Decoding Displays: Visual Merchandising for La folie du Chocolat
Project Brief
A few months ago we partnered up with the team at La Folie du Chocolat to revamp the in-store experience at their Kala Ghoda store in Mumbai. The aim was to showcase La Folie’s bean-to-bar process in a creative format and come up with a visual experience for their consumers that lays emphasis on the brand’s ‘SLOW Indulgence’ philosophy.
About the Brand
La Folie is a Premium Indulgence brand that focuses on using authentic, high quality, ethical ingredients and processes. The brand’s philosophy is all about slow and responsible indulgence, encouraging their consumers to slow down in an increasingly fast-paced world, savour life and enjoy the moment.
The Thought Process
La Folie’s SLOW indulgence philosophy and their bean-to-bar process was the primary inspiration behind the window display. We wanted to trace the origin story of their product and showcase the intricacies of the process behind their favourite chocolates.
The Design Process
Our design process begins with us trying to understand and research the brand, through their product offering, stores and past displays. Store visits particularly help us in getting an understanding of the actual scope of work for visual merchandising projects. We look at the current store aesthetic and how it ties into their brand identity, and get an idea of the canvas we have to work with. The goal is to help their store stand out from the rest through visual merchandising.
Based on our understanding of the brand and their requirements, we explored a few options. Keeping in mind the use of illustrative designs in their brand identity, one idea was to create a story using similar illustrative visuals that could be hand painted or vinyl printed on the glass window. Another one was to use eye-catching graphics and props to reflect their whimsical brand language and presentation and translate that into a window display. While some of the ideas were not taken further because the sheer number of elements would take away a lot of space when it was already limited, others were reworked to come up with the final design.
The final design agreed upon for the window display incorporated cacao beans with the product displayed inside them, linking them to their origin. Bean-to-bar, quite literally. The beans were crafted from fibreglass material and painted in brand colours, with a wide range of their products displayed in the centre of each bean.
In addition to the window display, we also created an in-store display depicting their SLOW process. Inside the store, we revamped a plain grey wall to showcase the different stages of the process behind the handcrafted chocolates. The idea behind this display was to increase awareness among their consumers about the brand’s philosophy and process that sets them apart.
Signages were also added to the store to enhance the customer journey experience. They will help highlight certain sections, such as ‘Gifting’, that are important for the brand and can often be overlooked by a regular walk-in consumer.
Executing the Design
The most crucial part of the execution process for any display is ensuring clear communication between the three parties: the client, the design team and the production team. Being involved in the fabrication process and working closely with the production team was a huge advantage as it allowed us to oversee each and every element being made, on a daily basis. It helped us to track the progress and keep the quality of the display in check.
While we were sampling and prototyping for the display, we would regularly visit the production studio to ensure that the final product matched with the proposed design.
The Final Product
For the in-store display, we felt that adding visual communication of the bean-to-bar process in the store will allow for the opportunity to engage with consumers while they are exploring the store or the products. It can be an effective way to communicate the authentic nature of the production process. Making the base colour lighter can also make the space appear bigger and brighter.
An easy to understand and eye-catching depiction of the bean-to-bar process was translated into a window display to appeal to new and potential customers passing the store.
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