Häagen-Dazs’ New Store Design Does Luxury on a Budget

For all the windfalls that ecommerce has enjoyed in recent years, it’s also become clear that predictions of the death of brick-and-mortar shopping were … premature. Shopify’s 2023 Retail Trends study, for example, revealed that 82% of businesses are “confident physical stores will continue to play an important role in future commerce growth.” And a recent forecast from Deloitte predicted that traditional stores will still make up 72% of all retail sales by 2024. Little wonder that leading retailers are paying renewed attention to the in-store experience and aesthetic. In March, Target opened a new prototype in Katy, Texas, featuring wider aisles and design touches like living plants and reclaimed wood features. Walmart is rolling out its “store of the future,” featuring interactive digital screens and expanded beer and wine offerings. Even Amazon, king of online shopping, cut the ribbon on a revamped Amazon Fresh store in Chicago earlier this month. Also joining this lineup is Häagen-Dazs, which is kicking off a store-refresh effort announced back in 2021. Marketing director Rachel Jaiven told Adweek that creating the right atmosphere in stores is integral to reinforcing consumer perceptions of Häagen-Dazs as an upmarket product. Quad’s Rebrand From Legacy Printer to Marketing ‘Maker’ “We recognized that the brand hadn't really evolved enough with cultural trends and consumer sentiment,” she said. “It was time to redefine our definition of luxury and how we showed up in the market.” But unlike Target—which is dropping a cool $5 billion on store updates—Häagen-Dazs is just a franchisor. And since individual operators own each of the company’s 208 scoop shops, the decorating budget is a modest one. “We have owners with their own investments in the shop, so we made sure that key elements would make a powerful statement at a lower cost [and were] things that we could easily implement,” Jaiven said. That left Chase Design Group to conjure associations of luxury and refinement even as it kept costs in check. How did it pull that off? Jaiven and Chase senior design director Jon Arriaza gave Adweek a peek at some of the refinements and the thinking behind each. 1. The woodgrain. The stores’ former color palette of white, black and gold was too formal—what Arriaza called “old-school premium.” Chase’s remit was to make stores feel more inviting, which the woodgrain achieves by adding warmth. “It feels premium and it feels familiar, but more upbeat,” he said. Paint and a faux wood finish achieve these ends at a reasonable cost. 2. The burgundy. Häagen-Dazs took pains to use wine red because “burgundy is our brand color,” Jaiven said. Even so, she conceded, “burgundy as a whole can be really heavy.” In the new design, Chase limited the color to selected spots, most noticeably the cutout archway known as the cove. Meanwhile, “the [brand] logo went to a more horizontal, more open version,” Arriaza said. The burgundy background helps the emblem to stand out. 3. The shelf. The long shelf bridging the cove, Arriaza explained, is “set up as a place to display art.” The art itself is deliberative but inexpensive: Some stacked pint containers and 3D sculptures of a vanilla flower, a strawberry and a piece of caramel. “Those elements represent the core flavors,” Arriaza added. The pieces also act as reminders of the ice cream’s quality ingredients. 4. The tapestry. They call it a tapestry but it’s really “just wallpaper,” Jaiven said, “so it’s not very expensive and it’s easy for us to implement.” While the motif tunes up the vibe and adds texture to the interior, it’s also a subtle brand cue. “The tapestry is what we call the iconic pattern,” Arriaza said. A variant of the background used on the pint containers, “it has a loose and flowy design aesthetic that represents the creaminess of the ice cream.” 5. The menu boards. A necessary evil of the restaurant business, menu boards can also be turned into a branding opportunity. Chase photographed Häagen-Dazs’ signature desserts on solid-color backgrounds that accentuated the flavors: green for mint, yellow for banana and so on. “We did it in a style we call a beautiful mess,” Arriaza said, “—it creates this idea of indulgence.” 6. The toppings. Historically, a scoop shop would simply list a choice of dessert toppings on the menu board. For Häagen-Dazs, “we updated the way that toppings were going to be shown to people,” Arriaza said. Putting chocolate sprinkles and waffle cone pieces into large display jars achieved a visual impact at a manageable cost. “It’s more modern and appealing and shows off the toppings even better,” Arriaza said.

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How Häagen-Dazs’ New Store Design Does Luxury on a Budget

Paint, wallpaper and props can go a long way

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara