Creating Digital Solutions for Retail Environments

(photo by Sherbet)

The recent launch of Microsoft Surface in Australia last month is a reminder that we are entering the digital era of retail shopping.

While the prospect of building immersive digital retail solutions in malls and  stores is exciting, the luster of $50,000 in quarter inch thick screens and multi-touch tables will turn dull if the installation does not increase foot traffic, lift sales and/or enhance the customer service experience.

With this is mind; this post is a first draft in an evolving guidebook for delivering effective digital retail experiences.

At a high level, there are three digital opportunities available in most retail environments.

(1) Product & brand visualization: Sales tools that show shoppers the potential of a boxed up widget, break down complex products, or open up a window to the full product inventory.

(2) Branded entertainment: Installations that draw the attention of foot traffic through an interactive solution and/or provide valuable content on behalf of the brand.

(3) Branded information services: Solutions that add value to people with a form of some kind of practical application (a way finding tool, a calculator, some tips or tricks, etc.)

All of these activities hold the prospect of being interactive, traceable, personalized, integrated, manageable, and innovative digital solutions.

For anyone of these activities to become a success, you must build upon a strategy based on the needs of the users in each scenario. That’s the philosophy the Amnesia Razorfish Emerging Experiences Team is guided by as we begin our journey into these new digital sales & marketing scenarios.

During a shopping experience there are number of players but at the heart of the situation are a) the shopper and b) the sales team. The question becomes: what can we do to amplify the sales experience for both players and not get in the way of the sales process?

One way of avoiding the latter is by understanding what services customers currently value.    The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) publishes quarterly reports that show which brands are delivering quality customer service across a variety of retail verticals (department store, specialty retail, supermarket, banking, insurance, gas stations, to name a few).

According to ACSI commentator Professor Claes Fornell analysis of Q4 2009 polls, while the harsh post GFC climate in the U.S. forced the overall rating down by 1.4%, each vertical had a strong performer from which key assumptions can be made:

Top Performers:

Nordstrom: The Seattle based department store company prides itself in informed and helpful customer service. Customers agreed and gave them a 83% on the scorecard for a satisfying experience.

Small Banks: In a vertical that saw zero overall improvement and was hit hard this year, small banks scored well because they specialize in personalized customer service.

Publix Supermarkets: Although Wal-Mart grocery chains beat Publix on price, Publix scores high in another sector (Grocery & Pharmacy) that customers are generally not thrilled with the current experience. Their secret: in-store demos and organic goods.

These top performers give us three important insights when thinking about digital retail possibilities.

(1) People are not necessarily unhappy with their current human-based shopping experience. This makes sense because humans are not robots and we generally enjoy communicating with one another; even in a sales situation. Therefore, sales personnel are staying put and the goal of what we build should be to help the sales team convert and up-sell, not to erase the sales team.

(2) Grocery & pharmacy environments are filled with so many choices that customers need additional experiences to help them make a purchase. This insight parallels a survey of 5,000 U.S. grocery shoppers in 2008 that found that 65% of shoppers thought they did not have enough information to make an informed purchase (as quoted in Burke, 2008).

(3) Personalized services are greatly appreciated by shoppers; especially during major decisions like selecting a mortgage or investing for retirement.

While these conclusions are the tip of a very complex iceberg and the specific approach will vary from case to case, the major point to be made is that it is important to balance the thrill of amazing new technologies and possibilities with a foundation of strategic thinking. The novelty of new technology should never take backseat to delivering on practical business objectives.

The next chapter in this thread will be about the spatial dimension of out of home and retail digital strategy. Stay tuned

Brett Robinson, Emerging Experiences Program Manager

Sources:

1. ACSI Quarterly Commentaries Q4 2009.

2.Behavioral Effects of Digital_Signage (2008). University of Indiana Press.

Amazing holographic drumkit and turntables

Neurosonics live. Ammmmaaazzzzing.

Official promotions roll out across FourSquare

As I am sure anyone with an iPhone is currently aware, the latest darling of the social app scene is a little location based game called FourSquare. FourSquare allows a user to “check in” to locations and through doing so you can become the ‘Mayor’ (most frequent check-in’s in a designated period) and earn ‘badges’ for completing certain combination of check-in’s.

