Zmags, a platform that helps brands bring their content journeys to life through immersive technology, recently partnered with Mizuno and the Atlanta Braves to bring a state-of-the-art shopping experience to The Battery Atlanta. The Mizuno Experience center is an interactive retail location that immerses shoppers in the history, innovation and craftsmanship that Mizuno brands are known for.
But, it goes beyond that. Inside the Atlanta Braves stadium is an experience like no other. According to Lindsay Moore, VP of Business Development at Zmags, “[The experience center] has batting cages and golf simulators where they’ll track your swing to understand what kind of gear you need.” From there, a customer can purchase the recommended gear from an iPad outside the individual batting stall, before continuing on through the rest of the digital experience.
“We wanted to provide an interesting experience that contrasts to the traditional retail model,” says Moore, “to fully immerse the customer in the brand.”
Brand immersion and experience for the customer isn’t the only benefit of integrating high-tech with retail behavior. For Moore, there’s a third element worth noting – which, of course, is more beneficial to the brands acquiring the customers than the customers themselves.
“We can now look at data and figure out exactly what people are engaging in, what’s making conversions, and what is going to be popular going forward.”
By engaging the customer on this level, brands can learn more about their behavior to better predict what kind of merchandise they want to buy now and in the future.
In a digital age where the simplest Google search can supply endless results without delivering precisely what a customer is looking for, creating a retail center that caters to their needs with tailored and individual customization is the key to a hot-button issue in retail: How can physical stores keep up with eCommerce demand?
Mizuno and Zmags may have found the answer in the Experience Center – that is, you give a customer something to connect with, something that prompts an emotional response, and you tell them what kind of products work best for them. By providing something of intrinsic value beyond the product — a memory — you give them a reason to return and interact with your brand.
