Brand guidelines

As co-founder and marketing chief Shaun Galligan puts it: “Brand guidelines are good, but they can make you blinkered – if, on the other hand, you don’t have them, you’ll adapt and take the brand in new directions. This approach will work, as long as it’s what your customers want!”
dwell’s most successful store launch was at the opening of Westfield Stratford City in late 2011 – which it followed with new outlets in Leeds, Cardiff and Guildford this year. “These store types are very different,” says Mike Haines, sales director of dwell since December, and the man responsible for running – and opening – its stores.   ekonglong leather sofa chair

"Guildford’s is a cinema turned into a retail space – it’s like walking around an old house – whereas the store in Cardiff’s St David’s is much more traditional. We feel that we can make the dwell brand work in those different spaces, and what we create in each environment is a very different shopping experience. We don’t have a set layout plan – it’s more of a journey through the store – which increases the dwell time, no pun intended.

“The ones that have worked best are, predictably, high street locations in major cities – as well as the Westfield centres. They tend to be located alongside like brands – not necessarily furniture, but lifestyle stores in general. In fact, the closure of Habitat, which, at the time, probably represented the closest cross-over with dwell in terms of offering, actually hit us pretty hard – all of a sudden we were surrounded by empty stores!”

Mike’s CV is replete with high-level retail positions. His most recent job at luxury recliner specialist Ekornes saw him successfully roll out the Stressless Studio concept across the UK’s outlets, while pioneering world-leading marketing initiatives and establishing more than 20 new stockists. As a truly multi-channel retailer, built upon a strong online offering, dwell represents a new challenge across a wider market context.
There are currently 22 dwell stores – there will be 24 by the end of the year – and Mike believes that, with the right approach, this could grow beyond 60.