QVC Unveils a Sleek New Redesign as the Retail Giant Doubles Down on Ecommerce
Brand wants to be so much more than your mom's go-to shopping channel
QVC rose to retail fame for its 24-hours-a-day shopping broadcasts, selling everything from kitchen appliances to jewelry. But in the 30-plus years since then, the way people shop has clearly changed quite a bit.
The shopping channel turned retail giant unveiled a sleek rebrand this week, ushering in a new era for the company as it continues to double down its efforts to focus on ecommerce and expanding its digital presence. The updates include a revamped, sleek logo, as well as other new visual elements, and the launch of an additional app, Q Anytime, which serves as a compliment to QVC’s already-existing flagship app.
Susan Ripke, QVC’s vice president of brand strategy, said that the logo refresh—the first in eight years—is a part of the brand’s ongoing progression to becoming a internet-friendly space. The square shape that’s a consistent presence in the new branding is intended to resemble a computer or a phone screen in a nod to those digital spaces. The lever of the Q, Ripke said, is supposed to symbolize an open door.
“As we’re investing more in digital and mobile platforms, we really wanted to look at our brand with an eye towards that,” she told Adweek of the brand revamp, which was created as a joint effort between QVC’s in-house team and the Publicis-owned agency Moxie. “We really approach this as looking at every single piece of our experience and making sure it was reflective in the digital space.”
Ripke said the challenge was maintaining the balance of the brand that their core customers knew and loved while changing things up enough to attract the attention of new customers, too. QVC may have got its start in broadcast shopping, but the constantly changing retail landscape means it can no longer solely rely on that method to build its business.
Along with the rebranding comes the release of Q Anytime, a new app that acts as a supplement to the brand’s flagship app. Ripke calls it a “testing ground for digital initiatives” and will allow customers to dive deep into a particular category—for example, beauty or shoes—that they’re interested in. For each category, there’s a feed of videos—melding QVC’s bread and butter, the broadcast content, with a digital-first experience. The content is pulled from QVC’s vast library of video content, with new videos launching every two hours on the platform.
“It’s really about bite-size content that’s bucketed per what her interest is,” said Ripke.
Q Anytime is just another example of QVC further adapting the content it’s known for into a digital realm. Sets are being designed to make them smaller, so the resulting videos are better suited to be watched on a phone screen, rather than a 65 inch television. The goal, Ripke said, is to make a customer feel like “she’s almost being invited into the conversation.”
But broadcast is still at the core of what QVC does, said Ripke, and the brand views their televised content as its “point of differentiation” from other retailers. Content creation and storytelling is how QVC moves product, and that won’t change.
“We can bring these products to life really unlike any other retailer, in any space,” said Ripke. “[But] this change is really moving us into this digital space.”
