INTERNATIONAL. Kendu – which designs, manufactures and manages in-store experiences in retail environments worldwide – announced itself as a new and highly relevant player in the travel retail channel at the recent Moodie Davitt Virtual Travel Retail Expo, where it was a Silver Partner. The Moodie Davitt Report’s Senior Business Editor Mark Lane discusses the impact of the event with Kendu Chief Strategy Officer Simon Bentley and hears why he believes the highly-visual services his company provides will have a major role to play in the post-COVID retail market.
It may be a relative newcomer to the travel retail scene, but the international in-store experience specialist Kendu already has a strong foot in the channel door after a successful appearance at last month’s Moodie Davitt Virtual Travel Retail Expo.
The San Sebastián, Spain-based company, which has worked on almost 20,000 retail stores spanning over 4,400 cities across 130 countries, had an eye-catching presence at an event which saw its virtual stand rank seventh in terms of most-visited, against extremely strong competition.
This great result involved the company welcoming 567 unique visitors to its stand, and what Kendu’s UK-based Chief Strategy Officer Simon Bentley describes as at least 150 “positive interactions”.
“The virtual format felt a bit strange at first,” he says. “But as the Expo progressed, we realised what a fantastic new way this is to interact with potential customers in the COVID-19 era.
“I personally found from the interactions I’ve had, everybody’s been super friendly and very interested in what we do. We generated a terrific number of leads and I engaged with a lot of potential UK-based clients with whom I look forward to continuing positive conversations post-event.”
He adds: “I got the impression that people wanted to use the Expo as a catapult for driving significant change and creating a better experience, which is tailored to the post-COVID world.
“The Expo was a great opportunity to engage with a market we’ve not been involved with before, see how we can bring a different lens and our experience to the sector and look at how our products and services fit with the tremendous array of brands and retailers in the channel.”
Indeed, Kendu – which also has offices in Miami, New York, London and Singapore – is no stranger to working with high-class brands and retailers. It boasts a client list that includes prestigious names such as Estée Lauder, L’Oréal, Sephora, Columbia, Galeries Lafayette, El Corte Inglés, and Carrefour. It’s a client roster that also includes Primark, to which it provides retail lightboxes and campaign management across all European stores.
“With short dwell times in airports, it’s vital to quickly capture the passenger’s attention and the travel retail industry will want to make a great splash when it comes back. Flowbox is a great means of achieving that”
Explaining Kendu’s offer, Bentley says: “Our promise to our clients is to ‘Make Retail Simpler’, simpler for the brand and simpler for the consumer. Since 2000 we have been innovators in visual communications to create unique shopping experiences. We design, manufacture and manage in-store experiences and through our in-house team of designers and creatives we have a customisable solution for every store.”
Among these solutions is the company’s flagship product ‘Flowbox’, a dynamic LED lightbox designed to create an exciting, animated experience. The product comes in four standard sizes, as well as bespoke sizes for special projects, as used by big name Kendu clients including Adidas, Nespresso, Timberland and Disney.
Experienced retail operations professional Bentley – whose CV includes senior roles with major players in UK retail including Telefónica (02), WHSmith, Argos and Trek Bicycle – says products such as Flowbox are an ideal fit for travel retail: “Flowbox is a vehicle for very exciting content, and can be employed as a great disruptor for brands looking to catch the eye with their products in the airport retail environment.”
He adds: “With short dwell times in airports, it’s vital to quickly capture the passenger’s attention and the travel retail industry will want to make a great splash when it comes back. Flowbox is a great means of achieving that.”
A key benefit of Flowbox is the ease with which it can be installed in any retail location without the need for a technician or specialist installer. Bentley explains: “We take the brief for the Flowbox campaign, create the digital animation, print the textiles and send to the client in a neat package. Any retail member of staff can self-install a Flowbox very easily.”
Bentley believes that products such as Flowbox still have a very important role to play in a retail world which is increasingly shifting online, as people get used to purchasing products in touchless ways in the pandemic era.
Reflecting on the changing retail marketplace, he says: “It’s true that the mainstream traditional retail sector is under huge pressure with its legacy retailers, legacy formats and legacy propositions.
“COVID has really exposed the retailers that didn’t have a great omnichannel strategy in place, or who didn’t align their offline and online ways of working. I think people have learned a tremendous amount this year about where to put their energy and efforts.
“The retail future is going to be one of faster change; there will be less stores, for sure. But I think they will be better quality and I think experience will certainly come back into stores, bigger and stronger than before. Retail is a very cyclical business, and it will keep changing, which makes it very interesting.”
Looking ahead to the prospects for the Kendu business, Bentley concludes: “Nobody is having it easy at this time and the trading situation is obviously going to remain difficult for quite some time. But we’re very confident about the future – we think we’re in a very good place, both structural-wise inside the company and to capitalise on the opportunities that are sure to emerge in the marketplace post-COVID.
“We have relationships with our clients that are very meaningful, with great trust on both sides. We want to build on that by expanding into what is still a very exciting airport retail environment, which I fully expect to re-emerge strongly.”
Contact: email simon.bentley@kendu.com; web www.kendu.com
