeks there will be a light show which will be for free, so people can after their shopping day enjoy the beautiful light shows which are normally only available in big cities or on special occasions. Added to this, the food fairs will offer a lot of food from different nationalities, which will give consumers the opportunity to meet new people and talk about something which is interesting for both parties. Since in Almere there are a lot of young families, the new playground would make also for the very young guests, Almere really enjoyable. Finally, there is a place where mothers and kids can have both a nice day out.

Customers will come back to Almere because of all the different elements involved and they feel welcome to the artistic co-creation city. There are much more elements now available and Almere will no longer be a grey city with only the Primark. It will grow to be the city with the newest technologies and spectacular architecture reflected by light shows. The visit to Almere’s shopping district makes the consumer stay longer in the area and thereby also the spending increases. Overall Almere will be a unique, welcoming and enjoyable shopping experience. The following will give a better overview of the four pillars of Almere shopping district:

Concept: sustainable

Wind turbinesAlmere is already a city with hard wind blowing towards the direction of the city center. In this concept, Wind turbine will be useful to implement since we will generate an increase in use of electricity with the use of colorful lights, walking paths with lights, and also the projection of visual onto buildings. Most definitely this will have lots of influence in the electricity that Almere generate in the future. As a trend of sustainability, Almere needs to think more environmentally friendly both in the use of electricity and its retail impact towards the environment. These wind turbines are considered the most suitable for towns with high velocity of wind, such as Almere. Freestanding mini wind turbines generate electricity from wind striking the turbine. When installed in urban locations with high average wind speeds (>5 m/sec), a 5kWe turbine can produce around 10,000kWh annually. (Harrison, 2008)

Urban landscaping: flower district

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Almere should plant more trees in its city center surroundings; especially in the new shopping district area that barely have any decoration that gives a welcoming atmosphere. According to the problem analysis, Almere is lacking in atmosphere that welcome people to go around and spend time for shopping. Therefore, in the concept of sustainable Flower district is one of the aspects that give an added value in shopping experience. The Netherlands are famous for its beautiful flowering plants; if Almere could apply this

into their shopping center it would give them a welcoming aroma of flowers. It would also show a possibility of having flower stores in the area. This will give multifunction for the specific area, as big brand retail shop will combine authentic flower stores.

Cherry Blossom ParkIn the area of where the market is situated currently, cherry blossom trees will remove it and the market will be change into a pop up market (as explained in the family friendly concept section. This will definitely create an iconic landmark for Almere. Most definitely, it important to focus on customer shopping experience, by having cherry blossom tree the city center would not look dull anymore. Cherry blossom tree will give sense of eye-catching beauty that gives added value for both residence and visitors. Moreover, it will show differently color changing through the 4 seasons. Even visitors from other cities would be willing to visit Almere, if these sorts of plantations are present in the city center. The Cherry blossom tree has been known to attract many visitors, both in Asia such as Japan or Europe such as Germany.

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TreesGreen trees are also another aspect that would give an added value towards the shopping district. Since Almere city center is situated above an enormous parking lot, there is no soil present under the paving stones. It would be a possibility to put tree in big pots to support stand in the middle of shopping district. To support the Art section of concept, Tree-Shirt will present in every tree standing in the district. It would be constantly change according to theme of the season. This will also give a sense of pleasant atmosphere for the customer to see different color present in the shopping area, both during the day and during the evening. Tree-Shirt as we call it will be simple to put on and will cost fairly cheap. The concept as of this section will be visualized as following

Concept: family focused

Almere City Mall will be a place where families with different cultural background can come together for an unforgettable experience. The theme of Almere is ‘connection’ and therefore, the family and community must be embraced.

The envisaged dream goes as followed:

When the Almere family residents go shopping at the Almere City Mall, everyone can benefit from this wonderful day trip. Mothers can buy a Kartopia Express card (Kartopia)which partners up with Rituals, in which will offer the mothers a wonderful day at the Ritual massage spa(Ritualscosmetics) while their children can go have fun at the workshops provided by the Kartopia daycare facility.

