- Apr 28, 2017
Updated: Jun 1, 2021
Smartzer attended Drapers Digital Festival in London on the 25th April 2017.
We had been honoured to have been shortlisted in two award categories: Best Tech Start-up and Best Digital Marketing Campaign for the My Theresa x Burberry shoppable runway.
The Festival was a brilliantly busy day full of talks, panel debates and events, and we thoroughly enjoyed the awards ceremony in the evening.
We made sure to take advantage of the exciting talks on offer throughout the day. Hearing Dion Magee (Head of Fashion UK/Branding Specialist, Facebook) was especially interesting due to the focus placed on videos throughout the talk. Dion talked about how video is the future for Facebook, with around 8 billion daily views of videos on the site. Dion discussed the importance of capturing viewers’ attention in only the brief 2.5 seconds viewers will initially see a video for on desktop and 1.7 seconds on mobile. Furthermore, videos should be designed for sound off as roughly 60% of videos on Facebook are viewed without sound. One key point from Dion’s talk was the importance of repurposing content and using new tools to make the most of video – a really encouraging point considering the increasing use and positive feedback from shoppable video.
Marc Rosen (Executive VP & President of Global eCommerce, Levi Strauss) placed emphasis on the role that the consumer plays during the shopping journey and the control that they hold. Additionally, he reinforced the expectation that the consumer holds for a seamless shopping experience. For Levi’s, shoppable video is a key future technology trend which the brand intend to utilise.
Other talks that we enjoyed were given by Marcelle Parrish (President of eCommerce for North America, Ralph Lauren) about the importance of data use in designing garments. We heard Michael Truluck (CEO, La Redoute) talking about the focus that La Redoute place on a personalised approach for different markets. For example, they currently have 15 ‘Tribes’ working in Russia, with each concentrating on a different consumer group based on the location or consumer type.
We were especially excited to hear our Founder and CEO, Karoline, pitching Smartzer as part of our shortlist in the Best Tech Start-up category. Karoline gave an engaging and interesting pitch, highlighting the great feedback we’ve had from clients and providing key analytics that show the positive results our interactive video player has had for client campaigns. Karoline welcomed some interesting and thought-provoking questions from members of the audience. We were all pleased that our pitch went so well.
Another highlight was hearing the pitch given by Isabel May (Director of Communications and Customer Experience, Burberry) about the My Theresa x Burberry campaign which Smartzer worked on. The campaign had been shortlisted for the Best Digital Marketing Campaign and Isabel gave a great talk about the unique customer experience, brand experience and business impact which was the objective of the campaign. She highlighted the fact that the campaign not only met but fulfilled its target.
We’d like to extend a massive congratulations to MentionMe, who were the overall winners of the Best Tech Start-up category, and the Missguided Naughty List campaign, which was the overall winner of the Best Digital Marketing Campaign.
We would also like to say thank you very much to Drapers for a brilliantly entertaining and interesting day, and a wonderful awards evening!
- Apr 21, 2017
Updated: Feb 17, 2021
Karoline and Miles headed to Berlin to attend Vizions by Zalando on the 20th April.
Vizions by Zalando is Europe’s platform conference run by the retail giant, exploring the challenges and opportunities afforded by digital platforms via a range of speaker talks, panels and workshops. In a nutshell, a company operating with a platform model facilitates exchange between producers and consumers, utilising technology to build networks and enable communication. More and more companies are making the transition to the platform model following the success of companies such as Amazon, Facebook, eBay and Uber. Vizions by Zalando was the perfect opportunity to hear insights from market experts.
One especially interesting talk we saw was given by Susan Danzinger (CEO & Founder, Ziggeo) on ‘Increasing Consumer Engagement: The Future is Video’. Susan discussed the benefits that retailers see by using videos to engage and connect with their consumers in just a few seconds, rapidly and accurately conveying the desired scene or feel. The popularity of video was described, backed up by figures such as the fact that 10 billion videos are watched on Snapchat daily. Of course, utilising the spread and popularity of videos as an advertising tool is key to Smartzer’s development, so to hear the future of video discussed in such a positive way was fantastic for us!
Hearing Andy Long (CEO, Pentland Brands) speak alongside Jan Wilmking (CEO & MD, zLabels) was also really engaging. They discussed businesses operating on a global scale and how there will always be a role for retailers and face-to-face connection. However, technology can be used to enhance this and create the omni-channel experience expected by the consumer.
Beyond attending these talks and others, we really enjoyed the opportunity to network with other attendees and speakers. We gained insights from not only well established businesses but also fellow start-ups. It’s also always great to share our work with others and to hear their feedback. To top off a brilliant event, the venue was the edgy Kraftwerk building, a piece of Berlin’s industrial history which was the perfect space for the event.
Thank you to Zalando for having Smartzer at this insightful and busy conference!
- Apr 7, 2017
Updated: Feb 17, 2021
From 4th-6th April 2017, Miles (Head of Business Development) attended World Retail Congress in Dubai. Here's his summary about his time at the event:
Held annually, World Retail Congress brings together world leaders in retail to share expertise and research in an international extravaganza. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the event and the theme was “Reimagining the customer experience”, an aim which is top priority for so many retailers at the moment.
In exploring this theme, I kept myself busy attending talks and showcasing Smartzer. We had been delighted to be selected to by the Department for International Trade to represent the UK as part of their “Best of British Brands at World Retail Congress” group. This gave us the opportunity to network with a range of retail experts and company representatives and share Smartzer’s shoppable video technology and vision for interactive videos. Of course, our work is especially pertinent to this year’s theme as we are able to utilise our unique technology to transform the customer experience. Demonstrating the potential for a seamless shopping experience directly from a company’s existing video content.
Beyond sharing the exciting potential for Smartzer’s video content marketing technology, there were over 130 speakers including retail leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs, giving a range of interesting, educational and current talks. Highlights from the talks that we attended include Karen Katz (CEO, President and Director, Neiman Marcus) speaking on “Retaining Relevance: The Rejuvenation of Brand”. We also had the chance to hear a panel discussion about value retailing as the next retail revolution from Sander van der Laan (CEO, Action), Nicholas Dreyfus (Co-Founder & CEO, The Kooples), and Karl Heinz-Holland (Former CEO, LIDL). These talks, amongst others, provided valuable insights into the opinions of industry experts about the future of retail and I'm looking forward to sharing these with the rest of the Smartzer team.
As always, it was great to catch up with previous and existing clients as well as making new connections, and I had plenty of exciting conversations where positive feedback about Smartzer’s work was given!
Smartzer would like to say a massive thank you to World Retail Congress for putting on such an engaging and relevant few days in a wonderful location!