pop-up mobile for luxury retail v1: time-sensitive exclusivity

The historical hesitance among many Luxury brands to delve into the realm of e-commerce and, more importantly, where the medium has fallen short for brands is most obviously evidenced in its inherent disconnectedness from the essence of the luxury experience – the exclusivity and uniqueness of the brand and the tactile, sensual in-boutique experience.  E-commerce, by its very nature and definition is all-inclusive – a world wide web of accessibility to brands that heretofore were accessible to only a select few.  According to The Journal of Brand Management, Luxury as a concept is defined:

“…within the scope of socio-psychology as a result of its connection to a culture, state of being and lifestyle, whether it is personal or collective. When linked to brands, it is characterized by a recognizable style, strong identity, high awareness, and enhanced emotional and symbolic associations. It evokes uniqueness and exclusivity, and is interpreted in products through high quality, controlled distribution and premium pricing.“

Through the course of economic downturn and an on-going trend toward mass appeal branding among luxury brands (need we go any further than Vera Wang’s “Simply Vera Wang” collection carried by Kohl’s department stores?), much of the exclusivity of luxury brands has been diluted.  Couple this perception dilution with “flash sale” members-only models popularized by Gilt Group, and luxury brands are currently engaged in an all-out war not only with themselves, but with internet technology and its model of complete accessibility.

Given all these factors, where does a medium like mobile fit into the equation for luxury retailers?

One of the inherent values of the mobile medium for marketers is the very personal nature of the smartphone device itself.  From personal photos to address books, from personal calendars to the applications that users select to download to the device, the mobile medium, unlike the “mass-clusive” nature of the internet, is inextricably tied to the individual.  This creates a plethora of unique engagement opportunities for luxury brands to paint from a palette of time-sensitive exclusivity and re-create the feeling of uniqueness historically inherent in shoppers’ experience with the brand.

An excellent palette of time-sensitive exclusivity was Burberry’s “Retail Theatre” application that leveraged the Apple iPad as a content delivery mechanism.  During the British label’s spring/summer 2011 show, which occurred on September 21 – 25 , Burberry boutiques around the globe streamed the London Fashion Week runway show live for customers.  If viewers saw anything  they liked on the screen, they could order the item immediately via iPad. Merchandise was then shipped out to arrive in a matter of a few weeks rather than having to wait the usual four to six months for spring 2011 orders to arrive.

What Burberry was effectively able to accomplish via this campaign was directly aligned with the essence of the brand, an exclusive behind the scenes look at the upcoming collection to a select few viewers who, in turn, enjoyed access to product before release to the general public.

This example is an excellent representation of working from a palette of time-sensitive exclusivity and provides an excellent framework for a concept I have long been an avid proponent of:  the concept of pop-up mobile for luxury brands.  Imagine an invitation-only, time-sensitive event promoted to a limited audience of a brand’s most influential customers that offers access to pre-release product and behind the scenes video content to further endear this valuable customer subset to the brand.

This pop-up concept is certainly a familiar one in the retail arena in terms of temporal physical storefronts designed to build buzz around a new product launch, but the concept has been effectively used in the wired world as well.  In September 2009, Jones Apparel launched an extremely successful pop-up store on Facebook for its Rachel Rachel Roy brand, offering exclusive, limited release product for its fans.  Leveraging the Facebook social platform, the Rachel Rachel Roy pop-up sold out of the exclusive product mix in only six hours.

Rachel Rachel Roy was seeking to offer their fans a truly special experience. Explains Rachel Rachel Roy Senior Vice President of Marketing Amy Rapawy, “when you interact with a brand you love, you want to feel like it is a more personal, deeper connection and brand experience than you would find on a website or in an ad. It was important to us that our fans have VIP access to shop the collection before it hit stores.”