Almere city has large multi-cultural background residents in which families are very important and therefore this ‘family comes first’ mentality has been

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incorporated. Any other Friday, meaning every 2 weeks, there will be a ‘food tent fair’. This food tent festivals will consist of different tents with different food of different countries e.g. Dutch, Surinamese, Moroccan, Turkish, former Dutch islands, Spanish, Indonesian cuisine and much more. Families can come to this festival where they can be sure to meet up with their long lost friends as they can indulge in some of their nostalgic cuisines.

As grownups can sit around to eat and have interesting conversation with neighbors and friends their children from ages 4-8 can play at the well fenced and safe playground at the Esplanade square.

Due to the heavy traffic that this event creates it benefits all store owners in this whole area. By this, other family members can go and watch a movie at Utopolis while mother sits and chats with her long time no-see best friends.

In the Almeerse Weerwater lake in front of the Utopia Island, a giant yellow rubber duck can be seen. This rubber duck has been a huge success in different cities such as e.g. Hong Kong, China and Florence, Italy. The rubber duck started with the mission to make people smile more often which later became a huge city marketing tool.

This Rubber duck will be at the Almeerse Weerwater 2 times a week, where everyone (Inbound International tourism and Domestic tourism) can come and visit Almere to take pictures and to share it with their contacts. At the same time families can bring their little ones to see this giant yellow rubber duck to bring their best smiles to live with a unique experience.

This event can also be ideal for fathers who don’t want to be in the middle of women’s conversations can easily have a walk to Media Markt (De Media Markt)or Dixons to see all the new electronics available. Seeing that this event is located at the end of the shopping district, it obligates most of the families to walk all the way through the city before having to reach it. This overall experience creates the heavy traffic in the shopping district. In other words, this event will make visitors stay longer in the city where they would have more opportunities to walk around and window shop on their own pace as their kids are being watched or taken care of.

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By having all these wonderful activities and modern/fun experience atmosphere, why shop in Amsterdam if you have Citymall Almere?! This is the new City mall Almere’s map which includes all the new facilities.

(Berijkbaarheid en Openingstijden: Plattegrond)

Concept: technology The advanced technology has changed the way people shop and purchases their products. Technology makes it easier for people to shop; one example is online shopping. Since Internet is cheaper than it was 10 years ago everyone is connected to the “online” world. People are constantly on their phones to check social medias, read the news and even to purchase clothes online. Nowadays, retailers whether it is a clothing brand or an electronic shop, they must adapt to the progress society that is having a ‘mobile’ version of their website. This enables customer to review the product and purchase something when they are on the go.

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iBeacon offer personalized shopping experience

Today, retailers are facing another challenge, the development of iBeacon. iBeacon is an application that uses the Bluetooth technology to send signals to a phone, tablet or laptop. The signal is transmitted from a small hardware that is attached to a wall or a counter top. The well-known shopping district in London, Regent Street has utilized iBeacon since the beginning of 2014 (Marketingweek, 2014). Other district that uses iBeacon is Brixton in South London. Regent Street and Brixton utilize iBeacon as a way to enhance shopping experience for its customers. iBeacon makes it easy for customer to shop since it notify people around the vicinity of the Bluetooth with personalized offer, discounts, contactless payment, enables shopper to check a product review online and even give advice on additional product accessories (Skinner, 2014).

As seen from the image above, iBeacon enable shoppers to have “contactless payment”

Sinnovative revolves around the idea of advance technology and “futuristic” concept in its upcoming project for Almere shopping area. By 2020, Sinnovate will develop a mobile application that is one step ahead than iBeacon. This is due to the fact that iBeacon is only available for Apple and iOS users. Sinnovative will introduce OMNIYOU; it operates with Bluetooth technology with a range of 80 meters. OMNIYOU enable users to write a review of

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products, receive personalized offers and discounts and create contactless payment. What unique about OMNIYOU is that it works on restaurants and bars too. Users can create an account to modify and tailored the products that they are interested in or the cuisines, which they prefer. This is to avoid receiving unnecessary information that can lead to “spamming”. OMNIYOU values easier life for its community because everything is one click away. Furthermore, OMNIYOU when users register to an account, they can choose three payments options, which are IDEAL, Paypal and Credit Card. Sinnovative envision Almere to be the city of tomorrow that allow its citizen to move freely in the city with one button away.

