Clients

Dolce & Gabbana

An Inspiration Retail Tour designed to inspire 30 Dolce & Gabbana Beauty Retail Marketing Managers, who handle Marketing, Go-To-Market, Store Design, Product Design, Retail Experience and Visual Merchandising.

The focus of the exploration: storytelling, innovative solutions, commercial activation, selling ceremonies and sales rituals in various sectors, with particular attention to fashion and accessories. Display, personalisation and experiential digitalisation were the secondary themes to observe along the route.

• 3 groups of 11-12 people, each accompanied by a dedicated MiRT researcher.
• 6/7 stores selected by the Milano Retail Tour trendwatchers, with transfers by executive shuttle and a retail lunch.
• 1 day in three phases: Brief & Kit, Retail Tour & Lunch, Wrap Up & Share, with the closing seminar to share the field experience and identify opportunities not yet explored.

UGG

An Inspiration Retail Tour in English for the UGG Retail Marketing Managers of the Milan and London teams: half a day of exploration and field analysis to take a close look at visual, behavioural and design languages in related contexts, useful for the brand’s future local activations.

The “Urban Rituals” concept guided the group through brands, spaces and languages that are reinterpreting urban life today through new aesthetics of comfort, function, identity and community:

• comfort as a cultural value, not just a physical one;
• function as a new aesthetic;
• behaviour as a lens for observation and implicit storytelling;
• retail as an experiential, ritual and relational space;
• community as an urban tribe that brings together vision, style and value.

A group of 8-10 people, accompanied by a MiRT researcher, visited 10/12 selected stores on foot, talking to the sales staff and observing how customers are welcomed and served.

Lierac

A day of field exploration to discover the deeper motivations behind the renewal of the LIERAC packaging and product range. An analysis of the three main product lines, their target audiences, lifestyles and the emotions experienced first-hand, through a multisensory tour that ended with a multimedia event.

• 3 themed routes
• 46 participants, ethnographers for a day.
• 1 interactive classroom workshop with the expert trendwatchers of Milano Retail Tour, to share the field experience and organise the knowledge gained.

Luxottica

For the Luxottica Group International Marketing Meeting, Milano Retail Tour contributed to the programme with a half day of field experience for 60 marketing managers from all over the world, who explored a number of Milanese retail locations selected by our team according to a set of agreed criteria. The closing seminar was a valuable moment to share the participants’ points of view and to start a strategic discussion, with the aim of relating the insights gained in the field to the company’s own situation.

What Fabio d’Angelantonio, Chief Marketing Officer of the Luxottica Group, says about us:

“MiRT is a modern, smart, flexible and useful Retail Experience education programme and, for many managers, I believe it can be surprising.
The team that runs it is competent, able to listen to and meet specific needs, and engaging.”

L'Oréal

A Milano Retail Tour dedicated to the most important retailers in Italian perfumery. Five different experiential city routes, each with its own exploration tasks, brought back to the classroom by all participants with great care and passion. The goal: awareness of the level of innovation needed to engage today’s consumer effectively.

Among the new features: the first Virtual Retail Tour!

What Roberto Serafini, General Manager of L’Oreal Luxe Italia, says about us:

“I was able to give my perfumery clients a retail experience: I did not think Milan could offer so much inspiration and vision of the future of retail. Maria Roberta Castelli and her team gave some thirty entrepreneurs a very useful and productive experience: in a few hours, split between the classroom (briefing) and the field (visits and interaction in the stores), we gained considerable food for thought on several areas: merchandising and attractiveness, service and advice, specialisation. An experience to repeat, perhaps organised by theme and followed by a digital experience through a dedicated portal.”

Swatch

A full-day Milano Retail Tour involving 15 Trade Marketing Managers of Swatch Group Italia, split into two groups. The field exploration was broken up at lunchtime by pleasant stops in some particularly hip Milanese venues that matched the themes of the experience, to encourage team building. During the closing workshop, participants were able to apply the lateral thinking sparked by what they had just learned, and to follow a presentation of successful case histories from international retail by the MiRT researchers.

What Lisa Parolini, Trade Marketing Manager Tissot, says about us:

“Milano Retail Tour: experiencing the store in the store.
Even before being a training moment, Milano Retail Tour is an effective way to perceive and internalise the store experience in the store itself, to analyse what is happening in retail, and to draw ideas and new solutions to apply in your own stores or in those you work with.
Among the key factors of MiRT’s success is flexibility above all: just like a tailor-made suit, the route can be adapted, selecting locations ad hoc on the basis of the set objective.
The method used (“experience in the field” first and “in the classroom” afterwards) encourages each participant to investigate the reality of the store directly, testing their own senses and thinking.
Last but not least, the role of the organisers, who give broad guidelines before the store visits, then let participants experience things first-hand, and finally pull together the personal reflections, relating them to the objectives of the activity and drawing parallels with national and international trends.”

Sanofi

We travelled to Paris to organise the first Paris Retail Tour. The focus of this tour? Introducing the best agents of a well-known pharmaceutical multinational to the concept of CRM Evolved, by exploring locations that best embody it.

An intense day for the Parisian ethnographers, spent being pampered by the staff of locations whose strength lies in the unique relationship they build with their customers.

A cutting-edge retail experience, where attention to detail and a vocation for bespoke meet new technologies and the global market. A short circuit between tradition and modernity, designed to involve customers in a refined, tailored experience.

CRM Evolved is not just databases, data mining and commercial offers. It is also about sharing passions and understanding needs and aspirations. It means personalising the commercial offer as if it were meant for a friend, someone you have known for years. The result of strategies like this can be a solid relationship with your customers, built to last in the long term.

