The future of retail is about experiential and contextual marketing

14 years ago almost to this date, Apple changed the way retailers engage with their customers when the iconic brand opened its first two stores. Since then, successful retail brands have moved away from merely displaying lines of products on their stores’ shelves to creating show-room type experiential spaces.

The future of retail is all about the consumer. Consumers make the rules and now have total access to whatever they want, wherever and whenever they want it. The power has shifted away from retailers who long held it—and now the ball is in the consumer’s court. Brands and retailers are forced to play on the consumer’s terms to be successful. And the more brands can understand, connect and delight consumers instead of sell to them, the more long-term success and sustainability they will enjoy.

In that regards, retailers such as PIRCH have partnered with experiential design agencies like Fitch to transform the shopping experiences. PIRCH stores offer customers the opportunity to test products and enjoy using them before purchasing - 'try before you buy’ becomes something new and powerfully branded. Shoppers enjoy the opportunity to cook with a real Chef while testing the kitchen’s appliances. For other, they can reserve a time at the “store’s spa” to test showers and bathtubs. After testing products, shoppers “can enter a 'dream room' to meet with a designer and plan their homes”.

The Robin Report delicately describes what the Apple or PIRCH experience is about. “These brands are not retailers. They are neurologically addictive experiences, co-created by the brand and their dopamine-addicted consumers”. The brick-and-mortar retail business has a bright future provided that it transforms its physical space into an experiential space. The Robin Report suggests that such retail brands stimulate their visitors’ dopamine. It is almost like a sport performance-enhancing drug, except in that case dopamine is “a chemical in the brain that gets released every time we have an elevated experience. It provides feelings of euphoria, self-satisfaction, wellbeing, and can lead to addiction. The dopamine-releasing brands headlining this report (and there are others) are such because the experience they have developed requires that the customer participate in creating or shaping that experience to satisfy their own personal desire at the moment they engage with the brand”.

No matter what happens in the physical or digital shopping experience, successful brands know that the key is to build brand loyalty. The store experience is an important component, among others. But the way brands communicate across various channels with their customers is critical. Loyalty requires communicating brand values that people want to be affiliated with. Consumers today have many options, and more than ever they choose particular brands to communicate something personal about their own beliefs and priorities. The best way to establish and reinforce common values is to create content so highly specific that it defines not only the brand, but the customer.

To do so, many brands invest in original content to communicate with their customers on a more personal and emotional level... to build brand loyalty. Now that the vast majority of the population is connected 24/7/365 through their mobile devices, the solution to creating a branded content experience that delivers results lies in a centralized mobile content marketing strategy. By integrating content channels and reaching all consumer touch points, brands can maintain open access to content assets, encourage ongoing engagement, and build affinity.

“Location-based marketing is an effective new way to deliver timely and relevant messages to consumers”, states Alliance Data Retail in their report on Geofencing technology. The key is context: reaching them precisely where and when they’re most likely to engage with a brand. Content is important for brands to engage with their customers at a personal level, but content mostly remains generic of time and location. “With the mobile economy here to stay – and the cost of ignoring it unrecoverable – location-based communications are a very attractive next step in marketing. Geofencing technology enables timely, relevant and powerful messages to modern consumers at the right place, at the right time, and in the right way”, according to the report.

Apple is very well known for transforming the way we live. After all, this is Apple’s brand promise. Their latest initiative, “Proactive” is going to redefine the brand experience. This is taking location-based marketing to the next level. The augmented reality feature will allow a user to hold up her iPhone in the Maps application, and point her camera toward a particular business or an area. Pointed towards a cafe, for example, the screen could show a virtual view of menu items or daily specials. If the user points her phone toward a street, a virtual outline of local businesses, restaurants, shopping stores, or coffee shops could appear. In return, businesses will be able to communicate back to the user with a personalized offer.

Today’s technology has redefined the way brands can interact with their consumers. Content and context are intertwined, and brands’ mobility and agility are key to provide a unique and ongoing experience.

Mobility and agility are key differentiators to the brand experience.

We all know of brands that evoke strong feelings and fond associations, such as a special treat from childhood (Nutella, anybody???) or Apple’s latest release (Apple watch???). These positive brand experiences are what keep us coming back and wanting more. Like Coca Cola’s secret recipe, it is a magical formula that companies try to achieve.

