Experience Manifesto

Toys R Us is Back!

Had a chance to visit the brand new, Toys R Us at the Garden State Plaza on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the first of their new physical stores.

Not surprisingly, the first thing you can notice is how small the store is compared to their previous stores. They are currently opening up two locations, the one we have here in NJ and a second one in Houston. While a traditional store from the first version would've been around 40,000 sf, the store I visited was about 6,500 sf according to reports I've read. Also understand that future stores will be about 10,000 sf, still much smaller than their older stores.

The other thing that you see right away is that it is much more experiential than the previous version of the stores. Although they had a few flagship stores (like the one in Times Square), most of their stores were really just large warehouse buildings with a lot of merchandise in them. They were pretty unfun places for a company dedicated to sell toys to children. Now, each area of the store is designed to let people actually play. My favorite was the Nerf shooting range, which I thought was pretty cool.

In order to keep the the number of SKU's down in the physical store, they've partnered with Target to deliver additional products through digital screens placed throughout the store. These screens are located throughout the store and allow you to find a broader range of toys than they can stock in the stores. Not sure how partnering with Target will help them build their own brand identity, so it will be interesting to see how this works out for them.

The good news is that the store was pretty crowded (I deliberately took pictures without people as much as possible) and kids certainly seemed to be having a good time. The store had a great deal of staff working the day we visited, so it will also be interesting to see if that continues after the holiday season.

I'll do some additional visits throughout the holiday season and see how it continues and will report back here when I do. For me, creating smaller stores, designed to let children actually play, is what they should've done years ago.

To Bundle or Unbundle, That is the Question

[This is a repost from this article that we wrote MediaVillage.]

For several years, I gave most of the presentations at the AT&T AdWorks Lab and of course, the entire discussion of un-bundling and cord-cutting was always part of the discussion. At the time, I used to say that I thought that cord-cutting was potentially more of a point in life thing and less of a generational issue. When you're single and loving alone or with roommates, you don't want to be the one stuck wit that monthly bill, so it makes sense. As you get older and have a family, you start to realize how much all of the channels cost to deliver all of the content you really want. Just take a look at this piece from last month about the costs for various streaming services.

I asked my wonderful daughter Sydney what she thought about all of this, and here's how she replied:

"What do you think about all the new subscription services?" That’s what my dad asked during our 2.5 hour car ride to CT. I answered sarcastically, “It means bad news for Netflix!" But more than that, it means bad news for consumers. Having everyone take back their piece of the pie means it will be harder for consumers to find and watch what they want, when they want.

People flocked to sites like Netflix because it made their lives easier. They are able to access a multitude of shows and movies from several genres. Everything is made readily available and the setup is easy to navigate. You can watch Thor: Ragnarok one moment, a Nat Geo special the next, and then move onto binging a new show all in one place.

Consumers don’t like sifting through multiple layers to find what they’re looking for. While new streaming services such as DC Universe and Disney+ may seem like a good idea to wealthy business men looking to get wealthier, I don’t think consumers will be as excited about this trend. For them, it just means their favorite shows and movies are being removed from the sites they already pay for. They will have to pay for multiple streaming services in order to get the assortment of movies and shows they want. I can easily see this causing strife between consumers and streaming services. Personally, I am very upset that the new season of Young Justice is only available on DC Universe when I watched the first two seasons on Netflix.

As a member of Gen Z, I can assure you we find ways to watch what we want, even if it’s not through conventional channels. Whether on Youtube or another less than legal website, Gen Z would rather find their own way to get the content they desire then pay for something they don’t want. However, there is a point where the desire for good content overpowers pride. In order to appeal to consumers, these new services need to keep their prices down and their options open. Users are more likely to switch if they believe the transition will be easy and painless. It is clear the decision to make individual streaming services was based on a desire to make more money, so streaming services will need to work hard to prove that they care about the customer’s experience too.

Good luck to Netflix when you go toe to toe with Disney +, to new companies trying to find a niche, and to consumers who will have to navigate the sea of streaming services. Honestly good luck to everyone involved in this shift, you’ll need it!

