Whilst many retailers are still counting the profits (or losses) after Christmas Apple shows us how to start the year with some buzz and no doubt a bang.
How many retailers can create such a buzz about new product announcements? How many retailers can fuel such speculation and evangalism about potential new product lines. In the run up to Steve Jobs Keynote at Macworld Expo today, Apple lets the blogosphere take the lead and create all the publicity it needs.
From a purely product launch point of view, a couple of questions to ask your own business. Can you eulogise about your products like he can? How much money do you spend on Research and development that never sees the light of day? Do you think globally and act locally? Apple’s website in the US shows the teaser, in the UK as usual we’re a bit behind and are still showing last weeks new product.
Pop up retail isn’t of course limited to the offline world. Amazon provides widgets for your blog or website, read the story on Mashable, or the original story on Problogger. Pop up retail is also happening (popping up?) however fleetingly in transactional emails, RSS feeds, blogs and social networks and affiliate and aggregate websites, although this trend seems more in B2B than B2C which inthe main hasn’t got to grips with the opportunities offered by Permission Marketing.
Topshop do this well as I’ve mentioned before, they also do the best bit of all which is join up their online and offline activity. Did anybody see their ice cream van recently? Many UK retailers are really missing the opportunity to use the web to create a buzz about their stores online or offline. Mass interruption advertising is (slowly) dying and the retailers that succeed will be the ones that integrate all their marketing activity, seamlessly and do it well.
A couple of websites worth checking out that are interesting models for a newer, more original retail online world are osoyou.com (following the fashion trend of black, white and a colour), Topshop of course as well as Asos (which I’ve just realised has a cookie to remember your sex, or at least the section you last looked at).
With an announcement today of the iPhone I wonder if this might be the catalyst that retail needs to become more mobile and start using the mobile medium and its opportunities more. It’ll be interesting to watch and see who gets to grips with mobile retailing and when.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/ couldn’t he just have given them all $100 credit? And why will you only be able to redeem your credit against a purchase at an Apple Store? What a swizz. Seth says he steps up to the plate, no chance.
As retail designers we’re always preaching that retail should be an experience, Peter Merholz from from Adaptive Path takes this further, telling us the product should be the experience. I’d go along with that and it takes a lot of effort and good thinking to do it. Is there anyone in the UK doing this, Apple of course, although I find their stores a bit clinical for my taste and possibly Habitat and Zara Home down Regent Street, Hamleys probably but in the mainstream UK high street I suspect this kind of thinking doesn’t exist, although I’m going to start looking out for it now.
The other message in this quick video is that all retail channels should be joined up, something which although seemingly obvious patently isn’t the case over here in many, many cases, mainly larger retailers are guilty of this as smaller businesses have less political posturing and devolve authority for marketing material (and budgets) to less people so there’s more chance of remaining consistent across their brand.
The Venice Project has announced a name change, a brand even, to Joost. Although still in beta this looks very exciting and promising, it’s ever cheaper to create content these days although as always the idea is the thing or as I read on the 37 signals blog today ‘the macguffin‘. With the admission of Apple that it’s a lifestyle brand not a computer company (I wonder how Apple Corps took this) this type of content will get easier to stream into our homes and perhaps garner more than a singular audience, or will our watching habits change (if they haven’t already) so we watch our bespoke entertainment in isolation or with others but online? There’s still something comforting about watching television or a film as a family at a prescribed time, if the content’s good enough, that’s what we’ll do.
As yet I’ve only signed up for Beta so waiting impatiently to get invited and see how it works as despite the blogs and information there’s nothing better than getting something yourself to see how it works and slots in with your life.
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