According to statistics from Havas Media, “only 20% of brands worldwide make a significant, positive effect on people’s well-being. Most people worldwide would not care if more than 73% of brands disappeared.” It’s easy to see how cultivating a unique and meaningful brand experience is a large and necessary order.

There are seemingly infinite factors to take into account when creating a unique brand experience. Not one thing defines the way a brand is received by consumers. But, every element of a brand experience should move together in a well choreographed dance that excites and delights.

Today, consumers are more volatile and mobile than ever before. With a plethora of online and offline offers, 24/7/365 connectivity, consumers are in control on how and where they want to engage with brands.

64% of American adults now own a smartphone. According to a recent report from Dunnhumby, 17% of North American consumers use their mobile to buy goods and services (42% in Asia Pacific and 24% in Europe). The trend is growing at a massive pace.

Developing a unique experience is a key differentiator for brands to engage with their consumers. What’s more important for brands is to follow consumers wherever they go and engage them in the context of time and location. Content is king, context is god.
People now use powerful mini-computers in their hands to pretty much do anything (read, listen to music, watch movies, communicate, shop…). This means they can be reached anytime anywhere. Companies must think of mobile devices as two-way communication platforms, where they can engage with their consumers in a instant and genuine conversation. I’m not talking just about sending push notifications about your latest sales, but about creating an ongoing and personalized experience.

Many start-ups use an agile model to develop and test products in an ultra-competitive market to get instant feedback from the market, and make enhancements on the fly to their products.
This agility must also be used with how brands interact with their consumers. Companies like Apple, y!kes and others have developed devices (beacons) that locate where consumers are in a defined perimeter to allow businesses to communicate with their consumers in context of time and location. Based on geo-location and proximity awareness, brands can now create content that is specific to each individual at a given time and place, and alter this content as consumers move along. Mobility and agility meet content and context.

Disney launched its magical wristband, making their Disney park experience frictionless to their customers. A company like Geofeedia offers a location-based social media monitoring platform which helps organizations join the social conversation in real-time at locations of interest around the world.

Today’s technology has redefined the way brands can interact with their consumers. Content and context are intertwined, and brands’ mobility and agility are key to provide a unique and ongoing experience.

What’s your brand experience like?

Don’t overlook the power of your 3-dimensional brand environment

Most companies spend their “branding budget” on their website, print/digital ads, marketing collaterals (we’ll call this their “2D environment”), completely or partially overlooking their 3D environment.

The 3D is an often overlooked aspect of reinforcing brand in both the corporate and professional environments.

What is branding through 3D design?

Branding through 3D design, (also known as the branded environment) is the process of transforming an office environment, an exhibit booth, a pavilion, or a retail store into a three-dimensional embodiment of a brand. One that instantly reinforces a company’s position, communicates its identity, unifies its culture, and delivers the brand experience to customers.

Think of this…

Does your office design energize your staff? Strengthen your brand? Reinforce your position?
Does your exhibit booth create a unique experience where your customers connect emotionally with your brand?

Does your store convey a welcoming and engaging environment where customers feel compelled to buy your products because your brand resonates with their values?

By integrating your brand strategy into the 3D design process, you can create an environment that helps employees, customers, and business associates better understand your company’s mission, vision, and values.

A “space” is not just a place with shelves to display your products or with a bunch of tablets and flat TVs to show your latest cool video or interactive presentation. Although those are important, they are only one aspect of that space. They convey your message, not your brand experience.

A product fits a customer’s need; a brand experience fits a customer’s beliefs.

What’s included in a branded environment?

A branded environment is the combination of many components such as architecture, layouts, finishing materials, lighting, environmental graphics, way-finding devices, signage, and décor elements that reflect and reinforce the personality of a business.

All of these elements work together to create a physical and sensory relationship with the customer. When implemented correctly the 3D design communicates your brand’s message and it lets people touch, explore, and engage with your brand in the physical space. Your branded environment enables your brand to be experienced beyond print, web, advertisements, and television.

Why is the “experience” important? What are the benefits of branding your environment?

The benefits of a branding your environment are many. Internally, better environmental design leads to happier staff. Happier staff generally means higher retention rates, increased productivity, and a better understanding of your organization’s mission, vision and values. In other words, a branded environment engages employees.

Externally, it leads to improved position and communication, better customer recognition, differentiation from competitors, and higher perceived value from your customers, investors, partners, and the media.

