‘Squidgy Room’ gives Soreen the Leading Edge in supermarket pitch

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When Soreen, and its owners Samworth Brothers, were given the opportunity to present to the CEO of supermarket giant, Tesco, they knew they had to blow him away in the limited amount of time they had, and no ordinary powerpoint presentation would do.

Soreen wanted to highlight the retail opportunities for their products in Tesco stores and to showcase just how contemporary and versatile the product is.

Soreen turned to one of the UK’s fastest growing design and display companies, Leading Edge, to create not just a display stand, but an entire room to get its key messages across to one of the most powerful figures in the retail industry.

The brief

The brief was to design and produce a full graphic display to fill a meeting room, at the Soreen bakery. All the elements of the room had to be freestanding, rather than fixed to the walls, and totally transportable and re-useable.

Special areas were required to display actual Soreen products and managers had specified a ‘showstopper’ in the centre of the room - it was also essential for a Tesco branded area to feature in the graphics, too.

The creative process

Leading Edge immediately formed a bespoke team combining the best of its creative and production staff, and took inspiration from Soreen’s ethos that ‘the secret’s in the squidge’. They considered the key qualities of the product: that it provides energy, has health benefits due to the malt content, the growing product range, and its versatility. They decided on a theme which linked the product to physical activity, due to its energy value, represented through lively, active graphics that acknowledged Soreen’s trend for ‘out of home’ consumption. A quirky and humorous underlying tone was also incorporated into the room to reflect the vibrant Soreen personality.  

The production process

The Leading Edge team decided on 2D layered graphics to create depth and dimension to the flat walls. Elements were taken from the graphics and built in 3D to give a life like feel to the graphics, such as a bespoke built kitchen counter and  picnic table. Even the border of the room was designed as lawn and made from artificial grass. The piece de resistance of the whole room being the squidgy walls and a squidgy cobbled path which guided people around the room through the different zones.

It incorporated key messages, statistics and research presented in squidgy frames and a scene from a Tesco branch providing visualisation of in-store product merchandising.  The centrepiece was a life-size ‘Loveable Loaf’, as featured in Soreen’s recent advertising campaign, made from malt loaf. 

The complete wall wrap was produced by full colour printed vinyl, laminated and mounted to foamex and the squidgy areas laser cut from foam and painted which all contributed to the unique, squidgy, interactive and multi-dimensional feel of the room.

The final room

The finished room took guests on a journey which depicted how Soreen fits in to people’s ‘on-the-go’ lifestyles from breakfast and school lunch boxes to al fresco eating. It featured a 3D kitchen counter in the breakfast zone with Soreen Toastie loaf in a toaster, a real backpack in the school lunch scene containing lunchbox loaves and a park bench in the picnic area holding slices of pre-buttered Snack Packs.   

Matthew Evans, managing director and founder of Leading Edge, added: “We have a longstanding relationship with Soreen which helped us really get under the skin of their brand to understand exactly what they wanted to achieve. By combining the Soreen brand messages, our team’s amazing creativity, and innovative production processes we were able to transform a plain square room into a presentation area which inspired the imagination and brought home the retail opportunities for both Soreen and Tesco.”   

Leading Edge has previously worked with Soreen to enhance the employee and visitor experience of its head office, transforming the plain white walls of the building in Manchester into a multi-sensory encounter with squidgy textures and giant malt loaves.  

To find out more about Leading Edge, visit www.leadingedgecreative.co.uk.

For further media information, contact Helen Elson (helen@approachpr.com) or Rebekha White (Rebekha@approachpr.com) on 01943 603805. 

Leading Edge Creative is a creative design and display company based in Gomersal, West Yorkshire.

Founded in 2008, it produces graphic designs, vehicle graphics, exhibition and display stands to many market sectors including hospitality, retail, construction, interiors and specialist vehicle wrapping.

It also produces creative logos, marketing literature, website design, promotional gifts, advertising, packaging and 3D illustrations. 

To find out more about its products and services, visit www.leadingedgesignage.co.uk or follow @LeadingEdgeSign