Inspiration Information #2.

Time for part two of those things we expect to grab both our attention and excitement in 2013...

The high street as window to mobile shops

As the high street continues to take a beating (RIP HMV) we expect to see an increasing trend towards stores as experiences, hand-in-hand with this development will be the increasing role of mobile in-store. Presently, mobile is delivering only 0.5% of total retail spend; about £2 billion. Research from Barclays Corporate suggests this will rise to 5% by 2021.

As where we spend our retail pounds (whether this is the high street or office in front of our laptop) becomes less and less significant in a world of always-on mobile shopping opportunities, so we expect the physical experience of brands to become richer and a much greater point of differentiation for the best. Superfast 4G mobile operator EE, for example, has conceived of its in-store experience as a brand encounter rather than a handset showroom.

So, the shop becomes ever more focused on delivering an immersive, experiential brand experience. With this will come experiential campaign executions like Westfield’s ‘Future Fashion’ events, into which the personal mobile experience is integrated and shopping is always just a click-away.

Real-time personalisation

Examples abound throughout 2012 of this exciting trend, from the coffee cup sleeve with the latest Twitter headlines printed on it courtesy of a national daily newspaper, to Hellmann’s Recipe Receipt which custom-prints recipes onto your till receipt at the supermarket based on the content of your basket. Then there’s Google’s brilliant Chrome Web Lab at London’s Science Museum (a Willy Wonka wonderland of machines powered by web and social technology).

Personalisation is, of course, the primary currency of the best Facebook campaigns whether that’s the high polish personalised videos like the celebrated Intel Museum of Me and Take This Lollipop or those now well-worn executions that integrate your street into films via Google Street View, the latest from Stella Artois.

We like the trend towards social media activity that elevates and celebrates the audience either by placing their content at the heart of media, like Samsung’s Valentine’s campaign in Piccadilly Circus which displayed lovers’ messages via Facebook to the giant advertising screens, or with responsive Facebook creative released real-time to fuel active community participation. This was followed through into TV advertising by Costa Coffee whose Coffee Heads advert gathered singing heads from their Facebook audience and then unleashed them onto primetime on the final ad of their campaign.