Is your office space engaging? What’s your favorite retail branded environment?

Being provocative with purpose

Call me crazy, but I’ve been thinking about Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber lately and wondering who their team of advisors and publicists are. They may be seen by some (many?) as stars, but public opinion (mostly parents) does not seem entirely favorable towards them. To be frank, I don’t give a sh#t about JB, I am not a beleiber. 
I’d rather have TS as a role model for my kids. Taylor Swift is provocative in her own ways, tweeting about suing her cat for $40M, all while showing she deeply cares about her fans…

One could argue that Bieber’s and Cyrus’ strategy is working because everybody talks about them. As a personal brand, it is hard to stay provocative, irreverent and credible over a long period of time. 

Think of Madonna. Think she still is credible at 50+ moving her booty on stage in lingerie?
Charlie Sheen???
Not so sure…

That strategy might work in the music & entertainment industry, but it’s less likely to be successful for corporate brands. Or is it?

The fashion world is well known for its provocative ads, from American Apparel to Armani. Kenneth Cole is well known for his work as much as for his controversial tweets. He is very good at bringing attention to his brand. But does he need it?

What’s funny is that we all play the game… As marketers and consumers, we help him and others spread their message in a pretended indignation. Just like I am right now!!

Is that a sustainable strategy? It’s a rhetorical question. If you ask Kenneth Cole, he will claim his sales are up due to his tweets. If you ask Donald Trump (he has an opinion on everything – even on birth certificates), he will tell you his brand itself is worth close to $1 billion. BS??

What if brands were to use their platforms differently? What if, rather than making a statement, that energy was funneled into being provocative with purpose?

As an organization, you can be provocative for a good cause, to bring awareness on an important issue... 

An industry disruptor like fast (before spellcheck, it had written “fats” instead of “fast” – non intentional lapsus) food chain Chipotle took provocation to a whole new level with their “Farmed and Dangerous” campaign on Hulu and their scarecrow campaign. Their purpose is to change the perception of the fast food industry: you can still eat fast, but healthier…

By raising awareness of where our food comes from and about the cruelty involved in factory farming, by challenging the status quo, Chipotle is being provocative with a purpose.

Charles DeCaro, partner in Laspata DeCaro, which created the controversial Kenar ads using supermodels such as Linda Evangelista, said it’s a different world today. “The nature of social media and reality TV, these escapades that happen are in your face 24/7. I think we’re so used to everything at this point. Nothing is quite shocking. Truth is stranger than fiction. You see these TV reality shows, teen pregnancies and bad comics and really talentless people. Everyone seems riveted to that. I am not one of these people.”

And DeCaro observed that clients aren’t looking to rock the boat.

“The nature of advertising today is a play-it-safe thing. Before you were given much more creative latitude. There were not boards to answer to,” he said. “You basically had a one-on-one relationship with the president of the company and you would impart your creative vision. Now it’s a different thing because you’re beholden to a corporation,” said DeCaro.

He believes electronic, digital and social media have changed everything, and the whole conversation has changed. “Whatever we had done in the past, we had never done ads simply to provoke. There was always a narrative behind it, and a reason behind it,” said DeCaro.

I believe gone are the days of ordinary advertisements. One by one the world’s best brands are risking everything as they commit to building stronger brand affinity through entertaining consumers with shortening attention spans and greater access to more content.  Welcome to the future of marketing where brands, media and content meet seamlessly to create the ultimate level of customer engagement. Watch what Nike did for the Soccer World Cup 2014.

Being provocative may get you noticed, but being provocative with a purpose can do a lot more for you. You will build:

• Brand loyalty: you’re giving people a reason to love you (hope they don’t hate you for that same reason).
• Sustainability: your customers will continue to buy your products; they will become your brand evangelists and spread your message.
• Resiliency: Brands have their ups and downs. Those who have built a community of loyal fans and a bank of goodwill will have an easier time bouncing back from the downs.

Being provocative with a purpose means you stand for something, it means you become a change agent in a world-of-the-same.

How can you apply these ideas to your own brands?

What’s your favorite commercial? Why?

Last night I watched a show online about some of the best commercials from the 90s in France where I grew up. Most of them were just crap, others were just sh#tty good!

It got me thinking… What is a good commercial? What makes a commercial memorable? And is a good commercial also necessarily an effective commercial?