Trendwatching.com terms this trend Massclusivity.  The site first introduced the concept in October of 2003, hailing it as a trend to watch and defining it as follows:

This ‘exclusivity for the masses’, or Massclusivity, can be an instant add-on and revenue booster for many services in the public domain. Massclusivity is NOT about exclusively opening up Harrods or Macy’s late Sunday night for a Hollywood super-celeb looking for a last-minute party dress, but rather about setting up special in-store coffee lounges or luxurious fitting rooms for members only. Respect and privilege are scarce nowadays. Reason enough to add them to your offerings.

This is exactly the example set by both Burberry and Rachel Rachel Roy in the studies illustrated.  Leveraging technologies in a considered and strategic manner, with the essence of the brand and its constituency in mind, both brands effectively worked from a palette of time-sensitive exclusivity and created unique experiences for their most valued customers.  These examples serve to illustrate that, by adopting a hybrid approach of exclusivity and time-sensitivity, luxury retailers have a unique opportunity to provide respect and privilege to their best customers and, in turn, drive traffic to boutiques, cater in a very personal manner to their best customers, and leverage time-sensitivity to further accentuate the uniqueness of the experience.

pop-up mobile for luxury retail v4: the interactive mobile lookbook

The recent launch of French Connection UK’s (FCUK) v-commerce offering “YouTique” represents a very powerful opportunity for luxury retailers to mass broadcast style guide thought leadership and further strengthen loyalists’ affinity for brands.  What is particularly compelling about this approach (although not currently leveraged by FCUK) is the mobile commerce implication.  Experience has shown us the inherent value of video content over long-form text from the perspective of a powerful mobile use case.  Through the production of this editorial style guide content that focuses less on particular pieces in an apparel brand’s collection and gives more emphasis on how best to apply the pieces to everyday events, FCUK’s “YouTique” offering provides utility, entertainment, and education as key drivers of increased brand loyalty.

I was very honored to speak at the recent Luxury Institute event at The London Hotel in New York City on the topic of Mobile 2.0 and how luxury brands can leverage mobile rich applications as facilitators of the brands’ clienteling initiatives.  While the topic of my presentation focused more on the potential positive implications of rich apps for enhancing the customer in-store experience, I urged the brands in attendance, including Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Moet Hennessy, Tiffany & Co., among others to create mobile moments that are in keeping with the essence of the brand and the customer experience that is at the core of what defines them luxurious. For a heavily lifestyle-driven brand like FCUK, the “YouTique” offering accomplishes exactly that goal of providing utility to its brand fanatics while remaining true to the essence of their brand.  To embed this type utility with the framework of a robust mobile rich application is a goal all luxury apparel brands should aspire to deliver for these fanatics to further increase brand loyalty.

This merits a brief discussion on the advantages of rich applications over mobile web as it pertains to providing a deeper level of engagement with brand advocates and peripheral shoppers.  The mindset of the typical mobile web shopper and rich application shopper is entirely different in focus.  The mobile web shopper is very utilitarian by nature, wanting to find a mobile-optimized site offered by a retailer, search for what they are looking for, and proceed through the checkout path as efficiently and quickly as possible, given the time-sensitivity of the engagement.  The rich application shopper, we can conclude, feels a deeper sense of affinity with the brand in question, given the act of downloading the app to their device, and looks for the brand’s guidance as style guide experts.  Thus, the rich application shopper is more engaged by nature and is the prime target for this “YouTique” concept.

Fundamentally, the point here being that there are two primary use cases that retailers need to solve for to create a truly comprehensive mobile strategy.  First, retailers must solve for the “busy” use case, which is solved well by an efficiently designed mobile web site.  The second use case to solve for in a comprehensive mobile strategy is solving for the “engaged” shopper.  This is best accomplished through a well-thought rich application strategy that incorporates the type of style guide content so perfectly exemplified by the “YouTique” example.  The shopper that takes the time to download an iPhone app, for example, is a shopper who again feels that deep level of affinity with the brand and, as such, will tend to produce higher average order values (AOV) and increased frequency of purchase.

