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In 1865, a new department store opened in Paris called Printemps (which is French for spring). The architecture is a stunning Art Deco masterpiece, replete with mosaics, dramatic turrets, and enormous windows with dramatic displays of recent products. Today, it sits among other iconic Parisian landmarks, like the Galleries Lafayette store and the Opera. But back then, there was nothing nearby except a railway line that only carried cargo. When we opened our store on Boulevard Haussmann, it was a completely new area, says Jean-Marc Bellaiche, CEO of Printemps Groupe, the store’s parent company. It was a bet that this neighborhood would become hot and vibrant. It was a very successful bet. [Photo: Gieves Anderson/Printemps New York] This week, Printemps is making a bet on another neighborhood in another continent: New York’s Financial District. Over the past few years, the area has gone through a massive revitalization, as apartments, restaurants, and shops have moved in. Printemps is moving into the ground floor of a 50-story residential building at One Wall Street. Fifteen years ago, it would have been risky to move here, but it’s transforming in a big way, he says. Bellaiche says Printemps spent a lot of time thinking about the new dynamics in the Financial District. He points out that the area was once dominated by bankers, but there are many other businesses in the area now, including media, fashion, and technology. The Spotify headquarters are nearby, he says. He also finds it appealing that there are many new apartment complexes in the area, and families are moving in. It makes the area feel much more like a real neighborhood, one that we are now a part of, he says. [Photo: Gieves Anderson/Printemps New York] Printemps’s flagship store in Paris is a gargantuan 450,000 square foot operation that is spread out across three buildings, and features more than 1,500 brands. Bellaiche, who joined the company in 2020, has been instrumental in helping to think about Printemps’s future. Part of this has involved expanding beyond France to other markets. Printemps opened a Doha, Qatar, in 2022, and this New York store continues this investment in foreign markets. The New York store is about a tenth the size, and the company wanted to design a store that was somewhat cozier. It has a far smaller, more curated assortment of brands and products that are generally high-end, but that span a range of price points. While you can buy Louboutins in the shoe section, Nike Women is also doing a pop-up, offering affordably priced sneakers. We thought, what if Printemps had a pied-a-terre in New York, says Laura Lendrum, CEO of Printemps America. So we kind of took that idea literally, and designed the store around the concept of an apartment. [Photo: Gieves Anderson/Printemps New York] The company brought on Laura Gonzalez, a French interior designer, to help design the space. She worked with the Printemps team to create various rooms, much like you would have in a home, where you would want to spend time. The Red Room, which is a historic space in the One Wall Street building, has been transformed into a walk-in closet for shoes. Beauty products are displayed in a cozy bathroom inspired space with green tiled walls. There’s a cafe and a restaurant inspired by a breakfast nook and a dining room. There are plenty of plush sofas for you to sit on. [Photo: Gieves Anderson/Printemps New York] Designed for discovery Lendruma retail veteran who previously worked for Ralph Lauren, Gucci, and Saint Laurentsays the idea of creating a homey feel was very deliberate. For years, brick and mortar was in decline, even in the realm of high-end department stores. (Barney’s shuttered in 2020, after 97 years in business.) In the post-pandemic world, consumers’ appetites for retail has returned, but Lendrum says they don’t want to feel like the shopping experience is purely transactional. One way they signal this is by letting the customer choose how they want to spend their time in the store, rather than directing them towards particular sections to make purchases. In the IKEA model, the store directs you to go from point A to point B to maximize how much you will buy, says Lendrum. But here, our designer has made sure there is not a single path through the store. It isall about the poetry of shapes and curves; there are no straight lines. Everything is designed to encourage discovery and wandering. [Photo: Gieves Anderson/Printemps New York] Lendrum says that the team focused on creating lots of flexible areas which can be transformed from season to season, to keep things interesting for guests. This proved to be a challenge. In retail, architects don’t like creating flexibility spaces because the lighting and fixtures need to be adapted to the merchandise, Lendrum says. But Laura [Gonzalez] was willing to make it work. This means we can convert areas into brand pop-ups, cooking classes, book readingswhatever is interesting for the community. [Photo: Gieves Anderson/Printemps New York] Bellaiche says that the restaurants were another way of making the space less transactional, and more focused on hospitality. Printemps’s Paris flagship has more than 15 dining options, including La Perruche, a rooftop restaurant that has 1,000 seats, 400 of which offer a view of the Eiffel Tower and the Opera. Bellaiche wanted the New York store to be equally known for its dining. Printemps managed to bring on Gregory Gourdet, a James Beard award winning chef who opened the Haitian restaurant Kann in Portland, to develop a range of dining options, which will include fine dining and a café. As the Financial District keeps booming, and more families move into nearby apartments, Bellaiche hopes people will think of Printemps less as a place to shop for clothes or makeup and more as a regular destination as they go about life. We hope people will come in for their daily coffee and croissant, he says. We love seeing people come into the store every day. It allows us to develop an intimacy with them.