I share her frustration. Sadly, this had been going on for some time now. I wrote this back in 2015. During our SXSW presentation, William, one of our speakers, made an excellent point about content and Gen Z:

If the experience of free is better than the experience of paid, then they won't be paying!

While content providers and cable companies do everything they can to generate additional revenue, they continue to make it more difficult for consumers. It's not enough any more to have a full cable subscription, now you also have to subscribe to individual channels to get certain content. Want to see any of the new Star Trek shows? CBS All Access. Impulse? Youtube Premium. Handmaidens Tale? Hulu. Well, you get the idea. Suddenly, I'm spending $100/month for these services and I don't have premium cable channels yet.

I've now started seeing people asking who will start bundling all of these channels back together again. For example, in this piece in FierceVideo, Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar wrote:

In our opinion, however, ISPs that can create product bundles will be a lot more effective than those creating price bundles but the only company which has invested in this among ISPs is Comcast.

So, we're back to looking at who will bundle all of the streaming sites back together again. In a piece in Vox from March, wrote:

The streaming revolution, which promised to break down lots of barriers in the TV industry, is beginning to morph into something else. And what it’s morphing into looks a lot more like ... traditional television.

With Apple having music & TV bundles, BGR reports that they're now thinking about creating a super-bundle. From that report:

Apple has priced Apple TV+ aggressively on a standalone basis. It only costs about $5 a month, which is a testament both to the newness of the service and to the fact that there won’t be a lot of content available at the beginning — just a handful of shows, compared to the hundreds and hundreds of TV series and movies available on something like Netflix.

What Apple seems to be working on with this new proposed bundle offers some interesting possibilities, such as an opportunity to include the company’s subscription news service Apple News+. Depending on where Apple prices such a mega-bundle, it might be less of an ask to encourage consumers to sign up for it than to try and convince those same consumers that they need another standalone news app or something like Apple TV+.

The real question for everyone involved - consumers, content providers, networks, etc. - is how many of these will the consumers want and pay for. How will we discover shows if I have to pay for a channel to see a single show. Will consumers pay for one month of a service and binge everything (like I've been thinking about with CBS All Access).

TV would've failed at the very start if I needed to pay differently for each channel. I don't think we'll see these established channels failing, but there's no doubt that in a few years, we'll be back to paying someone to bundle everything again and complaining about how much it all costs.

It Really Isn't That Hard

Monday night, I needed to run a quick shopping errands to get ready for some meetings at the Lab, as well as just get some things done for me. So, I headed up to the Garden State Plaza, since I could do everything I need there. I did get everything done, but I also had very good experiences everywhere I went. Although I didn't get the names of everyone I dealt with, I had a great experience at each of the 3 stops I made. It just reminded me, how simple it is to give customers good service, no matter what your product is.

• My first stop was to the AT&T store there. I upgraded from a Note 9 to the Note 10+, a phone BTW, I really like. I was supposed to be sent a box to return the old phone, but after several weeks and multiple phone calls, I hadn't received it. Not wanting to get charged for the old phone, I took it with me and went to the AT&T store to see if they could help in person. Franke (I think that was his name) asked if I needed help, I told him what this issue was and he solved everything in less than 5 minutes. Got me the box, shipping label and made sure it was all packed and ready to go. He was polite, friendly, efficient and most all of all, solved a problem that four phone calls didn't.

• My second task was a visit was to the Swatch store there. I've been wearing a Bunnysutra watch (funny story about it, ask me the next time you see me!), so I visit Swatch stores much more frequently than I used to. I love that they will just clean it and polish it up and replace the battery for free whenever that's needed. Once again, the staff couldn't have been nicer and friendlier and we always have a fun conversation about the watch.

• Lastly, I visited the Nespresso store there to pick up some coffee for the office. Love their machine and particularly love that the pods are recyclable, but I'm not really knowledgeable about coffee. Again, the staff there couldn't be more helpful. From sampling some of the new blends to being able to give me good suggestions on which coffees I should buy, shopping there is always a fun experience. I always come away from their store feeling I got some fun coffee and got just a little more knowledgeable about coffee. BTW, their boutique in the Bloomingdale's at the Short Hills Mall is equally good.

