Last month, brands and fashionistas alike gathered at Hilton Bankside for the 2017 Drapers Digital Festival, and iProspect was there in full force. Focusing on specific digital challenges faced by the fashion industry, the event addressed ‘The New Rules of Personal Fashion’ which detailed how businesses can use personalisation to their competitive advantage.
The content-packed day attracted the biggest names in retail, such as Michael Kors, Levi Strauss & Co, John Lewis, Oasis and many more. It was a great opportunity to discover the latest challenges, opportunities and innovations in retail, the digital space and marketing.
Throughout the day, panel discussions and keynote talks ranged from mobile and social to micro-communities and influencers. However, the standout topic of the day was how automation and data segmentation can enable brands to react faster and provide a better consumer experience.
In a session on personalisation iProspect UK’s Head of Consultancy, Sophie Wooller took to the stage to help demystify how brands can increase conversion rates, customer loyalty and revenue with more personalised shopping experiences. She was joined by John Lewis’ Online Trade Director, Mark Felix, Uterque’s eCommerce Director Nuria Nicolas, Perdeep Kanda, UK Sales Director from RichRelevance and Josie Cartridge, Customer Director from River Island. The panellists shared their best hacks and solutions to the key challenges that hold back brands when it comes to personalisation.
During the panel, Sophie emphasised the importance of data and how it’s possible to create tangible personalisation with easily implemented tech. Although personalisation isn’t a new concept in digital media, much of the personalisation we can now achieve is greater in scale. Stressing the difference between being personal and personalised, Sophie explained that it can be detrimental to a brand’s reputation, and performance, to cross the ‘creepy line’. Ensuring the strategy is right will get you great results. Sophie expands on this in her blog ‘Personalisation: How far should you go?’.
The festival was also an opportunity to showcase one of iProspect’s celebrated campaigns for a large US retail brand. This particular case study had been shortlisted for a Drapers award in the ‘Best Use of Mobile’ category and iProspect’s Search Account Director, Tom Raby, presented to a judging panel our engagement and acquisition PPC strategy. The work demonstrated how we delivered a mobile-first solution and drove core business results through innovative search tactics and investment.
The campaign encapsulated a key insight from the day: that it is necessary to create a joined-up customer experience. Being personal doesn’t stop with an email or ad; it needs to extend into store and there should always be a link between comms in-store and offline.
What drives us every day is our ability to make a real difference and have an impact, so Drapers Digital Festival was the ideal opportunity for us to share our insights with key retailers and drive the discussion forward.
Being personal is understanding your customer’ wants, needs and interests, as well as how digitally focused they are. To find out how we can deliver personalised and mobile-first solutions for your business, please contact Emmaclare Huntriss.
