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MultiTouch VP Hannu Anttila talks about the growing demand for innovative displays in use at retail.
Whilst our multi-touch displays offer huge benefits to a range of markets including advertising, exhibitions, museums, and education, we’ve noticed a dramatic rise in their use for retail.
One of the best examples I’ve seen was, until very recently, in Harrods in London where beauty brand Urban Retreat used MultiTaction in its BeautyTouch platform; a 360 degree solution to interactive retail marketing. It’s a clever way of combining online elements with more traditional retail methods. For instance, by placing beauty products on the display, the shop assistant can show the customer product information, activate video footage, and extend customer contact.
The platform focused on using interactive technology to enhance the shopping experience for consumers, and provided previously inaccessible insight to brands on the behaviour of retail browsers using embedded data capture filters. By using gesture technology and Enriched Reality – MultiTouch’s own object recognition technology – BeautyTouch let consumers dynamically browse, share, email, give feedback and request further information about on-screen content in real time, and in an environment that brings branded content to life.
Other retail uses include the uma SKIN semantic system, which changes the face of retail by letting customers read specifications and see a virtual 3D view of products. This offers an advantage over pure online shopping in that once you have found the item you want, you can get it there and then rather than wait for delivery.
We’ve also seen MultiTaction used in a Chocolate Station where customers can read ingredients, descriptions, and nutritional facts of various chocolates, and assemble a box of favourites.
It’s worth pointing out MultiTaction is great for collaborative working. The commerce application was created for an internet service provider and enables the sales person and customer to work together on building the most suitable home internet solution.
For innovative brands seeking to give their customers an exciting in-store experience every time, we believe MultiTaction is a revolutionary tool that informs and entertains the customers while lengthening the window of opportunity for the retailer.
About the author
Hannu Anttila is VP of multi-touch display developer MultiTouch, which was established in 2007. MultiTouch has offices in Helsinki, New York, California and Singapore, and its displays are used in more than 50 countries around the world.
