Introduction

1.1 Motivation 1.2 Scope 1.3 Why the retail industry needs to build professional brand image? 1.4 Customer experience as a key opportunity to authenticate brand image 1.5 The application of exiting interactive display system 1.6 The need for interactive display technology in retail industry 1.7 How does interactive display affect brand communication? 1.8 Building a design-led brand strategy

1.1 Motivation
Companies try to make customer relationship in a unique selling point within the market. The retail space is one of the places to build brand image and enhance customer loyalty. Todays retail store is losing the concept because of only focusing on prices and the distribution of products. For this reason, the diversified shopping experience has become a unique way to enhance brand image and strengthen relationships with customers.

At the present day, distinctive shopping experience already become a branding opportunity, a marketing stunt, and a chance to draw in customers with an exemplary experience or to deliver brand image effectively. This revolutionary interactive communication system transforms traditional media into an eye-catching interactive experience, In order to create a meaningful brand image that can enhance brand recognition.

Experience design is an emerging trend in service space. Since experience has the potential power to make customers love the brand and to get customer royalty, the design manager need not only focus on design space and products, but also manage the service that can be offered in a space through customer experience management.

Basically, customers like or dislike some brands, not so much because of what it is, but what it represents. This research has concentrated on how the design manager or design consultancies use interactive media and digital art to improve the brand image effectively. Furthermore, the retail industry has the potential power to make a unique selling point by developing personalized service design. As a result of service design strategy, the retail industries not only have a more powerful brand heritage, but also communicate with customers with satisfaction regarding their services.

1.2 Scope of design research

The digital technology has quietly pervaded all business areas and specialism. It is integrated into each role. However, the scope of this design research is focus on retail industry, how to develop customer experience and brand awareness to apply interactive media in retail industry.

Interactive media is the integration of digital media including combinations of electronic text, graphics, moving images and sound, into a structured digital computerized environment that allows people to interact with the data for appropriate purposes. The digital environment can include the Internet, telecoms and interactive digital television. The suggestion of "interactive media design in retail industry for experiential service" is the theme set for this research. In view of the fact it is formed by crafting behaviour, projecting experiences and design-led strategy, the proposition is to deliver it through a service design where it is feasible to penetrate the message of customer royalty and brand strengthening. With the use of design and branding, it could support the delivery of experience to bridge gaps between consumers and business.

Furthermore, retail industry which is as the main object of the study consists of department store, boutique or kiosk, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Shops may be on residential streets, shopping streets with few or no houses or in a shopping mall. Shopping streets may be for pedestrians only. Sometimes a shopping street has a partial or full roof to protect customers from precipitation. Online retailing, a type of electronic commerce used for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions and mail order, are forms of non-shop retailing.

1.3 Why the retail brands need to build professional brand image?
With the growing realization that brands are one of a firms most valuable intangible assets, branding has emerged as a top management priority in the last decade. Given its highly competitive nature, branding can be especially important in the retailing industry to influence customer perceptions and drive store choice and loyalty. Understanding retailer brand P1 Following the American Marketing Associations definition of a brand, a retail brand identifies the goods and services of a retailer and differentiates them from those of competitors. A retailers brand equity is exhibited in consumers responding more favourably to its marketing actions than they do to competing retailers (Keller 2003). The image of the retailer in the minds of consumers is the basis of this brand equity. Understanding retailer brand P3p4 However, Jary and Wildman (1998) questioned whether retail businesses are really brands. They concluded that retail brands are The Real Thing although differing from product brands not least because of the difficulty of managing the multiplicity of attributes of a retail brand. The larger retailers are building their brands - for example the leading multiple grocer Tesco is in the top 10 (out of 115) major UK companies committed to building powerful brands (Brand Finance, 1999). Retailers have become more aware of the value of branding and have (according to Davies, 1998) attempted to copy the images of manufacturers brands in developing their own brands. Measuring brand image P3p1

Meanwhile, the trend of retail industry is a much more sophisticated offer to consumers, a place where they satisfy many of their needs, desires and aspirations for the products, services and experiences that they require for their lifestyle and life-image. In order to create experiential service that makes people feel positive about customer loyalty, service design should be offered to a response of customer experiences. Customers expect to get a new service and have a good choice of buying products in a retail space. Gobe (2001) anticipates

that future shopping malls will not only be a place where products are simply sold, but also a place where the brand image is built though customer participation and involvement. 10b.17 P11

1.4 Customer experience as a key opportunity to authenticate brand image

Fugure1. Customer experience model

There are a quite a few intersections in this model:

Intersection of Business and People this is where emotional innovation occurs. Where there is a real connection between the business and the people (customers), two ways dialogue will occur. This will lead to the people becoming more and more loyal as the business listens adapts their portfolio of products/services to the people. A great balance of desirability and viability are achieved and your customers become your greatest evangelists.

Intersection of business and technology Process innovation is where businesses spend much of their time, constantly on the lookout for cost savings, process improvements, efficiencies, quality control, etc. This pulls in the opposite direction of the emotional innovation described above. While emotional innovation is

about doing something unique for the customer, process innovation is looking to standardize and create repeatability. We need to realize that these two intersections are not mutually exclusive and can be balanced. Unfortunately, many businesses fall into the trap of focusing most of their energy on this intersection instead of taking the time to focus on the people and the emotional innovation. In other words, the balance is not level, but skewed toward the process innovation.

Intersection of people and technology the functional innovation includes connecting and collaborating with the customers through a variety of means. It also looks at the features of the products/services and how they can be improved. This could also be called the design intersection. It is important to avoid the pitfall of throwing bells and whistles into this intersection just because the technology allows you to (e.g. just because you can syndrome).

Each of these intersections is important, but a holistic view is even more important. A focus on customer experience brings each of these parts together. A brand can be viewed as a product, a personality, a set of values, and a position it occupies in peoples minds. Brand identity is everything the company wants the brand to be seen as, hence companies must work hard on the consumer experience to make sure that what customers see, perceive and think are what the companies want them to. Brand management study suggests that a brand is unique because of its identity.

1.7 How does interactive display affect brand communication? Brands and branding are of great importance in today's marketing. As a key component of branding, brand communication determines whether a brand is successfully established and eventually turns a profit. Conventional forms of brand communication via advertising, and public relations have achieved great success in the past, but their effectiveness is declining dramatically in todays more customer-dominated business climate. The traditional forms of advertising reach fewer of the targeted customers. Yet brand placement, being a new form of brand communication, can compensate for the setbacks experienced by advertisements due to its innate advantages. Besides, it can also work seamlessly with other marketing communication methods such as public relations in order to achieve the branding success.