August 8, 2019  |  Expertise

Designing a Website to Capture the Imagination of Luxury Consumers

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Palm Beach County is second home to presidents, financiers, tastemakers and world champion athletes.

It’s our home, too, and our team has partnered with multiple clients who cater to some of the world’s most discerning consumers – those who live here fulltime and seasonally, and those who briefly visit our beaches, our luxe resorts and our renowned shopping avenues.

Among our luxury clients is The Royal Poinciana Plaza, a Palm Beach shopping destination that needed an alluring website experience to mirror its renewed sparkle.

WS Development, the Boston-area real estate giant, purchased the iconic, decades-old shopping center in 2014 for $22.5 million. Three years and additional millions later, restoration and revitalization of the 180,000-square-foot destination were complete.

New tenants included Hermes, Saint Laurent and Sotheby’s. New restaurants became the place to be Instagrammed. And the center’s full events calendar included courtyard concerts, a cinema series and the annual unveiling of a 30-foot surfboard Christmas tree.

WS Development hired Ideabar’s in-house interactive team to design and develop an online oasis for consumers who are not only used to the very best but who also expect bespoke solutions.

The site’s first moment of differentiation is noticeable in the navigation bar.

Instead of expected headings like “Stores,” “Dining” and “Deals,” the Royal’s comparatively elegant nav bar keeps it simple, but sprinkles in personality: “Explore” (“Sip + Nibble,” “Beauty + Wellness,” “Fashion + Style”) “Events,” “Community” (i.e. The Royal Social Hub), “About” and “Location,” which focuses much more on the legacy of Palm Beach than the center’s address.

Essential to the creation of any luxe site is the use of high-end photography that would look equally at home in a high-fashion magazine. Because even the best stock photography does not fool the consumer who lives and breathes luxury, The Royal produced its own photo shoot. Taking this custom approach to photography assets ensured that we were able to represent the brand with authentic accuracy.

The result: stunning, carefully curated images of an enticing destination that residents and tourists would be anxious to visit.

The photos stood out against the site’s simple black and white pages, which were punctuated with geometric pops of Palm Beach color.

The site’s typography directly echoes the logos of many of the luxury brands at The Royal, and the Royal logo itself. With tenants such as Hermès, Saint Laurent, and Theory, it was essential that the website’s aesthetic mirror the luxury and sophistication of the property’s customers.

For the Events page, the Ideabar team created, in essence, a platform to showcase for the many community functions at the plaza. The Royal Poinciana Plaza serves as an idyllic backdrop for intimate gatherings with friends and family, community traditions, boutique events and philanthropic soirees, and the event calendar we created serves as the ideal backdrop from which to feature these events.

The Royal Poinciana Plaza site won an Addy Award at the district and regional levels, which allowed it to advance to the national competition.

Even better, WS Development was so pleased with the site that the firm hired Ideabar to design websites for six additional retail properties across the United States.

For more information on Ideabar interactive services, please contact us:
(561) 820-4280
ideabar@coxinc.com

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