The revamped ‘Today At Apple’ will offer free coding, photography classes.
Dubai: In a sea of darkness for the retail industry, tech company Apple is often seen as a shining beacon of hope. The company consistently ranks number one in sales per square foot, making Apple stores the most valuable retail spaces on earth. The spaces are futuristic and expansive, often employing large glass windows and trees to create a relationship with its customers, and to build brand recognition. In essence, Apple redefined what a shop could, and should, look like.
Now, Apple has revealed its latest ploy to maintain its dominance in a world of slumping retail sales and store closures: It plans to turn its physical spaces into free, creative classrooms.
On Tuesday, the California-based company, one of the most valuable in the world, announced a revamped slate of public programming that it said would be rolling out globally from January 31, 2019, dubbed ‘Today At Apple’.
Spearheaded by Angela Ahrendts, the former Burberry chief executive that Apple poached in 2014 to be its senior vice president of retail, the programme will offer classes on photography, video, music, coding, art and design, and health and fitness. The lessons will be available for free at every Apple store around the world.
The ‘Town Square’ Dream
Transforming its stores into schools forms part of the strategy Ahrendts was hired to craft: In 2017, she announced that Apple stores would become “town squares,” places where people could go to hang out, use the free WiFi, and get hands-on with Apple’s products.
Ahrendts told Gulf News in a recent interview at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, that the vision of late founder Steve Jobs would underpin this philosophy: “When he launched retail 18 years ago, he told the teams they weren’t allowed to sell, that their job was to enrich lives, and they were allowed to do that through education, and telling customers something they didn’t know.”
Credited with reinventing Burberry’s physical presence and appealing to a new generation of customers, Ahrendts espouses a vision of retail that many experts say will be essential to survive in the future: It is not enough to simply focus on online shopping, or your bricks-and-mortar presence.
“You have to put it all together: one customer, one brand,” she said. But that vision has not been without its obstacles. Part of its “town squares” roadmap, Apple’s strategy of opening stores in highly visible public places, such as Covent Garden in London, or Fifth Avenue in New York, or the Apple Piazza Liberty in Milan, has led to controversy elsewhere.
