This past year at Shop! Ideation 2022, the brightest minds in the retail industry came together to compete head-to-head in solving one of the industry’s toughest in-store challenges. During the Retail Challenge at Ideation, facilitated by Bevan Bloemendaal, Chief Brand and Creative Officer for NELSON Worldwide, cross-functional teams were given a creative brief for a consumer experience opportunity [announced on site] and just eight hours to collaborate, ideate and create a design solution and pitch deck. 

Harnessing ingenuity, creativity and a disruptive mindset, the teams, comprised of professionals from a variety backgrounds and experiences, pitched their concepts to our panel of judges, and were scored on criteria including level of disruption, experience, emotion, innovation, creativity, business value and overall presentation. The 2022 winning team, led by Robyn Novak, Executive Director of Strategy & Development for AGAR, earned the coveted top award. Now this spring, you can see the winning team’s design concept IRL at Shop! MarketPlace’s one-of-a-kind Retail Challenge Experiential Zone right on the show floor!

Ten teams were given the challenge to reimagine a vacant store among a small strip mall in Columbus, OH. The teams were able to create their own retail concept, design, and extend it outward to the façade. 

Cross-functional teams were given a creative brief for a consumer experience opportunity and just eight hours to collaborate, ideate and create a design solution and pitch deck. The overall concept centered around creating something accessible and exciting while utilizing the entire available space. 

Click the image below to read the information participants were given to work with: 

Teams were judged on:

• the pitch deck they crafted
• overall experience of the space for consumers
• whether or not if it was disruptive/disrupted the “norm”
• the incorporation of phygital elements
• final presentation gven to judges

Discover what happens when the brightest minds in the retail industry come together, for the first time as a team, and compete head-to-head to solve one of the industry’s toughest in-store challenges. Stop by the Retail Challenge Experiential Zone, meet some team members, and see how the winning design evolves each day.

See the creativity at work: Ideation Retail Challenge