By Jeff Hunt, CEO and Founder, Snap36
Brands are no longer just a name and a logo. Technology and the Internet have brought them to life. They’re visual entities, sharing visual experiences that fluently shape and redefine how they connect to consumers.
Images have the uncanny ability to inspire, to educate, to elicit emotion, and to entertain. To stay relevant in an expanding stream of marketing channels, retailers must provide high quality, visual engagements soaked in these values.
Through content creation and curation, on social media or in-store, retailers are finding new and creative methods to take ownership of their image and engage with consumers.
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Harrods Counts On Video For Instagram
No marketing medium has become as visual as social media. Instagram is the perfect example. As platforms become more image-centric, brands must invest money to have the creative know-how and technical agility to breed attraction over promotion.
Compared to other marketing mediums, social media is the most detached from direct sales and measured against the toughest competition— posts from family and friends. Too many blatant “buy me” posts and followers will vanish.
While no easy feat, the famous London department store Harrods (@Harrods) efficiently creates videos from curated product photography to announce sales, launch new products, and inspire seasonal wardrobes on Instagram. Take a look at how Harrods’ video post seamlessly fused product imagery with their magazine and mobile app.
Topshop Isn’t Clueless About Emailing GIFs
Email has emerged as one of the strongest platforms to stay connected with a loyal customer base. Unlike social media, email recipients typically welcome branded communication and promotional campaigns as recipients willingly opt in. Creating a constant flow of engaging emails in a world of over-saturated inboxes can be difficult. According to Entrepreneur, the average adult attention span is about eight seconds, so there isn’t much time to attract via email. One way that brands have captured attention is through the use of interactive GIFs. Making emails both scannable and engaging using GIFs helps consumers digest more information in less time. In fact, the human brain can process images 60,000 times faster than text.
Topshop has mastered the use of GIFs to create eye-catching emails and draw attention to key products.
Lowe’s Puts A New Spin On Product Pages
When it comes to e-Commerce web sites, a picture is not just worth a thousand words, it’s worth a thousand online sales. As first impressions of products are swift and lasting, there is no other advertising avenue where imagery is so vital. Gone are the days of meaningless browsing. Site visitors expect a comprehensive product view that provides the visual and educational value necessary to make a decision.
They want an invitation to interact and to control the experience. Online retailers are responding by creating highly engaging, visual e-Commerce experiences through 360-degree spin photography. Providing animated 360-degree product views, Lowe’s uses its product photography to replicate an in-store experience — enabling visitors to virtually spin a refrigerator, zoom in on any angle, and open and close its doors and drawers.
Rebecca Minkoff Gets Virtual In Stores
Visual experiences don’t end online. By merging the digital and physical worlds, retailers can create in-store virtual interactions tailored to the omnichannel shopper. No one has mastered the connected retail experience like Rebecca Minkoff. Opening two stores late last year, Rebecca Minkoff debuted oversized touchscreen displays to showcase lookbooks and product photos for customers to browse merchandise and request products to try on. The visual experience continues to the fitting room where interactive mirrors can be used to view suggested items or order new sizes. Access to more ideas, more images, and more products is only a swipe away.
By transforming old-fashion, static images into interactive assets, theses four retailers are creating value-added experiences that capture consumer attention and bring their brand to life. As technology advances and channels evolve, so will consumer expectations. New connections will be built though visual experiences that enable the discovery of products, understanding of features, and inspiration of ideas— on any digital platform or device.
Jeff Hunt is the CEO of Snap36, a product photography services company and provider of the equipment, technology and expertise needed to implement 360° & 3D spin photography. Snap36 will be exhibiting at Shop.org’s Digital Summit in Philadelphia on October 5-7 in booth #637.
