BATTLE-TESTED STRATEGIES FOR THE EVER-EVOLVING COMMERCE LABYRINTH 3 KEY LESSONS FROM TOP D2C BRANDS
PAY BY LINK
INNOVATE, DON'T EQUIVOCATE
MEET YOUR CUSTOMERS WHERE THEY ARE
From the Editor As we enter a new season in this most remarkable of years, digital transformation has become more than just a strategy. It’s become a lifeline for businesses leaders who could not have foreseen the ravaging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world’s population, the global economy, and in some cases their own livelihoods. In this issue of Insights magazine by Astound Commerce, we look at the digital commerce landscape through the lens of our “new normal”—and find abundant reasons for optimism. In our Customer Experience section, Astound Commerce Head of Digital Strategy Bridget Fahrland examines how top brands earned a spot on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s list of 250 most disruptive D2C brands, and how the strategies they employed to strengthen customer relationships are now more important than ever. In Commerce Technology, Astound partner Adyen introduces its Pay by Link offering, a key tool in support of contextual commerce. In Analytics and Optimization, Consultancy Practice Lead for Astound Commerce UK Gita Samani strikes an upbeat chord for fashion and beauty brands, emphasizing that now is the moment for innovation as we rise to meet new challenges. In Customer Engagement, Astound Senior Strategist Rebecca Paul identifies the core emotions that our new reality has stirred up in consumers. She details how brands can truly engage with their customers as members of a shared global community desperately craving connection. In every section, we bring you case studies that illustrate the ways Astound works with top brands to fuse ever-evolving technology, data, design, and storytelling, creating unique and meaningful experiences across all channels, all the time. Of course, this is no ordinary time. But with our 20-plus years of experience in the digital commerce space and our strong commitment to our core value of shared success, we are uniquely positioned to help chart your path forward, to make sure your omnichannel experience addresses the myriad options for reaching your customers in the absence of a physical store, and to ensure that your inventory management is seamless and your messaging is clear. Your message at this moment, and ours, is likely one and the same: We’re in this together, and we’ll come out on the other side stronger than ever.
Blair Campbell
Editor in Chief, Astound Commerce
To work with us and learn more, visit astoundcommerce.com
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04
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
06 Three Key Lessons from the IAB 250 Direct Brands to Watch by Bridget Fahrland 12 Case Study: Boux Avenue Launches Multichannel Ecommerce Ecosystem
28 30
Innovate, Don’t Equivocate by Gita Samani
32
Case Study: Reinventing the Customer Experience for a Legacy Brand
38 40
16
CUSTOMER TECHNOLOGY
18
Pay by Link: Your Short-Cut to Contextual Commerce,
24
Case Study: TRU Pursues a Customer-First Vision with Astound
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
Let’s Meet Where We Are: How Brands Can Address New Consumer Needs in the Face of Our Collective Crisis by Rebecca Paul
46
Case Study: Winemaking on the Edge
52 54
TABLE OF
ANALYTICS & OPTIMIZATION
ABOUT ASTOUND
Astound―Commerce Scorecard Call Out―Contact us for your complimentary CX Scorecard
CONTENTS 3
4
Customer Experience
The customer experience is the next competitive battleground. Jerry Gregoire
Former SVP and CIO, Dell Computer Corporation
Customer Experience
3
Three Key Lessons from the IAB 250 Direct Brands to Watch
Customer service, quality, and purpose elevate the disruptors.
by Bridget Fahrland Vice President of Digital Strategy at Astound Commerce
In February of this year, when the magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis was still unimaginable to most of us, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced their list of 250 direct-to-consumer brands they consider most disruptive. Mere months later we’re living in a new world—and the same qualities that set these businesses apart can now be regarded as essential to a brand’s survival. Astound Commerce took a deeper look at the IAB 250 brands to watch, not as individual success stories, but as potential inspiration. We found three core themes that any company looking to have a stronger relationship with its customers should consider.
6 | Insights by Astound Commerce
Customer Experience | 7
Customer Experience
01
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND CONTROL ARE AS IMPORTANT AS THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE. Food delivery, exercise, meetings, lessons‌ these are not new things, and they are not even particularly new to the digital realm. But in our current reality of social distancing and sheltering in place, digital has abruptly become the only option. And when you have a stellar customer experience like DoorDash (real-time delivery tracking and messaging) and Instacart (texting with the person choosing your items), food delivery becomes something remarkable and meaningful. When you reimagine your average exercise class taking place on a mirror instead of a TV screen so you can watch your moves and see your stats, working out takes on a whole new dimension. When you develop a meeting and education tool that enables real-time collaboration, like Explain Everything, you are addressing the core needs of the target audience. These companies are getting traction not just because of their technology or model, but because their experiences are intrinsically tied to their model and superior to the competition.
