Shop to the Beat
How do we make a successful “digital friend” for a brand that most people used but were ashamed of it?
This project was developed in 2007, for the 5th studio in University with 2 more friends. The briefing for this project was to come up with a digital device that was supposed to be linked to a brazillian department store called Renner.
The digital friend could be a product sold by the store, something to be as an advertisement display, a Point of Purchase, or something to be used in the store. Could be anything that had to do with the brand concept and had to be digital.
Research
At that time, the Renner brand was not so well seen among the middle and uper-middle brazilian class, with the image as any ordinary department store for clothing. The store work with 14 smaller brands under it and each one is responsible for a type of outfit. For example, one small brand is just beach wear, another just work suits, etc. In 2007, Renner already had more than 20 stores spread in the main cities in Brazil, and they were already offering a website and a Renner Credit Card, but without any kind of personalized services.
MP3 players were still not common in Brazil and the touch-screens had just started to appear in the market.
Analysis
Renner's biggest problem was not to attract new clients, but to make them choose to come back, to prefer to shop there. We decided that the digital friend should not be something to be sold to the general public under the Renner brand since most people did not care for the brand at that time, so the name of the store would not bring value to the product.
If the idea was to make the brand the public's first choice, than the digital friend should change the shopping experience, making it more fun and more practical.
The Project
To enhance the shopping experience through the use of technology, using music and a barcode scanner.
The project consist in three steps:
1. The touchscreen panel
2. The portable mp3 player with the barcode scanner function integrated
3. The shopping bag
As soon as people enter the store, they can see the touchscreen panel, where they can access their profile in the Renner Website, and select their favorite songs and playlists to be uploaded to the mobile device. This songs and playlists can be also selected from home. The website can also suggest selections based on the brand you shop the most inside the store. So, if your favorite brand is the teenager hip street wear, the website will suggest the soundtrack accordingly.
After the upload, the fun can begin. When they start to walk around the store listening to music, people can already begin to feel relaxed and start to enjoy the experience.
But shopping in department stores can always get a bit messy. Usually people start picking the items they like the most, try them on and go to the cashier to see the total amount of money and as they realize that it is above their budget, they start removing items from the list until they arrive to an affordable total price.
With the barcode scanner, all this mess can be avoided. As people walk around and try outfits on, they can already scan the tags of the items and calculate totals. They can choose the type of payment, see how much it would cost monthly if they chose to purchase in installments with the credit card and so on.
The shopping bag was also thought to be the easiest to use. With the handles pushed to the side, people can have an easier access to the items inside the bag and they don't have to take off the bag to put or get things from inside. The look and feel of the bag is also interesting, with the material made of a thin latex and the logo of the brand visible on the side.
And that's it! When they are done with selecting their favorite items, all people have to do is to handle the bag and the digital friend to the cashier and the employee of the store only has to check the items and finalize the payment. Less stress, less time wasted in lines and more time for the good stuff!
