Updated: Feb 11, 2021
We were delighted to be invited to attend Fung Global Retail & Technology’s event Breakfast with the Disruptors on the 2nd May in New York.
Fung Global Retail & Technology is a think tank which tracks and publishes research on emerging retail and technology trends, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between retail and technology. Breakfast with the Disruptors was a fantastic networking opportunity with like-minded individuals.
Deborah Weinswig, Managing Director at Fung Global, led the event. Deborah is an award-wining global retail analysts and specialises in retail innovation and technology. It was especially exciting to hear her speak at Breakfast with the Disruptors, where she provided some interesting facts. In Israel, retail technology investment is up 120%, and more than $4.8 billion was invested in Israeli high technology start-ups in 2016. Observing and learning about how technology is changing the retail industry is great as it indicates how Smartzer’s technology can be used as a tool by retailers to engage consumers and monetize promotional content.
The breakfast was a pitch event, providing us with an exciting opportunity to share our recent successes with Smartzer and explain our vision for the company’s future. There were eight start-ups pitching overall, and it was a real honour to be included in a group of such enigmatic, innovative and successful companies. One of these start-ups was Nineteenth Amendment, another New York Fashion Tech Lab alumni company. It was great to catch up! Our pitch went well and Karoline received positive feedback from members of the audience about our work and recent projects.
The overall winners of the pitches were Everywear and Furnishr, and we would like to say a massive well done for such successful and engaging pitches!
Thank you again to Fung Global Retail and Technology for such an interesting and thought-provoking morning, and for inviting us to pitch Smarzter!
- 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!