London’s signature mix of high-street and high-end retail has long made it one of the world’s most eclectic and interesting shopping destinations. As an important hub for global brands and retailers, the city is also a key testing ground for innovative retail concepts.

Reiterating in relation to ecommerce generally and in conjunction with their own online portals, fashion & apparel retailers are elevating the IRL shopping experience by designing spaces that enable live events & theatre, personalization, mobile integration, art installations and more to entertain and inform customers like never before. From luxury brands like Alexander McQueen to digital-native startups like Matchesfashion.com, here’s how today’s leading retailers are redefining the physical store:

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We recently went through a rethink of the look and feel as well as the functionality of PSFK digital experience, and I wanted to share some of the ideas we pursued in case they might spur new thinking among our peers. The main driver was a need to shift away from the mindset informed by 15 years of (profitable) b2b publishing.

We had transformed from a personal blog into an advertiser-driven publication, and from there into a paid business intelligence service over the last 3 years. While we remain relatively nimble, muscle memory kept coming into play, making it easy to do ‘what we always did.’ (Some history of PSFK can be found in this recent interview here).

A recent Nielsen Total Audience report showed how much TV networks gained from program airings on digital platforms. But what’s the real monetary gain?

For example, in a third-quarter 2018 study, Nielsen says cable dramas witnessed an overall 9% hike in viewing; broadcast sitcoms and reality shows were each around 8% more. Broadcast dramas (crime) added 5%.

The study focused on daily viewing over a typical month on live TV, DVRs and set-top-box video on-demand (VOD) from 312 programs in various genres. It also did the same for connected-device VOD (such as a Roku device), computer and mobile viewing to see which program types drove the most digital lift among different age demographics.

Sounds like good news.

Here’s more: All kinds of TV network programming -- which might skew to those 55+ -- are getting big results from young viewers.

But TV companies can be fuzzy when it comes to monetization of their premium video -- in terms of advertising and affiliate revenue. After all, there is ample competition to gain big marketplace share.

Hulu, owned by Walt Disney, Comcast and Time Warner, which runs plenty of TV network programs, is expected to see advertising revenue of $1.82 billion this year; $2.24 billion in 2020; and $2.7 billion in 2021, per eMarketer.

Yet all this becomes even cloudier when considering there no overall premium video measurement currency at work -- nothing to compare one show with another, let alone specific media ROI results for that programming.

Generally speaking, there only a few things media buyers and sellers agree on, such as Nielsen C3/C7 ratings, which measure the average commercial minutes in programs viewed live and time-shifted through video on demand or DVR playback.

Everyone might say they love premium video on digital platforms. By way of comparison, there is a lot of video crap on digital platforms. And who really wants to be associated with this?

Emotionally, we all get this. But what’s the real bottom line?

A new study from UserTesting should sober up email marketers, and just about anyone involved with the customer experience.

Of 1,600 professionals surveyed, 85% say their customer experience needs improvement. 

Worse, 44% have never heard of the term digital transformation -- a key part of improving customer engagement -- if you believe the report. And digital transformation ranks near the bottom of present and future trends.  

The study shows that 34% in the process of undergoing a digital transformation. Another 28% don’t know what that is, and 16% are simply not doing it. Only 22% say they are done. 

Conducted every year, the study identifies three key trends this time around:

• Digital transformations are off to a slow start
• CX trends don’t reflect current customer needs
• Scaling customer research is more important than ever

“Our report shows a strong need to empower all teams within an organization to gather customer insight quickly, so they can make high-confidence decisions at the speed of digital business,” states Michael Mace, VP of market strategy at UserTesting.

He adds: “New technologies ranging from today’s mobile to tomorrow’s virtual reality continue to alter the rules for every industry. To stay on top of those trends, companies have to find ways to bring customer insights into every decision, in real-time.”

The study cites McKinsey research showing that 70% feel their digital transformations are failing to meet their goals. 

