As part of O2’s continually evolving business strategy, 2008 was to see the launch of a new Brand Promise – “Helping Customers Connect” – and with it a new roadmap to take the company into 2011 and beyond. O2 asked Circular to develop a multi-year strategy for evolving its retail estate to help the company deliver on these goals.

Circular saw an opportunity to lift O2 retail out of the bleak category of mobile phone stores and create a new kind of shop on the high street, a Connectivity Shop. This would be a place where customers meet with friendly, knowledgeable gurus who walk them through complete connectivity solutions. The shop would illustrate through experience how mobile phones will be only one component of their newly connected world. The overall strategy’s success would lie in a holistic approach to the customer experience at multiple levels.

At the product level, Circular proposed to re-evaluate the basics of O2’s product experience. No retail renovation would succeed without a simplification of complicated tariffs, better educated staffing and most importantly intuitive product segmentation.

At the individual store level, a new store journey was proposed, broken down into the key phases and turning points of the visit showing how a space is to be planned to facilitate a successful and enjoyable visit.

Finally, Circular looked at the overall retail estate and proposed ways of looking at the properties as parts of a whole, as opposed to clones of the same.  By catering to different neighborhood demographics, purposing stores for their specific sizes and location types, and linking the stores in a network of interactive spaces, stores could be optimized to take advantage of their unique strengths and establish a networked community with each store an interface.