At Retail’s Big Show 2010, presented by the National Retail Federation in New York City earlier this week, one booth that drew attention belonged to a company called Swagg. Swagg, owned by Qualcomm, wasn’t trying to attract people with its offerings, solutions, or technology. It drew them with an open bar and lounge. What the company actually does remained a mystery. Something with mobile?

One of Swagg’s booth attendants told us they were “trying to get the name out.” Presumably, the idea is to pique people’s interest in the brand before revealing a much-anticipated product or service.  

On its website, the company’s entire “About” story says: “Swagg is brilliant, ingenious, revolutionary, and awesome. It lives on your phone and acts like your best friend. Trade gift cards, share points and get hooked-up everywhere you go.” That’s it. The only tangible takeaway is that somehow it helps you trade gift cards and share (loyalty) points. 

Some companies hesitate to say what it is they do in a clear way. They fear that if they do, they will box themselves in and lose potential customers. In actuality, a company loses potential customers when its offerings are not clear. If customers don’t know how you can help them, they won’t ask you for help.

Today, people are more discerning with how and where they spend their money. Most customers are not going to spend on sheer hype. People are distrustful of advertising, no matter how much a product “acts like your best friend.”

As a new company, Swagg is presented with an opportunity. The brand has a lot of energy and drive. But, it is easier starting with a clearly defined idea, rather than reverse-engineering one further down the road.

The risk of not defining yourself is that someone else might provide a definition for you.

According to The San Diego Union-Tribune: “Qualcomm’s Swagg is a software application. It allows the bar code for a gift card to pop up on a cell phone screen so it can be scanned by retailers.” Maybe Swagg doesn’t think that’s “brilliant, ingenious, revolutionary, and awesome” enough.

When you walk into Clo wine bar in Manhattan, the first thing you notice isn’t the way technology maximizes a small space. The first thing you notice is the center table.

Interactive tabletop

The long table appears to be composed of multiple touch screens that allow customers to scroll through the bar’s wine list. What kind of technology is inside the table? There isn’t any. It’s a regular white coriander countertop. The technology is embedded in the ceiling above.

Three ceiling-mounted projectors turn the tabletop into a showcase of digital wine bottles. An infrared sensor (also in the ceiling) tracks customers’ hand movements, enabling them to scroll through the different choices. When a bottle is selected, its image is enlarged and information about that particular wine — such as the cost, year it was made, where it was produced, and tasting notes scribed by Clo’s sommeliers —  is displayed on the table.

According to Hunter Tura, managing director of 2×4, Inc., the design firm that designed Clo, the interactive tabletop was “a way to . . . advance the self-guided nature of exploring the wine selections.” (The architect of record was Gensler and the technology was developed in association with Potion). The self-guided nature Tura mentions is also demonstrated by the way Clo serves wine.

"Enomatic" wine dispenser

When customers enter the bar, they run their credit card with a sommelier and receive a branded Clo card. The Clo card keeps track of which wines they’ve tried and how much they’ve spent. Customers swipe the card at one of the self-serve “Enomatic” wine dispensers and make a selection (think high-brow vending machines). The dispensers, which line the walls of the space, then fill their glasses with tasting pours.  

By integrating technology with design, Clo adds new functionality to conventional fixtures. The table becomes interactive and educational. The walls become self-serve displays. The result is efficient service and a memorable experience.

(Thanks, Brian Smith)

Yesterday, we wrote about Clay Shirky’s idea that technology doesn’t become interesting until it gets boring. Once people understand a technology’s function, they can focus on putting it to use in creative ways. A perfect example of this idea is the music video for the Japanese band, Sour.

Sour’s video for the song “Hibi No Neiro,” is posted on hundreds of blogs and (as of this writing) has received 660,000 views on YouTube alone.

How’d they get so many people to take notice? They didn’t need HD cameras or CGI. Instead, they relied on fan collaboration, commonplace technology, and choreography.   

Dozens of fans were instructed to film themselves with web cams as they performed choreographed moves — taking a photo, spinning in their chairs, holding up a piece of paper. They sent their videos to a team of directors who weaved the segments together. The result is a unique video mosaic that uses “boring” web cam technology to connect people in new ways.

In his TED talk, “How Social Media Can Make History,” author and technology expert Clay Shirky explains: “Tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. It isn’t when the shiny new tools show up that their uses start permeating society. It’s when everybody is able to take them for granted.”

Shirky’s comment reminds us of two technology mistakes companies make:

1. They focus on attention-grabbing technology when they should focus on people. Serving people is technology’s purpose, and it should act as a facilitator rather than a star attraction.
2. They ignore emerging technology and stand pat with older technological solutions that once worked, but no longer do. Technological ignorance puts them behind the curve when these “shiny new tools” become socially adopted and engrained.

Shirky closes his presentation with a reality check and a call to action:

“Media is less and less often about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals. It is more and more often a way of creating an environment for convening and supporting groups. . . And the choice we face, I mean anybody who has a message they want to have heard anywhere in the world, isn’t whether or not that is the media environment we want to operate in. That’s the media environment we’ve got. The question we all face now is, ‘How can we make the best use of this media? Even though it means changing the way we’ve always done it.’”

Long checkout lines frustrate customers and hurt sales. Fortunately, new infrared technology will help manage cashier lanes for better in-store performance.

Irisys’ queue management system uses infrared sensors to monitor in-store customer numbers, average wait time, average line length, and overall store checkout performance.

If checkout performance slips below a minimum service level, the system sends management an alert. Sent to computer or PDA, the alert gives 15 and 30-minute advanced notices on how many lanes will be needed to meet customer demand.

The system has been installed in ten retailers across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. In the U.S., Price Chopper and Kroger are in trial, and global retailer Tesco, has already installed it in more than 800 stores in the U.K. and Ireland.

