See, I was a teenager in the 90s. The thrift shop was like a second home. Imagine my excitement when the opportunity to re-imagine the legendary thrift chain, Value Village.
For my American friends, its Savers. For us up here in Canada, it's Value Village and since so many core memories are tied to the ol' VV boutique, Value Village it will be henceforth. Mmmmk?
At Jackman, a retail focused consultancy, we were looking at a combination of business strategy, brand positioning and how that manifests itself in the world. An exciting proposition, but not without several distinct challenges unique to the category.
How might we create a better shopping experience without overly "upscaling" the joint, increasing overhead and fundamentally changing what it is?
How might we attract new people who are open to thrifted goods without alienating the people who shop second hand out of necessity?
A full brand overhaul wasn't part of our remit, but we were given license to explore a few territories through a light brand refresh so that our shopping experience would feel more cohesive and contemporary.
Incidentally, much of this work ended up being integrated into the consumer facing brand within the year.
This is thrift.
We reimagined the store experience with increased focus on curation and inspiration via vignettes — and moved the dark, dingy change rooms to a reconfigured "heartbeat" at the centre of the store to reprioritize the try-on experience as something people might share with others, increasing dwell time and fostering a greater sense of play. The heartbeat would be grounded by a massive Derick Melander clothing sculpture.
We didn't want to over-index on digital in-store so we chose our moments sparingly — outside the change rooms, we'd bring in curated collections to help people imagine how these disparate, often one of a kind items, can play with each other
We'd extend this notion of curation into style-guides that would love across all of the other VV digital surfaces.
The greatest nation is donation.
We updated the donation experience to help make the value proposition of donation clearer.
The things you donate are less likely to end up in landfill, the community in which you life is enriched through charity partnerships, and people who either just want to shop second hand, or have to do to economic pressures, can give your things another go 'round.
Resellers are a big part of the thrift community — could VV use their scale to help them grow their businesses and/or side hustles?
Sure, the name is a little on the nose, but imagine this.
Part of the joy of thrifting is digging through piles and piles of things to find the diamond in the rough, but what if you had something in particular you're looking for?
What if someone who spends a lot of time in thrift shops could make a little extra money just doing what they're doing anyway? What if we could connect the desires of the shopper with the passions of the thrifter?
CLIENT
Value Village, Savers
STUDIO
Jackman
TEAM
CD: Mike Kasprow
ACD: Matt Rennick
AD: Emmanuel Obayemi
Enviro: Fred Thwainy
Say hello.
I am currently living and working in Toronto as a Creative Director for Huge. I'm always open to riding new waves so if you've got something in mind, let's get pitted. So pitted.