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The year 2020 will, for most businesses, be one to forget. Store closures and global pandemic measures have forced many into administration, and economic stability seems to be a little out of reach. When the going gets tough the tough get going, however, and despite the onslaught of negative impacts this year, some more agile businesses have managed to adapt appropriately, particularly towards online. Brown Thomas and Arnotts, two of Ireland's most iconic department stores, have had their doors closed for the majority of the year. The teams however sought to turn that on its head and ensure that each customer is able to have an online experience to match what they can offer in-store. As part of their digital transformation, one area the team has been looking at is onsite content. With an abundance of inventive content ideas, the team set out to find ways to elevate that content, by making it interactive and shoppable.
Video: Womenswear AW20: New Dawn - Smartzer interactive & shoppable campaign video, mobile & desktop.
Over the past few months, Smartzer has been working closely with teams at Brown Thomas and Arnotts to deliver upon their shared ambition towards creating engaging and shoppable onsite content. Prior to the latest AW20 womenswear and menswear collections on Brown Thomas, a fully customised shoppable video player was built by the team at Smartzer to seamlessly match the Brown Thomas style onsite. Aside from the custom style, the player was also fully integrated into the Demandware API, allowing for up-to-date product information to be instantly pulled into the Smartzer editor and player. Furthermore, the player also featured an add-to-cart functionality, enabling users to directly add items to their basket while viewing the videos.
Once the Brown Thomas player was set up and the AW20 videos run live, the teams then took the opportunity to then apply different types of content to the player. What started with regular fashion campaign videos then opened up into a whole breadth of content across the Brown Thomas and Arnotts websites. From makeup tutorials to Christmas tree decorating, the technology was applied successfully across many many different use cases and displayed strong results throughout.
“Creating a personal and luxurious e-commerce experience to rival that which we have in-store has been a core business focus over the past few years. Shoppable and interactive videos built using Smartzer technology have helped us to deliver on this ambition, by providing an easy way for users to discover and purchase items directly from a wide range of content, such as campaign videos and shoppable live events. The format has delivered excellent results, driving average engagement rates of over 55% and click-through rates of over 18% across the content.” -Pippa Casey, Head of Online Commercial, Merchandising and Creative, Brown Thomas Arnotts
Capturing consumers online has become a big focus for businesses in 2020. For Brown Thomas and Arnotts shoppable video has been a perfect accompaniment to their growing online content repository. Not only has the work achieved delivered fantastic results for the team, but it also is a good example of how to make your content go the extra mile online. From a shoppable video perspective the work has been a great testament to the adaptability of the Smartzer overlay, with a whole range of content benefiting from the technology.