- 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 13, 2017
Updated: Jun 1, 2021
On the 8th and 9th of March, Smartzer attended the 23rd annual Retail Week Live at the O2 in London.
Run by the UK-based website and data service Retail Week, this annual event brings together world-leaders in retail to share compelling content via speeches, interviews, workshops and boardroom discussions.
We had the opportunity to chat to some very experienced and skilled retail experts from our stand showcasing Smartzer's tag video platform. Feedback on our interactive video technology was brilliant, and it was exciting to share our concept with world-leaders in retail and to hear their thoughts on the future of interactive videos.
We had also been selected to pitch our unique technology at LaunchPad (read more about LaunchPad in our previous blog post or on the Retail Week Live website).
We gave a short pitch and welcomed some interesting questions from members of the audience. The audience seemed especially interested in how we have been able to create such a simple interface which is so user-friendly, and it was great to hear that our video ecommerce technology is viewed in this way.
Retail Week Live was also a fantastic opportunity to hear some very distinguished speakers. We especially enjoyed speeches from Alex Baldock, Chief Executive at Shop Direct; Mike Coupe, Group Chief Executive at Sainsbury’s; and Terry Von Bibra, Group General Manager of Alibaba.
Alex had some interesting insights into pure play online retail which he shared. Specifically, the role that imagery and video will play in ensuring the success of this business method in the future. Mike also discussed the role that digital ventures and e-commerce will play in the future of Sainsbury’s following the acquisition of Argos. One business goal over the next three years is the incorporation of 250 Argos Digital Stores in Sainsbury’s outlets and the role of technology will be key in achieving this. Terry provided some comparisons between the Europe/US and China with regards to consumer behaviour, with the focus in China being the small mobile screen, rather than laptops and tablets. We were treated to an interactive runway show experience and some incredible virtual reality in-store experiences.
What was so exciting about these talks was the emphasis placed on the role of technology in the future of three massive brands. Especially with regards to e-commerce and the potentialities held by interactive video which is where our expertise here at Smartzer lies. It was great to discuss how brands can utilise their video content through out in-house technology to engage customers and drive sales. We are confident that more and more brands will move into this sphere and embrace the many benefits from using interactive video content marketing.
Thank you to Retail Week for such a stimulating and inspiring two days!
- Mar 3, 2017
Updated: Feb 17, 2021
This week, Karoline (Smartzer Founder and CEO) and Miles (Head of Business Development), headed to Barcelona to attend 4 Years From Now (4YFN) at Mobile World Congress (MWC).
MWC is the world’s largest gathering of mobile and digital industry experts, with over 108,000 attendees this year. 4YFN is MWC’s programme tailored specifically towards innovative technology startups. So, this was the perfect place for Smartzer to discuss our innovative approach to interactive videos with investors, corporations and fellow entrepreneurs and enjoy talks from inspirational speakers. We especially enjoyed a number of meetings we set up to share our concept with potential investors in preparation for the exciting funding round we have coming up.
Not only did we take advantage of these valuable networking opportunities but we were selected by industry experts to pitch Smartzer at the 4YFN platform, explaining our work and speaking about what defines us as a company. With representatives at 4YFN from over 200 countries, this was a great chance to spread the word about our interactive videos, previous successful and upcoming Smartzer projects on a truly global platform.
We were pleased to heard some positive feedback from members of the audience. It was great to find out that they’d found our pitch engaging and loved our concept. The scope for applying Smartzer’s technology to produce interactive videos in sectors beyond retail is especially exciting. Yesterday, we left Barcelona yesterday with some new ideas for the future...
Thank you to MWC 2017 for arranging such an enjoyable and interesting few days at 4YFN!