There has been a lot of conversation around the potential use of FourSquare by local businesses but until today the only Sydney based use I had seen was a cafe that gave a free coffee to the “Mayor.” However earlier this morning I was visiting Sydney creative agency Lowe Sydney and when I went to check in I was presented with an interesting little tab in the top right corner (fig. 1)

Fig. 1

When you select this tab you are then taken to a promotion screen for a local business (in this instance the Baroque Bistro Patisserie) and you are presented with the opportunity to earn a gift if you check in 3 times. (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2

This is a brilliant use of location based data to target users and bring a point of difference to a business. While FourSquare doesn’t have a large enough user base to work as a reach medium, it is perfect for small businesses working to increase their repeat business. Were I in area and assuming that Baroque do reasonable food and drinks this incentive offer could very well be the differentiator in where I go to get my morning coffee, after all if their coffee is just as good as the next place why wouldn’t I go there and get a free French Macaron.

From a glance it appears that the process of implementing one of these specials is a reasonably straight forward matter of filling out an online form.

The one feature I would really love to see added to the promotion page would be a ‘tell your friends’ feature, so that even if you’re not checking in there, you could push a ‘shout’ to your friends via FourSquare/Twitter/Facebook and share the promotion with others who might find it interesting.

I personally will be paying very close attention to see what kind of traction this gains with Australian businesses.

- @JoelyRighteous

Chatroulette: a game, a social experiment, or a site for voyeurs?

Whatever it is, Chartroulette is both entertaining and addictive.

If you’ve ever Skyped with someone, then you are already familiar with the awkward experience that is synonymous with video chatting. Now imagine chatting with a total stranger, or multiple strangers, in rapid-fire succession. Sound like fun yet? Add a hint of speed dating drama and a pinch of chat room mischief, puree it together and you’ve got Chatroulette.

It is something that is both difficult to watch, yet hard to leave.

My past experiences on the site range from: strangers reading poetry, strangers asking me to flash them, strangers flashing me, familiar viral video feeds, occasional legitimate conversations, staring contests, and a lot of male anatomy. In fact, more than 25% of everything I stumbled upon would be rated XXX. Have no fear though, you can always ‘Next’ the crazy ones.

The site is a few months old and was created by Andrey Ternovskiy, a 17 year old in Russia. It currently has about 21,000 users from around the world it at any point in time, and seems to continually grow.

So if you’re an adrenaline junky, if you have a strong stomach, or if you just like meeting random people… test your luck and play a little Chatroulette. Be careful, you might poke your eye out!

Running Tally (out of 220 ppl):

Girls: 20	XXX: 55
Guys: 200	Real Conversation: 13
	No Front Teeth: 1
	Nothing special: 151

Ubisoft’s new copy-protection system to assassinate PC gaming?

Of all the millions of issues the Digital Age™ has introduced to our lives in the last couple of decades, Digital Rights Management (DRM) would have to be near the top of the list of ‘topics most likely to ignite into a white-hot debate’.

Copyright holders continue to pour billions of dollars into new ways to restrict the distribution of digital content such as music, movies, tv shows and games. In a world where all of these things are increasingly being purchased in digital form only, the issue becomes more and more of a concern for the publishers as the uptake of digital distribution channels increases.

The latest episode in the War on Game Piracy stars Ubisoft – publishers of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, the second installment of which releases on the PC next month. Ubisoft have previously spoken about their new DRM system that requires users to be constantly connected to the internet to play, but now that reviewers are getting their hands on review copies, the finer points of the system are becoming known.

Ubisoft say:

Ubisoft’s number one goal is to provide added value that will facilitate and enrich the gaming experience of our PC customers. The Settlers 7 beta version is enabling players to discover that this platform empowers them to install the game on as many PCs as they wish, to synchronize saved games online so that gameplay can be continued from where they left off (from any computer with an installed version of the game) and frees them from needing a CD/DVD in order to play.