Teddy

With know-how built up over almost fifty years of activity, a varied bouquet of brands with great commercial success both nationally and internationally, and an extremely efficient and widespread distribution network that has made it a leading player in fast fashion, the Teddy Group tried out MiRT’s unconventional training model with the aim of:

• exploring in depth, through field observation, a number of topics of strategic interest for the group’s retail activities;
• keeping its top management constantly up to date on the evolving needs and behaviour of its current and potential consumers;

Rolex

We took the Italian dealers on a journey in search of retail concepts, products and iconic brands whose distinctive trait is a tradition that has been skilfully built up and told.

Far from becoming a prison that condemns a brand to remain forever faithful to the past, heritage becomes an invaluable asset which, when used well and “brought to life”, wraps the consumer in a highly memorable experience.

What Elena Rusinenti, Marketing Director of Rolex Italia, says about us:

“By involving our retailers, the aim was to address the theme of Heritage in today’s context, where consumer needs seem to be constantly evolving.

We believe it was a valuable experience, as it gave food for thought to our dealers, who are called upon to enhance the “history” of their stores, reconciling it on the one hand with the high level of technological innovation that distinguishes our products, and on the other with the frenzy of a market that is complex to read.

The qualified MiRT team was able to create a tailor-made route, where the exchange of ideas and opinions was constant, fruitful and spontaneous.”

Timberland

The top management of the VF Corporation brand devoted a day of reflection with Elena Marinoni and Andrea Bertagnolio to exploring the themes of the new concept store to offer its aficionados.

Heritage, craftsmanship, visual identity and multisensory experience across the board!

Leroy Merlin

A journey to discover the most relevant Milanese customer experiences on the theme of memorable shopping. Leroy Merlin involved more than 60 managers in a structured route designed to inspire the concept of its 2025 store.

Over three weeks, all the ethnographers were able to explore Milan’s best practices, sharing the impressions and images collected on the Tour on a purpose-built platform.

Philips

Lighting in Fashion Retail was the theme of the qualitative research that shaped the city route of the Retail Tour offered to Philips prospects and clients.

The data collection phase outlined a rather varied scenario, in which we can recognise four recurring dimensions that characterise the main use of light inside a store and the type of atmosphere and shopping experience that light, as a fundamental design ingredient, helps to create.

Retail managers from the best-known fashion houses met to share, in a closing workshop, the evidence explored during the ethnographic route “Illuminati!”.

What Cinzia Catena, Key Account Manager Fashion Retail Philips Lighting, says about us:

“We think the day was a great success, both in terms of relationships and of the content received and perceived. We have had extremely positive feedback from all our guests, and I believe this is the best reward for the work we have all done over these months.”

IKEA

2015

A Retail Tour dedicated to the Sales Leaders, the people who pass on the values of the Swedish brand to all its stores in Italy.

A wonderful experience with a close-knit and highly engaged team, exploring memorable places and seeing first-hand how digital tools need properly trained staff alongside them.

2016

IKEA wanted to start a tailor-made programme for the team dedicated to the new ONE MILANO project, to investigate how retail trends are evolving, with a specific focus on innovative formats, emerging retail concepts able to break the usual distribution patterns, how “omnichannel” affects retail spaces, and iconic retail places able to trigger a “surprise effect” in the customer.

What Deborah Sabbatini, Project Manager Com&In One Milano, IKEA ITALIA RETAIL, says about us:

“The aim was to involve our interior designers and merchandisers in investigating how trends in the retail world are evolving, bringing about a change able to break the usual patterns we were used to.

The experience was interesting, full of stimuli and inspiration. The research work and the proposed approach succeeded in channelling energy and passion into the topic. Discovering a changed and renewed retail world enriched us and brought about a change of mindset that will allow us to approach future projects differently.

Thanks to the MiRT team for the professionalism, energy and passion with which they led the whole day.”

Invidia

The goal: to explore and highlight the main levers for inspiring the creation of the new concept store. Our research looked in depth at a crucial aspect of the male and female trends most consistent with the new direction taken by Invidia, to define their identity, tastes, availability and desire to belong, and to build a route through a selection of emblematic hospitality venues with an out-of-the-ordinary offer, chosen for their relevance and their break with the state of the art.

The Tour was attended both by the company’s top management and by the network of professionals chosen to carry out the next steps needed to realise the concept. A more in-depth workshop, held a week later once the insights from the Tour had settled, helped add value to developing the most effective solution.

What Luca Valoti, CEO of Invidia, says about us:

“An intense working day in which we explored every aspect of creating our new concept store. From Visual to Layout, from Storytelling to Brand Experience, from Hospitality to Memorability. To make sure the experience was turned into concrete action, I decided to involve not only my closest retail colleagues but also the network of architects and communication experts working on the project. I am pleased with the inspiration sparked by the Tour and by the Milano Retail Tour staff, because together with my colleagues I have already spotted some concrete opportunities to develop the project.”

Gobbi 1842

How can I tell a story more than a century old today, preserving its values without boring the contemporary consumer? That was the question we answered with a Retail Tour built around Heritage, as skilfully told by historic Milanese places that have managed to combine new ways of storytelling with their long tradition.

A route commissioned by the owners and shared by the entire sales staff of the organisation, to drive a shared decision-making process.

What Serena Pozzolini Gobbi, CEO of Gobbi 1842, says about us:

“I decided to involve my colleagues in a team-building activity to become aware of the steps needed to tell our century-old story today. We visited unexpected places and, above all, different but equally effective ways of bringing an important story, just like ours, up to date. As soon as the inspiration phase was over, we began an innovation process under the guidance of the Milano Retail Tour staff.”