The Adventure Showroom

What do customers expect from a caravan dealership? Cars to explore on your own - in an empty showroom atmosphere?
Definitely not: It`s about starting a memorable journey, your next vacation trip. You want to receive advice on what vehicle perfectly matches your needs. Small, flexible, autarch in the nature? Large, luxurious for the leading campings in perfect beach locations? Even when you are perfectly informed about possibilities through influencers, youtube videos and blogs. Only the dealership of your choice can give you individual advice on your next adventure vehicle.

Therefore we created the RC Mannheim showroom. In contrast to other dealerships it´s not about a product in the center, but emotions, customer needs and personal consulting.  

The caravan industry is missing successful holistic retail concepts for their showrooms. Increased customer demands and the trend towards individualization as well as personalization were the starting point for the implementation of a new showroom concept for RC Mannheim. 

Our approach was to fully understand the traveling lifestyle of the customers, together with the dealer’s pain-points. For us this was imperative to create a showroom design that works. 
 
In order to do this, the rpc design team paired up with the rpc sales & coaching team to better understand the sales and experience process from the human centric point of view. Doing so, this gave the design process a new dimension that is reflected in the spatial design & organization the showroom.  

From the very beginning we didn’t want to generate a retail destination, we wanted to create the brand place where you plan your next destination. Inspired by the idea of a comfortable “loft” atmosphere and by using warm materials combined with the photography collaboration – we designed a place that curates inspiration, art and good vibes.  

Having this in mind, we carefully crafted the customer journey that allows a better experience and service process towards the audience. The middle part of the showroom, “the island”, is meant to be at the heart of the brand place. Here is where most of the interaction between customer and brand consulting takes place. This is designed to be re-configured over time and to adapt to future necessities of the showroom. A round welcome desk divides the customer flow towards retail space, waiting lounge or consulting & product experience. In order to emotionalize and inspire customers to think towards traveling and their next destination, a collection of carefully placed images transforms the showroom into an art gallery. The focus is no longer on the car specs, but on a holistic, emotional & traveling experience. We wanted to pick up the customer with the adventure vibe, so we installed a selection of images into the showroom. This was possible due to the collaboration between the brand and the two travel/nature photographers Alexander Wieck (_alexanderwieck) and Joris Kuijper (jorrocooper). 

The showroom acts as an starting point for your next adventure, a retail brand space, a photography gallery and a place for future events, lectures and new caravan model unveiling.