Topshop
In 2013, Topshop’s digital initiative “The Future of the Fashion Show” exemplified new ways of integrating technology into fashion shows to reach a global audience and create more immersive experiences. Topshop was one of the first brands to transmit London Fashion Week live through headsets to customers in its flagship London store at Oxford Circus. Real-time ‘model cams’ enabled Topshop to capture and transmit the experience of walking the catwalk. In addition, a mobile app called “Be the Buyer” allowed users to compose, remix and share mood boards featuring their favourite pieces. A Google+ Hangout gave fans the chance to view and interact with the Topshop design team as they put the finishing touches to the collection. Driving social buzz is part of Topshop’s strategy, but equally important was the large amount of data generated by millions of consumers interacting with the various elements of “The Future of the Fashion Show”. The “Be the Buyer” app provided insights into consumer preferences, before products reached the store. This data could be used to inform buying and merchandising decisions, such as how many pieces of a particular style to manufacture and in which colours (Kansara 2013). In 2015, Topshop partnered with Twitter to showcase key trends emerging from London Fashion Week. Real-time tweet data was fed through to billboards around the country to be displayed as a word cloud and placed alongside corresponding shoppable Topshop product. Consumers were also invited to tweet @Topshop to receive a curated shopping list in return. Six billboards within a 10 minute walk of a store were utilised and the experience was replicated in one of Topshop’s Oxford Circus store windows, as well as via its website. Twitter’s vast listening power enables the global consumer to shop the trends as and when they happen, and gives them insight and access into catwalk shows. Harrods Harrods brought its service to the iPhone for the first time in 2011, with 26,000 downloads of its mobile app in the first 6 weeks from launch. Customers were able to browse daily updated luxury brand news, add in-store events to their calendars and discover the latest ‘must-have’ merchandise. They could also discover the history of Harrods, take an audio tour around points of interest and create shopping lists for their visits. The purpose was to provide visitors with a modern guide to the store. A member of staff noted the overseas customers in store, in particular affluent Chinese customers as well as the need to attract a younger customer. This pushed the business into creating a mobile app as these groups of customers “… are much more into technologies than any other customer category” and use it to browse and research at home, later taking advantage of the store to successfully complete their purchase. Customers then know exactly what they want, where it is located in the store and shop assistants can promptly show them the products they want to see (Kent et al. 2016). The potential for online and physical store integration was later demonstrated by Ralph Lauren’s use of fifteen window displays to support its Polo line through the use of mobile proximity technology. The promotion drew on Harrods’ previous experience with digital marketing to enhance the luxury shopping experience, by connecting with customers’ smartphones to offer interactive and exclusive content. The initiative allowed window shoppers to scan or tap the window display with their mobiles, which directed them to the Fashion Lab Harrods webpage, from where they could navigate to the in-store location of the Ralph Lauren Polo collection (Skeldon 2014). This enabled Harrods to access potential customers even when the store was closed, and once they were drawn into the store, to build brand loyalty. The versatility of this interactive technology is demonstrated by its success in a marketing collabouration between a luxury fashion brand and an internationally recognised department store. Augmented Reality (AR): This technology provides the user with an enhanced view of the real world, supplemented by various elements such as sound, graphics, GPS data and videos. As consumers become increasingly desensitised to traditional marketing communications, AR provides a creative and innovative way to capture their attention. AR blends real-world digital data capture typically with a digital camera in a webcam or mobile phone to create a browser-based digital representation or experience mimicking that of the real world (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2015) and thus enables the consumer to virtually interact with the brand, with a number of examples seen across luxury, sportswear and beauty sectors. Within the luxury industry, sales associates use iPads featuring a range of digital technologies, including augmented reality, to encourage customers to try on and engage with jewellery and watches virtually (Adler 2013). In 2010, Swiss watchmaker Hublot launched an iPhone app called Hublotista that allowed consumers to view the Hublot collection, design their own models and digitally try them on. GoldRun is an augmented reality mobile platform comprised of an app that enables users to locate, interact with and take photos of GPS-linked virtual objects positioned in the real world. It aims to drive traffic to physical and online destinations, increase product sales and enhance brand engagement within a certain geographic location for a predetermined amount of time. Beauty retailer Sephora created a virtual try-on feature app for lipstick (Pasquarelli 2016). In certain Karl Lagerfeld stores, fitting rooms were equipped with photo booths where consumers could apply filters to their images and share on social media (Retail Week 2014a). In 2014, Topshop partnered with Kinect to create AR fitting rooms, so consumers could virtually try on clothing quickly and easily. AR can also be used for interactive entertainment, for example as Adidas Originals did with their Augmented Reality Game Pack. Adidas turned Originals sneakers into a game control device by adding an AR code on the shoe’s tongue. When held in front of a webcam, the code provided access to a number of different interactive games on the Adidas website which the players could navigate with their shoe. Virtual Reality (VR): This technology comprises a wearable device, typically headgear, which blocks out the real world and immerses the user in a virtual one. Its application to fashion can be seen in a trial by The North Face, which piloted VR in a US concept store, providing consumers with immersive, 360-degree 3D video and audio experiences to mimic extreme outdoor landscapes, such as the Himalayas (Mintel 2016). VR can thus be distinguished from AR, where one or more layers of digital content are overlaid on the real world through an intermediary device: AR allows access to both the virtual and real world. Whilst AR can work with mobile devices, for VR to succeed, the headwear needs to be comfortable, stylish and powered by software that creates credible immersive visual effects. Some fashion brands have directly addressed this requirement. In 2015, French couture house Dior created its own high fashion VR headset equipped with high-definition image resolution and holophonic1 audio to bring Dior Eyes, an immersive 360° experience of Dior’s runway and craftsmanship, to its boutique visitors (LVMH 2015). However, it raised concerns about whether typical luxury consumers would wear such a conspicuous headset in public, and whether Dior would provide hairdressing and make-up touch-up services once the consumer had taken the headset off. VR’s success may depend on more scaled-down headsets, with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg predicting that future VR headsets would look like a normal pair of glasses (Lopez 2016). Developmental trends point to the expansion of interactive shop windows and in-store communication that draw on the combination of GPS, various types of transmitters such as Apple’s iBeacon and consumers’ own smartphones. These take personalisation and micro-marketing to a new level with real-time offers, new product updates and post-purchase customer support. To support their brand, retailers will increasingly look at their customer relationships, in which stories, images, videos and news-fashion blogs have been particularly successful. These should provide new interactive opportunities, for example the conceptualisation and delivery of immersive scenarios. The development of VR will involve further trials of devices, content and contexts combined with advances in technologies and retailer expertise. New devices will create more realistic immersive environments and add movement to the user experience. Engagement with the virtual world may be further enhanced through other senses, for example touch and the use of hand controls, for example to pick things up. VR provides an opportunity for consumers to visit retailers’ fashion shows, events and exhibitions, and for the retailer to extend the lifespan of selected promotions to individual customers. They no longer have to present a view from a single point in the store, so users will virtually control where they go and what they see and interact with. However, VR is at early stage of implementation, and along with other forms innovative forms of in-store retail technology, may take time to be accepted by consumers (Barclays 2016). Despite great advances in technological innovation and the potential of current technologies to add value to the omnichannel shopping experience, the success of consumer-facing mobile technologies in retail stores is dependent upon consumer acceptance of and attitudes toward the technology. Levels of acceptance of a technology can predict their actual use and consequently, many different theories about technology acceptance have been developed over time. The following section reviews key theoretical models of technology adoption that may be used to understand consumer adoption of mobile technology and guide retailers’ strategic implementation decisions. leadership goals
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