Athleta - Eight Inc.

Athleta.
Building Community For Women.

Introduction

When creating an in-store experience for Gap’s Athleta brand to enable store specific customer engagement, two questions came to mind – how can a trusted authority in female fitness apparel use its network to bring together a community around localized participation and resource sharing? And how can they deepen their customer experience through digital interaction and emotion?”

Sustaining the Athleta message that “A woman athlete is her most powerful self when she’s fully engaged in the moment – when she discovers her strength, her focus, her power” was the inspiration behind the Athleta Community Zone. The experience enables Athleta to build relationships with their customers and evolve in a way where the community of women can also learn, connect and support each other.

Town Center at Corte Madera

Launching in the Town Center at Corte Madera, the Community Zone combines both physical and digital experiences to create a comfortable and useful gathering space. The zone is set to be piloted for intuitive feedback on the design solution and add value to the “she” resulting in a new vision of the Athleta Community Experience.

It is the central hub streamlined by fitness enthusiasts and designed specifically to each store location when rolled out. This new concept will open a dialogue, not just a broadcast, between Athleta and the active-lifestyle community.

Town Center at Corte Madera - Eight Inc.

Town Center at Corte Madera - Eight Inc.

Community Zone

The design was sought out to be strategic in the types of capabilities it offered and creating an exclusive experience for that local community. The zone is primarily viewed and interaction occurs only within the space. Intended as a grass roots retail location effort, all the content, ideas, events etc came from the Athleta local community leader.

The zone features a gathering table with embedded tablets to enable browsing of events, classes, community posts and online product purchases and information.Local stories and contacts are available for self-discovery or available for the staff as a resource.

Two pillars book end the table to enclose the zone. One pillar displays a digital billboard to highlight stories featured on the tablets, and on the other, a physical pin-up board with local print and posts of staff selects with a chalkboard surface for local commentary.

The community zone extends that Athleta offering of connecting women with varying degrees of fitness through in-store activities and elevating the role of each store as a center of support and connectivity.

Community Zone - Eight Inc.

Community Zone - Eight Inc.

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