Using Design Strategy to achieve Marketing Objectives: UK Country Pavilion at Guangzhou Design Week

“Design” is defined as a solution that is developed to fulfill both aesthetic and functional needs. In retail, and in sales and marketing environments, design has to be built on the marketing objectives of the client and satisfy technical requirements.

In this article, we share our recent project, the design of the UK Pavilion for Guangzhou Design Week (note: this concept was not selected, and Guangzhou Design Week 2022 was postponed to 2023), to showcase the most important questions and success factors that need to be considered during a retail design project. We call this stage of the project Design Strategy.

Project Background and Positioning of the Brand

Guangzhou Design Week is a yearly trade fair in China where brands from the design, lifestyle, and home décor sectors exhibit products. Designers, interior designers, and consumers usually flock to the exhibition in masses. Brands take part in the show for the prestige image, to create visibility, and to increase local market share.

The pre-defined objective was to create a high-quality UK country pavilion based on the theme of “sustainability”. Selected as a key trade fair, the pavilion design needed to serve country image-building purposes while also hosting seven brands from the UK.

As the first step, we researched what sustainability meant in and for the UK. How is the UK different in this area? How could the pavilion look sustainable in a British way and not random? We found that, among other interesting aspects, wind power is quite established in the UK. The UK is Europe’s largest offshore wind power producer, and 26% of the UK’s energy was produced by wind power in Q4 in 2021.?

Inspirations and Storytelling

In the next step, we researched and brainstormed aspects and elements that would represent British lifestyle and sustainability. Lifestyle, because this was a lifestyle and home decoration trade fair, and these factors needed to be considered in the design. We asked ourselves a range of questions and took the following approach to identify, analyze and then select inspirations:

• What is UK lifestyle? What is UK home design? Where is UK high-quality craftsmanship visible?

• One specific aspect, that British design is well-known for, and that appears repeatedly in the design of soft furnishings (wallpaper, textiles, carpets) and furniture, is the motif of plants and flowers.

• UK Garden Design: What are the most well-known and recognizable aspects? Are there elements that can be connected to the theme of sustainability?

• Sustainability: What does sustainability actually mean? In theory, this would require that no new elements would be produced and that all elements would be reduced to the bare minimum in order to save CO2 emissions during transportation. Everything else should be either rented, re-purposed, or produced in an environmentally friendly manner and reused afterward.

We selected the wind wheel as key inspiration since it is a power-generating tool and represents sustainable energy in the UK. In a smaller, often colorful version, it is a well-known British lifestyle accessory, often used in gardens or given to children. In both versions, the purpose and effect of the windwheel are powered by wind. Both types are connected with nature and a cleaner, better environment.

The wind wheel element also helped to lighten up the overall concept and made it more playful and relatable to consumers. Media usually like concepts that are interesting and playful, thus allowing the exhibition stand design to maximize marketing exposure.

The Design Concept

The design concept can be summarized as combining a strong theme (the wind wheel and elements inspired by British craftsmanship, lifestyle, home decoration, and garden design), sustainable furniture and materials, and innovative branding and lighting elements.

We envisioned a long bar table made of repurposed palettes in front of a sculpture with large wind wheels in red, the country’s brand color. We wanted to enclose the meeting space with a garden pavilion-like structure. And cover the storage space with living plants and romantic flowers, bringing to mind English gardens. Plenty of display space and branding surfaces were designed for the seven exhibiting high-quality lifestyle brands.

The final exhibition pavilion design has several areas for different types of events, including an opening ceremony, media events, brand events, and livestreaming. Through the application of QR codes and online stories, the design concept integrated digital information into the physical stand. We also designed a photo filter with which visitors could take fun pictures and share them on social media.

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Barbara Seidelmann is the founder and Managing Director of?5 Star Plus Retail Design, an international commercial interior design company that develops concepts for stores, restaurants, offices, exhibition stands, and events. For more information, please contact us at [email protected].