That term once meant digitizing or computerizing, but has since broadened. “As our world becomes increasingly driven by digital interactions, companies are constantly challenged not only to keep up with the pace of customer expectations but to continually leverage the right tools, resources and processes to work efficiently and stay competitive,” the report notes. 

In another finding, designers say 66% of their projects lack user research help. And 70% of CX researchers want team across their organizations to be able to conduct their own user research. 

Moreover, 85% of C-level executives want more people within their firms to be able to conduct user research. 

The respondents see these trends as the most important in 2018 and over the next five years: 

• Virtual/augmented reality
• AI 
• Wearables
• Voice interaction 
• Gesture-based interaction
• Globalization
• IoT 
• Multi-device interaction 
• Omnichannel
• Digital transformation 
• Design thinking
• Accessibility
• Touch interfaces 
• Smartphones 
• Tablets

Where do consumers go for reliable information in this age of fake news? Don’t say social media.

The answer is email newsletters. And it’s not because of what they write, according to How Adults Consume and Filter Information Online, a study commissioned by PowerInbox and conducted by Mantis Research. 

It has to do with trust. Of 1,000 consumers polled, 58% say trust in the publisher sending the email entices them to read it — the number one reason.

“It’s more important than content,” says PowerInbox CEO Jeff Kupietzky.

Almost 60% of adult consumers subscribe to some kind of email newsletter, proving that email is a valuable engagement channel. What’s more, 75% will simply unsubscribe from newsletters they no longer want. Only 25% will flag them as spam.

That sounds like a lot, but Kupietzky notes that these totals reflect only those people who take action — less than 2% overall.

The takeaway? People will stick with email newsletters. But have a clear opt-out mechanism. These factors all have a bearing on your sender reputation. 

Not that the news is all good. “Overall, trust is low and declining,” Kupietzky says. Case in point: online-only media earns a paltry 55% trust rating, the study reports.  

And a mere 34% trust social media as a source of news, although 48% view it as a media outlet, despite its claims to the contrary. In addition, 73% worry about false information or fake news being used as a weapon.

Yet less than 40% subscribe using a secondary address: the majority use their primary email.

The study also found that 67% will click on an ad in an email if they trust the sender. And roughly the same percentage will click on an ad if it’s relevant. In addition6% will click ads on websites they trust

People don’t mind advertising—four out of five prefer free mobile apps that contain ads over paid apps with no ads. And only a third use ad blockers. 

What does Kupietzky recommend? “We see more people moving from long-form newsletters to shorter form,” he says.

That means two or three more personalized pieces that are “most relevant to them,” he adds.

Kupietzky also sees brands “snacking the content” — sending short-form newsletters more frequently.

The challenge is converting website visitors into email subscribers. Most publishers manage 10% or less.

“It should be close to a third or even half,” Kupietzky argues.  

The solution is to have effective capture screens,  featuring catchy offers, he says.

Connected TV campaigns continue to rise in impressions and usage, thanks to broadcast content.

Innovid, the video advertising platform for marketers and agencies, says 60% of all households will have connected TV in two years, up from 55% now.

Connected TV impressions in 2018 made up 28% of all campaigns monitored by Innovid (rising fro 17% in 2017). When it comes to other digital video, mobile still has most, 47%. Desktop is at 25%.

In 2018, overall digital video impressions served by demand-side platforms/ad networks were at 37% (down from 39%); with broadcast/pay TV providers at 35% (up from 28%); and non-broadcast/portals at 28% (down from 33%).

Broadcast content continues to produce the best overall advertising metrics. For example, for pre-roll advertising, commercials had 94.3% completion rate (versus 69% for other content); and a 17% awareness rate (7% of other content).

When it comes to “engagement,” numbers are lower -- a 0.2% rate for both broadcast and other content. Broadcast does a bit better when it comes to click-through interactive messaging -- 1.5%. All other content is at a 1% number.

Mobile does well when it come to short-form ad messaging -- anywhere from six- to 10-seconds long --  where it rose to 11% of impressions in 2018 from 5% in 2017. Social media and programmatic buying are the main drivers.

