The retail experience of the future awaits

The retail sector is transforming. This means the experiences that underpin it need to transform too. Brands need to shift their focus. Those that don’t, risk being left behind.

To be successful with retail experiences of the future, brands need three key considerations:

• Delivery of instant, long-lasting visual impact that creates cut through and memorability
• A community-first approach to spaces that helps boost brand loyalty and build a sense of belonging amongst customers
• A seamless integration of digital with physical to enable an experience that covers every touchpoint

If brands consider these three pillars as being the foundation of future retail experiences, we think they’ll be on to a winner.

Digital isn’t a want, it’s a need

Gen Z are now the largest consumers of luxury fashion and also tend to be the most digitally-savvy. Interestingly though, they actually have a strong preference toward brick-and-mortar shopping.

This new generation is coming into physical stores for experiences that they cannot replicate at home, but expect these experiences to be seamlessly connected to the store’s digital counterpart, accessible from anywhere.

So how could this look in practice? Well, our recent work with Karl Lagerfeld, on a campaign that launched their sought after collaborative collection with Cara Delevingne, is a good place to start. The campaign needed to be grounded in the future, to match the collection it was promoting and inspire a new generation.

The digital world became a perfect solution to showcase the friendship and connection between Cara and Karl authentically, in an interactive, immersive and future-facing way. The collaborative campaign saw Lagerfeld and Delevingne immortalised as avatars, with the latter modelling the collection in a futuristic environment.

To bring the campaign and concept to life in the physical world, we devised a series of pop ups and window installations, complemented by an in-store AR experience. QR codes were hidden throughout each space, taking shoppers on an immersive quest where they could view the collections on custom avatars of Delevingne and Lagerfeld.

On the physical side, materiality was a key consideration, with use of brushed aluminium, chrome and fluted glass to help deliver on the futuristic feel, to create a space that truly transported shoppers into the future.

It’s about blending digital and physical, using one to complement the other – why limit yourself to a solely physical launch event, when you could link this to a global, gamified event happening in the Metaverse alongside? Think outside the box, and explore the possibilities of what the virtual world has to offer the physical.

Shareability, memorability and impact at every touchpoint

Retail experiences need to feel totally unmissable. Brands need to make bold statements. Be brave with their experiences. They need to create strong visual experiences that enhance awareness of the brand’s identity and narrative – ones that are easily identifiable, and shareable.

Louis Vuitton’s ‘Walk in the Park’ campaign did just this. Consisting of three connected parts, the experience begins with a colourful popup space on Rue du Pont Neuf, full of character and offering up highly collectible, exclusive pieces from 2019-2021 Spring/Summer collections.

Visitors were then invited into Place Vendòme, the flagship store of the brand, to experience a world of exciting photo filters and augmented reality, featuring Zoooom with friends, a crew of playful characters that interact with the facade of the Louis Vuitton building, all accessible via the LV app. The experiences triumphantly concluded with the launch of the F/W ‘21 collection.

A brilliant example of effective storytelling, made possible by a combination of seamlessly connected physical and digital experiences – taking the consumer beyond the traditional realms of retail, and making them feel part of something far bigger.

Community matters, so nurture them

As the path to purchase becomes fragmented more by the day, brands need to create a sense of belonging, a community-first approach to their retail spaces. In fact, as noted by WGSN; it’s no longer a path to purchase, it’s a path to people.

Now, brands need to nail this in both an online and offline setting. Just like Gucci did last summer.

Gucci’s ‘Garden Archetypes’ – a centenary celebration for the brand in Florence – was a physical space where visitors could journey through 15 Gucci advertising campaigns that were re-imagined as immersive, interactive, multimedia experiences – blurring the boundaries between physical and digital. The brand then partnered with online gaming company, Roblox, to recreate the experience in the Metaverse.

Visitors could explore the virtual exhibition, with their avatars slowly taking on elements of the artworks in the virtual exhibition, turning themselves into a unique piece of digital art to share online at the end. Gucci achieved a sense of shareability and community with the campaign; they facilitated a combined experience for people to enjoy and explore together.

Customers now demand an added social aspect with their favourite brands, to feel like they are part of a community that speaks to and interacts with one another. The narrative (and intent) of a campaign needs to be authentic, to bring together people with shared values.

Bringing people together online and offline, nurturing an inclusive community and building solutions that enable collaboration and co-creation with each other and a brand will be an essential ingredient for success in the years to come.

The retail experience of the future awaits

We’re entering an era where brands can carve out their own space within whole new, virtual worlds.

The Metaverse has been host to Balenciaga, seeing them create an immersive, gamified experience – Afterworld: Age of Tomorrow – totally redefining how a brand can hold a catwalk and launch a collection. Popular games like Fortnite, which already hold their own in-game fashion shows, and studio’s like The Fabricant, who are building digital fashion NFT’s, will set the tone for digital-only fashion, and offer new norms of socialising and connecting with each other and their favourite brands. We’ll see experiences that can be participated in, manipulated and enjoyed alongside everything else happening in our digital lives.

Burgeoning phenomenons like NFT’s, show how desirability and exclusivity can be achieved in the digital world, with their security, ownability and traceability meaning fashion brands don’t risk the same loss of control as happened with the digitisation of other industries before it. As these types of virtual assets become a reality, and online worlds spill over into offline, the line will blur between physical and digital retail experiences to the point where we won’t notice the difference.

Brands of the future will create blended spaces which allow for more interaction between these physical and digital worlds, bringing them closer together to leverage the opportunities from both to make the customer journey as seamless, and exciting, as possible.

The future of retail experiences looks bigger and brighter than ever before, now it’s up to bold brands to seize the opportunities that await.