SMARTZER 2020: A YEAR IN REVIEW

Discover Smartzer's top highlights of the year.

As we say goodbye to 2020, here are some of the top highlights that we have managed to accomplish this year. Special thanks to all of the team and our customers who have gone the extra mile and worked hard together during a particularly challenging time for all!

Smartzer New Product Features

We launched 4 new product features that extend Smartzer’s technology to reach more users and in even more media formats:

• Shoppable images - We no longer only work with videos, now you can also transform images into shoppable and interactive experiences online.

• Smartzer MINI shop links - Use Smartzer MINI shop links on your favourite social media platforms, such as Instagram or TikTok.

• Google Ads Integration - Amplify your data set by connecting the Smartzer player to your Google Ad account.

• Shoppable Livestreams - Make your Livestreams shoppable and interactive.

Best-in-class Interactive Videos

Here are our Top 5 interactive and shoppable videos of 2020. Some notable projects also include Paco Rabanne, MINI, JD Sports, Brown Thomas & Arnotts, MAN Truck & Bus, to name a few.

Events

We contributed to some great digital events involving fashion, innovation, and technology, including:

• London’s Fashion week with the British Fashion Council.

• AI Luxury and Creativity hosted by Startup Inside group.

• The Catalysts Podcast - a podcast that focuses on the key benefits of corporates and startups working together

• co:cubed SixSixty/Retail Week - Digital Collaborators

Other highlights of our year were:

• Find out how top marketers are repurposing old content to maximise ROI.

• Using Smartzer technology to transform your store into an online shoppable experience.

Once again a special thanks to everyone who has helped make 2020 a year not to completely forget and who has kept strong when faced with such adversity. Bring on 2021!

SMARTZER @ AI FOR LUXURY & CREATIVITY DIGITAL CONFERENCE

In early December 2020, Startup Inside group, a leading ecosystem of experts in Open innovation in France hosted, AI for Luxury and Creativity. Alongside Karoline Gross (Smartzer Founder & CEO), speakers included Ian Rogers (Chief Digital Officer of LVMH), Tatiana Dupond (Head of Luxury at Linkedin), Luc Julia (CTO and Senior VP of Innovation at Samsung), and Stephane Spinella (Director of Retail and CPG at Google Cloud), each discussing the role of artificial intelligence in the luxury and creative sectors today and developments in this area in the future.

Smartzer’s founder Karoline Gross had the opportunity to talk about Smartzer’s plans when it comes to using AI in our product offering and sharing more about the way we use data currently.

‘A huge part of making data useful is to turn it into something actionable’ said Karoline Gross, while talking about how Smartzer obtains large amounts of user interaction data from the interactive and shoppable videos, and how this data is processed and converted into useful and focused insights. This is split into the ability to understand key performance metrics as well as using the data to make creative decisions to adapt the user experience to the interactive overlay as well as the video content itself to drive increased interaction.

To create experiences that are personalized for each brand is highly important when working with luxury brands. A lot of the creative decisions for designing an interactive experience are supported by interaction data. As we build a larger database of interaction data combined with the user experience of the interactive videos, there is future potential to use AI to automate the process of personalising the video viewing experience for each customer based on how they interact with content online.

Bringing AI into creativity is a growing trend in the luxury sector. According to Ian Rogers, one of their main goals is to combine technology with creativity: ‘The strategy of adding operational efficiency to creativity’.

AI is playing an important role in all industries Rogers explained as he challenged Damien Gromier, CEO of Startup Inside and host of the conference, to live a day without using AI, naming some everyday tools like Google maps, which already use AI in some way in their platforms. It’s no longer a talk about the future, it’s now.

Luxury brands are all about exclusivity and privacy. These days, customers trust their favourite brands with a whole wealth of personal information, however, customers share that information with the confidence that their data is private and protected. When it comes to personalisation, it’s also vital for brands to adhere to agreed privacy policies and use their customer's information with respect. Therefore it’s important for brands to use data and AI in a customer-first mindset. With this approach, the brands themselves can become more intelligent, while also adding value to the customer throughout their consumer journey.

‘Creativity should lead the way and AI should be there to support it’ said Rogers while talking about what’s the future for AI and creative businesses, a combination of human creativity and AI to make more intelligent choices, improve the business and add value to the customer’s experience.

As we move forward we will be able to see AI involved in more and more aspects of our lives, and we are excited about the future opportunities to apply this to the work we do at Smartzer.

See the full session here: https://www.aiforluxury.paris/session/3e7dcef1-2a2f-eb11-9fb4-0003ff1d3cc2

Special thanks for Start-Up Inside for having us! Find out more about some of the amazing work they do supporting start-ups around the world here: https://www.startupinside.com/

LIVE SHOPPABLE VIDEOS BY SMARTZER

Easily build live shoppable videos using Smartzer

As part of our latest product update, we are pleased to announce that it's now possible to make your live streams shoppable using the Smartzer platform 🤩

GIF: Connect the Smartzer Shoppable Livestream to your Instagram Stories

By simply connecting your live stream to the Smartzer player, you can now easily enable customers to browse and purchase items featured in your Livestream while streaming the video Live.

The Smartzer Livestream player can be embedded onto any webpage or launched from any call to action URL on Social. When clicking on items in the carousel, customers can activate a fully customisable pop-up containing all relevant product information and shop each item. Once the stream is complete, it's easy to then convert your video into a fully shoppable video to add to your shoppable video repository onsite. What's more, the stream integrates seamlessly with the Smartzer ecosystem, meaning the player can make the most of each of the Smartzer product features such as multi-market support, product API feed, and add-to-basket integrations.

It's now therefore never been easier to stream live event videos to a broad range of consumers while providing them an easy and simple way of shopping for the items featured.

Would you like to know more? Get in touch with our team!