Inside Cell C’s impressive new stores

Following its rebrand in October last year, Cell C has refurbished several of its stores, which its parent company, Blue Label Telecoms, said was “really, really impressive” during its recent results presentation.

To see what all the fuss was about, MyBroadband visited Cell C’s Rosebank branch, which received the upgrade earlier this month.

One of the shop’s employees said it had reopened in early February after a “complete makeover” that lasted about two weeks. He said nothing had been left untouched during the renovation.

Upon entering the store, you are immediately bathed in a luminescent orange hue — the mobile operator’s primary logo colour.

This is thanks to the neon lights lining the walls of the shop, creating soft, warm lighting.

This is vastly different from the stores containing Cell C’s old branding, which use a combination of slightly harsher orange and purple light.

The store we visited had demo devices sorted according to make along the sides of the shop, with their respective branding, including Apple, Honor, Samsung, HP, Vivo, Huawei, and Oppo.

Best-selling devices were on show at a stand in the middle.

To add to the orange and black theme, some of the shop’s walls and pillars were covered with wallpaper featuring a repeating pattern of the new logo.

Cell C announced in June last year that it would change its store strategy by selling 44 of its 47 retail outlets and moving to a franchise model.

The telco’s chief officer for sales, distribution, and regions, Chris Lazarus, said this was not to be seen as the company divorcing itself from the brand.

“The brand remains that of Cell C, and if anything, you’re going to see further investment in that brand over the next 18 months,” Lazarus said.

“We’re looking at creating an opportunity of enterprise development and SMME, where our staff themselves can partake in the future ownership of some of these stores.”

He also responded to concerns about job losses, saying that employees had nothing to fear, as all contracts with staff members would be transferred to the new store owners.

A few months later, Cell C announced a brand refresh, changing its logo’s colours to black and orange and changing the last “C” in the name so that it was no longer fully encircled.

At the launch event, Cell C chief marketing officer Melanie Forbes stated that the company didn’t have an awareness problem; Cell C had to convince customers to consider it.

To tackle that, she said they focused on changing the narrative around their network and service quality.

This was the fourth time the telco changed its branding.

Cell C launched in 2001 with a logo consisting of black-and-white text on a red background and the tagline “C for yourself”.

The brand lasted until May 2010, when Cell C underwent its first major network refresh and switched to a logo featuring the letter C within a circle — much like a copyright sign.

The company’s corporate colours were taken from the South African flag, and its tagline was changed to “The power is in your hands.”

In 2018, Cell C dropped its black-and-white logo with a multicoloured underline for one with a new font and orange background.

Cell C also changed the slogan, this time to “Connect your way”.

Photos of Cell C’s refurbished Rosebank store are included below.

Pictures: Revamped Cell C store