LESSON LEARNED
Spend as much time imagining and designing your customer experience as you do on your service or product. They are inextricably linked. COVID 19 UPDATE
Digital experiences that enable home delivery, education, and exercise are now more important than ever.
8 | Insights by Astound Commerce
Casper limited SKU count and instead focused on quality and messaging while targeting a specific segment.
02
FOCUS ON QUALITY AND SEGMENT OVER QUANTITY AND FOOTPRINT. Who wakes up and thinks they will make big marketplace changes with a mattress or shoe? That is exactly what Casper and Allbirds did. Casper did it by limiting SKU count and instead focusing on quality and messaging while targeting a specific segment: millennials who had no time or interest in shopping for mattresses. Allbirds has a fine product with some innovation, but really its success lies in not trying to be everything to everyone. The company’s product works for its niche, and it’s not trying to become the Nike of wool footwear. Similarly, KiwiCo—not your average toy company—offers a monthly subscription of highly curated, quality STEM projects. Its niche
LESSON LEARNED
Create more goodness versus more stuff. Narrowly define your market and double down on it. COVID 19 UPDATE
market is clearly parents looking to “play” with
In the disrupted supply chain world, small,
their kids in a meaningful, educational way.
focused, and in-stock helps brands stay nimble.
Customer Experience | 9
Customer Experience
03
HAVE A PURPOSE, AND LET IT DEFINE EVERYTHING YOU DO. Voyager 1 has reached interstellar space since its 1977 launch, but most retail experiences have not evolved much in the past 43 years (with the exception of experiential retailers like Apple, REI, and Sephora). When you look at brands that have exceptional experiences, you will find those experiences have been shaped by a clear purpose. Without a mission, it’s just products on shelves. Brands like Wildfang underscore the importance of purpose. Its apparel for “badass women” is driven by a desire to rethink gender stereotypes—everything the company does, from product design to digital content, embodies this. On the other end of the gender spectrum, Hims guides men through potentially embarrassing topics such as baldness and erectile dysfunction with humor, compassion, and quick online sessions with doctors to get the products they need. The Hims experience is born out
Brands like Wildfang underscore the importance of purpose. Its apparel for “badass women” is driven by a desire to rethink gender stereotypes.
10 | Insights by Astound Commerce
of a mission to help men address health concerns easily and privately and not feel bad about them. These companies are getting traction not just because of their technology or model, but because their experiences are intrinsically tied to their model and superior to the competition.
LESSON LEARNED
COVID 19 UPDATE
Have a purpose or rethink what you are doing.
Today, every brand can examine how it can help the crisis—can you
Once you have a purpose, the rest comes naturally.
retool to provide hand sanitizer like small-batch distilleries? Can you help deliver essentials to the elderly and immunocompromised? Can you provide parents trying to homeschool support?
Customer Experience | 11
Customer Experience
Building a Multichannel Ecommerce Ecosystem
Fashion meets function in a digital engagement platform that increases conversion rates and drives high-value sales. The lingerie market has traditionally been a selective shopping experience for women who want to see and touch the products before buying. Over the past decade, however, that has been changing with growth coming from the ecommerce channel, driven by younger, digitally savvy consumers. Boux Avenue, one of the UK’s largest independent women’s lingerie, nightwear, and swimwear brands, wanted to expand sales beyond its 30 domestic stores into a global footprint to include shops in 10 other countries, supported by an ecommerce platform.
THE CHALLENGE Boux Avenue’s global aspirations required that it would be able to respond to its consumers both online and offline with superior experiences, products that were culturally relevant, and a personal touch that built meaningful relationships and sustained brand value. However, the company was hampered by an antiquated platform that had separate desktop and mobile websites, which had been custom-built years ago. While these sites functioned properly, it was difficult to add critical experiences and functionality to support international expansion and keep up with ever-expanding customer demands. When Boux Avenue set out to replace its transaction-oriented website with an experience-driven digital commerce ecosystem, it looked to Astound Commerce for vision and executional excellence.
