- 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 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!
- Mar 27, 2017
Updated: Feb 17, 2021
Last week, Karoline (Smartzer Founder and CEO) and Miles (Head of Business Development) headed to Las Vegas to attend Shoptalk 2017.
Shoptalk is one of the largest and most exciting global retail and e-commerce events with over 5,000 attendees and over 2,000 companies in attendance this year. The event provided the opportunity to learn and share ideas about the changing consumer shopping experience. Emphasis was placed on the use of technology and changes in the ideal shopping experience from the perspective of both consumer preferences and their expectations.
We made the most of the opportunity to network with some incredible retail experts and maximised on the wide array of talks which were scheduled. With over 330 speakers at this year’s Shoptalk, there were so many innovative companies and inspirational people represented. We were kept busy attending as many talks as possible!
It was great to hear talks given by individuals representing Smartzer clients such as Kohl’s and Halston. We enjoyed hearing Kevin Mansell (Chairman, CEO and President at Kohl’s) discussing the importance of technology at Kohl’s. Kevin explained the variety of ways that the $2bn Kohl’s has invested in technology over the past 2 years. He described how it has been used to enhance the consumer experience online and in store, as well as in streamlining supply chain processes. It was great to hear how our interactive video commerce technology has aided in improving the consumer experience at Kohl’s.
We also heard Suzanne Hader (CMO at Halston) talking in a panel alongside Jim Squires of Instagram and Brian Monahan of Pinterest, discussing the future of social commerce and the importance of influencers as the core to social marketing.
Especially pertinent to Smartzer was Mindy Grossman’s (CEO and Director at HSN, Inc.) talk about a runway made shoppable last season, and how this can be advanced next season. This certainly got us thinking about how our interactive technology could be used! In a similar vein to this was Uri Minkoff’s (Co-Founder and CEO at Rebecca Minkoff) discussion of the necessity for retailers to be flexible and adaptable to changes in the retail world. Specifically, in relation to streamlining and optimising the consumer experience.
Calvin McDonald (President and CEO at Sephora Americas) also emphasised the importance of innovation in engaging, educating and exciting clients in developing the consumer experience. One way that Sephora is doing this is in their new Classes for Confidence: Brave Beauty in the Face of Cancer programme, driven by the Sephora concept of Teach-Inspire-Play.
Another highlight included hearing the multi-talented Lionel Ritchie sharing not only his elegant homewares line Lionel Ritchie Home, but also his story about how he had pursued his dream despite his parents hoping he would train as a doctor or lawyer instead.
Beyond attending these (and many more!) interesting, educational and inspiring talks, we also took the chance to catch up with existing Smartzer clients as well as the New York Fashion Tech Lab and Plug and Play. To do so in such an exciting environment made for some brilliant conversations.
Smartzer would like to say a massive thank you to Shoptalk for such a fantastic three days in a beautiful location learning about the evolution of retail and the consumer experience and for the opportunity to share our concept and connect with incredible new people.
We’ve left Las Vegas with a spring in our step, some exciting new ideas and eagerly anticipating Shoptalk Europe in Copenhagen later this year!