Grapefruit and Arcsett Create New Concept for UPC Romania Stores

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Ştefan Liuţe
Strategy Director

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Bucharest, February 3, 2010— Grapefruit and Arcsett jointly created the new concept for the entire store network of UPC Romania. The new concept was firstly implemented in a pilot project for one store, opened on January 27, 2010, on Mihai Bravu Street in Bucharest, close to the Bucur Obor commercial area.

Having the UPC brand vision as a starting point (make the fascinating and technologically complex world accessible to all), Grapefruit endeavoured to create an increasingly engaging experience for the UPC customers and thus identified the main types of interaction and functional areas within the store, then defined customers’ traffic flow and designed the branding elements of the new concept. Arcsett created the architectural concept and retail design, then ensured the project management and implementation of the concept in the pilot store on Mihai Bravu.

Andreea Ionescu, Marketing Communications Manager UPC Romania stated: “Creating the new concept store for UPC was a complex project during which Grapefruit and Arcsett combined a great array of competences that yielded exceptional end results. In addition to a great design, this partnership ensured a strategic approach to the experiential branding of UPC. Furthermore, we believe that we have succeeded in optimally exploiting the retail space so as to amplify customers’ emotional experience with the UPC brand and its products. Throughout the development of the entire project, our partners have proven highly professional and extremely agreeable at a personal level.”

Grapefruit Chief Creative Officer, Marius Ursache added: “We had the opportunity to create something entirely different for UPC’s customers. Our main interest was to simplify everything in such a way that it would become easily accessible to everyone who entered the store, especially to those customers reticent to complex technologies. It is an entirely different experience covering all activities in the store, from learning more about digital television, to signing a contract and paying the bill. In essence, enabling such an experience makes the UPC brand more human, bringing it closer to its customers.”

“It was an excellent opportunity to create a concept and an environment that break from industry patterns and meet UPC’s worldwide quality requirements. This achievement is due to an excellent collaboration with UPC Romania, a client with a clear vision. Together with the Grapefruit team, we have successfully implemented the UPC vision into everyday life” declared Andrei Mihailescu, partner architect Arcsett.

About Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a Romanian branding agency with offices in Iasi and Bucharest, specialized in strategy, verbal and visual identity, packaging design and digital branding. Grapefruit works for Antibiotice, Banca Transilvania, Dacia, Heidi, NNDKP, OTP Bank, Pepsi Americas, Renault, Țuca Zbârcea și Asociații. Grapefruit is the most awarded Romanian branding agency, with nominations and awards at Rebrand 100 (USA, 2007, 2009), Identity: Best of the Best (Russia, 2007), Pentawards (France, 2007, 2008, 2009), Incheon (Korea, 2006).

About Arcsett

Arcsett is an architecture firm in Bucharest, providing architectural design and project management to an impressive portfolio of national and foreign clients—Cosmote, Romtelecom, UPC Romania, Mobifon, Mobilrom, Zapp, Piraeus Bank, Meda Distribution, Adevarul Holding, Computerland, Mega Image, La Fourmie, Vincon, Romconsulting, Toyota, Daewoo, Nissan, Dacia etc.

About UPC România

UPC Romania is one of the largest cable operators in the country, part of UPC Broadband, the European division of Liberty Global, Inc., the leading international cable operator. With investments surpassing 700 mil EUR, UPC Romania constitutes the biggest American investment in Romania. At present, UPC Romania provides telephone, television and internet services to over 1.2 million clients, in 200 cities.