The Prada revolution: more than a customer experience

In the new Prada store, the technological side is not only there to make the customer experience in the store nice, but the other objective is to optimize the service and make every purchase more efficient and quicker too. This is explaned in an article from the Rfid Journal which incent other retailers to look at this very closely: “Learning from Prada”.
This technology is particularly adapted to Prada because it is a very expensive fashion producer, so the quantity of clothes in the store (and the quantity of items purchased by each customer) is globally lower than in a regular clothing retailer like Gap or H&M. Consequently, each item is very valued and expensive, and it is worth it to attach it an electronic tag; in a store like H&M, it would be difficult to have the same changes: this kind of store is not very tidy; there are clothes everywhere and everything is in a mess. It would be quite weird to have an expensive electronic tag for each little 5 dollar t-shirt.
Consequently, this technology is adapted to every similar “luxus” brand retailer, such as Louis Vuitton or Chanel, but not to other “cheaper ready-to-wear clothing” such as Gap.
The customer experience is really improved because the service is customized; most of the time the customer is taken care of by a specific sales associate, and each purchase behaviour is facilitated by this employee and also by the computer (which looks for assorted outfits, checks the disponibility of an item... all of this very quickly). This store is consistent with the company’s objective to gain insights because it tends to create a very personal relationship between the customer and the brand; moreover each customer’s previous purchase will be recorded for later so the knowing of each customer will be more and more accurate.
Besides, this is for the customer a really holistic experience, like entering a futurist world, with the video monitors everywhere, the fascinating dressing rooms (which turn opaque when you step in!)
To my mind this is a very interesting store because it launches a new retailing philosophy: the purpose is not only to help the customers, but also to help the employees of the store. Of course they have to learn how to use this technology, which can be difficult at the beginning, but at least they will have the feeling to do a more valuable and skilled job. Instead of carrying tons of clothes or looking for ages in the back room for a different size, they just have to rely on this new technology. So the result will be happiness for the customer and for the store associates, which is always a good thing in the retail area. After all, aside from all technology, the best retail service comes from a happy motivated employee.

The power of emotions

More and more marketing campaigns rely on emotions, and there is a scientific explanation to this trend. As it is developed in an article from “Forbes”, consumer behaviour relies on brain activities.
For instance, let’s look at the Magnum’s campaign. The Unilever brand invented a campaign based on the 7 capital sins. Each ad was focused on one sin and was very intense, showing beautiful people giving in to the temptation.The commercials could not be seen without a shiver.
As it is explained in the article, marketers try to study the activation of different regions of the brain when people are confronted to product images. The neuronal responses were the indications of which products really “touch” them. The interesting thing is that these products are not necessarily the ones that the individuals claimed to be their favourites. That’s the advantage of this method: brain cells cannot lie.
In my opinion, this kind of study is really not a waste of time, as human emotions are at the center of their life, and especially is their consuming habits. When they are looking for importants items like cars, they are motivated by fear (they don’t want an unsafe vehicle); when they are looking for entertainment items like MP3 players, they are influenced by fun and aesthetic brands like Ipod, which make them feel trendy and smart; and when they are looking for convenience items like laundry, they like humoristic commercials, even if there is no link with the product quality: they makes them laugh and think this brand is fun (and so are its consumers).
The Dove campaign is also a very striking example of the effect of emotions on brand loyalty. The “Evolution” commercial seen in class is very upsetting and leaves the spectators in a state of shock. This emotion is often followed by an admiration to the brand philosophy and consequently an attachment to the products… that are after all only moisturizing creams and other simple cosmetic products. But the idea that the people behind these products defend a respectable point of vue and mission (“No wonder our conception of beauty is distorted – Take part in the Dove Real Beauty Workshop for Girls”). The piano music of this commercial emphasizes the emotions, and is consequently a very important element. A beautiful piano song is often a good way to touch people in their deeper feelings, which the creators of this commercials have understood.
To my mind, playing on the emotions is a very efficient marketing strategy, but can also be tricky. Some marketers go really too far from their product by trying to touch people, and this seems to me sometimes a little arrogant or ridiculous. For example the Benetton visual campaigns were for me sometimes very interesting for the brand image: they showed for example 3 human hearts with labels “white”, “black”, “yellow”. These ads are coherent with the brand identity, “United colors of Benettons”, which brings a message of tolerance to different origins. But sometimes advertisers tried to excite emotions with absolutely no link with the product, like a person dying of AIDS or a man sentenced to death. I think these commercials have no objective other that shock people and can get some enemies easily by playing on these delicate matters.