A new decade is upon us and we are all constitutionally committed to our resolutions. While only 2 weeks into January, my weight is a bit down, my life balance a bit up and all the cans in my pantry are still in alphabetical order (hey, don’t judge!).
This “2020” year means more to businesses than each brand’s race to change the name of their long-term planning decks, as there seems to be an even greater pressure on making sure brands are future right. And there is no industry under greater pressure than retail, where change is always guaranteed, but progress is an option that has to be earned.
Advice is immense, but commerce is Immersive.
Everyone seems to be selling retail expertise, yet so few come from successful retailers. The advice from consultants is not wrong, but they are not serving up brain surgery. Make it convenient. (Yup.) Prepare for change. (Yikes!) Digitize. (Oh really?) Differentiate. (That’s fresh) Create the future today. (Credit: Fortune cookie)
As an agency who makes its living on growing retail, Zimmerman is successfully helping retailers be right in the future, while understanding they can’t afford being comp/transaction wrong in the present (not even for a second). What the “futurists” don’t reflect is that commerce must become more immersive. The construct of corralling people exclusively to your store, or even targeted audiences to your .com customer experience is already breaking. You have to sell everywhere and anywhere consumers want to buy. You have to embed a frictionless way to sell from every piece of communication. You need a marketplace strategy to integrate with your media strategy. And that means sometimes you have to friend your foe while, for others, you have to become a bigger foe to your friends. At Zimmerman, we call it Immersive Commerce and it is why our clients are winning. You can download more about it here or keep reading those fortune cookies.