Furthermore, Sinnovative believes in developing the artistic side of Almere. The city is known to have a few contemporary architectural designs and Sinnovative wants to implement further structure to Almere. Since Almere is known to be a windy city, it would benefit its inhabitants and visitors to have a minimalistic roof that protect them from harsh weathers. As seen from the image, the area is shielded with weatherproof glass but it also allows the sun to shine the area. Moreover, one of the problems in Almere is it lacks urban landscaping. By adding small fishponds, trees and flowers, it creates a sense of harmony and connection to nature. The city that is grey will have laid-back ambience yet still sophisticated, contemporary and modern.

Concept: art exterior

The city center nowadays is grey and there is a lack of atmosphere. To create a new experience Sinnovative has created a new concept. A part of this concept will be adding art. Almere is a new city and has therefore really interesting architectures. However the citizens are not that modern and for them the architecture is not possible, therefore Sinnovative wants to add the feeling of being home. To create this and stimulate the creative process in Almere, a few projects will be set up related to art.

The first project will be, to make the main shopping building more colorful. However not all the buildings as the design of the architecture contain a lot of wood but the part across the cinema is composed of stone. These roofs are either only stone color or like above the apple center and Rituals the color is black. By adding some color to those buildings customers will feel more at happy since not everything is grey anymore.

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(Gharieni shop) (Almere city marketing)

The second project will be to create some extra color to the shopping district by giving the steps from above the parking slot an artificial design. The steps will not just be painted by the municipality but by local artists. (Light FestivalGhent 2012)

The third projects will be combined with the technological developments. Sinnovative wants to create something special during the evening, so people also come by night to the city. Also this project is based on making the city more colorful, this will be done by adding visual building projection. So by night the buildings will light up into beautiful colors. Citizens and visitors of Almere can enjoy this together with the lightshow to have a special evening out.

(Light festival Berlin 2014)

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The fourth project will be to add some more architectural items to the shopping district, but not just useless items. They have nowadays already the roofs with glass, these are there to stop the wind. It looks already but Sinnovative wants to improve this and give the atmosphere an extra boost. The glass roofs will be improved by more architectural pillars. See the picture below for an example.

Moreover arts will be combined with daylight. It’s the same kind of concept as the glass roof but then not with glass.

(Pinterest, project 2.1) (Pinterest, project 2.1)

Storytelling:

It is the beginning of autumn and the rainy days have come. Jeroen and Mirjam, a lovely couple from Almere, who is spending most of their weekend in Amsterdam, have now realized how developed the city is currently. They feel the need of having a whole day roaming around the city center of Almere,

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since most of their day outs are spend outside the city. Jeroen and Mirjam also have some extra money to be spent, since they just received their monthly salary. Jeroen and Mirjam start the journey from the central station as they have just got back from their work in Amsterdam. Since both do not have clue about the city center that much, they went towards the big information board that is easily understood by people. This information board looks similar to the boards in Disney Land or The Efteling, which has lots of images that explains where each stores located, each food corner, Pop-up stores, supermarket, yet also location of current events that is happening in Almere. Therefore, Jeroen and Mirjam take a look at information board and briefly think what do they currently need.

Then, they come up with the need of having a new pair of jacket, jeans and formal shirts. As they walk towards the direction of the new city center of Almere, they step on the paving stones that actually light up as they stepped on it. Jeroen and Mirjam were so amazed, and never knew that this actually exists in Almere. As they walk further towards the inner city, they see very tall

futuristic roof pillars, which they usually see from their house. They also discovered colorful lights on top of them, lighting up the beautiful pillars and seems as a fireflies flying above them. Upbeat and relaxing music brings them along the way, as the light guides them throughout their journey. Jeroen and Mirjam mostly like the fact that during this visit, they see pop-up stores and pop-up food stands all over the shopping area. This multifunctional shopping give them best shopping experience, they even forgot what they actually want to buy in the shopping center. They even started to think of having a child, due to the extraordinary children playground. Jeroen and Mirjam never really thought that Almere city center is actually that innovative and futuristic beyond their expectations.

