Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
If you can imagine a university course that combines neurology, marketing, technology, evolution, sociology, economics in the future, and maybe a bit of philosophy thrown in, all given in an hour-and-a-half, that’s a bit of what interviewing David Kepron is like – and what those attending his keynote address at the upcoming Retail Evolution Summit in San Francisco next month will be getting.
Kepron is creative director – Brand Experience Studio at Little Diversified Architectural Consulting. He is also an author and owner of Retail (r)Evolution LLC, Philadelphia.
I expect that you’ll be left with your mouth agape at some of his pronouncements, much like that of his audience at #DSEONE was during last year’s New York Digital Signage Week.
However, with the upcoming Retail Evolution Summit geared specifically to retailing, even if you heard him at #DSEONE, your won’t be getting the same talk, although a little material may overlap.
At this Summit, be prepared to learn about the implications of shopping in the digital future, the roles that the environment will play, how the consumer is evolving, what will influence his/her brain, the changes in technology, what you’ll need to do to engage the shopper, and much more.
Familiar with the term Technempathy? Bopis? These aren’t just words he’ll throw around. You’ll learn how they relate to the current and future consumer.
You thought Google Glasses were something you might have to deal with in the future? How about the consumer who might NOT use his mobile phone nor his Google Glasses? He might be sending and transmitting through his contact lens. Don’t laugh! They’re already in development by a company you know well.
And what role will digital signage still play? “I know that this audience will be interested in the implications of shopping in the digital future,” said Kepron at the beginning of his interview. “Digital is changing our brain. Experiences and environment are constantly in a dance. So how do we process it? Digital technology allows us to mediate the nature of experiences. And if you think that you have to catch up on the use of the cell phone by the shopper, wait until you have to adapt to the wearable influences.”
Kepron said that the fact that shoppers have so many choices is actually a demotivation when shopping. It can result in the shopper being less satisfied and, in fact, result in buying less. With digital and the Internet also giving more choice, customers have even more overload.
However, people will still want to visit stores. “For 500 million years, people have wanted interaction with others and that won’t change.”
However, Kepron says that the future customers will begin to expect experiences the way that they themselves create experiences. Young people are digitally savvy. They take pictures. They become ‘marketers’. They’ll see through strategies – which will put a burden on retailers. How will they cope?
First, retailers will have to understand the neuroscience of consumer behavior, how the consumer’s mind works.
Second, The world of digital technology has been run by manufacturers and content providers. It will be a challenge for them, as well. What happens if digital signage becomes less needed and when people have wearable technology to help them get things unique specifically created for them? When people move more to wearable technology, it will be less about the technology itself and more about how the technology engages the relationship.
“It’s not that screens will go away,” said Kepron. “But our reliance on them will be only part of the environment. The wearable technology will allow the projection of content that is specific the consumer. Think of ‘the market segment of one’.”
Kepron said that the customer will choose the environment. In fact, he said that customers will project what they want on a blank wall and retailers will be able, for example, to help them build their digital wardrobe. (Here’s where augmented reality will also be involved.)
“The digital environment will change to meet specific needs.”
Third, retailers will have to change their ideas of demographics and trends, as well as inventory. Customers will want an emotional connection with their purchases, because price will be less important.
In terms of inventory, customers may just do 3D printing of what they want, buy online and then pick it up at the store. And since many retailers will offer what is wanted, the price points will be driven down.
“What will be important is the customer’s connection to the brand – and that allows him/her to go to the store and connect with people,” he said. “The sales floor as we know it will change, though. Stores will have to grow the size of their warehouse and there will be a liberation of floor space. It’s a reversal of what we see now. And manufacturing will have to be fast.
“We’ll have a store where brand performance has a place. People will create and engage with a brand and projection in store. The price will be less important than the connection and brand ideologies.”
Kepron said that if you are thinking of omni-channels, you are thinking in a mindset. It’s not the way it works. People are shopping in omni-experience. And he mentioned something that shocked a lot of the audience at DSE1: that an analysis in empathy showed that there has been a 40% drop in empathy among college students.
“A challenge in the future is that customers won’t be uninterested. It’s that they’ll be neurologically unable to be so. So you will have to engage them.
“Technology doesn’t have to be complicated. The goal is to connect to the shopper’s emotional centre, not to price nor abundance.”
This interview was just a tiptoe through the plethora of information you’ll get from Kepron at the Retail Evolution Summit. It’s a keynote session not to be missed.
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