At the end of the day, it's not rocket science. All of the people I interacted with on my trip were friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. They all seemed to enjoy what they were doing. And I walked away a happy and satisfied customer.

Bunnysutra

Bucknell MIDE Program & The Future of Retail

Earlier this summer, after Sydney was accepted to Bucknell, we learned about a program in the business school there called MIDE, their Markets, Innovation & Design program. I thought it was a pretty cool program and reached out to connect during one of our visits with Sydney. That started a conversation about ways we could work together during the school year.

Later in the summer, once we had the folks from Jisp move in, that started many conversations about how the store of the future would be designed if you didn't need cashiers and checkout lines, particularly at grocery and convenience stores. Our internal teams started thinking about it as well, exploring the entire checkout process that exists today and what would be done with that space once the checkout lines were removed and it spurred some great conversations.

In late August, I had the chance to meet with Collin Smith and we both thought that the idea of recreating the front end of a grocery store would be a great project for his class. Since they had to explore a topic and then actually design and build something, the ability to use our manufacturing resources at Unified to actually build some prototypes was pretty exciting.

Collin described the class and its process:

“Creative confidence is about believing in your ability to create change in the world around you....the ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out.” - Tom Kelly, IDEO

Our design studio at Bucknell's Markets, Innovation & Design program is building creative confidence by having students bring new ideas to life through prototypes people can actually experience and interact with to really feel what the future might really be like. We fill our studio space with supplies for very rapid and rough prototyping (ex. pipe cleaners, felt, fun foam, Play-Doh, popsicle sticks, tape, hot glue, etc.) so our design teams can think with their hands and physically build on each others ideas.

This collaborative project with Brand Experience Lab builds on these making experiences by giving these students real opportunities, tools, and mindsets to envision, design, and demonstrate possible futures of retail experiences. By bringing these ideas to life through low and high fidelity prototypes these students will be able to really ensure that what is designed makes sense in the future lives of people, bringing truly meaningful and differentiated consumer value.

Let’s make the future awesome, together.

I had the chance to meet with the class in late September and kick off the process with them. Throughout the semester, we'll introduce them to other designers and technologists who will give them more ideas to work with over the semester. There will be a variety of times throughout this process to see what the students are doing and we will update the blog whenever we can.

You can email me if you'd like to know more about the program and participate either as a technology or retail partner. We anticipate this to be the first of many programs and we couldn't be happier to be partnering with Bucknell on this first initiative.

More on MIDE:

As a Bucknell markets, innovation & design major, you'll learn to recognize what consumers want — before they even know they want it — and build a career developing the products, brands and messages to meet those desires. But you don't need to wait until graduation to get started. Whether you want to help entrepreneurs launch their first websites or start your own magazine, you’ll have freedom to follow your passions here. When you are ready to enter the job market, those experiences in and out of the classroom will make you stand out. Leading employers around the world actively recruit our graduates, who hold jobs with organizations as diverse as Tommy Hilfiger and the Philadelphia 76ers.

What I Read

You may have noticed that I keep a pretty long "What I Read" list here on this blog and that some of them are kind of old and out of date. Every now and then, I start to go through them all, to eliminate ones that don't exist any more and I always get stuck. It's easy to cut the ones that actually don't exist any more. It's the ones that are still there, with their posts from years ago still up to read, that I have a hard time deleting. It's like having a time capsule that I can look at and go back into a window in time.

Maybe I need to put them in new categories so people can see the current from the nostalgic. But the bigger problem is the time suck that I get into reading those old blogs, remembering the people, the times we met, etc. So, it stays as it is, a window into today and the past. It is kind of fun!

Ready for Members!

Excited to announce that after a few months of working on the infrastructure of the space, we're ready to open our doors to members! We are creating a word-class accelerator for companies working in retail, VR/AR and out-of-home (OOH). As we looked for our own space, we quickly realized that many coworking spaces are great for working, they are usually not very good if you need to do demonstrations of physical technologies.