12 | Insights by Astound Commerce
CASE STUDY Customer Experience | 13
Customer Experience
"Astound immediately understood what we were trying to achieve with our new user experience" James Fernie
Ecommerce Director, Boux Avenue
OUR STRATEGY Boux Avenue had a clear brand personality and aesthetic in mind as its leadership team contemplated what the new commerce ecosystem would be required to do, and they looked to Astound Commerce to help them execute an elegant, consumer-centric, experience-driven approach in every aspect of the project. According to James Fernie, ecommerce director at Boux Avenue, one of the primary objectives was to present shoppers with relevant product options earlier in the journey. This required thinking beyond the appliqué of a new user interface onto a threadbare infrastructure. The Astound design team custom-tailored a digital engagement platform based on user journey insights and in-store experiences, and embroidered it with stylish details. “Astound immediately understood what we were trying to achieve with our new user experience,” Fernie recalls. “Their approach was logical and methodical—it was clear their recommendations were based on years of knowledge and experience.”
HOW WE EXECUTED The Astound team began by decoupling
that a new interface would be engaging
sonalized experiences that could not be
the front-end and back-end modules,
and frictionless. Boux Avenue invests
duplicated. Finally, we created frictionless
allowing Boux Avenue to maintain its
heavily in its fashion models, styling, and
features that let shoppers jump to specific
online presence while we created a new
photography, as well as social media
products without having to navigate
platform based on Salesforce Commerce
campaigns that leverage influencers,
through multiple pages. Thanks to
Cloud. Our team of experts audited the
so to obtain the most value from these
real-time inventory updates, customers
previous structure to identify navigation
premium investments, we created visual
can instantly see if the items they want
bottlenecks and determine what areas
elements that were lush and glamorous,
are available.
of the site were the most popular so
surrounding new customers with per-
14 | Insights by Astound Commerce
RESULTS Boux Avenue’s new digital ecosystem is helping the retailer to quickly gain ground in a highly competitive segment of the women’s fashion market. The site is opening doors to new wholesale partnerships and offering an edge against other competitive brands. Dynamic product recommendations and a more frictionless process are boosting conversion rates and driving higher-value sales. Fernie praises the Astound team for its “big-picture thinking” and “sensible approach” to designing a creative and engaging user experience. “Astound has done everything they said they would do—it feels like a real partnership,” he concludes. “We now have a future-proof website that will stand us in good stead for years to come.”
Established an enterprise-grade digital engagement platform based on Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Consolidated multiple desktop and mobile sites into one cohesive online experience
Boosted the sale of high-value items, with a 15 percent uplift in average order size
Architected a responsive site optimized for mobile devices, leading to a 10 percent rise in conversion rates
Customer Experience | 15
16
Customer Technology
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Bill Gates
Microsoft Cofounder and Philanthropist
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Customer Technology
SPONSORED
Pay by Link: Your Short-Cut to Contextual Commerce Discover how Pay by Link can help you support contextual commerce without the big budget and hours of development work. For businesses today, the speed and ease with which a customer can buy from you is the stuff of dreams. No longer do you need to pull them from an ad, to your site, and through your payment flow. Shoppers can buy the moment they see something they like, in a few clicks. Contextual commerce has been around for a while and Adyen's latest retail report found that consumers are increasingly open to it. 25 percent of respondents said they own a smart speaker and 51 percent said that digital technology is essential to their daily lifestyle. But we also found that businesses are failing to meet these expectations. 55 percent of shoppers have seen items they’d like to buy on social media but have abandoned the purchase because there were too many steps involved. So, we know that customers increasingly expect to be able to buy the moment they’ve made the decision, without clunky redirects and long payment forms. And contextual commerce is an ideal solution. But, what if you have limited technical resources and minimal budget? How can you get in on the action?
18 | Insights by Astound Commerce
ENTER PAY BY LINK Pay by Link is exactly what it sounds like: A link that takes shoppers to a payment page where they enter their details and pay. It’s incredibly simple and unlocks contextual commerce with very little development or integration work needed. Pay by Link is commonly used in call centers as a way of securely capturing customers’ payment details. The telesales associate emails a link to the customer for them to complete the purchase. This removes the need to read card details over the phone, which is a payments security minefield. Pay by Link is also popular among luxury retailers. It’s a great way of selling limited-edition or bespoke items to VIPs via a private payment page.
