WHIRLPOOL

Client Brief

From the product to the experience

Established in the United States in 1911, Whirlpool is now one of the world’s leading manufacturers of large household appliances, with approximately 90 thousand employees and a profit of 350 million dollars in 2017. In Italy, Whirlpool employs over 6,000 people at 5 factories, and has 2 operational headquarters.

In 2016, work began on the new headquarters for Whirlpool EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) in the town of Pero, near Milan. This location, which covers an area of about 12,000 square meters, arose in order to offer an innovative, dynamic and multicultural working environment to over 600 people from 28 different countries, and is designed to meet the highest standards in terms of sustainability and technology.

Whirlpool decided to set aside an area of about 500m2 as a showroom, and asked the Touchwindow team to take part in the project. The goal was to offer a new way for people to get to know and try out the products belonging to the four Whirlpool brands marketed throughout Europe: KitchenAid, Whirlpool, Hotpoint and Indesit.

Concept

An experiential journey

The concept we came up with wasn’t simply a product display, but a Digital Environment capable of providing visitors with an engaging and exciting experience, allowing them to explore the world of Whirlpool through the combined use of digital interaction, show cooking, training, and entertainment.

Together with the Whirlpool team, we studied the display areas and the experience that we wanted to offer, with the aim of creating a pathway of digital engagement that would allow visitors to explore the products and all of their different features.

We collaborated with architects and designers in order to harmoniously incorporate the technological solutions within the display areas, even developing the digital infrastructure for the management of the software apparatus.

Design

New interaction environments

The design process led us to incorporate the technology into the furnishing elements themselves, in order to create pleasant and user-friendly environments. The experience was designed to allow users to easily and intuitively discover all the Whirlpool products and their different features, even through dedicated audiovisual content created by the company Filmmaster, with whom we collaborated.

Together with architects and engineers, we developed the infrastructural technical design necessary to connect all the digital device software to the company's server, in order to centralize the management of the content updates.

Production

The brand experience comes to life

During the production phase, we created and rendered operational the network, which consisted of Multi-Touch devices, the Touch Wall, and digital signage displays. The large Touch Wall offers a complete overview of the products and the different Whirlpool brands, while the 84-inch interactive workstations feature dedicated content, insights, e-learning tools, and detailed information on the products’ designs and functionality.

Each system is dedicated to an area, a brand, a specific product, in order to render the brand experience more intense and to stimulate active participation on the part of the visitors.

Activation

The Whirlpool flagship showroom is born

During the installation and activation phase, we worked together with the Whirlpool IT departments to optimize the network’s performance and to implement all the specific functions associated with the interactive digital signage.

The solutions developed provide the Whirlpool staff with complete autonomy in controlling and updating all the showroom’s devices. Every element was tested to ensure it was ready for the headquarters’ inauguration, which took place in May of 2017 in the presence of the authorities.

The Vice president of Whirlpool Corporation, Esther Berrozpe Galindo, who was president of Whirlpool EMEA at the time, marked the occasion by declaring that moment to be "a further sign of our company’s consolidated presence in Italy."