The platform requires a permanent Internet connection. We know this choice is controversial but we feel is justified by the gameplay advantages offered by the system and because most PCs are already connected to the Internet. This platform also offers protection against piracy, an important business element for Ubisoft and for the PC market in general as piracy has an important impact on this market. Any initiative that allows us to lower the impact of piracy on our PC games will also allow us to concentrate further effort to the creation and expansion of IPs for the PC – our goal is to deliver the best gaming experience to our customers, anywhere, anytime.

PC Gamer magazine found, when playing an advance review copy, that if they interrupted their internet connection in any way, the game uncermoniously booted them back to the main menu and all progress since the last checkpoint was lost.

They commented:

Even if everyone in the world had perfect internet connections that never dropped out, this would still mean that any time Ubisoft’s ‘Master servers’ are down for any reason, everyone playing a current Ubisoft game is kicked out of it and loses their progress. Even massively multiplayer games aren’t so draconian about the internet: you can’t play when the server’s down, but at least you don’t lose anything for getting disconnected.

Predictably, the backlash from the gaming community is fierce. Spending a few minutes on the Steam game forums turned up these comments from gamers:

Sanchless:

I can’t support DRM this invasive, Ubisoft just lost my sale on this and any other game in the future that comes with this.

Void(null):

Piracy is theft of the product from the Publisher.
This is theft of the product from the consumer.

This is not the answer to piracy, this is the cause.

DARKNIGHT:

This is a major invite to pirates, because they wont need an internet connection to play it after they cracked it.

Well Ubisoft, say goodbye to the pc platform already, get lost in your console world, if you are going to blame the suffering on sales to piracy, its your own damn fault.

Now for what I think:

If Ubisoft go ahead with this new system, I think we can expect Assassin’s Creed 2 to be one of the most pirated PC games this year. Warez groups will have the copy protection cracked in a week at the most, and when they do, the cracked version will be far less inconvenient to run than the legitimate retail version.

Once again, DRM is going to punish the legitimate users and not the pirates.

As more and more publishers go down the route of draconian copy-protection systems and PC game piracy levels increase, we’ll see less and less publishers that consider the PC platform worth spending development money on – all because of the way they treated their customers.

@Westpac Twitter Account is “So Over it Today”

Maybe one of the best brand tweets ever by @westpac, but sadly it appears to have been deleted. Some are calling it social media marketing genius whilst others suspect that Westpac may not have stocked the kitchen cupboard with enough TimTams today.

Here it is, preserved in screenshot glory:

Substantiated by a Google Search below:

Anyone know the real story – let us know in the comments

Why Amnesia Razorfish opted out of Hot or Cold.

Post by @eunmac – Founder of Amnesia Razorfish.

Hi, I usually try my best to fly under the radar with contentious issues but felt it time to pop up to explain some stuff, possibly at the risk of sounding like a bit of a t**ser! I’ve noticed there are a lot of questions (and even criticism) around why Amnesia, Deepend, White Agency, Host and Webqem all opted out of Bannerblog and Campaign Brief’s Hot or Cold list. Rather than leave people hanging and wondering why we abstained, I thought I’d put the record straight.

Three reasons Amnesia Razorfish does not want to be involved in the Hot or Cold list:

Really awesome T-Shirt War

found this browsing around and it is great so I thought I share it with you

@maniac13

Goggles with built-in GPS

With the Winter Olympics underway, I thought I would post something fitting. Whether you’re into snowboarding or not, these goggles are pretty cool. The head mounted display gives you a load of information and will tell you how to get to the nearest bar (hopefully). Check them out here

@handypearce

The future of computing

We all have seen Tom Cruise in Minority Report and even though the movie was pretty average, the computing system used in it blew us away.

I have been talking about multitouch before here, here and here but most of them talk about concepts.

Now there is a company called Oblong that developed a system for real and it looks a lot like the one in the movie.

I want to volunteer to test this system, please.

@maniac13

Update: I just read that the cofounder of the company, John Underkoffer, was the lead of the team that came up with the interface used in the movie in 2002.