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All of a sudden after drinking a lot of beers from the pop-up food fair, Jeroen has an urge to urinate. After taking the brochure of the map, he found the toilet at the end of the shopping district near Utopolis. At first, Jeroen tries to look closely at the map and could not find the toilet because it looks like a cube mirror. Finally after asking people passing by, they said that the mirror is the toilet. Jeroen was so surprised because he never thought a public bathroom could look like that. When he went inside, Jeroen was shocked again because from the inside the bathroom look transparent, as if someone could see him from outside. In

fact, the person who is able to see is the person inside the bathroom not outside. Jeroen just brace himself to take his first leak in a see through public bathroom. As they daylight was turning dark, unexpectedly Utopolis became a huge beautiful castle due to the building visual projection. People started to get together, and see the visual attraction changing its image from a beautiful castle to a wonderland. Jeroen and Mirjam have never realized how beautiful Almere city center is until they have seen it themselves.

As they roaming around the area of Utopolis, all of a sudden they see a park with pink looking trees. They have never seen it before, and they decide to take a look at the park. As they began to get closer, they started to touch the trees and the falling leafs to get the smell and feeling of it. Jeroen and Mirjam were so amazed, “how could we’ve never seen this before!” they said. They asked people what kind of tree it was and it was cherry blossom trees. A person who spends most of the days in that park started to tell them, how people all over the world visit japan only to see these kinds of trees. In Japan, it’s called the Sakura tree. Therefore, Jeroen and Mirjam took lots of photos of them in that park. As soon as they got enough photos they wanted to send the photos to their friends, but they don’t have

enough credit to send those pictures from their phone. So they got closer to the city center, and all of a sudden they receive a notification that free WIFI are available in every corner of the city center. They were so glad that WIFI were available so that they send the photos they have taken.

At the end of the day, they finally got their jacket and pair of jeans during the extended shopping night (Koop Avond). The long distraction they got during the day made

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them even wanting to shop and spend more of their free times in Almere. Since it has everything they basically could ask for, and Amsterdam seems so boring after going there multiple times. Jeroen and Mirjam felt so satisfied after having all these experience.

Experience toolsTo finalize our concept, we arrived with 5 experience tools that we apply upon our concept. These help us to get to know better about the insights of our consumer. We want to make our concept memorable and attractive; therefore through the techniques of Imagineering we are able to achieve a significant result. Following tools are explain below:

Senses: Cherry blossom tree are part of our concept to create and stimulate people’s senses. With the smell, the bright colorful pink sight, and the atmosphere that it creates make all several human being sense stimulated so that the city become alive. Music is also a part of the concept, where people would walk in the city center guided by music and lights that gives them a warm atmosphere throughout the customer journey. This is also part of hearing and seeing senses.

Theming: Theme consists of 5 parts divided into, Theming the experience, Harmonize impressions, Eliminate bad impressions, Mix memorabilia, and Engage all senses.

1st) Theming the experience, we mean by making the city center unusual to the eyes of the consumer. By giving it colorful lights, interactive light floors, warm surroundings by music. These are all parts of theming the experience, by adding aspects that stimulate their experience.

2nd) Harmonize the impressions in this case, means people will be more willing to spend time if they know since the beginning they have high expectation of the first impression of what they see. Therefore, the critical part is to make people grasp their mind as they stepped out the Almere Central Station. How did we give this impression? By giving people a big information board that has “Disney Like Look”. This information board helps people to get information but also make them interest in going further more. 3rd) Eliminate bad impression is also part of the Harmonize the impression as explained previously

4th) Mix Memorabilia means, that as soon as people walk around the city center they will get a special memory of Almere city center. Due to its diverse and amazing view of the city center people will straight away remember everything that they see. It is not common to see city center with, lighting color floors, visual building projection, cherry blossom trees and other aspects that are parts of the concept in any other city center in the Netherlands. Disneyfication will be a part of Almere’s retail shopping experience of the 2020.

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5th) Engage all senses. As explained above every aspect of the concept will stimulate all sense. This will lead to a memorable shopping experience.

Story telling:On the other hand, Storytelling is also a part of the experience tool that we use. Although story telling doesn’t simply give to the consumer, it they themselves who will create the story based on their experience. From our point of view, we explain the story telling through customer journey but as soon as they experience the new Almere shopping center, they will the one telling us story about Almere. Where the moral of the story will be based on, “It is possible in Almere and Almere as the retail shopping experience of tomorrow”

Co-Creation:Every aspect of our concept will mainly be con-creation, since the people of Almere will also be involved in this process. Students from MBO and HBO will be part of this project; residence of Almere will get together to create pop-up stands, Food fairs, and other activities. Consumer who visits the city will also be co-creating with the city because they will go along the city and find their way through every stimulating experience.

