YCN - Primary Research - Visiting M&S and other retailers

One of the tasks on the prepared action plan was to visit M&S, to explore the food products, see what they already stock in regard to 'platters' and 'packs' and to see what options there is of their food products to put into our picnic pack. I also wanted to look at the stores general ethos, the message it portrayed and the design factors and elements, so we would know what would be suitable to design for the store to promote our pack.


Below, are some typographic murals M&S had spread across the entrance of their store, telling customers about their eco policy, their helpful packaging and labelling strategy and fair trade policy. This immediately tells customers what to expect within the store in of quality yet efficiency. 

Their store layout was very interesting, the below image shows a selection of vegetables, which can be selected and put into one meal, its does larger food at the bottom, smaller at the top, alongside herbs and other 'extras' which was quite nice, in a way inspirational to make something a little different for dinner.

I was surpised to see this little gadget alongside food products - a tiny M&S TV, which tells you about their food products, where they get them from (fair trade) and recipes they can be used in. This is a design factor we certainly need to consider as there were many of them, spread across various aisles, including the desserts and bakery. We could design the moving image for this, alongside the advertising piece surrounding the screen.

This was a lovely piece of packaging design work I saw for oranges - Four oranges are held in what looks like biodegradable, eco friendly stocked packaging, die cut to show colour and texture. Its a nice in keeping idea, we could approach our pack in a similar sense.

Existing ideas / products

I came across a few products M&S food parcels / platters in the ready meals section. They offered Oriental chinese, indian, mexican and greek food boxes which is filled with ready meals to heat and be ready in under ten minutes. I wasn't able to find anything similar in regard to desserts

Again store layout was important in promoting the above product. For a certain price you can select a few relating items - for instance - Chinese pack, Pack of crackers, Drink, Soy Sauce, Chilli Dip. There were similair selections for the other packs available. This would be a brilliant idea and in-keeping with M&S if we do the same.

The only dessert pack I came across was a very bland, 6 piece selection box, just showing there is a gap in the market and in M&S for our new innovative product.

The only other dessert relating selection boxes were of biscuits and chocolate which I believe were only available due to the upcoming Mother day and Easter.

An easter display, holding hot cross buns. Something we could potentially package for the Spring picnic box. The stand holding the food products here is again something we could do, something of a similar purpose and size.

In store graphics, telling the stores policies about the freshness of their products.

Another possible design factor, small plaques to go alongside our food products. The below suggests a recipe.

In store design, a divider sectioning off food products. Something else we could try to do and design for.

Thorntons

Here is a huge selection of chocolates which are under the deal '3 for £10'. We could do something similar in scale and option selection with price.

Sainsburys

Sainsburys offered a lovely idea, the below image uses info graphics to show customers that for £5 they can purchase 2 different pizzas with a side (there was a selection to choose from) - They promoted it as 'Meal for two'.