ANA Brand Activation Marketing Futures Conference Recap
Highlights from a day spent listening and discussing the latest in retail innovations
For the past few months, I have been really interested in the intersection of customer experience, brand marketing and building relationships with a brands customer base, so when a colleague shared a link to the ANA Brand Activation Marketing Futures Conference, my interest was piqued. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to not only get a new perspective on my research but to also connect with other industry professionals and pick their brains on the subject.
So last week, I traveled to the heart of Brooklyn to spend a day learning about the latest and greatest innovations in retail. While all of the sessions throughout the day were great, there were four that really stood out to me that I’ve highlighted below.
The Future of Retail — Learning from leaders around the globe
This session was led by CEO and Founder of Inventors, Michelle Greenwald, where she presented 35 retail innovation trends that she has seen around the globe. Out of these 35 trends, the one that I’ve seen the most in my own research is the idea of reducing time to purchase. One way this concept is brought to life is in the form of retailers creating apps. These apps aid in navigation of the store, checking out, and guide your interests through the use of location-based push notifications. One of the best examples of this is the Sephora app that sends push notifications about the best deals to the customer the moment they enter the store.
How insights & technology will combine to impact and ignite consumer experiences and product innovation
Led by Janneke van Geuns, Head of Insights and Analytics at Google, this session was all about the power behind insights and how marketers can use these analytics to transform their consumer's journey and at the same time help shape the future of retail. Out of this session, four stats immediately caught my eye:
- 4 billion Google searches per day — of those searches 15–20% have never been searched before
- 85% increase in “where to buy” searches
- 2X increase in “same day” searches
- 1 billion + devices around the world with Google Assistant
Immersive Media: How it’s changing expectations and experiences
This panel, moderated by Kerry Flynn, a Platforms Reporter for Digiday, was an amazing glimpse into the future of sports and technology. The panelists were Jeff Marsilio, Senior VP of New Media for the NBA, and Shawn Bryant, VP of Sports Marketing at Intel. The majority of the discussion revolved around the NBA’s recent partnership with Intel and what they plan to bring to the sport of Basketball.
Their first step is to install five miles of fiber cable in 30 different arenas that will power an array of cameras with the aim to transform how basketball is viewed outside of the court. Then, the NBA will be launching a VR app that will allow people to have full control over where they watch the game from. In the future, they hope to have an AR headset that will allow the user to project a top-down view of the match onto any surface they desire—like their coffee table, for example.
Interactive Demonstrations
After a day filled with exciting sessions and great discussions during our coffee breaks, the other attendees and I were able to walk around the venue and experience a set of interactive demonstrations. Each booth showcased new tech; from an AR wine bottle to a software that would sift through news articles for you, there was a lot to take in. My personal favorite was the presentation put on by Parralux, a startup based here in NYC. Seven attendees were brought into a room where we were handed a VR headset. After a brief intro, we were instructed to place the headsets on our heads. Immediately, we were whisked away to another world where we were able to watch a cavewoman connect with her ancestors. The coolest part of the experience was not so much the graphics involved but the fact that I could see the other participants in their VR headsets: everyone was given an avatar and that avatar was located exactly where we were sitting. If I got bored of the show, (which I didn’t) I could just watch my fellow attendees all looking around the VR space. After chatting with the Parralux team, I learned that they could link up to 100+ headsets in one room.
While this conference was one of my first relating to the consumer experience space, it certainly won’t be my last. The amount of new information you can learn in one day just by listening to other people’s experiences always blows me away and I highly recommend attending a future ANA conference.