How to extinguish Malaria

Mosquitoes are the prime movers of the disease and plenty of people have spend years trying to find ways on how to get rid of the little suckers.

Now a company called Intellectual Venture labs has a solution – you use lasers to shoot them down mid air.

They first publicly demonstrated this laser (which is made of parts of printers, digital cameras, and projectors) at the TED conference the other day, using hundreds of mosquitoes in a clear glass case to make his point. The laser’s software determines the size and shape of the target before deciding whether or not to shoot.The lasers could be used to protect hospitals and clinics in areas with high mosquito populations and in areas with a high rate of malaria infestation.

Here is a video of it working

I personally think that we should find a way to prevent malaria and getting rid of mosquitoes seems to be the way to go, but burning them alive mid-air doesn’t seem right.

@maniac13

The robot that will solve my rubik’s Cube

and it will do it in 10.75 seconds

don’t believe me, check this out

Augmented reality maps – TED2010 Talk – Blaise Aguera’s demo

Blaise Aguera, co-creator of Photosynth, demonstrates the latest Microsoft augmented reality mapping technology from MS Live Labs.

Great fodder for brainstorming ways emerging mapping (and image/data crowdsourcing) technology can be wrapped up in practical applications.

That’s a live video feed layered over 3D map of an interior space.

Layered images from multiple sources.

Look up for time-based constellation mapping.

http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html

@iclazie

Windows mobile 7, sorry Windows Phone 7 series is here

I have been waiting for a while now and I couldn’t wait this morning to get online and read all about it.

For the past hour I have been watching hands-on videos and I have mixed feelings about it.

First of all I have to say I am impressed with the initial look and feel. Compared to the older Winmos it looks heaps better, more cleaned up and more intuitive. Your homescreen is completely customizable, it has Xbox Live integration, you can finally natively get to your facebook and twitter and and and

The picture gallery seems pretty slick as well with full multi-touch support. The browser seems to handle page layouts the way it should be and has multi-touch support.

Oh and of course the music integration that is taken straight from the Zune HD. One big advantage here will be that Australia might get it finally and so will the rest of the world.

One thing I didn’t like is the big bold text everywhere that sometimes doesn’t even fit on the screen and gets cut off – the picture below should say “Anonymous Caller”

Check out the hands-on from engadget here if you haven’t enough yet.

I personally can’t wait to get my hands on one of them.

@maniac13

The Razorfish 5: Five Technologies that will Change Your Business

In the last 10, the world has moved into digital. The word “digital” itself underlines the major role of technology. This year our Razorfish team led by our CTO Ray Velez created a report of 5 Technologies that will have great significance this year.

1. Cloud services and open APIs will become essential for social brands, making it easier for businesses to tap into the consumer’s social graph.
2. Reliance on the cloud’s infrastructure will continue to grow as the need for real-time scalability becomes increasingly critical for survival.
3. Multi-touch technology, which has already become mainstream in consumer devices, will infiltrate retail and business environments so extensively that it will become expected.
4. Improved hardware and connectivity will help mobile make the final transition into cloud-based data that allows the user to learn the world around her in real time.
5. Agile and iterative Web development will open new doors for innovation by allowing developers to innovate and adjust products based on immediate customer feedback.

To read more about it or download the report: http://razorfish5.razorfish.com.

The Razorfish 5

Not ….king funny

The new Burger King TV ad in the UK made me laugh. The digital is pretty cool as well, but the gag’s lost a bit in print … and by that burger. Anyway, you can create your own t-shirt and if you get 50 votes, you win it.

The crap bit is that in order to vote, you have to watch the TV ad. (And it was all going so well). I guess those pesky atl suits couldn’t keep their fingers out of the digital pie

Here’s the ****king Amnesia blog shirt. Vote on it (if u can stand being forced to watch the TVC), tell us you’ve voted in the comments below and I’ll send the shirt to one of you if / when we get it   Vote here

Here’s the ****king TV ad:

@handypearce

Jobs: Creative genius required

We’re after a creative to come up with brilliant digital ideas.

Youtube becomes your easy to use VJ

We all have used youtube to watch music videos and I know a few people that sit at their desks all day and have youtube playing in the background as their own personal jukebox.