Our space is just across the river from NYC, a short PATH train ride away in Jersey City. With 14,000 sf (and another 14,000 available if needed!), we have plenty of room to grow; set up your technology for live demos, meetings, seminars and getting work done in a living, breathing, future factory. It allows for you to go from concept to a real-world testing environment and get instantaneous data and feedback. This also allows our members from outside of the United States to have a US office location. We even provide staffing to present your products when you are away. And did I mention that the Cake Boss bakery is in the building too?

What we offer:

• Shared Space working with BEL design team
• Access to tech member network spaces while in NY
• Client support for hosted meetings
• Desks & office furniture 
• Conference room facilities
• Use of the shared space to host up to 4 events per year
• Demonstration area to present products and technology
• Kitchen for your staff and guests
• Wi-fi connectivity throughout premises

In addition, all members can participate in all events hosted on the premises including (based on availability and suitability) client presentations, industry specific events, meet-ups with other entrepreneurs, workshops about general business topics; demonstration events.

For members, BEL is your brand accelerator, helping you grow your business by:

• Demonstrating your technology to key retailers and clients.
• Presenting your technology to Unified/BEL clients and contacts.
• Working with Unified Merchandising LLC for manufacturing support, from prototype through final product.

Lastly, for companies outside of NYC, the BEL staff can act as your local business development staff. We can represent you in all client presentations that are necessary, acting as your staff on the ground in NYC and in the States. This allows you to be able to react quickly to client requests, without incurring last minute travel expenses.

Julian Fisher, CEO of our first member company, jisp said, "We are thrilled to be the first to take our place inside the Brand Experience Lab showing how the simplest, fastest and most seamless route to outstanding customer service lies in the hands of every shopper, their cell phone. And with jisp it is an experience once tried you’ll never want to shop any other way. It maybe a small step for shoppers but it’s a giant leap for retail."

Want to learn more about what we're doing? If you're developing innovative, new tech for the retail industry, click here to learn about our membership program.

If you're looking for space for your company, you can email David or Jim and we can give you additional information. You can also download our current presentation.

Here are a few pictures of the space, come visit and see what it looks like in person! You can go to Brand Experience Lab for more information and directions to our space. Hope to see you soon.

Our First Member - Jisp!

We're very excited to introduce Jisp, our first member of the Brand Experience Lab here in Jersey City. jispGO is a secure solution for friction free shopping via mobile - customers are able to browse and shop spaces physically and digitally, completing their purchases within jisp, negating the need for lines and front end cash wraps. Think of it as a way to bring the experience of "Amazon Go" to any retailer. A recent report from Omico Group found:

Most Americans are willing to only wait up to eight minutes in line before abandoning their cart of potential purchases. The report also noted that 77% of consumers are less likely to shop at the retail store again if they experience a long wait in checkout lines. With customers leaving empty handed, retailers have a problem and are losing an estimated $38 billion in potential sales.

jisp solves that problem using NFC and cell phones, eliminating the huge capital expenditure usually needed to deploy a system for cashierless stores. Using NFC also means that everything can be controlled from a central point, allowing for fast updates to prices and information that the consumer needs. It also means that promotions can be launched almost instantaneously, from a central office. With jisp, customers can shop as they go and pay through the app with no frustrating waits at the checkouts. jisp’s solutions are 4x times faster than barcode scanning and are completely adaptable. See the video below to see how it works.

I met the jisp team at a retail conference in London last fall and was very excited about what they're doing. As we started to look for members to join the Lab, they were one of the first ones I recommended. Last month, we showcased jisp at our GlobalShop booth and saw the same very positive reaction from people who saw it there that I witnessed in London when I first saw it.

"We are searching the world for the finest technology companies in retail and jisp is one of them. We are proud to have them join BEL," said Jim Ackerman, CEO of the Unified Brand Experience Lab. "Jisp combines extraordinary technology with a great team behind it that will enable us to introduce them to the US market successfully."