Offline and Online Channel – Promotional Mix

To embark in a new identity that Sinnovative would like to implement in the concept, there are several promotional mix that will be efficient and effective for Almere. First of all, Almere is strategically located by all means of transportation. The common use of transport in the Netherlands is public transport such as trains and busses.

It would be beneficial for Almere to advertise as the “Retail City of Tomorrow” in major stations such as Amsterdam Central and Utrecht Central station, which has direct train connection to Almere Centrum. This is the same strategy that ‘Bloemendaal’ used in Amsterdam Central Station during summer seasons; the marketing team creates many posters and video advertisements for visitors to take a ‘Sprinter’ train to Bloemendaal and enjoy its beach. Using this strategy will create a bigger market reach as visitors from outside the Netherlands would aware of the existence of Almere. Furthermore, there are other means of promotional tools that could be applicable for the concept such as:

Advertising: The aim of this concept is to draw visitors from Almere and retain the inhabitants of Almere to shop within the vicinity. Therefore, advertisement through billboards, printed media, radio, television and social media should appeal to the target market that Sinnovative would like to attract. Social media has a great impact in the current days shopping behavior. Almere must invest time and effort in its social media as this is the gateway in which consumer interact with each other. Moreover, social media can be a digital tool of “word of mouth” strategy, as users would share their experience and pictures online.

Sales promotion: Sales promotion is another strategy that Almere could apply – one example is to have a ‘soft opening’ discount when the whole shopping area is re-open. Almere could give out 10% discount on the first 10,000 shoppers within its first opening

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week. Another way to give promotion is to give out drink coupons to the first 10,000 shoppers. This can be implemented when all retailers have agreed on this strategy.

Public relation: Since the new concept focuses on young families, singles and students, Sinnovative could create a ‘launch party” with fashion bloggers, loyal customers from the brands that are opening its store in the new Almere shopping area as well as their representatives (PR) to introduce the new concept to a “test group”. This way, activist and bloggers can share their experience and promote Almere from what they have experience during the launch party. Sinnovative should also invite local and national celebrities and television channels (anchor) for publicity stunt. The launch party would be the first step to expose the new Almere to the rest of the country. The party should be align with the concept and theme that Almere would like to portray in its new identity, which are art, advanced technology and family.

Direct marketing: To reach a successful direct marketing, Sinnovative will apply a survey method on its OmniYOU application. The contactless payment method, which also serves as a digital personal assistant for its users, will maintain its standards by using “experience survey” after each purchase. This way the retailers can improve on the things that are criticized by its visitors. For example, after a customer finish shopping, they noticed that store clerk was being very rude to them. The customer can give feedback through OmniYou that they had a bad shopping experience because that. Since the concept also rely on service, Sinnovative need to make sure that there are corporate culture within the retailers to create uniformity between employees and stakeholders.

The Multiverse“OMNIYOU Application for smartphone devices”Sinnovative will develop a mobile application that is one step ahead than the I-Beacon. This is due to the fact that I-Beacon is a restricted to a limit users of the of only Apple and iOS users.

Sinnovative will introduce OMNIYOU to Almere City mall and it will operate using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology.

OMNIYOU can be seen as an augmentation reality that is already known in this area. Almere city mall is a modern city which already uses a similar device the ‘layer app’.

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However, the OMNIYOU application enable users to write a review of products, receive personalized offers and discounts and create contactless payment.

What unique about OMNIYOU is that it works on restaurants and bars as well. Users can create an account to modify and tailored the products that they are interested in or the cuisines, which they prefer best. This is to avoid receiving unnecessary information that can lead to “spamming”.

OMNIYOU thrives to their value which is to make life easier for its community. This is because everything is one click away. Furthermore, when an OMNIYOU users register onto an account, they can choose three payments options, which are IDEAL, PayPal and Credit Card. Sinnovative envision Almere to be the city of tomorrow that allow its citizen to move freely in the city with one button away.

Bibliography

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