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Client: M&S
Project: VM Learning Tools
Brief: The Look
Marks and Spencer were embarking on a major drive to improve store presentation and wanted Visual Thinking to be involved. The scale of the project was vast, with tough timescales and high expectations. Our brief was to help establish effective and consistently applied store standards across the group and to provide store teams with a foundation of clear, effective and consistent policy tools to enable better implementation of the M&S ‘look’ in-store.
Solution: Corporate VM Toolkits
Visual Thinking was faced with a major challenge, considering the breadth of the product ranges, variety of store types, fixture variants and sheer number of people involved. Working with key people in the M&S product and visual teams, Visual Thinking designed a simple and innovative, component-based communication tool kit which included VM policy cards, video / DVD content and supporting documentation. It offered maximum versatility, flexibility and cost effectiveness to the business. To help people use the kits, training aids were developed for store teams and to support senior management visits.
Following a careful trial, feedback was extremely positive and confirmed ‘The Look's’ success. People in stores loved working with it, finding the materials quick, easy and effective to use. Most importantly, the programme achieved its objectives, as well as providing a range of other valuable commercial benefits.
In just twelve weeks, Visual Thinking designed, documented, visualised and produced over 550 policy cards and almost 3,000 tool kits across five different business units, including support and overall project management. Working alongside the M&S team, Visual Thinking delivered an outstanding end result, on budget and, crucially for the business, at the exact time it was most needed.
