Thursday, June 14, 2012

Students attend retailing conference STORE 2012

Last week Humber Business Marketing students were invited to attend Store 2012, Canada's Retailing Conference at the Toronto Congress Centre. The two day conference offered a wide range of speakers and exhibits meant to help retailers "adapt to changes within the industry and enable them to get ahead of the curve to continue growing their business and increase their competitive advantage."(http://www.storeconference.ca/index.php/about)

The theme of this year's conference was 'The Power of Engagement.' Engagement is a very powerful tool in any industry but, especially in retail. The goal was to allow retailers and retail marketers to "learn just how powerful engagement can be to recruit and retain top talent, enhance the customer experience across all channels, and understand just what your employees and customers expect from you."(http://www.storeconference.ca/index.php/about)

The conference featured some very successful and high profile speakers from all across the retail industry:

John Gerzema: Global Chief Insights Officer, Young and Rubicam Companies & President BrandAsset Consulting
Mitch Joel: President Twist Image
Christina Callas: Senior VP, e-Commerce & Digital Marketing at HBC/Lord & Taylor
Simon Rodrigue: General Manager, Walmart.ca
Yona Shtern: Co-Founder & CEO, Beyond the Rack
Ted Starkman: President, The Shopping Channel
Joanna Track: Co-Founder & President, eLUXE.ca
Jeffery F. Rayport: Operating Partner, Castanea Partners
Stephen G. Wetmore: President & CEO, Canadian Tire Corporation Limited
Corrine Sandler: CEO Fresh Intelligence
Bob Thacker: Executive Director, Adopt-a-Classroom
Jim Treliving: Chairman and Owner, Boston Pizza
Joe Jackman: CEO Joe Jackman Brand Inc
John LeBoutillier: President, Unilever Canada Inc
Frank Scorpiniti: CEO, katz Group Canada Ltd
Shelley Broader: President & CEO, Walmart Canada Corp
Bonnie Brooks: President, HBC and Lord & Taylor

Although all the speakers stressed the importance of engagement across all channels the most important message of the conference was engagement with the customer.

The best example of the current customer came from Jeffery F. Rayport who provided attendees with the profile of 'Customer 3.0.' He identified key areas where the customer has changed including:

1) Exposure to too many brands in too many sectors
2) New ways of buying such as e-commerce and mobile
3) Social commerce- customers are using products such as Groupon
4) Greater consumer voice-customers opinions have a greater affect on what other customers buy (ie) Trip Advisor

Based on these new trends he provided advice about how to attract them and others.

1) Figure out the heavy users, market to and attract them and others will follow
2) Socialize the brand by thinking of how you can create a community around it
3) Work the web because the more connections you have the more valuable your network becomes
4) Unique sales sites are important. Use devices (smart phones, iPads) to create apps for a specific usage occasion and tailor them to the specific device. This creates the environment for retail on demand.
5)Integrate the Experience across all channels. All the aspects of the campaign and process must work together.

Customers have changed drastically over the past 30 years and marketers and retailers must do the same. Using social and mobile marketing techniques represents a radical new way that we are willing to organize around customers. The brands that will be successful are extremely customer centric and will maintain a front office focus, rather than rest on what is happening behind the scenes.





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