Client – Samsung Electronics
Markets – US, UK, EU, UAE
Timing – June 2014 – Present
Agencies/Vendors – Cheil Worldwide, The Barbarian Group
Tech Word Cloud – Cinder open source code, touch screen display, interactive retail experience, ultra high definition, conversion optimization
Samsung created an immersive, interactive retail display to improve the home appliance shopping experience for consumers and retailers alike.
Samsung’s problem was twofold: home appliances take up 10% of store real estate while generating less than 10% sales profit and consumers’ home appliance buying experiences are generally dull and un-helpful. Since home appliances are powered-off in stores due to strict retail regulations, consumers don’t actually see how products function. Samsung needed to find a way to revolutionize the home appliance shopping experience for both retailers and consumers .
To do this, Samsung created CenterStage – an immersive, interactive retail experience that showcases Samsung’s entire appliance portfolio on true-to-life size, ultra high quality screens. For retailers, it solves the problem of limited in-store display space by offering the full catalog in real size within the digital display. For consumers, it creates a lively and informative shopping experience, showing the features, functions and specs of Samsung products, all on an 85” 4K UHD display and LFDs.
Samsung brought their products to life in the digital display with the use of Cinder technology, a software development platform for creative coding with a special emphasis on real-time graphics, audio and next-generation input, like multi-touch. This allowed Samsung to create a 1:1 real size experience with 4K UHD quality, which is 12 times that of HD. Consumers can effortlessly scroll through all product lines, with the option of learning about additional features on products that they like.
Samsung’s agency, Cheil Worldwide, developed the concept behind the CenterStage project, and pitched a prototype at CES 2014. Once the commercialized version kicked off, they partnered closely with subsidiary agency, The Barbarian Group, which specializes in digital/tech creative. They worked closely to develop the software, using the Cinder open source code, and Samsung moved the display into retail spaces globally.
Initial KPIs for the campaign included both product experience (how much time shoppers spent on the platform and depth of experience) and sales (conversion rate, traffic increase rate and average sales incremental). Samsung saw a 54% increase in sales in stores with CenterStage when compared to a control store without. They also saw a 31% sales increase for refrigerators and washing machines when compared to the same time period the previous year.