Ads that are funny, controversial, racy (although you don’t get to see here in the US fully naked women selling a yogurt – like in France), or crazy usually are the ones getting the attention (for the better or the worse), topping the advertising ranking lists and public opinion polls.

Back in the 90s, the more you paid to get exposure (on the limited media channels available at the time), the more impact you had. Nowadays, with multiple media channels available, your content gets easily diluted in the vast ocean of commercials, or it can go viral over a few minutes.

Gone are the days where you could remember a commercial for months (granted – they were not as many commercials, and they were on a limited number of media). Now, you have commercials every 10 minutes whatever medium you are on. 

While effective for their shock value and viral marketing capacity commercials can be, their long-term ability to affect daily decisions are almost non-existent. What’s important is the short fame, exposure you get out of them. Advertisers mostly want short spikes in recognition for a promotion or event rather than long-term associations.

Think of some of the best commercials you have seen on TV – what made them the best and what made them memorable? Were they funny, innovative, or shocking? Did they tell a story? Did they speak to an experience you personally have felt?

Assessing the emotional impact of an ad is difficult because it is subjective. Assessing the success of an ad campaign in generated $ is easier.

Different people find different types of ads effective, but there are some common themes. Ads that you can directly relate to often have the best results.

The commercials I personally like the best are the ones that are provoking, irreverent, and non-traditional. I’m not going to change my consumerist habits out of a commercial I’ve seen on TV. For an advertiser, it is more about positioning than anything else. Content and native marketing are better ways to tell a story, in a personalized and emotional way.

Here are two 90s French commercials that I still remember and refer to today. Each one is for a very traditional French product (drink). Both companies hired provocateurs (in their own way) to direct these commercials. These ads have become iconic in France, even 20+ years later.

The first one is for Perrier, the famous French sparkling water. Jean-Paul Goude, an advertising genius at the time, made this ferocious, audacious, crazy ad. Let me know what you think.

The second one is for Orangina. Alain Chabat, a sort of French SNL comedian turned actor/director made this non-sense but hysterical commercial aimed to re-position the brand amongst a younger generation. Let me know what you think.

So, what makes a good commercial in your eyes?

Spoiler! Consumers don’t give a crap if your company is innovative.

Unless you’re Apple, you’ve just released the 6^th generation of iPhone and the masses see that as the latest most innovative product on earth (yeah, Apple can still make believe), consumers don’t care about incremental updates to your “new” product.
You can brag as much as you want about how innovative your company is, how disruptive your market strategy is, how unique your company’s culture is, the reality is (sorry!) that consumers don’t give a crap about all this.

Clone baby, clone

Many so-called “innovations” are driven by executives or engineers who (genuinely?) believe their product is groundbreaking. The reality is, their product is only “innovative” to them, not to the consumer.

Back in the Cold War era where former USSR and the USA piled up new weapons one after another not only to catch up but to out-feature the opponent, present companies follow the same strategy: piling up new features to out-feature the competition. Companies look for ways to do better, cheaper, faster, nicer products, but they all offer cloned products. Executives’ motto now is “stop me before I innovate again”.

Most companies adopt a reactive/ adaptive strategy (“let’s see what our competitor does, we’ll do it cheaper”). A very few of them adopt a proactive strategy. Going back to Apple, it probably fits in both categories.

As most products become commoditized almost instantly as they enter the market (if not even before), companies forget a very important marketing principle: consumers don’t remember specific features, they remember the experience they had. Companies are confusing product upgrade with innovation. As consumers are volatile, go from one brand to another, one new product to the newest one, they forget very quickly about your product unless they get a memorable experience out of it.

Innovate to change the game

In an interview last Fall, Howard Schultz talked about how Starbucks’s business model is about changing behaviors, from selling coffee to redefining social interactions to moving to e-wallet. You don’t innovate to compete; you innovate to change the game.

Consumers have an abundance of choice. With new technologies emerging, interactions between businesses and consumers are evolving. Excessive proliferation of choice creates confusion and uncertainty. Consumers want choice and they want the choice decision to be easy. They are looking for ways to simplify their lives.
Consumers, especially Gen Y, want to be in control of their experience, with the technology being the enabler of that choice, not the dictator.

Companies have to switch their focus from being transaction oriented to being emotion oriented. A product is a transaction, an experience is an emotion. That’s their differentiator.

