senz° point-of-sale tool
A deliberately blown-over street sign that asks passers-by: “Are you stormproof yet?”
- Year
- 2014
- Role
- Design internship
- Client
- senz° umbrellas
- Outcome
- Over half of passers-by noticed it, vs. 10% for a normal sign
- 50%+
- of passers-by noticed it
- 10%
- for a normal sign
- 11/20
- remembered the brand
During my internship at senz° umbrellas, I was asked to design something shop owners could put outside to show they sell senz° umbrellas. It was the first design challenge I fully owned inside a company, and I loved it.
Feeling protected
I started on the street, looking at existing signs and the rules for placing them. Then I looked at what a senz° umbrella means to its owner: quality, durability, and above all the feeling of being protected from bad weather.
The answer is a sign that has been blown over by the wind, asking “Are you stormproof yet?” (in Dutch: “Ben jij al stormproof?”). It doubles as a display for a senz° storm umbrella. Management gave me a budget for a prototype; I went to get some wood, screws and a lot of white spray paint, and a week and a half later I was out testing it with key retailers.
It worked
Over three cold days of street testing, more than half of the people walking past noticed the sign, against about 10% for a traditional one. And 11 out of 20 pedestrians remembered the brand 50 metres later, against 0 out of 20 for the normal sign.
I spent the last days of my internship editing a film of those street tests.