Since January (I know I am a bit late here, but I was really busy) this has become a hell of a lot easier with youtube disco.

And I have to say that even though it is quite simple and not to fancy on the eye, it is one of the fastest and most accurate ways to find your music (videos) and related artists. It also gives you a little insight into the artist and you can add videos individually or just add them all.

Then all you have to do is mix it all up manually or press the shuffle button

One thing I found very interesting is that the videos shown are not the official ones, but created by fans.

The only other site I have seen that would rival this is the Channel V site here. you can browse the whole site and never lose the music video you are watching.

Go ahead and try them both.

@maniac13

Enter the Jelli

The clever music nerds over at http://www.jelli.net have just made internet radio a wee bit more interesting.

You sign up, pick a tuner, there’s a ridiculously long list of tracks (and you can place suggestions to add more) that each have a vote count. Cast your vote, and move your favourite tracks up the playlist.

Need to hear something ASAP? Use a precious power-up (a Rocket) and shoot that tune into the public view, call for votes, team up with other listeners, and get it on the air. See something you desperately need to never hear again? Use a Bomb, send that garbage to the very bottom of the list.

It gets a little more interesting than that, if you Rocket a song into the player, for all to hear – and The Majority are loving your choice, they’ll click the “Rocks” button, should the rock metre fill up, you’ll get your Rocket back, giving you the power to choose again. If not, too bad, at least you got to hear your song.

If the track is filling the listeners with bile and rage, they’ll hit “Sucks” – enough suckage and that track is pulled off the air, immediately.

After a week or so of testing, Jelli has proven to be addictive through the game-ish aspect, but also excellent for discovering new music through the choices of fellow listeners. Honestly, I can’t recommend it enough.

That should be reason enough to take it for a spin, but there’s one more tidbit that bears mentioning. They’ve managed to ally themselves with 2dayFM via http://www.choosethehits.com.au – and this occasionally leads to Jelli voters controlling the 2dayFM radio waves for various timeslots.

So if you like the idea of having a say in what the radio plays, and forcing everyone to listen to the music you like… then you probably want to head on over and exercise your right to vote.

The First Ten Years of Search

Search just finished its first decade! Our US Search teams have put together a look back over the past 10 years and key milestones which have shaped the search landscape today. It’s amazing how far the industry has come in such a short space of time and how much it has changed. Most notably, back in 2000 Google was the default search engine for Yahoo users and now they’re main competitors!

Click here to see The Decade in Search highlights and below our thoughts from Amnesia, it’s effect on the APAC region and what the future is set to hold – for the moment at least!

Why has Google become so strong?

• Leading innovation, products and add ons that are simple for consumers to use and make Google the one-stop shop for consuming and sharing online
• For advertisers they have developed user friendly interfaces, in-depth reporting and free applications such as Analytics and Insights to make sure we can target consumers as effectively as possible on the Google network
• Both Yahoo and MSN have both lagged behind in innovation which has ultimately held back their advancement in the majority of APAC

Key Changes for the APAC region:

• Reputation management – the force that is social is an exciting time as online becomes more of an open forum. As search engines start to rank more and more social content the process of reputation management becomes more challenging and also brings up the age old question – is all news good PR?

• Censorship – hot topic at the moment especially here in Australia. Is the free availability of information set to end? We’ll be keeping a close eye on proceedings and also the effects this may have on advertisers

• China is the key market for change, with recent heavy news coverage that Google may pull out over a combination of high levels of censorship and hacking linked to the government.

• Accessibility – the imminent launch of new devices, such as, the iPad and Android phones, will open up the way people can search and the frequency in which they can do it

• Bing – Microsoft’s new search engine has reportedly been growing, albeit at a small rate. It will be interesting to see locally if consumers in each market will transition once it comes out of Beta and all features are available. Look out Google? Only time will tell!

All in all we are about to enter the next chapter in Search. Especially here in APAC where there are many different types of market, from emerging to mature and everything in between. The key to success is strategy localisation to ensure your advertising is meeting the needs of consumers from very varied backgrounds.