Customer Technology | 19
Customer Technology
Pay by Link also has other use cases ideally suited to contextual commerce: VOICE RECOGNITION Imagine you’re standing in the kitchen ordering groceries via Alexa. When you’re ready to pay, Alexa sends a link to your phone. A few taps later, payment is complete and groceries are on their way
UPSELLING Pay by Link can also be used to upsell additional products outside of the typical sales environment (such as a store or ecommerce site). A large Dutch electronics retailer uses this method to upsell additional items such as speakers at the point of delivery. The delivery team simply generates a QR code that links to a payment page. So customers can complete the payment on their smartphone while their new entertainment center is being installed. It’s quick, easy and (importantly) totally secure.
20 | Insights by Astound Commerce
CHATBOTS Whether you’re selling custom t-shirts or a luxury holiday, chatbots are a useful way of walking your customer through an order without relying on telesales teams. When it comes to the moment of purchase, the chatbot shares a link that directs the customer from the chat thread straight to a payment page. KLM has been using a redirect payment link for years—ever since that Icelandic volcano erupted in 2010 grounding all flights. The airline had to set up a quick way for huge volumes of customers to re-book flights. So it made Twitter its front-line support from where agents would deal with queries, re-book flights, and process additional purchases via payment links. Today, the airline uses payment links to process upgrades and extras like additional luggage via chatbots.
CROSS-CHANNEL CUSTOMER REACTIVATION
Did an online customer abandon a purchase halfway through? Perhaps they got distracted or didn’t have their card details to hand. In this case, you can reactivate them by sending them an email with a payment link to complete their order. Or maybe an in-store shopper was disappointed to discover you didn’t have their size in stock. Once the item is back in stock you can send them an email with a payment link so they can complete the purchase online and either collect in-store or have it delivered to their home.
CHARITY DONATIONS Another great use case for Pay by Link is charity donations. A single donation link can be generated and sent out to a mailing list. Or it could be accessed via a QR code on an outdoor billboard. It could even be sent to nearby mobile devices using NFC beacons—so (for example) people in a shopping center could be pinged a payment link as they walk past a campaign billboard.
Customer Technology | 21
Customer Technology 22 | Insights by Astound Commerce
BUYING WHOLESALE When retailers such as big department stores need to pay wholesale merchants for orders to stock their shelves, they often charge by invoice. However, in some cases retailers pay via credit card, which can lead to a non-PCI compliant approach of just writing down the sensitive credit card information. Pay by link is the better solution since it allows B2B transactions to quickly and safely be completed.
PAY BY LINK WITH ADYEN Setting up Pay by Link with Adyen is easy. You just need to create a payment page from the Adyen Dashboard using drag-and-drop elements and uploading your branded assets. You can then either set up links manually to create one-off payment pages. Or you can create links automatically where your system pings our Checkout API with payment details such as country, currency, amount, and link expiration date. A link is then generated and embedded in whichever communication channel you choose. You can learn more in our documentation. And, since this is Adyen, you’ll get access to all payment methods based on your shopper’s location. So, if your chatbot is talking to someone in Germany, Sofort and Giropay will automatically be displayed as payment options. 3D Secure 2.0 is taken care of, so shoppers will be dynamically routed via 3D Secure if necessary (and only then). This ensures the best possible payment experience for your customers and a liability-shift for you.
TAKE CONTEXTUAL COMMERCE UP A NOTCH Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to contextual commerce. Once you’re ready to dive in, we can support you by embedding payment forms into your chat flow, so customers aren’t redirected at all. You can streamline the process still further with tokenization, which can be triggered with a single tap or a voice command. The retailers best able to meet consumer demands and serve up relevant and streamlined shopping experiences are best positioned to capitalize.
Interested in learning more?
If you want to get started with Pay by Link, or hear more about Adyen’s payments platform please email. Alex Rhodes
Country Manager, Canada Alex.Rhodes@adyen.com
Customer Technology | 23
Customer Technology
TRU Pursues a CustomerFirst Vision with Astound
With a mobile-optimized website and a fully omnichannel shopping experience, Toys“R”Us is poised to maintain its market dominance. Toys“R”Us Canada is the biggest specialty retailer of toys and baby products in Canada. Through 82 stores across the country and toysrus.ca, the company brings national brands, exclusive products, innovative loyalty programs, and unique partnerships to millions of Canadian children and families. The company has long been the market leader despite competition from several large companies, including Amazon and Walmart.
