Ralph Lauren, the namesake US luxury goods retailer, is improving on the traditional ‘window shopping‘ experience at Harrods, using mobile technology to connect with consumers.
The fashion house is dominating the iconic 15 window display in Harrods to support the unveiling of its new Polo Ralph Lauren for women line. Calling on the upmarket department store‘s previous experience in digital marketing, Ralph Lauren and Harrods are working together with Proxama, a global platform provider of proximity marketing, loyalty and contactless payment solutions on mobile.
Combining the popular proximity commerce technologies Near Field Communications (NFC) and QR codes provided by Proxama, each window is displaying large vinyl lenticulars and stickers for consumers to tap or scan and initiate a landing page on their smartphones. In doing so, customers are being offered an interactive map guiding them to the Fashion Lab, a newly opened area in Harrods where the collection is located. The luxury shopping experience is enriched even out of hours thanks to the landing page also linking to the Harrods mobile site. This means that shoppers walking by the window display can access the collection when the store is closed.
Guy Cheston, Media Sales Director for Harrods said:
“Customers are using mobile and digital technology more and more, so we are keen to explore new ways for brands to interact with our customers whilst they visit the store. It‘s great to be able to reach out to passers-by, even when the store is closed and build brand loyalty and excite customers into the store, or for a return visit.”
This is the second time Harrods has launched a mobile proximity digital initiative alongside Proxama, following the success of the Harrods Handbag Narrative campaign last year. The shopping emporium celebrated the expansion of their luxury accessories department with an exhibition showcasing more than 20 of the world‘s leading luxury handbag makers, including Gucci, Prada and Mulberry. NFC and QR were integrated into the world famous Brompton Road window displays, enabling consumers to tap and receive exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from the designers themselves as well as tweet about their engagement experience.
Proxama will use its ‘TapPoint‘ platform to provide Harrods with a view of the complete user journey and granular campaign analytics. This will allow Ralph Lauren and Harrods to be able to track the progress of the campaign in real time, ensuring they achieve a maximum return on investment.
Cheston concludes:
“Luxury brands are well known for being conservative, rightly protecting their precious brand values. A few years back, it was a challenge to get luxury brands to promote via digital screens in-store due to sensitivities over adjacencies with competing brands, but this is not an issue any longer. They see the impact, and high value in such a dynamic medium which drives retail sales in-store.”
NFC and QR explained by Proxama:
NFC (or Near Field Communication) allows mobile phones or other enabled hardware to communicate when they are tapped or held close to one another. Unlike Bluetooth, it requires no pairing code and is an inherently low energy technology.
Short for Quick Response codes, QR codes are the small, square barcodes that are often seen on billboards, window displays and products. They are a relatively simple technology aimed at helping consumers access content via their mobile phones, without the need for more sophisticated, built-in, wireless technology (like Bluetooth or NFC). Instead, the user needs to have downloaded a QR code reader application to their device.