Technology is by no means a cure-all, but infrared technology may help retailers manage one of the most tedious aspects of the shopping experience.

Retailers need to consider: What’s the most aggravating part of your store’s shopping experience, and in what ways can it be improved?

This mirror may not tell you who’s the fairest of them all, but it can tell shoppers if that cashmere sweater comes in seafoam or if those flat-front khakis are available in 38×32.

Modestly called the magicmirror, it’s a mirror that’s also an RFID reader. So when shoppers present an RFID-tagged item of clothing or other merchandise in front of the mirror, the device will display information about the product such as size and color availability and guides that suggest other items to accessorize it with.

If the system, made by Avery Dennison, is installed in a fitting room, a shopper can use the magicmirror to request a different size or color of a particular item without leaving the room. Store employees who have handheld devices tied in with the system will get the message and can respond to the customer’s request.

Portuguese apparel retailer Throttleman is considering using the mirror. Prada already is using something similar in its SoHo and Beverly Hills stores. Mirrors in the Prada dressing room also use RFID technology to offer detailed information about the clothing brought inside and allow shoppers to see various angles of themselves as well as simultaneous pictures of them dressed in different items to compare which they like best.

Another “magic mirror” was tested in 2007 in the Nanette Lepore section of Bloomingdale’s New York flagship store. It allowed shoppers to have certain clothing items superimposed on their image in the mirror and also have video and images of them sent to the internet so friends could weigh in on the item.

In their book, Greentailing and Other Revolutions in Retail, authors Neil Strauss and Will Ander write about a study they conducted with a thousand consumers regarding green in retail. One question, in particular, revealed an intriguing statistic:

“ . . . while many retailers are considered to be making a decent effort at being green, they are not doing a particularly good job of educating the consumer on what they are doing. Just 6 percent of consumers rated retailers as excellent or very good at educating consumers on green, while over half believed they are below satisfactory or poor.” P. 59

Supporting a cause or having a strength is one thing. Letting people know about that cause or strength is quite another.

Whether you’re championing green or doing something else to help the planet or your customers, remember that good communication is part of a strong experience.

Don’t think you’re showing off. Let your customers know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how everyone stands to benefit.

Leave it to Germany’s Metro Group to get grocery shoppers to take on a more interactive role in buying Froot Loops and bottled water. The giant retailer is testing a cell phone application for use in its “Future Store” that allows customers to use the phone to scan items as they put them in their cart.

The app (called the mobile shopping assistant) also allows shoppers to locate items in the store and pull up information about a particular product.

When it’s time to check out, the program creates a new bar code that is displayed on the phone, which the shopper scans at a payment terminal. The advertised payoff here is less waiting in check out lines because everything is already totaled.

The store (located in Toenisvorst, Germany, if anyone has a trip planned) is also  testing a wine tasting counter that offers 16 chilled wines for consumers to try out before buying. Slightly more creepy are the two talking, automated robots that roam the store telling shoppers about the various technology and new ideas being tested there.

The cell phone as a scanner concept also is available to U.S. consumers. A mobile phone software program called Compare Everywhere lets users scan in a bar code with the cell phone’s camera. The app then checks the best price at stores in your local area and on the internet, as well as providing product reviews. Alas, information is not available on every item with a bar code and at this point the software can’t be used with all cell phones. Another mobile phone application, Snappr, for use on the iPhone, offers similar assistance.

It’s another bit of empowerment for consumers and a reason retailers should offer something more than price to differentiate themselves.

ROBOTGALAXY sells robots – toy robots – whose parts customers themselves choose and assemble. Think, “Build-a-Bear in Space.”
The store’s experience begins cafeteria-style:

Children pick one of a dozen different robot bodies. Then they select its arms (possibilities include a claw that opens and closes, a drill that spins, a crossbow that fires a projectile, and a searchlight, among others) and legs (again, the options have different functions: one pair of legs walks, another rides a skateboard, and so forth).

Using a key, a ROBOTGALAXY employee locks the pieces together, presents the child with the key, and escorts them to the “Lab,” where the toy is programmed to repeat a few simple words, such as the child’s name and the nickname given to it by the child. (A ROBOTGALAXY staff member said older children anoint their creations with violent nicknames, like “Crusher” and Destroyer,” while younger children opt for softer names, like “Robbie,” “Robo,” and Skater Dude.”)

The robot is placed inside “The Seventh Ring of Saturn,” which is a twelve foot tall  tower with a motorized platform, LED lights, topped off with a replica of Saturn. The tower, whose job it is to power the robot by using energy from Saturn’s rings, doesn’t serve any practical function. But it’s an important emotional part of the experience.

Staff members get the attention of everyone in the store, place the robot on the platform, hit a button, and, amidst flashing lights and a character-specific theme song, narrate the toy’s journey up the tower to Saturn and back.

Once the robot is fully powered, a staff member uses a USB cable, and helps the child connect the toy to the Internet and ROBOTGALAXY’s virtual environment. There, the child registers the robot, sees its avatar, and can play online games. Based on the number of points the child racks up, he or she can win downloads, such as a new sound effect or eye color for their robot.

Depending on the parts chosen, robots range from $27 to $75. Children can also switch out the toy’s limbs, combine robots, purchase accessories, and read about the robots in ROBOTGALAXY comic books. The stores have been profiled on Rachael Ray, Donny Deutsch, and The Today Show.
The retailer has three locations: Freehold, NJ, West Nyack NY, and the Toys R Us Mall in Times Square.

Those of you in Manhattan for the National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention & Expo, may want to hop over to the Toys ”R” Us Mall to see it. The mall is under a mile from the Javits Center.