24 | Insights by Astound Commerce
CASE STUDY Customer Customer Technology Experience | 25
Customer Technology
THE CHALLENGE When the Canadian division of Toys“R”Us was purchased by Fairfax Financial Holdings in 2018, the company’s website was running on the IT systems of its former US parent. To become fully independent and chart a course for its own future as a market leader, the company needed to establish its own IT systems, including a new web platform with a clear digital strategy and a customer-first vision.
OUR STRATEGY Toys“R”Us turned to Astound to implement a robust, experience-driven commerce ecosystem to provide a best-in-class shopping experience that would attract new buyers and keep existing customers. That meant providing shoppers with a seamless omnichannel experience—for example, a compelling online shopping experience could be extended into the ability to pick up purchases in store, and the ability for in-store representatives to view customers’ online purchase preferences under their accounts in order to be better able to personalize their in-store shopping experience. The company also needed a CRM platform for marketers to understand customers needs, a loyalty/rewards program to drive both loyalty and advocacy, a customer service system to tie to CRM, and a separate gift registry to generate revenue for the Babies“R”Us brand.
26 | Insights by Astound Commerce
HOW WE EXECUTED To achieve the company’s customer-first digital marketing vision, Astound utilized the latest Salesforce Commerce Cloud reference architecture—coupled with an advanced cross-cloud integration of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Salesforce Service Cloud. The Salesforce cross-cloud integrated platform that Astound Commerce designed and deployed streamlines critical marketing, service, sales, and commerce capabilities to integrate all customer touchpoints and establish a single view of the customer. Demonstrating a benchmark approach integral for future Salesforce projects, the platform enables cross-channel and multi-stage customer journeys. It also gives Toys“R”Us customer service representatives a new look into customer behavior, and enables omnichannel capabilities so in-store employees can view online purchases, respond to online requests, and place orders on behalf of in-store customers.
Customer Technology | 27
28
Analytics & Optimization
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess. Ronald Coase
Economist and Author
29
Analytics & Optimization
Innovate, Don’t Equivocate
Savvy retailers should seize this moment to find opportunity in hardship.
by Gita Samani
Consultancy Practice Lead for Astound Commerce UK
30 | Insights by Astound Commerce
It’s clear that COVID-19 has created some fundamental social and economic shifts, and retail has not been immune. In fact, there are few economic sectors that have been more affected by the virus than retail. But the impacts are not distributed equally across all verticals. Fashion has been hit terribly hard. Many firms have pushed back their product launches until September, essentially writing off six months of commerce. And a six-month hiatus in fashion is long enough to change customer behaviors. People start thinking: I don’t need that new dress, that new handbag. That can have long-term impacts on basic consumption patterns. But beauty products are another matter. They’re taking off! That presents a different challenge. Many cosmetics companies are now finding that their difficulties aren’t demand, aren’t websiteassociated—the problems are with their warehouses. They’re struggling to address a backlog
We need to anticipate dramatic and long-term changes in product preference. Fast fashion is decelerating, and luxury shoppers are moving to more affordable products. away—and off. Many won’t return. And it impacts SEO profoundly, making post-coronavirus recovery all the more difficult. Invest in your digital infrastructure. It’s your future. We need to anticipate dramatic and long-term changes in product preference. Fast fashion is
of orders. The issues are all about distribution.
decelerating, and luxury shoppers are moving
Still, some broad trends are emerging. First,
ultra-cheap, and disposable will fade—but so will
retail—all retail—must become more digitized. Many consumers don’t have the option right now of going to a physical store; their purchases are perforce made online, and this will only increase their brick-and-mortar expectations when the pandemic is over. There will be a clear shopper preference for brands that provide a great customer experience both in the store and on the website. The omnichannel—including app commerce—will reign supreme as never before. And customers will want more from their digital experiences, such as augmented reality for trying on clothes and accessories. Second, the temptation to reduce online traffic and create holding pages must be resisted. It’s a potentially fatal mistake. Turning your website into a “Be back soon” sign simply turns customers
to more affordable products. The ephemeral, the ultra-luxurious and hyper-expensive. Why? Necessity. The value of money and the desirability of well-made and durable products are becoming obvious to everyone. Finally, the old cliché says it all: one door closes and another opens. There really is opportunity in hardship—even when it comes to fashion. The savvy retailer is always thinking about what the customer needs at any given moment. Right now, most people are staying home. Few are concerned about making an impression on the street, or even in the office. But they still want to feel well-dressed and stylish. So what’s poised to go up? Loungewear: clothes for nesting, for staying at home. Change is implicit in the fashion industry—so embrace it.