Innovid says the number of campaigns using data-driven video ads were at 79% in 2018 -- a 32% hike over the previous year.

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While retirement used to imply a definite ending, today’s retirees are continually redefining this stage of life in terms of how they are living as consumers, employees and families. Where retirement may once have been synonymous with end of employment, today’s 60+ crowd is more likely instead to have a career change, perhaps supplementing finances with Airbnb hosting or Uber driving.

Kindur is a retirement financial management platform designed with these consumers in mind, focusing less on fixed points and instead employing a milestone-based approach that allows for flexibility around key retirement events, from electing social security to taking a first distribution from an IRA. Ahead of his appearance on the New York Fintech Week ‘Democratizing Finance,” Kindur’s VP of experience and design, Reilly Carpenter, spoke to PSFK to help us learn more about how the digital platform works to increase transparency and accessibility when it comes to managing modern finances, designing user experiences around and integrated with the behavior of today’s retirees to better meet their needs.

PSFK: What are some of the trends you’ve noticed in the finance space, regarding where innovation is heading and what consumers are demanding for their financial experiences?

Reilly Carpenter: Three trends are top of mind when I think about the last few years in financial services:

1. A move towards transparency and alignment with the customer’s interests.
2. Tapping into human behavior to build better financial products.
3. The pendulum swinging from decoupling financial services back to bundling products into financial ecosystems.

Transparency has been an issue in financial services forever, and the industry was incentivized to keep it that way. After 2008, we saw consumers get smarter and start demanding more transparency while moving away from the types of financial products that burned them before. Now, new entrants are bringing transparency to business models and exploring new ways of capturing value that are more aligned with customer goals. One example is Lemonade, which is upfront about taking a flat monthly fee so it isn’t incentivized to hold onto a customer’s money when it is time to pay claims.

Another trend that helps align financial services with consumer interests is using behavioral economics when designing products to align with natural behaviors, not exploit them. We think a lot at Kindur about people’s mental models for their money and how we can better align our experience to tap into those. One example of this that we’ve been seeing for years now is getting people to save. Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” is an oldie but goodie in this space, taking the coin jar behavior so many people have and building it right into how the product works. Digit is another great example of integrating saving into existing behavior, rather than trying to push customers to add a new behavior.

As fintech matures, the other thing we’re seeing is companies moving from reimagining one small aspect of financial services, like investing in ETFs or simplifying student loans, to bundling services and creating ecosystems for customers to manage money for a particular target customer more holistically. Marcus by Goldman Sachs is an example of combining personal loans and high-yield savings in one platform, and many robo-advisors are adding variations of banking products to their platforms.

At Kindur, we’re really interested in financial services centered around life stage and how we can package a number of products, like insurance and investments, together to meet the financial needs of a life stage in one easy relationship.

What does democratizing finance mean to you?

When I think about democratizing finance, I think about building approachability and accessibility into financial services. I commonly hear from customers that finance is intimidating, from the language you need to understand to the number of options available in any particular product category. Making finances approachable, which means using more human language and frameworks that fit with the way people live their lives, helps empower people to engage rather than shut down. And accessibility is all about using technology to find new distribution channels that open up options and create transparency in what’s available.

One area we’re focused on at Kindur is annuities, which have traditionally been sold through insurance salespeople. We’ve tried to make our product more approachable by stripping out many of the complex features and terms that make annuities confusing, to create a simpler product that delivers value customers want: stable retirement income. And rather than having to go to a salesperson, who may or may not have your best interests in mind, we offer the annuity directly to the consumer with technology that empowers them to decide if it’s a product that makes sense for their financial picture.

What role does design play in the realm of finances, and particularly in the consumer experience? What, ideally, should good design do in transforming and improving it?

