Black

[Beep]

How is in-store lighting sinister? Particularly in an Apple store, where it's just...bright.

Bright lights are intimidating, therefore sinister. Think Rabbit in headlights. Although, I think it's how sterile the Apple store is that irritates me, and the fact it's full of 12 year old kids fingering the iPads and setting the alarms off.

[Gavin Scott]

How is in-store lighting sinister? Particularly in an Apple store, where it's just...bright.

Bright lights are intimidating, therefore sinister.

Not unless they're pointing in your face. You yourself used the word "headlights".

In fact there's significant evidence to suggest that strong full-spectrum lighting can improve your mood by releasing endorphins as well as producing vitamins.

[DVB Cornwall]

I have no issues with Apple stores or their franchisees, if they want to create a niche feel fine, it's part of the cache of the product. The cosmetic and fragrance industries have done it for years, Buyer Beware.

Back to Black, their real problem will come in aftersales, if they use the TGs system, credibility gets lost pretty damn quickly.

[Sput]

Bright lights are intimidating, therefore sinister. Think Rabbit in headlights. Although, I think it's how sterile the Apple store is that irritates me, and the fact it's full of 12 year old kids fingering the iPads and setting the alarms off.

If a shop is intimidating, why would people go in?

[dosxuk]

I'm not sure I see the link between intimidating and sinister.

[Chie]

I'll echo sputs question about lighting. As a lighting designer, I'm curious to know what you mean when you reference it. I know lighting can create visual excitement, but I'd like to know how this can be taken as a sinister thing.

Sensory overload plays a key role in:

1) encouraging shoppers to make snap, impulsive decisions while they're shopping, and
2) controlling the duration of their visit in order to maintain a steady flow of customers.

Shops don't want customers to dawdle around the shop thoughtfully considering each purchase or creating a backlog at the checkouts. So they employ bright lighting, along with other forms of sensory manipulation, to get you in, confuse you, and then get you to leave within a short time frame.

And didn't you praise the John Lewis ad because of the emotional response it created in you?

I appreciated the advert for the emotional response it evoked in me as a piece of film.

In fact there's significant evidence to suggest that strong full-spectrum lighting can improve your mood by releasing endorphins as well as producing vitamins.

Strong lighting also makes your pupils contract, which is very unflattering!

[Gavin Scott]

So they employ bright lighting, along with other forms of sensory manipulation, to get you in, confuse you, and then get you to leave within a short time frame.

You must be easily confused.

The longer a customer stays in a store, the more likely they are to purchase. Once they have purchased they will leave a store. The "churn" of footfalls takes its own, natural cycle. The objective is to sell, not to freak out the feeble minded into thrusting credit cards into the assistants hands shouting, "make it stop!".

I've got experience in wholesale, retail and lighting design. You're talking shit, I'm sorry; and I actually resent the assuredness with which you deliver it. Where does that come from?

And didn't you praise the John Lewis ad because of the emotional response it created in you?

I appreciated the advert for the emotional response it evoked in me as a piece of film.

You're contradicting your earlier point that invoking an emotional response is sinister. If it engenders a feeling of warmth and happiness then you're associating that with the brand. John Lewis' sales figures were significantly up this year - they bucked the trend of nearly all other retailers.

In fact there's significant evidence to suggest that strong full-spectrum lighting can improve your mood by releasing endorphins as well as producing vitamins.

Strong lighting also makes your pupils contract, which is very unflattering!

Sometime closing my eyelids makes some people more attractive to me.

[cdd]

They employ bright lighting, along with other forms of sensory manipulation, to get you in, confuse you, and then get you to leave within a short time frame.

Or they employ normal cosy lighting to relax you into thinking you're at a trusted place like home and feel at not question the things you see => spending money.

Or they employ dark and selective lighting to creative a sensual atmosphere and seduce you into purchasing things you otherwise wouldn't have => spending money.

Exactly what lighting would satisfy you?

There is such a thing as self control Chie. I think you're mistaking the artistic trait of trying to make somewhere a nice place to be for a cynical marketing scam.

[Chie]

The longer a customer stays in a store, the more likely they are to purchase.

That is true of a particular type of store. There's a big difference between, say, Debenhams and Tesco.

Once they have purchased they will leave a store. The "churn" of footfalls takes its own, natural cycle.

It's not natural in retail environments that have a higher rate of footfall.

The objective is to sell, not to freak out the feeble minded into thrusting credit cards into the assistants hands shouting, "make it stop!".

But that is what pressure selling is. And that is what supermarkets do, albeit by using the environment rather than speaking to consumers directly.

(Perhaps I should have differentiated between types of shops and then maybe we wouldn't or maybe we would have had this misunderstanding.)

You're contradicting your earlier point that invoking an emotional response is sinister. If it engenders a feeling of warmth and happiness then you're associating that with the brand.

It can be sinister. Again, you're talking about a department store, a particularly ethical one at that, which is not really what I had in mind when I wrote the post, since we were talking about large corporations at the time.

[Pete]

FACT ATTACK: One thing I learnt from WHSmith is nobody will buy anything is that is located within the first 6 feet directly in front of the door because they've not yet decelerated from street speed to shopping speed and thus are blind to anything in that first bit.

[BBC LDN]

You're talking shit, I'm sorry; and I actually resent the assuredness with which you deliver it.

*claps*

Why on earth is everyone indulging the utter bollocks that Chie is spitting forth? I'm all for a spirited and lively discussion on just about anything, but it's an exercise in futility if one side stubbornly insists on saying any old shit and refusing to give any ground to facts or common sense.

Does this Chie character actually believe any of the nonsense he's spewing forth, or is he just arguing for the sake of it? The lack of coherent reasoning behind the points being made, and the absence of any consistent train of thought - other than "I hate everything" - makes me wonder how much of his arguments are genuinely held, and how many are just being proposed for the sake of disagreeing with everyone out of some misplaced sense of moral and social superiority.

Marketing is inherently an act of manipulation, on every level. There is no such thing as non-manipulative marketing; by definition, its aim is to encourage the buyer to think that they need to purchase a product - either by making them feel that their lives will be incomplete without a widget, or by encouraging them to choose a Mega Widget over an Uber Widget. The whole process of applying branding to trade on emotional connections to other products from the same manufacturer, to selecting the right music to accompany a TV advert, to choosing the right materials for the product, to making the product itself look more sexy than it needs to be, and yes, even down to the design of a store in which the product is to be sold... all of this is part of the marketing decision chain, and every part of it is designed to manipulate the end-user into making a decision to buy.

The layout of the supermarket shelves you visit, the colours on the plane you fly on, the design of the website that you shop at, the packaging of the butter you spread on your toast, the events that large corporations choose to sponsor, the charities that companies donate to, the celebrities that endorse the products - every part of this is marketing, and every part of marketing is part of a universe of decision making that ultimately comes down to creating impressions that lead you to favour one product over another.

You're obviously not an idiot, Chie. You're able to string sentences together, and you're able to dissect other people's posts to try to deconstruct their arguments, so there's clearly some level of intelligence at work there. The concept of marketing being intrinsically and definitively manipulative is not a difficult one to grasp, nor is it a polarising 'out-there' opinion that the greatest minds of this generation are furiously debating. So why do you keep going on about it as though you're exposing some great conspiracy? Where does this sanctimony, this piety, come from? And do you think you could give it a frickin' rest?

Jeez... a chip on your shoulder sounds about right. There's something about the points that you make and the way that you make them that suggests that you first make the decision to dislike or disapprove or something, and THEN try to wrap some reasons around that choice. That's not a healthy way to view the world, and it's not a very interesting or constructive way to contribute to a discussion.