Using a prototype installation to demonstrate the appearance and test the components of the Lotus Cars Retail Identity.

We always recommend that when any brand we collaborate with introduces a retail identity, it tests the concept in a ‘safe’ environment prior to launch.

However, you could never accuse Lotus of doing things ‘quietly’. The brand offered us a section of a brand new building (part of a huge new staff restaurant complex at the famous Hethel site) in which to demonstrate our collective confidence in its brave, bold vision of the retail future. Which we embraced with enthusiasm.

The space, roughly equivalent to a traditional four- to five-car showroom, features double-height ceilings, a listed interior wall and an otherwise unfettered space in which to unfold the new retail story.

Our design approach was to include at least one item from the entire palette that would be at Lotus’s disposal. The new space was revealed first to the Board in early May 2021, and then to representatives of the entire global network in the early autumn. And to huge effect, with feedback across the audiences reflecting positive endorsement for the reality of what had until then only been experienced virtually and through visuals.

The success of the ‘pilot’ provided a springboard of confidence for the first 20 sites, and the roll-out programme now continues apace.