The Magical World of Airports

It was a late Thursday evening, I was at Amsterdam Schiphol airport waiting for my flight to depart to London. The flight got delayed, very unusual news for low-cost airlines. To gain some time, I decided to explore the shops inside the terminal.

I was amazed with the massive flow of people from all over the world and how airports represented a fantastic opportunity for brands to consolidate as global players. Furthermore, having a captive market that is eager to buy gifts for their love ones allows brands to engage with consumers in a deeper and more meaningful way.

Channel’s new N°5 L’EAUN pop-up shop (picture below) was the first store that grabbed my attention. The stall was located in a high footfall area. The fine and exquisite smell of the perfume pushed me inside the store. The face of the new campaign is Lily Rose Deep, she is an up-and-coming actress that embodies her generation and its values of freedom and boldness to perfection. 

Lily’s youthful image helps the brand to modernised and transform it’s heritage into a contemporary and fresh brand (to watch Neu Channel N5 commercial click here). The salesperson showed me samples of the different essences that goes inside the perfume and offered me to purchase the fragrance in two different sizes, these are 35ml (60 eur) and and 50ml (around 80 eur).

After leaving Channel pop-up shop, I jumped to Johnny Walker boutique. The store makes a wonderful job to immerse you into its brand history. I was astonished by the limited edition whiskeys which designs got inspired by iconic elements from the period each bottle has been created. The store is a true “brand equity booster”, its premium design anchors Johnny Walker in consumers mind as a high-ended brand.

I visited other stores but I couldn’t find any juicy story. It was late and I was tired of waiting for my flight, so I decided to go for a coffee to Starbucks. To my great surprise, the coffee brand was offering a service called “Starbucks Evenings”. The Evenings menu begins at 4pm and it includes an assortment of wines, crafted beers such as the new Espresso Cloud TMA  and various small plates, salads, flat breads and other many options.

While sipping my coffee, I started analysis why Starbucks introduced this new service. This menu extension will help the firm to increase the amount of visitors during the less busy periods of the day, furthermore, it will permit the brand to attract a larger audience (people that want to enjoy a salty and more elaborated evening snack & drinks). Moreover, wine and coffee have certain similarities that the brand will leverage on such as the growing access to both good coffee and wines and knowledge about both drinks has proliferated. 

Will Starbucks try to become the next wine “sommelier” brand? is the company piloting this service to subsequently introduce a new breed of stores? is it a way for Starbuck to get further penetration in the European market where evening snacking is so important? or can it be that the brand is as well premiumising its offering to charge a higher price to clients?

Oy! I lost track of time and it’s already time to board my flight! I grabbed my luggage and ran to the gate. What a flabbergasting experience has been exploring the magical world of airports!