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The following article
is adapted from a GlobalShop 2007 presentation
by Kate
Ancketill, Managing Director, GDR Creative
Intelligence Ltd.
Through its analyses of visual case studies from
cutting-edge designers, retailers, branding agencies,
packaging firms, and technology experts, GDR has
uncovered six new trends in retail.
1 Live
Connections
The service element is shaping how stores define
the offer. The movement highlights the growing and
dynamic exchange between online and main street retailing.
Key components of this trend:
•
Interactive and informative retail
environments, offering a range of amenities
and personalized customer services. At Nosh
Gourmet Food, a supermarket in Auckland,
New Zealand, every food section is staffed with
experts in the product category to greet and guide
shoppers. Along with cooking classes, Nosh offers
private sessions with a personal chef who shops
with the customer before teaching the individual
to cook with the purchased items at a demo area
in the store.
• Education exceeding consumer expectations. Metamorphosing
from a one-dimensional store model to a hands-on consumer university, stores
like Paris-based Skeen connect
with customers through personalized technological interaction and educational
workshops.
Skeen, which makes anti-aging products for men, provides a 3-minute or 10-minute
diagnosis through a video scan of the skin, showing the consumer the Skeen products
that would work for him. The retailer also offers evening cosmetology workshops
for men twice a month.
• Engaging brand experience through technology. Today’s
wired environment sees successful brands inviting consumers to interact with
products through technology, appealing to consumer senses, values, and emotions.
Sony Ericsson drew passersby to play with its new Cyber-shot K800i camera phone,
which takes nine shots at the touch of a button, through an interactive traveling
kiosk. Shots were instantly processed, images appeared on giant screens, and
participants' favorites were printed as takeaways. Cementing consumers’ brand
connection, the takeaway prints included information on entering Sony’s
BestPic™ competition, which allowed
their photos to be viewed online.
• Fun, creative, multisensory encounters. Whether a
product introduction is as concrete as an iPod or as conceptual as a firm's brand
identity, some companies are positioning marketing messages in the consumer’s
reality headspace through the five senses. At the 2007 Village Fete at the V&A
in London, Digit London, a firm that specializes in technology in retail, displayed
an innovative interpretation of its work by offering visitors the chance to become
a robot. One participant would don a robot-like helmet that obscures vision,
while another participant stationed at the booth would relay verbal instructions
via the helmet’s internal headphones. Dubbed the Digitrobot, Digit
London’s creative take on technology in retail transported participants
into a multisensory experience of technology and of the firm’s brand identity.
• Permission-based podcasting.
Swedish supermarket company Nordiska
Kompaniet installed in-store iFood Media Station
kiosks. Shoppers can swing by the kiosk and download
audio recipes, including shopping instructions,
to their MP3 players. The system extends the
brand from supermarkets and kitchens to a personal
device, allowing customers who are short on time
to download numerous recipes at once and browse
through them on their iPods while commuting from
work to grocery store. An accompanying online
food community, www.ifood.se, will encourage
consumers to share and collect recipes and cooking
tips when the site is complete.
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