by Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) I try to write as much as possible about South African retail and shopping but some months I find myself lacking in inspiration on the ground — a sad state of affairs when the rest of the world is flying ahead in the innovation and experience stakes.
This year’s Loerie Awards was heavy with inspiring work, design and consumer engagement but still very light when it comes to shopper or retail examples. In fact, iKineo’s after-hours shopping work for Loom de Nimes was probably the only work that verged towards any type of engaging retail experience. The good news? The floor is wide open for next year!
Rules are changing
In the meantime, globally, the rules are changing all the time and what one might have once thought were experiences to be owned by the music and entertainment brands are now creeping into retail. The realisation is that, if the retail brands don’t move into other shopper passion points (music, digital, film, social), the consumers’ attention may quickly be stolen into eCommerce , digital and social purchasing — stopping their shopping in the bricks and mortar all together.
My feeling is this is a long way off, regardless of what the sceptics say; however, I do believe there is a demand from shoppers for more. More experience, more innovation and more enjoyment from the retail experience. A reason to become a fan versus just a transactional shopper.
When the choice to shop is more complex than ever and the traditional ‘shopper funnel’ is scrutinised, even bypassed, retailers are realising that the decision to shop is no longer simply linear and that people don’t buy only because they need to, but because they want to.
Retail fans
Entertainment and experience at the point of purchase is interrupting shopper choice and the definition of shoppers as ‘fans’ is now no longer a concept reserved only for the big music brands and artists. The question I pose is whether retail should be looking more closely at the music brands as they build these new ‘immersive’ models and create retail fans.
Where the music industry has already worked out how to take fandom into loyalty, retailers are still struggling. People often reference the iStore as the leader in experience and incentivised buying, and indeed it is leading the pack in terms of experiential retail, but it is still based in product performance and capability, so arguably doing little to take retail beyond the functional.
Perhaps we should be looking to retailers to move beyond the product to provide new levels of experience in store? Music recognition services such as Shazam and SoundCloud acknowledge the shoppers’ need for music by taking it into recognition and prediction to make shopping more easy. Surely there is space for image-recognition apps which could recognise a pair of takkies or a piece of furniture, tell you where to get it and at what price? Brands such as Spotify tapped into a demand for ‘loantail’ (loaning rather than buying), which is surely not limited to music alone?
Engaged shoppers
Shopping for music has become not only experiential but social. Sharing is made easy and social media provides content that is follow-worthy. So, while it is harder for PnP that it ever would be for Lady Gaga, there are many lessons it can learn from her fan creation, brand interaction and her provision for entertainment when purchasing her ‘product’.
Where pop music is continually moving forward, retail can learn to follow — with a goal of creating engaged shoppers who enter the store and get much more than they bargained for!
— Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) followed her passion and experience in the consumer, retail and shopper space from regional roles in Europe and Asia, to South African shores in 2010. Having led global brands through the line for Procter & Gamble, and two of London and Hong Kong’s top agencies, her background gives her an international perspective to add to her depth of SA understanding. She serves as strategic director and a partner at 34 Group. Mimi contributes the monthly “The Sell” column concerning shopper marketing to MarkLives.