Luxottica is advancing a range of ideas for visitors to the company’s booth at Vision Expo East later this month. Instead of emphasizing product orders at the show, Luxottica will present a completely new environment called “be VISIONary: The Excellence of Product...The Power of Storytelling...The Art of Retailing.”
NEW YORK— Vision Expo East attendees will have a chance to see and experience a different type of show booth at this month’s upcoming event, with the debut of a new presentation from Luxottica. Designed “to start a larger conversation” about the three key concepts—including quality frame-making, ways to discuss brand stories with customers and contemporary concepts in setting up stores and selling areas—the new booth is a radical departure.

Themed “be VISIONary: The Excellence of Product…The Power of Storytelling…The Art of Retailing,” the new Luxottica booth will not sell eyewear products nor have traditional order-writing areas. Instead, points out Holly Rush, Luxottica’s U.S. wholesale division president, “We want to take a step back and ‘up’—and start a real dialog with our accounts about the ideas that are taking hold in the market today with their own customers. How can we raise the level of communication about product quality and brands? What’s unique about eyewear that we can better explain to the consumer? What are the new principles influencing the expectations of consumers, ideas that can be translated however ECPs want to translate them in their own dispensing environments, in their own stores, in fresh ways?”

Added Milena Cavicchioli, Luxottica’s vice president marketing, “Luxottica has decided to use the trade show for a larger conversation. There are so many changes happening in our market—in all businesses, really—and the booth was no longer serving the purpose, or was conducive to delivering the message and conversation we want to have with the industry.”

The newly designed space will feature a range of unique features, setups, resources and displays. “The Excellence of Product” will illustrate ways of presenting premium eyewear as a value to the industry, Cavicchioli pointed out. “We respect all product, but not all eyeglasses are created equal. There is a reason why Luxottica eyewear, designer and luxury brands, are what they are. And there is a reason in terms of construction and fabrication that distinguishes premium product from standard product. This area will also feature craftsmen from Agordo, Italy making prototypes by hand, embellishing frames and showcasing artisanship.

A second area, “The Power of Storytelling” will use Ray-Ban as an example, but the ideas behind that product are applicable to all brands. The concept is to show critical brand elements, DNA and emotional connections to brands to help retailers and dispensers explain collections and eyewear ideas to customers.

And a third area, “The Art of Retailing,” is a major initiative undertaken by Luxottica with the help of a major retail design consultancy. It is not designed to be a mandated format, but a suggested “concept” store, detailing ideas of creating elements of eyewear retailing in the future—a life-sized reproduction of a store and how Luxottica proposes ECPs can help their own customers discover and engage and make choices about eyewear, sometimes with the assist of technology as well.

“The goal of ‘be VISIONary’ is to have business conversations with our partners on how to develop and grow the business in a rapidly changing environment,” Rush concluded.