Apple
Reinventing learning and entertainment in Apple Store
Introducing Today at Apple
- Strategy and definition for the Today at Apple program
- Design and development of the Apple Wall & CMS
- Strategy and design for the Apple employee app, Hello
- Art direction, photography, video, and motion graphics
Outcomes
Overview
Apple isn’t just the world’s most valuable brand and most revolutionary technology company. It’s also a leader in retail, having set new standards for personalized customer service, minimal store design, and easy checkout.
When Apple Stores first opened nearly two decades ago, the brand was reintroducing itself to consumers. The retail strategy was simple: give customers a hands-on opportunity to understand the Mac, iPod, and other Apple products.
Today, Apple has over 1.4 billion devices in use around the world. Many users are on their fifth—even tenth—version of a phone or computer. The stores have met and exceeded their initial goal, and there’s global appreciation for the quality of Apple products.
The company wanted to evolve its approach to retail, so it collaborated with Work & Co to find new reasons to bring customers into stores and forge deeper relationships. The result was Today at Apple, a learning platform that represents the next generation of Apple retail. With sessions happening every hour in stores worldwide, over 5 million people participated in a Today at Apple session the past year.
“Imagining what a retail store can, and should, be: a place not just to sell things, but where people can connect in a meaningful, personal way. This is an essential evolution of the Apple brand from a product that people use to an experience that changes people’s lives.”
Strategy
Apple saw an opportunity to evolve its stores from being solely focused on transactions to becoming community hubs with education and creativity at the center. Together with Apple, we devised a strategy to help people pursue their passions.
People can now visit an Apple Store to attend live performances with bands and musicians, learn drawing skills from influential artists, and collaborate with startups and entrepreneurs. They can send their kids to Apple Store camps for filmmaking and coding. They can even step out of stores and go on guided walks with professional photographers to learn new camera skills.
To facilitate the learning sessions, we designed and developed new software inside stores—from CMS-enabled massive video walls down to forum displays for intimate sessions.
Walls
The custom 6K video walls—multiple giant screens measuring as big as 34 feet wide that are synchronized with software—are the heart of the Today at Apple retail experience.
They also presented a challenge at a new scale, requiring months of prototyping. Work & Co designed and developed the content and display modes, and developed a new publishing tool.
Because stores have varying video wall dimensions, we created responsive designs for ultra-large screens to make sure each mode would work across every video wall in every store.
Content Strategy
We took a flexible approach to global content and art direction for Today at Apple, tailoring programs to individual cities. We even led photo shoots in Dubai, Singapore, Paris, London, New York, and LA.
Hello
To help employees around the world stay connected, we partnered with Apple to create Hello—a global tool that helps the 70,000 Apple retail employees stay up-to-the-minute about their own stores, priorities, and news from across the company.
Employees get fresh video messages from Apple executives, on-the-job tips, prioritized tasks from their managers, education on Apple products, and support for Today at Apple sessions.
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