Procter & Gamble wants a first-hand look at what and why women buy and that's why the manufacturer is opening a 130-square-foot Olay Store in a Cincinnati-area mall.
The temporary store, which will be open for business between Aug. 15 and Oct. 15, is not the first of its kind for the brand. P&G has opened similar Olay stores in Poland, Spain, Russia and Mexico, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier.
The first stand-alone Olay store was opened for business in Poland at Warsaw's Galeria Mokotaw.
Lia Braaten Hager, global manager/global identity director for Olay, told VisualStore, "The store became the first iteration of our new identity, bringing more warmth, light and femininity to our overall consumer experience.
The store in Warsaw was unusual, said Beth Harlor, vp/creative director for Benchmark, the design and brand consultancy that worked with P&G to develop the Olay Store, because " Poland is a market where Olay hadn't existed. P&G wanted to launch with scale, starting with the freestanding store and then working toward opening counters in various department stores."
John Brownlee, brand manager of Olay North America, said the company is looking to its kiosk experiment to give it the insights it needs to promote the sale of its products in stores here.
"The key task of this site is not to sell the product," said Maria Deacon, senior environmental designer at Benchmark. "This is acting as a teaching tool."
P&G expects to learn quite a lot about what motivates consumers to buy Olay products in the two months the kiosk is in operation at the Kenwood Towne Centre mall.
P&G will have 80 of its best and brightest in areas such as package and market research observing shoppers and their interactions with the kiosk's beauty consultants.
Discussion Questions: How will P&G's Olay Store kiosk help its retailer partners? Do you see companies such as P&G opening their own stores if sales performance turns out to be strong in kiosk laboratories?