Adobe Summit EMEA: Retailers And Brands Embrace The Customer Experience Challenges

To satisfy consumers, their experience needs to be compelling, consistent, and convenient. Brands are adapting their digital strategy accordingly.

How to deliver a consistent, continuous, and compelling consumer experience is the core challenge facing marketers today, and one that is driving digital transformation strategies for a wide range of brands and retailers.

Speaking at the Adobe Summit EMEA today, mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse described its 16-month digital transformation journey towards the launch of its new website, currently in beta.

“We realised that content and experience could govern the customer experience and journey, not just transactional,” said Victoria Self, online director. This awareness prompted the retailer to focus specifically on the customer’s research experience when designing its new digital offering, rather than “a standard ecommerce journey.”

“The key for us to a brilliant experience is top of the funnel. Our customers spend 90 days researching a purchase, and the first port of call for 90% of them is the website,” said Self.

To develop a compelling customer experience during the research stage, Carphone Warehouse worked with Accenture Interactive to implement Adobe Experience Manager.

New-site functionality included additional review and video content, in-store stock checks, a tailored accessories merchandising, and an enhanced comparison tool that automatically recognises the device customers are browsing on, if on mobile, and compares it to new products.

For Adidas the challenge is one of consistency. As a multinational brand with multiple retail operations and a diverse range of local markets, the delivery of one-to-one communications messaging can be labour-intensive and slow.

“We need to service local needs but also make sure it’s not affecting the global strategy,” said Juan Carlos Him G, senior global CRM manager at Adidas.

Working with Wunderman, Adidas created a custom-built modular template framework for its emails campaigns. Developed centrally by Adidas Global Creative Services in Amsterdam, the framework allows local marketing teams to assemble their own emails.

Scale of use internally is the challenge for the Telegraph Media Group, which has a team of around 450 journalists delivering 15,000 stories a month on its website, as well as around 900 videos.

The business has spent 15 months consolidating its five previous content management systems into one customised system built on Adobe Experience Manager.

Since launching the new platform in March, Toby Wright, chief technology officer at Telegraph Media Group, said the business had achieved its aims around speed and efficiency, seeing “an 85% reduction in time spent producing an article, and a 79% reduction in the number of steps.”