Category:
E-Commerce
Yellow Tail, the budget-friendly Australian wine brand known to college students everywhere, has barely touched its branding since its debut in 2001. Now, though, the company is tweaking its lookincluding its iconic kangaroo logoin an attempt stand out on shelves as younger generations turn away from the wine aisle and toward trendy canned cocktails. The new branding, which includes a more vibrant Roo mascot and crisper product labels, will hit shelves in the U.S. this coming June. The understated update seems like a bid to remind consumers of what once made Yellow Tail’s accessible, easy-to-parse branding so innovativebut it’s less likely to make a splash in a now-over-saturated market. [Photo: Courtesy of yellow tail] Wine in decline The wine industry is currently in a state of decline, both in the U.S. and globally. According to the IWSR, a global alcohol industry analytics firm, 2023 was the first year in nearly three decades that overall spirits sales declined rather than increase. Globally, the volume of wine sold that year was down 4%, a trend the IWSR predicts will continue until at least 2028. And in the U.S. in 2024, wine sales to retailers declined by 8%, based on data from Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA). The decreasing interest in wine in the U.S. is attributable to a number of factors, including a rising cultural interest in moderating alcohol consumption, a growing number of alcohol-free options on the market, and a younger consumer base thats steering away from wine. Ever since the pandemic helped popularize to-go cocktails, ready-to-drink canned cocktails have become the trendy drink of choice for Gen Zers and Millennials over a $5 bottle of vino. Yellow Tails parent brand, Casella Wines, is Australia’s top wine brand by global sales, but it has faced headwinds in the last couple of years. From 2021 to 2022, the brands total sales dropped from $500.53 million to $461.16 million, while net profit slumped 56% to $25.38 million. This past year, the brand recovered somewhat with a revenue of $476.42 million and a net profit of $26.53 million. Yellow Tails offerings, which retail for around $10 or less, fit snugly within one of the sectors that has seen the most decline: cheap wines. Per a 2024 IWSR report, both standard and below-average priced wines are considered to be in a state of long-term decline. Meanwhile, more premium-priced wines (between $15 and $49.99) are expected to gain in sales volume by 2027. Still, Yellow Tails team sees its accessibility as a marketing asset. Yellow Tail has always been about making wine approachable, easy to choose, and easy to enjoy, which gives it broad appeal across different types of consumers, says Libby Nutt, Yellow Tails general manager of marketing and export sales. While overall alcohol consumption is declining globally (including wine), we see Yellow Tail as well-positioned to meet the needs of todays drinkers. A kangaroo for the modern drinker When Yellow Tail debuted in 2001, its playful, non-intimidating branding stood out in a sector full of more serious-looking wine. In fact, its frequently referenced in marketing courses as an example of the Blue Ocean strategy, a term for finding a unique gap in an existing market. The brands approach to wine for the everyman also included simple, easy-to-decipher labels highlighting only the need-to-know information, like the grape variety and brand name itself. But as the market has become more saturated (see brands like Cupcake Vineyards, for example), its become more difficult to make an impact on shelves. Yellow Tails pack design is iconic, remaining largely unchanged since its launch, Nutt says. However, after more than 20 years, it was time for a strategic update, one that enhanced the design without losing its distinctiveness. The wine market is increasingly competitive, making shelf standout and strong branding more important than ever. This refresh builds on our existing brand assets, making them even more recognizable. [Photo: Courtesy of yellow tail] The changes are subtle, but not unnoticeable. The Yellow Tail brand name has been moved above the logo, making it easier for consumers to immediately recognize each bottles variety. The color contrast on the labels has also been pumped up to draw the eye. In keeping with Yellow Tails tradition of accessibility, short flavor descriptions have been added to each blend. And, perhaps most notably, the Roo mascot has been given a bit of a facelift. His back has been rounded, his outlines more defined, and his shapes simplifiedgiving him a look more akin to an animated cartoon character than his former roughly sketched self. In this refresh, weve made [Roo] bolder and more dynamic, better reflecting the brands free-spirited, easy-going nature, Nutt says. Given that the new branding has yet to launch in the U.S., its unclear how consumers will respond to the look. And, based on the relative restraint of the rebrand, it seems more like Yellow Tail is using this move to get back on consumers radars rather than to actually reposition itself to a new audience. Still, for the wine industry at large, its going to take a lot more than a slightly new look to convince customers to ditch their spiked seltzer or non-alcoholic beer in favor of a classic bottle of red.
