Much of my career has been focused on using emerging technologies to transform what an organization (and by extension, an industry) can do. Whether I have worked to define technology solutions at Tommy Hilfiger, AOL, or at Chico’s retail brands, where I currently work, my philosophy always has been that if you’re just putting a cool technology out there without a defined purpose, it’s a high-risk and usually purposeless maneuver.
That’s one reason I took the time to consider all the elements of what I call Digital Retail Theatre™. I also wrote a white paper of the same name, spoke to many friends and colleagues, and mapped out all the ideas before going to our board to get buy-in. This initiative is currently rolling out at Chico’s stores and other brands in our group. At its core, Digital Retail Theatre is a belief that there are enough digital experiences being offered right now that you should be able to pull the ones you like toward you at any minute of the day.
The technologies behind Digital Retail Theatre include intelligent digital signage, a global content management network, predictive analytics, facial and body recognition, RFID, augmented reality embedded in print and real-world dimensions, sensor integration into applications, and more. Already we are seeing a 20+ percent lift in in-store sales where certain elements have been launched.
Can “interruption” spark a relationship?
As many brands have found, if you simply push content to customers, even if they’ve opted in for it, it’s annoying because it interrupts their lives. There are occasional successes, but for the most part, it’s a bombardment of the senses. On the other hand, if you think about marketing as trying to make a person’s life better and enhance their day, your approach changes. You begin to think: If there are five things I can do with a customer, do any of them also create an intersection with my product so that as I enhance their day I also at least petition for an opportunity to sell them something? And can I create happiness in that moment of purchase--something that lifts someone’s spirits--so it is an exciting exchange.
My team and I spent months exploring this concept. And in the end we said, “Imagine that you walk into a sphere, and once you’re inside of it there is a kind of endless experience. Wherever you look something is going on, much like being in a planetarium. Could we offer something of relevance wherever a consumer looked that would benefit them and at the same time benefit us? Could it be non-interruptive?” That’s what we called Digital Retail Theatre.
In practice, Digital Retail Theatre distributes a number of branded experiences over the course of each day. We segmented that day into a dozen possible opportunities and tried to look at the intricacies of our customers' behaviors, remembering that someone who shops at our Chico’s store is not likely someone who shops at our White House|Black Market store or our Boston Proper store. Once we segmented each day we said, “All right, what is the technology that addresses each of these segments throughout the day?” Depending on where they are we can use beacon technology, information they’ve provided on their diet, or even information on their sleep patterns if they end up wearing an Apple watch, the list is endless.
Now imagine our customer is out on a Friday night with her boyfriend. As she’s walking down the sidewalk, she passes in front of one of our Chico’s stores. Although the store is closed, we could pick her up on an in-store camera that can read in her approximate age, gender, and body type in a moment. Then we could send that information into a big data resource, immediately select a mini-assortment of three or four garments and push it a screen that’s in the store window. So before she leaves that sidewalk space we’ve recognized her and said, “Hey, check this out.” And within two seconds we are pushing three things up there that are seasonally adjusted and happening right now. And if the person is in a different demographic, we can say, “Here’s an outfit from White House | Black Market around the corner.”
Bringing retail into the 21st Century
Another example of making retail theatrical is catalogs. We print 20 million catalogs a month. To freshen them up as part of Digital Retail Theatre we started looking at augmented reality. Later this spring we’ll debut our catalogs with roughly half of a 60- or 70-page catalog AR-enabled. That means you can take your iPad or other device and hover over a page for which we’ve shot B-roll film, at which point the model will come to life on your device for 15 or 20 seconds. Then you can press a “buy now” button and it’ll take you to a custom page that breaks up an entire photograph — hat, accessories, dress, skirt, shoes — so that you can select all or some of it. And it immediately places that into your shopping cart so there is no need to go to the internet, per se. It’s an interesting blend of print, digital and something that we know people love, their catalogs.
What is truly significant about Digital Retail Theatre isn’t the isolated vertical technologies that are integrated into some lifestyle concept. It’s the fact that they’re all integrated to each other all the time. These technologies are the building blocks of a natural ebb and flow where you as a person feel that you are blending into us as a brand. That’s the ultimate goal.
Eric Singleton is EVP and Chief Information Officer for Chico's FAS, Inc. and former Chief Information Officer for Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, where he held worldwide responsibility for the company’s IT division. Before making the move into retail, Eric was with Raytheon Company, where he created and led their worldwide E-Commerce business. Eric was also VP and CIO for divisions of Honeywell Aerospace and Honeywell Automotive (formerly AlliedSignal), and CIO for Columbia Energy. After Tommy Hilfiger was sold to Apax Partners in 2006, Eric launched his own firm, where his client list has included Microsoft, AOL, Airstream, Zales, Robert Marc, Intermix, and many others.
