It’s Not a Store, It’s an Experience

If you’re going to get out and shop, it should be an experience. Camp calls itself a family experience store. Its latest incarnation lets you immerse yourself in Disney’s Encanto. You get to explore La Familia Madrigal’s casita complete with secret passages, interactive magic, live music, and surprises behind every magic door. Yes, there are yummy toys and merchandise to buy but it’s all magically clothed in an experience.

AR Fueled Shopping

Snap and New Balance unveiled a new lens that leverages a mix of augmented reality and speech-recognition technology. A lens lets you add 3D effects, object, characters, and transformations to your photos. It offers gift recommendations across footwear, apparel, and accessories according to details shared with Retail Dive. The Holiday Gifting Concierge includes a selfie mode where users can verbally answer questions about their recipient using Snap’s VoiceML technology for help when selecting a gift. In worldview mode, the lens provides an AR unboxing experience that displays a recommendation.

Reaching for New Customers

Like a good event, a good store experience will surprise and delight you with new offerings to keep it fresh. Best Buy built a retail empire selling TVs and laptops, but saw the opportunity to expand into health, wellness, and the aging market. This week it outlined plans to expand its footprint into health, fitness, personal electric transportation, outdoor products, and other potentially big ticket areas outside of its core consumer electronics business.

Networking and Personalization

Kohl’s and Pinterest do a great job of teasing out the trends and personalizing shopping. Its Outfit Color Match lets customers pick a color palette that resonates with them and then brings them to Kohls.com to shop for outfits that match their theme. Trend Matchmaker is a dating-application-style matching system that lets shoppers swipe styles of their choice in an immersive format and explore recent Pinterest trends. As reported in AdWeek, Pinterest said the use of trends from its platform delivered click through rates 62% above the retailer’s average on the platform.

TikTok Made Me Buy It

“TikTok made me buy it” is a thing, and it’s big. Whether someone’s showing off makeup, a home appliance, or a home improvement, it’s moving product on TikTok. In recent Glossy stories, TikTok dominated Google’s top trending beauty searches for the year, while the popular hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuy resulted in sell-outs of MAC Cosmetics, Glossier, Birkenstock, and L.L.Bean. In a Glossy and Modern Retail survey of 75 brand workers, 71% said they used TikTok as a marketing channel in 2022, falling between online display ads and “other social platforms” like YouTube and Pinterest in popularity. Why? TikTok is perceived as authentic, humorous, and edgy — appealing to a younger shopper. 

Taking its Cue from Virtual 

In a plot twist, Forever 21 is now selling physical versions of virtual goods. Yes, you can dress up IRL to match your avatar. 

Master of Loyalty

Starbucks is a pioneer in customer loyalty. It is testing next-gen loyalty rewards using NFT collecting and other gamified elements. The Starbuck’s Odyssey program lets customers journey to earn “stamps” in the form of Polygon NFTs in their wallets. They’ll be the first to try out new drinks, get to attend drink making classes, and experience a lineup of future virtual experiences. (Now if only they can stop the guy in front of me in line from ordering that skim latte macchiato with soy! I’d like to see them implement a “speed zone” for anyone who just wants a damn cup of coffee.)

Frictionless Checkouts

Long lines make for abandoned carts and irritated customers.  Wink uses biometrics to let people check out of markets just by having their eyes scanned. (Think CLEAR for shopping.)

MashGin lets you check out at the ski slope or stadium just by placing your tray of goodies under a very smartly trained camera system.  Registrations and check-ins at events can do the same.

Lessons Learned
As the world re-opens for business, business has changed. Events need to cater to a wide swath of experience hungry attendees, just like retailers do.

Social media drives real traffic. Understanding the best features of each social platform drives real engagement. Loyalty, engagement, gamification, and a little sass help. And reducing friction points is paramount. It couldn’t hurt for event organizers to try and think about customers wanting to buy a personalized experience rather than just show up at an event. 

Everyone is writing about Chat GPT, or should I say “Chat GPT” is doing everyone’s writing. The program was created to make the human/machine conversation more lifelike, and the results can be truly amazing. It uses deep learning so that you can give it a text prompt and then proceed to have a conversation with it. People are likening it to a Google Search but conversational. 

Educators are on pins and needles worrying that their students will turn in Chat GPT papers, lawyers are seeing no need for their ability to craft a contract, and writers and poets are freaking because GPT chat does a damn good job at both.

It ultimately depends on the specific circumstances and individual preferences. Virtual events can provide convenience and flexibility, as people can attend from the comfort of their own homes and don't need to worry about travel or logistical considerations. Virtual events can also allow for a larger audience, as people from different locations can easily participate. However, live events can provide a more immersive and interactive experience, and can offer the opportunity for face-to-face interactions and networking. Ultimately, whether attending a virtual or live event is better will depend on the individual's priorities and the specific event.

Silicon Valley Summit
Board member Martin Porter is launching a brand new show, Silicon Valley Video Summit, at the end of January. It’s all about fostering relationships between the tech and video industries. In keeping with our theme that in 2023 everyone and every company is in the video business, we think it’s a great idea. VEG members can exhibit at a greatly reduced price. Call us for details. 

CES 2023 Revs Up
CES 2023 begins, as always, the first week in January. Our company helps put together some of the conference sessions. Let us know if you’ll be out there and we’ll show you a good ‘ole tech time. 

SXSW Pickers
Our panel got picked! We’ll have the exact date shortly but if you’re planning to be in Austin for SXSW, please plan to spend some time with us? So many of you inspired this session.