Design is problem solving, so it has a critical role in finance if we want to democratize it. Good design is often invisible because it is about making the complex seem simple and considers the entire ecosystem of the experience, not just the UI on the screen. Using design, we have an opportunity to not just rethink digital experiences, but also challenge business models and assumptions that underly the way things have always been done.

When we talk about design, we often focus on UX, but business model design is an area that really interests me. Thinking through how value is delivered to the customer and what matters most to their goals, then imagining how the business can capitalize on that value in a way that is transparent and fair is the type of design finance needs most. You can make anything look pretty, but if the business model is broken, the experience will be broken.

The other element design brings to finance is humanity. Money can feel incredibly dry and impersonal, but our money is the means by which we live our lives. Design’s role is to find ways to advocate for that humanity so every part of a company can connect the dots to delivering value and solving problems for the end user.

Could you explain the work that you do at Kindur, and how that intersects with the above?

At Kindur, I’m tasked with building the best end-to-end customer experience we can, which requires bringing the customer to the forefront of our decisions and making sure everyone has empathy for the people we are trying to serve.

Some days, that looks like what you usually think of when you think design: sketching and prototyping, talking to customers or working with developers to solve unexpected issues in a particular flow. But others it looks like engaging the business people in the room in a dialogue about how a particular fee structure may impact the customer negatively or brainstorming with operations about how to work around a legacy system that puts undue burden on the customer.

What are some of the trends you’re noticing from baby boomers as they prepare for retirement? How do you help them and all of your clients develop and meet their goals?

One of the most interesting things I see in people preparing for retirement is people not wanting to retire. Today, people in their 60s still feel young, vibrant and active and are ready to take on new challenges and stretch themselves in new ways. Rather than planning to have a retirement party and head to the golf course, we see people wanting to start new careers, going back to school or transitioning from their full-time career to consulting part time.

It’s very common to see baby boomers becoming Uber drivers or Airbnb hosts. For Kindur, that means retirement isn’t a set moment in time, but rather a transition to a new phase of life that is hopefully characterized by more freedom and new opportunities to grow and connect with others. When you think about how that plays out for a financial plan, it means we need to consider how we can offer flexibility in planning to accommodate for whatever retirement has in store. For the first version of our product, we’ve explored a milestone-based approach that allows a couple to see how key retirement events, from electing social security to taking that first distribution from an IRA, play out over time as opposed to anchoring to a particular, fixed date.

What are some of the key points you hope to share on Anomaly’s Democratizing Finance panel?

Design is not just about a slick UI, it’s about tackling an ecosystem of problems rooted in legacy infrastructure, opaque business practices and outdated regulation. It is also a mindset for approaching how things can be done from the lens of the customer first. The rise of text-based and smart-home-based banking apps is a great example of this. There’s no interface other than a text message or verbal statement, no flashy UI, but it allows the customer to access their money, pay a bill or get an answer in the easiest, fastest way possible.

If we want to democratize finance, we have to get much closer to understanding our customers. Not just what they say they want, but how they think and behave. Building products and services that fit into people’s mental models and lives is the only way to truly democratize finance.

What does Kindur see happening 1-2 years out? What’s to come for the business as well as for the finance space in general, based on what you’re observing now?

We’re really excited to think about what lifestyle-based financial services look like as people live longer and as retirement preferences and tastes change. Health and wellness are more and more present in people’s lives, but it hasn’t necessarily become integrated with how we plan and manage our money. Living longer introduces a whole host of new financial challenges that are ripe to be solved with technology. Retirement is full of anxiety and worry about running out of money, and if we can reduce that anxiety by giving people a plan designed for a long life, simplify the products to get them there and automate the process along the way, that would be a really exciting future.

Kindur

For more from Reilly, come hear him speak on a panel of finance pioneers, hosted by Anomaly, Hacking Finance and PSFK as part of New York Fintech Week. The conversation will feature startups and thinkers designing solutions to make finance fairer, more accessible and more inclusive and will take place this upcoming April 2 at Anomaly, tickets are free!

Lead image: stock photos from kudla/Shutterstock