X5 Karusel

Achieving absolute leadership 

X5 Retail Group N.V., the largest retail company in Russia in terms of sales, has three trading formats: soft discount (Pyaterochka), supermarket (Perekrestok) and hypermarket (Karusel). With a total of 2,785 company managed stores and 705 franchisee operated stores, the company’s key strategic objective is to become the absolute leader of Russian retail, able to compete with leading international chains as
an equal.

Following an international consultancy pitch, SCG London was awarded the contract for developing branding and store design concepts for all store formats.

An architectural approach to large-scale space and signage

Karusel is a hypermarket chain with 72 stores operating in the north-west of Russia, including St.Petersburg, the Moscow region, Nizhny Novgorod, Dzerzhinsk, Volgograd, Izhevsk, Samara, Kazan, Tyumen and Ekaterinburg.

Karusel’s leaping horse identity was well established, but it needed to be simplified and brought up to date. The original concept of a shopping trolley with a merry-go-round horse was retained, but in streamlining the identity by eliminating the trolley wheels, we turned it into a more dynamic and contemporary device.

In addition, we refined, redrew and re-spaced the typeface to achieve an improved result whilst retaining and strengthening the character of the brand. Introducing a textured orange background with a horizontal tonal treatment, we increased the impact and stand-out of the identity, adding warmth and colour to the brand.

Our work extended to all aspects of exterior and interior store and marketing communications. The entrances feature big, icon arrows and this architectural approach to large-scale space and signage continues throughout the hypermarket. We zoned the interiors to create worlds including Fresh Food, Kids, Pharmacy, Health and Beauty. These worlds feature different colours to create a strong feeling of differentiation for each department.

We developed all aspects of signage, point of sale and the store environment, including zoning and planning, furniture and fixtures. We also applied the refined and updated identity to key elements such as loyalty card, uniforms and website.

The refined brand principles were applied to a range of elements including uniforms and website. All of this work was detailed in a guideline brand manual.

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