The internationally acclaimed architect from BIG, David Zahle, joined us at Re:position to talk about how their work with positioning cities and regions. During his inspiring talk, David took us through some of BIG’s amazing projects and told us how they always try to challenge the starting point. While David emphasized the architectural and visual aspect of positioning, our CEO Nikolaj Stagis focused on the branding perspective of repositioning and shared several examples of successful brand repositioning.
Redefining the status quo
David Zahle explained how BIG uses both new, existing and obsolete infrastructure to reposition spaces around the world and how many of BIG’s current and past projects have an element of redefining the status quo: E.g. how BIG moved the Little Mermaid from Copenhagen to Shanghai for the Danish Biennale Pavilion and designed the new facade and roof for Amager Ressource Center (ARC), an incineration plant near Copenhagen. The new exterior converts the monolithic building into a ski pistes, that will allow the public to engage with the plant and will turn it into something attractive, useful, and exciting instead of something tolerated out of necessity.
Exclusive beds and designer printers
Nikolaj Stagis explained the fundamentals of a successful reposition: Often it’s much more a question of reconsidering the way you do business than trying to change the image of the brand through a clever campaign.
The Swedish luxury bedmaker Hästens was one of Nikolaj’s examples, as well as our own work with printer brand OKI. Hästens is a family-owned business, who have produced beds for more than 150 years, and are known for their distinctive blue and white checked pattern. Times had been hard for two decades, when Jan Ryde picked up the mantle in 1988, as the first academic in the family to run the business. He did something drastic by moving away from years of B2B to B2C. Ryde introduced new high-end product categories and redefined the brand as a luxury product. As a result business grew exponentially and turned Hästens into a brand known around the world.
We look forward to seeing you at our next Re:garding event on November 24.