The FCUK “YouTique” offering represents a tremendous rich application solution for mobile customers.  The deep level of engagement garnered by the brand further increases their position as style guide experts for their legion of loyalists, with over 375,000 total upload views since its launch in April.  I expect to see this concept trend considerably upward, especially given the ubiquity of YouTube as a broadcast medium to bring style guide and lookbook content to life, with full transactional capability.

crossing the e-commerce chasm through “experience blurring” (and the wisdom of Don Draper)

In the opening scene of Episode 401 of Mad Men, Don Draper, Senior Partner and Creative Director for Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce, is asked by a reporter from Advertising Age what was the genesis of his idea for the Glo-Coat floor wax ad that, ultimately, earns him a CLIO.  His response strikes at the essence of where, I believe, the opportunity for mobile applications to truly add value to the luxury retail segment begin to take form.

I wanted it (the ad) to be indistinguishable from the movies.  I wanted people to ask, “what’s happening in the story now? … oh, it’s something else.” It’s not an ad.  At least not the first thirty seconds.

What I find particularly relevant in this quote is the concept of blurring the lines between the attraction and advertisement.  This concept represents the opportunity for mobile in luxury retail. Blurring the lines between the true attraction of luxury brands – the opulence of the in-store experience – and the augmentative engagement capabilities possible with mobile rich applications is at the core of Mobile 2.0.  Making it difficult to comprehend where one experience ends and another begins in a seamlessly interconnected clienteling effort is the most clear and present opportunity for mobile to make a positive impact on the luxury shopper’s experience with the brand.

This practice of blurring the lines between the very tactile, sensual in-store shopping experience and the shopper’s experience with the brand on their mobile device serves to effectively bridge the chasm that e-commerce has been unable to construct and maintain for luxury brands.  The inherent disconnection from the essence of the physical brand experience in a tethered e-commerce environment has always been at the core of luxury brands’ reluctance to venture into its realm.  Mobile, by contrast, is far more than simply a one-to-one representation of retailers’ e-commerce presence (if they even have one).  Mobile is, instead, the galvanizing medium for multi-channel unification, providing efficiencies in a time-starved world and adding value to the lives of luxury shoppers.

In their April 2010 Trends Briefing, trendwatching.com re-introduced the concept of Brand Butlers as an emerging trend in retail defined by the simple tagline “Serving is the New Selling:”

With pragmatic, convenience-loving consumers enjoying instant access to an ever-growing number of supporting services and tools (both offline and online), brands urgently need to hone their ‘butlering skills’*, focusing on assisting consumers to make the most of their daily lives, versus the old model of selling them a lifestyle if not identity.

The retail revolution currently underway is certainly far more powerful than any tool designed to facilitate its movement.  The real heart of this revolution is shift from traditional B2C go-to-market strategies to a C2B model where consumers are armed with more information resources, access to social shopping applications, and technologies than ever before in the history of retail.  To address this, Luxury Retailers who take a proactive, strategic approach to providing applications that enhance the in-store experience for shoppers, including:

• barcode/QR code scanning to access to exclusive content and product/brand stories from print, in-store signage, etc.
• location-based check-in to drive loyalty program participation, integrated private label video “lookbook”  content, exclusive access to pre-release product available only through the app
• “virtual closet” capabilities allowing for the assembly of “wish lists” to be forwarded to the boutique, picked and arranged in the dressing room before arrival
• etc.

… will be at the forefront of this new revolution in retailing.

The overarching point here being – mobile is not e-commerce on a four inch screen.  It’s implications on the in-store clienteling initiatives for luxury retailers are extraordinarily powerful.

I want the app to be indistinguishable from the store.  Where one ends, the other begins and, in the midst, complete synergy that stays true to the essence of the brand experience and the experience we provide to our customers.

Ok, I’m not Don Draper but, hell, who is … ?