Analytics & Optimization | 31
Analytics & Optimization
Reinventing the Customer Experience for a Legacy Brand Combining an ecommerce ecosystem with a global directto-consumer strategy, Astound Commerce helps Puma sprint ahead of the competition. In the field of big-name sports lifestyle brands, geographic reach and unparalleled customer experiences determine who wins or loses at retail. So when brands look to expand their distribution by selling through wholesalers, they sacrifice their personal relationships with consumers. This was the quandary that Puma faced. The 70-year-old footwear and apparel company was ceding ground to Nike and Adidas, both of which were leveraging large advertising budgets and locks on third-party retailers to dominate the performance-apparel industry.
32 | Insights by Astound Commerce
PRE-TAX EARNINGS INCREASE
69% FASTER SITE LOAD SPEED
50%
MOBILE CONVERSION IMPROVEMENT
Image load time on mobile devices has been slashed to less than two seconds
CASE STUDY
2X
Analytics & Optimization | 33
Analytics & Optimization
THE CHALLENGE Looking to circumvent the competition and build closer relationships with consumers, Puma asked Astound Commerce first to examine the apparel company’s global marketing and technology infrastructure, and then to create an ecommerce ecosystem that could support a global direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategy. Included in the effort would be a universal platform and customer experience that could amplify Puma’s brand-marketing activities and be customized for each of Puma’s sites. Astound would also optimize Puma’s mobile experience and empower its marketing team to execute local and worldwide digital campaigns.
OUR STRATEGY Working with Puma to understand its marketing direction, business goals, and digital challenges, we devised a holistic plan to create a stable tech foundation for its ecommerce business. Puma’s sites were on different backend systems with varying load capabilities; they needed to be consolidated onto a single platform robust enough to handle sales spikes generated by the brand’s “drops”—highly anticipated, limited-edition collaborations. Site CX fluctuated wildly, with inconsistent branding, limitations to the currencies accepted, and content that culturally missed the mark. The cumbersome mobile experience undermined sales, with 70 percent of site traffic coming through tablets and phones yielding less than a 1 percent conversion rate. Finally, the company’s automated marketing service could not create geographically targeted content that would attract, convert, and nurture lifelong value from Puma’s customers.
34 | Insights by Astound Commerce
HOW WE EXECUTED To transform Puma into a digital-first brand, we migrated its sites onto Salesforce Commerce Cloud, building a kit of parts that could be customized as needed. Upon this framework we laid an interface that could be tailored to the language, currency, and cultural nuances of each geographic market. The system also could host local and global marketing campaigns. We strategically coordinated the sites’ rollout, testing for kinks in the smaller markets before migrating the brand’s high-profile North American and European properties onto the platform. To improve page-load times and the check-out experience for customers on phones and tablets, we introduced Salesforce’s SFRA mobile platform and Einstein artificial intelligence (AI) technology; both allow Puma to collect real-time customer-behavior data and tweak the sites accordingly. Finally, we included in all sites the ability to offer customized and online-only product, such as Arsenal football jerseys in the UK, to lure new and repeat customers to the channel.
Analytics & Optimization | 35
Analytics & Optimization 36 | Insights by Astound Commerce
RESULTS Spanning more than eight years and 110 projects, our partnership with Puma continues to catapult the brand ahead of its competitors, driving profits and market share. Replatforming and mobile optimization have reinvented the customer experience, rendering more personal and frictionless the journey from discovery through sale. These technologies also are providing Puma with previously unattainable data about the brand’s consumers, their online behavior, and their product preferences. The resulting insights are generating leads, shaping product development, and improving the efficiency of Puma’s local and global digital-marketing campaigns. Our implementation and continued optimization of the sites is allowing Puma to control its brand story, with the company connecting with consumers by literally and figuratively speaking their language..
