Trends 2010 - Part 4

Following on from our article with Design Week, here is the fourth part of the upcoming trends for 2010.

Permission marketing
It's Saturday morning and your store is empty. Whilst staring out of the window watching potential customers wander by, you wonder why they aren't in your store. If only you could get them in through the door, they'd realise what they were missing. But how?

The futurist film makers would have us believe that whilst walking through a shopping mall of the future, cameras will recognise who we are and then interactive video screens will talk to us directly about stuff that interests us. Thus making us enter their store.



This is essentially permission marketing (PM). Theorised by the marketing guru Seth Godin, permission marketing is the ability to send your customers personal messages because they have given you their consent to do so. It has been widely used by online marketers but not so much in the real world.

In today's world, cameras may not be able to recognise our eyes just yet (thankfully) but there are other forms of PM. The simplest form would be through use of mobile phones. 85% of adults in the UK carry a mobile phone and it has become one of the closest technologies in our day-to-day lives.

If you can get your customers permission and their mobile number, then you can send them a text message that contains a driver to encourage them to visit your store. This could be a discount code, the launch of new products or a celebrity signing. It could be anything that would interest that person.



With the recent launch of The Voucher Cloud app, there is clearly a demand for this type of decision-driver information. The Voucher Cloud allows customers to search their surroundings through a GPS phone for any restaurants that are offering discounts off food and drinks. Just show the restaurant the screen and you'll get your discount.

This GPS ability would allow retailers to go one step closer to the Minority Report with 'live permission marketing'. Through active IT systems you would know if a registered customers was about to walk past your store and it would send them a personalised message. For example "hello Steve, we see you're about to pass our Oxford Street store. Pop in and we'll give you 10% off any purchase".

This type of marketing is to be treated with respect thoguh. It is a privilege to have such one-to-one access to your customers and it must be used effectively. If you start to annoy customers with the technology then you'll lose them forever.

However, get it right and your store may never be empty again!

Trends 2010 - Part 3

Following on from our article with Design Week, here is the third part of the upcoming trends for 2010.

Selling time
The one thing we never have enough of. Time.

If you could 'actually' sell time imagine how the World would change....! You'd never be late for work. Never miss a plane. Always hand in your home work on time. Never be late to your own wedding!

Unfortunately we haven't come up with this world changing technology but some brands are doing the next best thing - saving us time. More time to spend with the family, to get fit, to see the world, or simply to take time out for yourself.


One brand doing this just this is Slowly by Da Dolce in Hong Kong. This cafe-come-bookshop-come-live Radio station invites people to slow down and take time to enjoy a moments rest from the craziness of HK living. Offering a programme for emerging musicians and creative forums on design, advertising, books and films, Slowly gives back to its customers offering a haven whilst becoming an authority in its own right.



Back here in the UK, a new German chain of Italian fast food has touched down in London. The Vapiano concept is a totally self-serve restaurant where staff are only really on hand to keep the place clean and answer any questions you may have. Thus making it quicker to get your food and more time to spend eating. The innovative part of Vapiano is the use of a chip card to order your food from the 'food station points' and then your Barclay swipe card to pay. Their aim, to change the way restaurants do business whilst saving their customers time.

The Barclay contactless swipe cards is a new innovative that is allowing retailers to think differently about payments and we will see more clever uses of this technology over the next year to make our lives easier and quicker.

Possibly one of the biggest, most successful product innovations to have hit the high streets over the last few years, the iPhone, has been a great example of selling time. The biggest benefit of an iPhone is the ability to do things on the move, easily, that would otherwise take up precious time through the wonders of apps.



Fed up of shopping the aisles, standing in queues and finding your car has a huge trolley scratch down the side of it? Then get the Ocado app and do your food shop on the train home. A great app that is easy to use and saves you travel expenses and journey time.

But it doesn't stop there, oh no! Social media junkies can twitter and facebook till their hearts content with their respective apps allowing one to keep up with the virtual world without forgetting those in the real world.

It is this type of time-saving that brands have realised that, although in the grand scheme of things is so relatively small, it makes a difference in a positive way and helps build strong connections with their customers.

On a different scale, we have seen a huge increase of self-check-in and self-check-outs. One actual saves you time, the other just saves brands money...

Self-check-in at home or at the airport have helped companies like BA dramatically reduce their queuing times making it possible to get through a terminal to your gates within 15 minutes! OK, so others haven't got it quite right (ie Easyjet) but if a brand can do it in the right way it helps improve their customers journey ten fold! More time to relax, shop and eat - all great for retailers on the other side.


A new introduction by Transport For London in 2003 called the 'Oyster card' would allow customers to touch-in-touch-out without having to insert an actual ticket moving people through the system quicker. Now, over 80% of all TFL journeys use the Oyster card and it has become part of London life. The developments such as topping up online have continued to save us all time by avoiding queues on a Monday morning and I'm sure we'll see it develop further by allowing us to make smaller purchases with joint venture-retailers in the coming months.


And lastly there are the retailers who just make us stop and take five. Brands like Princi in Soho, just have that special magic which makes us forget about rushing back to our desk for lunch and just stop to catch up with friends and enjoy some great food. It's hard to put your finger on what makes this happen but clearly, with the right mix of product, location, staff and design, anything is possible.

So how can you save your customers time? Is it by adding new technology? Is it by giving something back? Is it a totally new business model? Or simply by finding that special magic....?! A good starting place is 'be the customer'. Live their life. Understand them and what they go through. This way you'll gain a view of your product or service through new eyes and you may find the answer if very obvious.

