Colorizing a classic

Blockbuster's new store design earmarks the evolution of its brand image. Due to the rising competition of satellite movie services, the popular movie-rental store has morphed into an entertainment center that offers movies and video games to rent and buy, as well as snacks and children's toys to make a movie night complete.

"If you think about the history of Blockbuster, we started as a video-rental outlet and then for 10 years nothing really changed in our store design, and yet as a company, we continued to add new products and services for our customers," says Alan Klose, senior vice president of marketing for Dallas-based Blockbuster Inc. By the late '90s, retail started to become a more important part of Blockbuster's business, especially with the emergence of DVDs. Today, Blockbuster has a store within a 10-minute drive of about 65 percent of the U.S. population, and nearly 3 million people walk through its doors each day. With that kind of reach into American society, Blockbuster was looking for a store design that reflects the change from a rental store mentality to retail store prestige.

For Blockbuster's "Next Generation of Stores," the spotlight focuses on not only what you can rent, but what you can buy. "What they've discovered through customer research is that Blockbuster doesn't have to be just what you plug into your DVD or VCR player, but they really want to provide all the components of a perfect evening," says Brian Shafley, executive vice president of design, Chute Gerdeman, Columbus, Ohio.

However, when you add additional products and services, it also makes it more difficult for customers to navigate the store. To address that concern, the new Blockbuster design incorporates color coding and bright graphic displays to attract the eye. "For a very long time, customers did not think of us first for movies to buy, so it was important for us to categorize that area and colorize it in a way that said retail in a strong way," says Kevin Brailsford, Blockbuster's vice president of store environments. Blockbuster chose bold, distinctive colors to represent their services—red is for retail, blue is for rentals and orange is for video games. "The blue and yellow combination is such an icon for us, and we still have that on the outside with the awnings and the giant ticket stub, so we did not feel is was necessary any longer to push that blue and yellow in the interior of the store," adds Brailsford.

Another key to the success of the new design is its flexibility and sales-floor efficiency. "One of the biggest changes is that it operates in a more efficient way," says Brailsford. "The operators wanted the office complex and the cashwrap housed together so at slow periods when we have less people on staff, the store can run more efficiently. We really reduced the number of steps it takes to actually run the store."

The new powdercoated, steel-gray wire fixtures are also a huge improvement over the cumbersome wood floor fixtures Blockbuster used previously. "The fixtures are all built on a simple, snap-together, up-right system, and we developed different shelving systems that easily snap on as well," says Brailsford.

The fixture endcaps have become an in-store marketing tool that truly engages the customer to explore the store's products like never before. The endcaps, constructed of perforated metal and frosted Plexiglas shelves, include flatscreen televisions that broadcast Blockbuster television—a two-hour program loop that talks about what movies are available for rent or sale and new video games on the market. "The new endcap can be easily transformed with graphics and display shelves as well as interactive technology," says Shafley.

Technology within the store can also help customers with choosing a movie. Using the Red Dot program, customers can scan a movie for rent to see a quick clip of the film. "A lot of people come in with an idea for one movie, and if they can't find it they are kind of lost, so the idea is to provide customers with ideas," adds Shafley.

The store's flooring brings a comfortable, home-like setting to the space by combining a wood laminate with soft carpeting. "The flooring in the new design really warms the space up and makes it more residential than the ceramic tile that we've used in the past," adds Brailsford. The illumination of the space is mostly provided by HID lighting, which complements the open ceiling structure. However, Blockbuster is also testing T-8 fluorescents in the design.

The goal of the store's signage and graphics program was to simplify the space and make the store more customer-friendly. "Graphics play a huge part in the design of the store," says Brailsford. "The fixture system really works as a billboard for us. We can change the entire wall system to be a single message or a number of individual messages." George Nauman, account executive for Chute Gerdeman adds, "It's a visually challenging store, and part of what the graphics were meant to do is to showcase and categorize those products to create bite-size chunks of space so the customer can understand the space better."

Each department is defined by a graphic "eyebrow" that helps customers quickly locate each section of the store. "The eyebrow is a pretty important element in the store that defines each space," says Santiago Crespo, senior designer, graphics, Chute Gerdeman. "We tried to simplify the system with a limited number of words to make things more modular and easier to change."

The expanded games department symbolizes the growing importance of buying and selling video games, which is becoming a very profitable part of Blockbuster's business. "Games is really a big focus for us right now, and we have branded it Gamerush," says Brailsford. Designing the games department offered a unique challenge because of the diversity of the genre's customer base. The lively orange graphics in the games department highlight the heroic characters from popular video games and create excitement in the space. "We wanted the games area to have a lot attitude, because the hardcore gamer really wants their own area," says Shafley. "However, gamers can be of all ages, so we did not want to intimidate the young gamers who can be as young as 5 or 6. We wanted to create a gaming area that was really a store-within-a-store but still flows with the rest of the space."

Currently an estimated 500 stores out of 8,000 are boasting the new look, and Blockbuster is charging ahead with the new design. "Most of their customers want to get in, get out and go home happy, so the design has to be a convenient stop for those customers as well as those who want to browse," says Shafley. "Our goal is not to slow down that fast-paced customer—we have to be very careful that the design does not turn their world upside down."





PROJECT FILE

project file



Blockbuster

6700 Virginia Pkwy. McKinney, Texas

IN-HOUSE DESIGN TEAM

Blockbuster Dallas Kevin Brailsford, vice president of store environments George Chow, director, design & development Brad Robison, director, store planning Jason Floyd, director, merchandising presentation & planning

CONTRACT DESIGN FIRM

Chute Gerdeman Columbus, Ohio Brian Shafley, executive vice president of design Santiago Crespo, senior designer, graphics George Nauman, account executive

FIXTURES

Leggett & Platt Paris, Texas

FLOORING

Wilsonart Temple, Texas

Shaw Commercial Carpet Dalton, Ga.

SIGNAGE & GRAPHICS

City Color Imaging Orlando, Fla.

MDI Worldwide Famington Hills, Mich.

American Litho Color Dallas



Information in the Project File is provided by the retailer and/or design firm.