Analytics & Optimization | 37
38
Customer Engagement
Find a way to be personal with your customers and connect with them on a human level. Andrew Reid
Former SVP and CIO, Dell Computer Corporation
39
Customer Engagement
Letʼs Meet Where We Are
How brands can address new consumer needs in the face of our collective crisis by Rebecca Paul Senior Strategist at Astound Commerce
As society continues to adapt to the “New Normal” resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, brands have a unique opportunity to break out of their standard programming, expand their offerings, and support the rapidly shifting needs of consumers. As reported in a recent newsletter from CB Insights, online use of the terms virtual connections and virtual happy hour spiked earlier this year. These trends are great indicators of how many people are looking to go digital as they re-create the familiar in this new, often anxiety-ridden reality. While what lies ahead is largely unknown, what we do know is that we’re all in this together. As we consider how to address the needs of the collective consumer, we should be asking ourselves these two questions: What are consumers feeling, and what can we do to help? Here’s some inspiration for getting started, as we all attempt to meet each other where we are.
40 | Insights by Astound Commerce
Customer Engagement | 41
Customer Engagement
01
GRIEF
SUPPORT
Our society is experiencing collective grief, and consumers are seeking support that can be provided through moments of delight and comfort. For many, the brickand-mortar experience remains out of reach—so those moments will mainly come through online experiences and at-home delivery. Brands must focus on how to
repurpose their CX efforts in these channels. Things like supply chain transparency, contactless delivery, and curbside pickup can help customers feel supported by retailers as they adjust to their new normal.
FEAR
REASSURANCE
02
There is enormous fear of the unknown. In response, consumers are looking for reassurance—from the news, from their peers, and from brands. For this reassurance to be credible, it must reflect both the reality that no one can predict the future and the likelihood that there will be negative long-term effects from our current situation. Concrete assistance in the form of financial flexibility is one way brands can address this fear. Financial sup-
port programs including flexible financing, interest
rates, and payment options can help consumers feel more comfortable making financial commitments.
03
BOREDOM
ENTERTAINMENT
With stay-at-home orders currently in effect around the world, people are looking to social media and other digital outlets for entertainment. Leveraging these channels to enhance your own product offerings can be a powerful tool when attempting to connect with consumers. As a
brand, what additional value can you provide? What content can you create to complement or enhance your existing value proposition?
42 | Insights by Astound Commerce
04
NORMALCY
OVERWHELM
Consumers are bombarded with new information every day, and for those now working from or otherwise stuck at home, their daily routine has forever changed. In response, people are looking for ways to establish new rhythms as they adapt to their “new normal.” Rethinking
things like merchandising and online sales to appropriately reflect our altered state of life can help to normalize the day-to-day.
RECEPTIVITY
05
NEW IDEAS
Consumers are seeking new ways of doing things from myriad sources, including the internet, friends, and social media. They’re craving new information about how to keep themselves entertained, connect with friends, practice good hygiene and self-care, and even up their cooking game. Brands can offer creative solutions in all these categories, even if such content is a slight departure from their typical focus.
05
ISOLATION
COMMUNITY
In this time of extreme solitude, consumers are using digital tools to replicate normal social interactions and connect with loved ones and other communities. Increased use of social media and other digital outlets offers new opportunities for collective engagement and entertainment. Finding innovative ways to help consumers participate in community activities that are safe, as well as tools and content to help them in their daily lives, increases brands’ ability to provide value.
Customer Engagement | 43
Customer Engagement
HELPLESSNESS
ALTRUISM
Many consumers are feeling helpless and looking for ways they can provide support to those in need. Brand-driven social campaigns increase opportunities to connect with customers and help them offer such support when their ability to give back on an individual level can be limited. Businesses can also give visibility into their own efforts at community assistance, encouraging
like-minded behavior and creating a virtuous circle of goodwill. Stopthespread.org is a great source of information on what top brands are doing to help.
Brand-driven social campaigns increase opportunities to connect with customers and help them offer support when their ability to give back on an individual level can be limited
44 | Insights by Astound Commerce
07
Customer Engagement | 45
Customer Engagement
Winemaking on the Edge
Reinterpreting a luxury wine brand in a modern digital world When talking about world-class luxury wines and wine experiences, regions like Napa Valley and Bordeaux tend to dominate the conversation. British Columbia? Decidedly less so. Even though wine consumption by Canadians has grown over the past decade, and sales of Canadian wine are increasing 4.7 percent annually, consumers of high-end wine (more than $60 per bottle) prefer imports. With the wines of the Okanagan Valley gaining critical acclaim globally for their quality and unique features, the Mark Anthony Group, one of the largest luxury vineyard owners in the valley, is building an immersive wine experience on par with that offered by any great wine region. This architecturally significant and cutting-edge experience is aptly named “Iconic Wineries of British Columbia� (IWoBC) and is set to open in Kelowna in 2020.
