Summary
Adidas, the sports footwear manufacturer, wanted an in-store product wall that would showcase its entire range, amounting to 4,000 new designs every season. So it created the Virtual Footwear Wall, a life-sized, interactive installation, able to sense the gender of the user. Touchscreen technology allows them to browse all its shoes while simple hand gestures enable them to rotate the on-screen image and a gaming engine transports them into the relevant sporting world. And if the shoe is not available in-store, consumers can order and pay via a tablet-based checkout and have it delivered to their home. Test data indicates the wall increases store traffic and encourages trading up.

Summary
This document highlights best practice in using mobile advertising in the retail sector with cases from New Balance (South Korea), Nickelodeon Universe (USA), Seiyu-Walmart (Japan) and The North Face (China).

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Adam Petrick, Puma senior global head of brand management, explains to the ANA Mobile Marketing Conference how Puma is using technology to make in-store shoppers' experience of the brand more fun. Examples include a wall display of 32 iPads linked together to create "a collaborative immersive brand experience", such as 'Beat Bolt' - an interactive reflex-testing game that challenges players to 'catch' the Olympic sprint champion. Small, red, eye-level doors in dressing rooms offer consumers a 'peep show' and another reason to try on clothes. And Puma Factory is a tablet-based customisation engine that teaches about the making of shoes. Petrick argues that Puma is using technology in a joyful way to help consumers understand the brand.

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Discount Dutch retail chain, HEMA wanted to launch a brand of push-up bras but would need to stand-out among big-name competition. To raise awareness, it knew it needed to come up with an idea that would make HEMA push-up bras the 'talk of the town'. This was a achieved by using male model Andrej Pejic - who is known internationally for his androgynous looks - to model the bra. The 'If a man can look like that, imagine what it can do for a woman!' message was a success. This outdoor campaign featured throughout the Netherlands. PR and social media were used to raise awareness. The campaign achieved coverage internationally. Online and department store sales exceeded all expectations. The brand achieved positive recognition.

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This report covers a conference address by Carhartt, the work-wear men’s apparel manufacturer, describing its use of brand-building advertising and market research in the US to engage its core customers and develop new products for them. After establishing an internal research capability, the company launched an emotional, consumer-centric TV campaign to drive its relevance among working Americans. Equally, it implemented an extensive consumer research program, involving concept testing and refining. This process generated a range of key insights that fed into the design of new products and their detailing (such as the lightweight, yet hard-wearing Quick Duck range).

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A Warc Trends Snapshot on the influence of social media on fashion. People have always sought peer advice and approval when buying clothes, but social media has now enabled them to find new ways of doing so and, in the process, change the rules of fashion retail and design. A presence on multiple social platforms is considered essential for designers. They can allow fans to contribute or test new designs by posting pictures and tracking ‘Likes’. And, with consumers posting in-store images of themselves online via mobile, some retailers have installed social media facilities, such as a ‘Tweet Mirror’, to make it even easier. This Warc Snapshot includes the trend's implications and examples of brands ahead of the curve.

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The big brands in the fashion business have never really embraced social media. Despite September's global fashions weeks trying to demonstrate that things have changed, with interactive live streams from the shows, models wearing AR-enhanced eyewear from Google Glass and designers crowdsourcing ideas over the web, the industry is still collectively wringing its hands over the impact of social media, such as the idea that one dismissive tweet can denigrate six months' work in an instant. Flatt argues that instead of complaining, it's time for fashion brands and designers to embrace social media and get creative.

Summary
The Nike+ FuelBand, winner of three Gold Awards at the 2012 Jay Chiat Awards (case studies which Nike declined to make public), is a prime example of how embedding branded technology into everyday life ('functional integration') can offer a strategic alternative to 'big idea' communications. FuelBand is the latest product in the Nike+ range, which originally launched in 2005 paired with an iPod, and has since grown to a community of 6m people who can record, track, share and compare their exercise and energy expenditure data. Its dynamics, argues Nike's agency, R/GA, are seen as representing a new kind of advertising that moves beyond media-based entertainment and storytelling towards 'elegant demonstration' and the functional integration of products and services around consumers' needs. According to one Nike executive, "This isn’t marketing anymore, this is how we do business."

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For this campaign, outdoor apparel brand The North Face tapped into Chinese cultural nuances to reach urban consumers who were seeking get-aways from the mounting social and economic pressure of city life. The campaign was based around a trans-national hiking event aimed at regular urbanites and entitled Finding True North. (When the Chinese say they "can't find the north", it means they have lost their way, or their sense of direction in life.) The hike was supported by print and OOH ads, and updated in real time via Weibo and SMS. The best hiker was also rewarded with a trip to the North Pole. In all, 2,059 people joined the hike and the brand's Weibo fans trebled; the campaign also earned more than $2.14m in free media.

Summary
Retailer C&A was looking for a new way to set the agenda in 'fast' fashion retailing in Brazil. It achieved this by taking social media chat about fashion into the store. People already shared information about fashion discoveries and looked for validation from peers, taking photos in changing rooms and uploading them to social media networks for instant feedback. C&A installed special hangers on one collection in its Sao Paulo flagship store; these were connected to Facebook and counted the number of 'Likes' in real time. Half the collection was sold in 24 hours and the initiative generated international buzz.