From transaction to emotion

The right way to think about innovation is this: how are we transforming customers? How are we changing and simplifying their lives?

This is a different way of thinking about your value proposition; it’s about developing human connection with customers. Not simply delivering a product or service “because that is what companies do”. Companies who believe that out-featuring competitors is the path to innovation are kidding themselves. It might work in the short-term, but it will turn against them in no time. Customers, people, users, are experiencing more chaos than ever. Too many choices are creating noise in their lives. This is a huge opportunity for both startups and established companies to make an impact in people’s lives. The sooner you rethink how you look at innovation, the faster you will orient your efforts towards really thinking about how you might change your customers’ lives and behaviors.

The consumer experience with 
a brand is more than just the functional benefits. It is the total brand experience including emotional benefits as well.

To change your organization, change the way you bring change.

Change is constant. If there is one thing that does not change, it is change. Have you ever considered changing partners? Not changing partners in terms of swapping spouses, but changing your partners’ or employees’ mindset and behavior? Have you tried to do that? Not easy, right?

A few weeks ago I spoke in front of a group of local business owners. I first asked how many of them were open to change; they all raised their hands. “How many of you have been through a change initiative at your company in the last 3 years?”. Once again, most of them raised their hands. “How many of you can say it worked?”. Then, only a handful raised their hands.

Change within companies is a bit like sex among teenagers. Everybody talks about it, but only a few actually do it. In fact, change has become a dirty word inside organizations. People are tired of being asked to change or innovate.

Why don’t people like change?

Heidi Grant Halvorson, PhD, says that it's not just that people fear change, though they undoubtedly do. It's also that they genuinely believe (often on an unconscious level) that when you've been doing something a particular way for some time, it must be a good way to do things. And the longer you've been doing it that way, the better it is.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, in a HBR blog, reveals the 10 most common reasons why people don’t like change, such as:

- Loss of control

- Excess uncertainty

- Dislike of surprises

- Doing something differently creates confusion

- Concerns about competence

- More work 

What you need to change… is your approach to change

The most effective approach to change does not start or end in the C-suite. It happens at the heart of the organization, where mid-level managers and their teams build the momentum to implement and lead change. Executives initiate and support change, the rest of the organization lead change.

Everyone is a change agent. Leadership ought to realize that empowering their teams to lead change, think in different ways, and experiment will help take the business to places it’s never been before. Not only people want to be inspired about change, they also want to be in control of how change can happen. Experimentation should become part of your company’s metrics, not just success. If you base your employees’ performance just on success, they will take the safe route, where risk and trial don’t exist. If you empower them, encourage them to experiment, (and likely to fail – at first), you will lead them to think creatively, solve problems in their own way (not the company way), and ultimately innovate.

Change is a mindset, not an SOP manual. In your organization, Marketing has a different culture and way of working than Accounting, IT, or HR. Teams don’t need a 50-page SOP document to talk about or implement change. In contrary, teams need customized tools to break down barriers, kill rules, challenge assumptions, and reverse the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. There is no one-size-fits all program on change. This is why it is so critical to delegate change implementation and change management to teams to customize it and make it a reality. The key is to provide directions and create new behaviors, not to dictate teams how to do it.

One step at a time. Because you can’t change a company’s culture in one day, leaders need to implement change in increments. Find small sized projects with a realistic (successful) outcome and instill new ways of thinking and new ways of doing will get people notice that something different is taking place. Employees and managers will be more willing to take a chance and embrace the change if the outcome is tangible. Leaders must encourage employees to participate. As experimentation must be part of the metrics, participation is the same – not forced, but encouraged. “Is there a different way to make this work?”. “What should we do to make it fail?”. “Why would customers not buy our product?”. Reverse thinking is a way to turn upside down the approach to tackle problems. In other words, employees need to unlearn to be innovative. Little by little you will change your company’s DNA and make it a place where change it not only possible, but it is critical to its success. 

What is really important is to build an enterprise where employees: 

- can think asymmetrical in a linear culture

- are not afraid to come up with (bad and good) ideas

- feel comfortable to fail by experimenting

- get rewarded not by their number of successes, but by their number of attempts

- embrace change as an opportunity, not a threat.

Change happens. It doesn't care whether you like it or not. Change doesn't need your permission. Change is the one constant in business. What you decide to do with change is up to you.