Category:
E-Commerce
How do you connect with an increasingly fractured audience? Erika Ayers Badan reveals the ups, downs, and lessons learned in her first year running the lifestyle brand Food52a big pivot from her role as CEO of Barstool Sports. Her new podcast Work drops advice from her own career, plus hot takesfrom generational differences in the office to her surprising insights for in-person work. Badan also shares how Food52 is finding its voice around politics, and navigating the current moment. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. 2025 has started with so much volatility. A lot of business leaders are on their heels wondering how to respond to the array of changes issuing from the Trump White House. For you, do you have a philosophy about how to respond? How much do you react to the daily news? How much can you ignore it? It’s funny, when the first announcements around the tariffs came out, it was on a Saturday. I was really freaked out. I called an emergency meeting on a Sunday. And that’s become the new normal, where there’s a lot of whiplash, there’s a lot of pontification, there’s a lot of speculation. And really, what I’ve gotten to is that you can see what’s happening in the Trump administration is going to be chaotic, and I think CEOs being able to stay the course and set their own pace is probably the best course. Being in a reactionary mode is dangerous in general, and it feels especially dangerous right now. I sometimes think about the role of business and business leaders as part of the checks and balances in American culture. And I don’t know whether you think about that at all or whether you think something like, Listen, your job is to run the business and that’s what you do and there’s not another mission beyond that. Government used to regulate business. Now what you’re seeing is entrepreneurs are reshaping the government. Everything is topsy-turvy. I think this is one of the fundamental questions we’re going to have right now. We’re clearly entering an era where there will be less regulation, so will brands police themselves? How’s that going to work? Are we just going to pendulum swing every four years? So I don’t have any good answers for you, Bob, but I also think about it. A lot of CEOs are uneasy about being candid in public. What’s the value of that candor, and how does it flow back to Food52’s business, or is it just about connection? I think candor is important in general, and I think consumers are looking for the story behind the story. And this show is a way for me to do a couple things. One is I’m trying to experiment and model out how shows could and should be launched, produced, clipped, cut, managed, and I’m dogfooding it on myself. So if you want to know, my real intention is to be able to create other formats that look like this that are about home and lifestyle and food, and I’m using this as a template. I’m realtime creating a template that I can then give to other people here. I’ve not really talked about that, but that is my intention. So for example, we have two really, really phenomenally talented test kitchen chefs. I believe that they both should have shows where they’re showing not only the art and their craft, but also talking about how they feel about it and what they learned about it and what inspires them and how they got there. So that’s one way it helps Food52. And then the second is a connection point. One thing I really learned at Barstool was, unwittingly or unknowingly, I created a community of really professional women, like I talked about, who are looking to other professional women to relate to, to be informed by, to ask advice from. And this is a way for me to keep current with that community who ultimately I think will help inform what content this company creates, what products we develop, and how we think about our go-to-market positioning. On your podcast, you drop a lot of hot takes about work, and you’ve said that you’re mostly in favor of in-person office work and also that people are becoming less resilient in the workplace. And I wondered whether those two things are related or are they separate? Great question. I am a fan of in-person work. I don’t know that all businesses will go back to five days a week in the office. I think great start-ups will, in the most part, require people to be together in a way that is hands-on and in person in some capacity. And as it relates to resilience, I think there’s a whole bunch of things that are leading into the resilience question. One is how kids are being raised and how much risk we expose people to. When you look at time spent from elementary school kids through college kids, you’re never bored anymore. You’re not out. You’re not left to your own devices. You’re not messing up and getting in trouble the way at least I got in trouble when I was in high school and college. And it’s because there’s a safer, more interesting option on your phone. And as a result, when you are forced into the real world, a lot is required of you, and you have to make unstructured time into something, and you have to propel yourself into new places. It can be very, very, very difficult. And so I think that’s contributing to it. And then I think working over Zoom and in the comfort of your homeand I don’t think working from home is comfortable. I think actually working from home is pretty hard. It’s easier to tune out or feel more distance and feel less connected. I often think when we go to school, a lot of the things we learn are not the school work, but how to engage with other people. And the same thing happens when you go into a workplace: You learn how to work with a group of people in a different way. Definitely. You learn what happens when people don’t like you at work. You don’t experience that when you work from home. What are the power dynamics? Who’s the hierarchy? I remember getting my first job at Microsoft, and I was very enamored and terrified of the execs there, and I just watched them all the time. I couldn’t get enough. I just wanted to watch what they wore, what they ate, what they did, how they talked to one another, how they led their people, how they dealt with failure. And I got a whole tuition just sitting in a room. If you’re on a Zoom call, you’re not getting the full picture. There’s no meeting after the meeting. There’s no hallway conversation. Then I think that’s the osmosis that can really feed you at work. That unstructured serendipity that is part of a workplace, which is not always efficient but can be effective. 100%. You can waste a lot of time at work. The days I really need to get a lot of work done, I don’t go to the office because the commute takesa long time, the chit-chat takes a long time, but it is really important because you learn the dynamics of a place, and that’s really where the fabric and culture can be developed.
Category:
E-Commerce
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