After more than 40 years of working together, Pick n Pay and Y&R embarked on a project to create a store that redefined retail by turning grocery shopping into a sensory experience.

Y&R’s Head of Design, Anita Modi, says: “The decor and sensory experience had to be aligned to Pick n Pay’s brand ethos, belief systems, objectives and vision. We worked to create themes within the store that would appeal to both rational and emotive senses in an attempt to make the shopping experience unique. For example, the store boasts a Chocolate Room, which is illustrative of pure indulgence, while a Wine Tasting Room shows off a giant bottle of wine made from corks.”

The overall brief was to create a clean looking store, simple in its design and very futuristic. What’s more, Y&R was asked to develop a logo, icon, menus and all branded elements of the restaurant, ‘Thyme on Nicol’ (we helped conceptualise the name) and to design the corporate identity, values, principles and overall look and feel for the ‘Good Food Studio’ cooking school.

Karen Saville, Y&R’s Client Service Director, shares: “Y&R has evolved into an ideas generation company that is no longer limited to providing the services of a traditional above-the-line or even through-the-line agency. Our long-term, trustworthy relationship with the client not only secured our involvement in this project, but afforded us the opportunity to bring our award-winning design team on board to offer proactive design solutions to realise the essence of the store.”

Says Modi, “We maintained that all design elements had to inspire, delight and surprise the customer, who in Pick n Pay’s case is Queen. This became our guiding standard throughout the project to best bring the concept around food psychology to life (i.e. the study of human thoughts, feelings and beliefs impacted by food).

So, when designing the ‘Good Food Studio’ cooking school, we knew we had to create an environment of aspiration by providing a safe and fun setting for individuals and families to really enjoy cooking and learning about food. We tapped into insights around the human connection with food and that, which has taken us beyond survival to emotional and sensorial significance. We considered the amount of time thinking, touching and eating food, cultural associations, how, why, when, and what we eat and then we interpreted these into creative design ideas for each specific area of the studio.”

The main area in the ‘Good Food Studio’ therefore mimics a kitchen in a home, based on the insight that families and friends gather to share the days’, weeks’ or months’ events in their kitchen. Y&R conveyed this concept of storytelling through a ‘food’ story and visuals.

“As the preferred design agency partner to Pick n Pay on Nicol, Y&R was involved in every single touchpoint in this venture. In addition, the agency was asked to develop an internal staff campaign to promote Raymond Ackerman’s key principles of trading and service within the store. Idea generation is what got us here. Idea generation is what will take us into the future of advertising.”