Digital snippets: Diesel, Wrangler, John Lewis, Covetique, Daily Mail, Grazia

Some more great stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:

• Diesel’s pre-internet shoe experience challenges consumers to go offline for three days [Creativity Online]

• Wrangler video reveals new Leipzig store design process [Checkland Kindleysides]

• John Lewis seeking to make social media a ‘more integrated’ part of its business [Marketing Magazine]

• Asos invests in luxury resale site Covetique [Telegraph Fashion]

• Daily Mail group launches fashion sharing website [Media Week]

• Grazia magazine launches on the iPad [Grazia]

• In a click, a vivid fashion garden: how technology is enabling a new genre of prints (as pictured) [NY Times]

• Everything you need to know about how mobile wallets work [Business Insider]

• Five ways to assess fashion / tech start-ups [Fashion's Collective]

Digital snippets: Bodyform, Chanel, Gap, Uniqlo, Thomas Pink, Hermès, Facebook

Some more great stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:

 

• Bodyform responds to viral Facebook rant with ‘The Truth’ video (as above) [HuffingtonPost.co.uk]

• Brad Pitt’s Chanel No 5 ad: the smell of disaster [The Guardian]

• Gap tests Whispering Window ‘invisible audio’ displays [BrandChannel]

• Uniqlo model draws as much on Intel and Toyota as Gap [Wired]

• Thomas Pink launches instant mobile check out app [The Drum]

• Hermès gets tech-y with computer-inspired ties [Styleite]

• Facebook tests new ‘want’ feature for retailers [FT]

Digital snippets: Alexander Wang, Nike+, Nordstrom, Elle UK, Woolmark

Some more great stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:

 

• Alexander Wang releases autumn/winter 2012 Confessional Series video featuring Shalom Harlow (as above) [Alexander Wang]

• Nike+ Kinect Training launch will mean virtual personal trainers in your living room [Mashable]

• Nordstrom teams up with GQ for e-commerce push [WWD]

• Watch Elle UK’s behind the cover video of David Beckham [Elle UK]

• Woolmark Co sets social media campaign [WWD]

• This start-up pulls in top pins on Pinterest and crossreferences against 250+ e-commerce sites [Business Insider]

• Some 15% of luxury goods sales are directly generated by digital media [FT]

• Square doubles its retail presence, now in 20,000 outlets [TechCrunch]

• Can social breathe life back into the high street [Guardian]

Macy’s extends QR code campaign, educates with TV spot

Macy’s is continuing its “Backstage Pass” QR code campaign this autumn with additional content and a supporting television ad, in a bid to further enhance the consumer shopping experience via mobile technology.

Created in collaboration with JWT New York, the campaign offers shoppers access to videos that deliver trend advice from the store’s stable of star designers and industry experts, by scanning the custom-designed codes with their mobile phones.

The initiative builds on the success of its spring 2011 launch by introducing further inspirational content across the categories of fashion, home and cosmetics.

A 30-second television ad featuring Sean “Diddy” Combs, Tommy Hilfiger, Rachel Roy, Jessica Simpson and Martha Stewart, aims to educate consumers on the campaign, touching upon how QR codes work, as well as demonstrating some of the content featured and highlighting the chance to win Macy’s shopping sprees.

“This past spring we introduced QR code technology to our customers via Macy’s Backstage Pass and focused not only on delivering fun and informative video content via their mobile phones, but also on educating consumers on this new way of engaging with us,” said Martine Reardon, Macy’s executive vice president of marketing.

“This new layer of communication between Macy’s and shoppers delivers an enhanced in-store shopping experience and creates new opportunities for personal interaction. For the next phase of this campaign, we will usher in a new series of interactive videos and provide extra incentives for customers who scan the Backstage Pass.”

The store also offers an informative demo video called “How to use Macy’s Backstage Pass”, accessible to customers online at Macys.com, Facebook and YouTube, as well as to those on the go by texting “learn” to MACYS (62297).

Macy’s is also set to be among the first retailers to launch Google Wallet, the NFC-enabled mobile payment system, this September. It will do so in five markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington DC.

Retail’s mobile-led future loses sci-fi feel

Eric Schmidt

Looking back through my notes from Cannes Lions, I remembered the fact I wanted to flag up some thinking relevant to retail from Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, 2011′s Media Person of the year.

One of the most interesting speakers during the week of seminars, he covered everything from globalisation to self-driving cars and accessing consumer social graphs (which makes far more sense since following the launch of Google +).

He also spoke about the benefit of ‘cloud computing’ and asked delegates to imagine that everything they needed for daily life was accessible through their smartphone. [Not a bad focus considering this is a company that has previously said everything it now does is based on a “mobile first” policy].

You’re walking along the street in Cannes, he said, your phone knows you, knows who you are. You tell it you want a t-shirt. As you’re walking it tells you which stores are nearby that you can go to, and which ones have discount or offers on. It directs you to one of them and you go in. The shop assistants already know you’re coming and welcome you as you arrive. You take your t-shirt and pay for it through your phone.

Simple.

Now, that would have sounded foreign just a mere few years ago – science fiction almost. To many it probably still does. But when you consider the fact technology for location-based services and offers are commonplace, with mobile transactions (Google wallet) the latest focus, it’s all perfectly feasible. Schmidt further highlighted this at Cannes when he said a third of all checkouts in restaurants and retail stores will allow “tap and pay” through mobile phones within about a year.

The concept reminded me of one of my favourite-ever posts from Federated Media’s John Battelle: The Gap Scenario. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do now.

In it, he takes the idea of the retail experience itself to the next level, incorporating everything from customer service to CRM. Now not only does your phone know you, but the store does.

As Battelle highlights, however, while the technology and the platforms exist for such scenarios to play out, what’s not solved as yet are the business processes that sew it all together.

Watch this space. The term Google “branding” might just take on whole new meaning for retail.