Urban Decay
Digital enhancements to beauty boutiques and concessions
Urban Decay is a 21st-century powerhouse in the luxury cosmetics industry with a strong base of retailers and stores across the globe. Offering bold and often shocking colours and products, Urban Decay is a world leading brand, today part of the larger L’Oréal group.
the challenge
Enhancing the in-store experience using digital media was a key part of Urban Decay’s strategy. They turned to Pixel for advice and implementation support.
Our Approach
We began working with Urban Decay in 2014 at their Covent Garden boutique store, where we installed 2 ultra high-brightness window displays. Since then, we have gone on to install solutions and provide content design at over 100 concessions and more recently, 5 large, standalone flagship sites across the UK.
In 2016 we installed a number of interactive screens in the new Urban Decay UK flagship store at Carnaby Street. This included a ‘ring of light’ solution which we developed in-house on a brief from the client. This installation allows customers to take their own selfie in burst format (where several frames are captured to provide motion, mimicking the burst mode of modern smartphones) and then directly share their clip onto the in-store digital photo wall, as well as emailing it to themselves. In addition, we installed a high-bright 55″ portrait screen with custom content in the street-facing window, along with a dedicated Instagram wall, which was provided with a live integration to allow realtime moderation of content aggregated from hashtags, as well as a dedicated events screen,the content of which was controlled by the store manager.
Further flagship sites have opened up at London Kings Cross, Nottingham Dublin and in 2018, Westfield White City. Here we installed a 3m by 2m LED at the store’s window, facing out into the mall.. On this behemoth of a display, Urban Decay invite customers and passers-by to try to win free experiences (such as lip makeovers) by playing the Pixel built ‘Pop Your Cherry’ game. This solution uses motion sensor technology to allow players to ‘swipe’ at falling cherries and collect points, with set high scores unlocking prizes. It’s a really unique and eye-catching solution that since install has been a real hit with the Westfield shopper. In-store staff are provided with the simple control to turn the game on, so that they can manage demand at peak times.
In addition to all of the visual wizardry, we’ve also installed in-store music solutions to all of the locations, managing the ambience remotely and providing monthly updates to the various playlists.
The Outcome
All Urban Decay stores feature some sort of digital execution, with the flagships receiving significant investment and becoming award-winning projects in their own right. All of the advanced solutions and digital media content was created in-house and, most importantly, provided with long-term remote and out of hours on-site support, to ensure the best in customer experience.