However you tackle this challenge be sure that, if you get it right and save your customers time, you'll be on to a winner.

Just don't get it wrong!

PS To see the Design Week article, click this link and scroll down to the news article '12/09 TYC predicts the shop of the future' and download the PDF. Happy reading!

Trends 2010 - Part 2

Following on from our article with Design Week, here is the second part of the upcoming trends for 2010.

Ease and Logic
This is going to be a big winner for big and small brands alike and simplicity is it's key.

Think of all the things that annoy you, frustrate you or generally waste your time when you're out and about. These are the items that brands are starting to tackle head-on as they have realised that if they can make it easier for us, we will show loyalty and spread the word.

We all like it when we feel that somewone has really thought about 'me' and made our lives easier. That's what 'Ease and Logic' is all about.

Take a restaurant for example, why is it that asking for the bill always seems so awkward? May be because it interrupts the fun that you are sharing with friends, you know you're going to have to potentially split it 5 ways, which is going to test your mathematical skills (never the best after consuming several bottles of red!) and it spells the beginning of the end of the night. So how does and brand tackle this as you can't just let guest walk out without paying? Up pops Inamo again with their interactive tables. You simply request the bill through the projection and whether you're paying individually or as a group and voila! over comes the waiter.



What about spending an evening in a bar/pub? What's the most frustrating thing here? Ordering another round perhaps? After all, you have to leave your friends, potentially miss out of the next joke and try desperately for the next half hour to catch the attention of the barman who will serve you when he is good and ready! Well next time you go to Amsterdam, visit Mini Bar. Here you get your own personalised minibar with you're own code, loaded with all your favourite drinks right next to you. At the end of the evening you simply hand back your code and settle your bill. Genius!



OK, something totally different, a toaster. Ever burnt your toast in the morning because you don't trust the dial and have popped it up too soon, only to put it back down then forgotten to recheck? If only you could see the toast as it is being cooked....Eureka!



For anyone that is a parent or has had the pleasure of baby sitting for the day, you'll know how important it is to get out and about. You'll also know how hard it can be! Public Transport, store layouts, even toilets can be a nightmare. John Lewis have for a long time realised this and have ensured it is part of their brand. Offering great changing facilities and generally being children friendly has made it a clear favourite amongst shoppers with children.

Consider new innovations such as Visa Contactless payments and Oyster. These offer new and easier ways to pay for products and services and could definitely speed up queuing times for both low and medium spends. But how else could they be used to create a unique experience that differentiates you over your competition?

Generally, ease and logic can be applied to every strand of a brand's touch points. People want larger, easy to read text so they can make their choices or navigate quicker. Brighter lights so they can actually see what they are eating or wearing. Hooks on the underside of a bar for customers to hang their coats on. Seats to rest on and toilets to... well, you get the idea.

Whether it's clever use of technology, retraining of staff, a change in operations or simply opening our eyes to the things we try so desperately to ignore, these can be quick winners with little cost implications that will help make your brand stand out. And more than likely, you're the one who needs to look around to realise what these opportunities are. After all, we all know our own businesses and probably already know the questions.

Remember, the best ideas always seem like they have been around forever and are so simple that surely someone must have already done them. Chances are, they haven't and that's why they are the best ones!

Trends for 2010

Following on from our article with Design Week on upcoming trends for 2010 we have expanded and added a few more and will continue to update these over the next few weeks.

This is the first:

Growth in digital elements
Digital development is massive! No new news there. Close your eyes for 2 seconds and the next big technology will pass you-by leaving you feeling like an 82 year-old talking about the good old days.

But this is the main problem when it comes to introducing digital into the real world of retail and F&B. It changes so quickly, by the time you've gone through the process of incorporating it within your business it is out of date.

Few have been brave enough to take the plunge though and they have created incredible experiences that go so much further than just a flat screen:

Inamo - for anyone who hasn't been, GO! Serving oriental fusion food in a fully interactive dining space, they have truly made the eating experience here unique.

Food Secret - a lunch time offering that has used technology to capture your attention as you walk by then wowing you with nutritional information as they make your bespoke lunch right in front of you!

At this point I'm struggling to think of any great retail experiences that go further than touch screens, games consoles and projections. Which, considering that the design industry has been talking about technology and retail theatre for the past 10 years it is amazing to think that there aren't more examples that pop to mind.

For those who have been visited the Decode exhibition at the V&A will agree it is surely only a matter of time before the high street as we know it will change forever.

The new technology on the edge of every retailers mind should be Augmented Reality. This technology in simple terms transforms a code, that when exposed to a camera will show expose what is hidden in the code as a visual delight on a screen! Watch the video below to see a great example.



But this technology has so much more to offer.

Imagine being able to offer your customers the opportunity to stand in front of an interactive mirror and try on any of your clothing range without having to remove any of their own clothing. This could be done through a shopfront which shows the customer in your clothing even without intending to shop and shop!

What is the biggest driver to a major propotion of retail purchases? Aspiration perhaps? Why not then make this connection at the point of purchase when your customer buy those new Nike trainers endorsed by Cristiano Ronaldo. When the customer checks themselves out in the mirror make him appear behind them as if standing right there in the store!

Of course these are purely for fun and a talking point to create excitement. But AR could also be used to help make informed decisions about products and compare them to other alternatives. The opportunities are endless.

So, who will be the first to take the leap and use AR in an effective way or will it again just pass us all by? We'll be watching and hopefully suggesting a few ideas to our clients.


PS To see the Design Week article, click this link and scroll down to the news article '12/09 TYC predicts the shop of the future' and download the PDF. Happy reading!