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NEW DIGITAL CLUB MEMBERS
1.2M
CANADIAN LUXURY WINE LOVERS ENGAGED AND ACTIVATED
829K PAGE IMPRESSIONS
340K POST IMPRESSIONS
25K ENGAGEMENTS
CASE STUDY
+30K
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Customer Engagement
THE CHALLENGE Despite its breathtaking natural beauty and its proven track record for the production of award-winning and terroir-centric wines, British Columbia’s viticulture enjoys only modest recognition at home and abroad. Restaurants across Canada that cater to high-end wine lovers see less than 25 percent of their sales going to domestic wine producers, and less than 10 percent of those wine lovers have visited the Okanagan region to enjoy its amazing varietals. With a 100 percent Canadian pedigree, the family-owned Mark Anthony Group (MAG) partnered with Astound to help educate wine lovers about the singular beauty of the Okanagan, as both a wine destination and a producer of award-winning world-class wines. To achieve that vision, Astound had to design an experience-driven commerce ecosystem that would enhance visitor experiences in the Okanagan as well as empower compelling brand value at distance.
OUR STRATEGY Our strategists, marketers, and engineers completed an intensive discovery exercise to map MAG’s unique digital ecosystem, which included brand positioning, digital marketing, customer experience, and technology—uniting all consumer touchpoints, both online and offline. We developed an umbrella marketing approach that could bring the story of the uniqueness of the Okanagan to life, while supporting each winery’s place in the narrative. A singular platform is being designed and implemented to easily incorporate all the wineries, as well as the Kelowna-based “Iconic Wineries of British Columbia” (IWoBC) experience. To deliver an online modern luxury wine experience that could match the attractiveness of the wineries, our CX team designed a next-generation wine interface that will bring all of these stories to life in a compelling and frictionless way.
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HOW WE EXECUTED The digital marketing strategy employs a multipronged approach, utilizing demand and lead generation, consumer segmentation, and data analytics to acquire and engage the right audience for the MAG brands—including wine lovers from Montreal to Vancouver. Our digital marketing team is also leveraging the IWoBC brand platform in a multifaceted social media program that endeavors to cultivate awareness and encourage consumers to discover Okanagan and all it has to offer. Armed with marketing data and insights, our experience design specialists are developing rich and flexible customer journeys that embody a modern approach to the sale of luxury wines, and building them on a single commerce platform that encompasses all of the MAG business units, including winery restaurants, tasting rooms, wine clubs, and D2C sales.
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RESULTS In order to compete in the complex world of luxury wines, we are reinterpreting what it means to be a luxury wine brand in a modern digital world. Our goal is to give IWoBC a pivotal role in establishing the Okanagan as a world-class wine destination producing iconic luxury wines. MAG has pledged to be the most “customer-centric� wine brand in Canada, which demands a robust set of solutions in this highly competitive marketplace. The early results are very promising and we are proud to partner with the company as it blazes this unique trail in Canadian soil.
Conducted trade events in major cities to test value proposition
Developed reference architecture to align
commerce, marketing automation, sales, POS,
order management, reservations, subscription, and compliance
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About Astound 52
Astound Commerce, the world’s most trusted independent digital commerce provider, empowers success through expertly created experience-driven ecosystems that fuse ever-evolving technology, data, design, and storytelling to build meaningful and lasting customer-brand relationships. With a strong global presence and a team of more then 1,200 deeply passionate experts in the areas of digital strategy, commerce technology, experience design, and digital marketing, we’ve had the opportunity to partner with iconic brands such as L’Oréal, Under Armour, El Palacio, Jimmy Choo, Lacoste, and Versace. Born in Silicon Valley during the digital revolution, we have more than 20 years of expertise and thousands of experience-driven ecosystems woven into our DNA. We know how to align business values with the latest technologies, personalized digital experiences, and the demands of mobile and socially connected consumers. We create unique and compelling experiences for customers across all channels and drive sustained business growth for our clients. Learn more: astoundcommerce.com
2000+ 20+ Successful Projects
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1,200+ Passionate Teammates
One mission: Add Business Value Modern commerce is people powered by technology. It’s responsible for marketplace disruption so massive that it has fundamentally changed everything we know about commerce.
Digital Commerce Ecosystem Strategy. Experiences.
Relationships. Technology. Our experience-driven digital commerce ecosystem model meets the demands of modern commerce,
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while generating enormous business
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