Client
Apollo
Industry
Entertainment / Retail
Website
www.apollo.ee
What we did?
Branding
Service design
Communication
Apollo used to be just a bookstore. Videoplanet rented films. Filmipood (literally “movie store”) sold movie DVDs and music CDs. All three were conventional brick-and-mortar stores and finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the adoption rate of digital devices and content. This is the story of how, over the course of several years, Apollo reinvented the way people consume content and spend their free time.
As a result of this process Apollo has seen a 200% increase in registered customers and a 300% increase in interaction frequency. This was achieved by unifying different entertainment and content brands into a single experience under one roof. The above outlets were combined under the Apollo banner, and the new Apollo has become a destination for entertainment. It has not only redefined the bookstore, but has also entered and completely changed the cinema market in Estonia, significantly improving the customer experience and consequently customers’ loyalty to the service provider.
The new Apollo concept is designed around the desired customer experience, not around the products or services on sale, because they are universal and created by global publishers and studios. Together with the client, then a holding company called Rautakirja Estonia, the team illustrated the customer’s point-of-view: “WHY do we have 7 different brands with competing content while providing no synergy either to customers or the company?”
As a first step, the designers mapped the touch-points of existing retail brands to their customers. This provided an understanding of the Rautakirja’s organisational capacity on the one hand, as well as the customers’ expectations and behaviour on the other. This helped to clearly illustrate the urgency of the coming transformation due to the paradigm shift from analogue to digital content delivery. What could Rautakirja offer, if content is digital and entertainment options are limitless?