Julian Fisher, CEO of our very first member, jisp said, "We are thrilled to be the first to take our place inside the Brand Experience Lab showing how the simplest, fastest and most seamless route to outstanding customer service lies in the hands of every shopper, their cell phone. And with jisp it is an experience once tried you’ll never want to shop any other way. It maybe a small step for shoppers but it’s a giant leap for retail."

The purpose of the Unified Brand Experience Lab is to help retailers and brands explore the future of retail and technologies like jisp are critical to that future. Thanks to online shopping, consumers are used to instant payment options and not waiting in line. jispGO solves a significant issue for retailers while helping a create a friction-less experience for consumers. We're excited to have them as out first member! You can come visit us here in Jersey City to experience jispGO firsthand!

Want to learn more about what we're doing?

• Click here to learn how brands can use the Brand Experience Lab and create the next generation of retail and brand experiences.
• If you're developing innovative, new tech for the retail industry, click here to learn about our membership program
.

BEL provides integrated solutions for Brands and Retailers utilizing emerging technology, shopper insights and retail industry experts. We also give companies in retail, VR/AR and OOH industries a place to work, showcase and sell the technologies they’re creating.

Explore the Possible - Deliver the Practical - Lead the Future

Unified Brand Experience Lab

We've started work to transform our new home for the Unified Brand Experience Lab! The space is designed to give companies in retail, VR/AR and OOH industries a place to work, showcase and demo the technologies they’re creating. With almost 14,000 sf, we have a great space to experiment, test, hold client meetings and do larger events. It is walking distance from the Hoboken PATH station, so very convenient from the city or NJ.  

If you're looking for space for your company, drop me an email and I can give you additional information. 

You can click here for additional information.

CES 2019, The Year of Being Incremental

Back from another year at CES and the word of the show is incremental. Everyone I spoke to at CES mainly said the same thing. Nothing really blew them away, in a good way at any rate, and everything was just a little better than last year. I still always see some great technology that I think is better out of the home, but

TV

Let me start with this heresy, I'm not a fan of 8K for the house. Sure, it's awesomely pretty and the colors are amazing, but I don't see it being a big winner for the home market for a long time. A few years back when talking about the rise of 4K TV's, we talked about the ripple effect that 4K TV's were driving. You can't have 4K TV's, without also making sure that every content creator had 4K cameras. And the pipes to the house had to be able to deliver 4K. Even make-up and wardrobe might need to be adjusted. For large studios, that capex could be pretty significant. Many of them are probably just finishing the upgrade to 4K, I don't think they're going to jump into 8K all that quickly.

If you think about a standard TV show, 8K also doesn't drive any new value. Would have I liked Sex Education, Bodyguard or Manifest be any better in 8K? Not at all. Live sporting events could be a reason for 8K, but I think it becomes just like 3D at that point. Sure, it'll look good, but there just won't be enough compelling content to justify the upgrade.

For out of home, I think it's a different story. I think 8K in movie theaters or being used for OOH (out of home) advertising could be really interesting and a point of differentiation for those industries. But I just don't see mass consumer adoption for quite a few years.

4K is now pretty ubiquitous, but honestly, what can you do to make a 4K TV better? Thankfully, there weren't many curved screens this year, so maybe that trend has faded a little. We saw a lot of pretty screensavers this year. Afterall, why have such a large thing in your living room that's just black when it's not in use. There were a couple of companies showing transparent TV's, which again, I think are awesome for OOH and events. I don't know about your house, but the space behind the TV at my house rarely gets the cleaning it deserves -- I'm not sure I'd want people to be able to see behind it! The two coolest innovations for me:

• LG's roll-up TV. There's no doubt that this TV was a big hit. And it is both beautiful and cool, no doubt about it! People, myself included, would watch that screen roll up & down over & over again, sort of mesmerized by how it works. The picture quality is obviously excellent and the rolling mechanism worked extremely well. But I wonder how many people really need a TV the rolls away when it's not being watched. Again, it might be cool in certain retail or OOH environments, I think it ultimately creates limited value for the typical home consumer.

LG press picture

• Samsung's Wall system is also a beautiful, interesting take on what a TV is. Using MicroLED tiles, Samsung has created a tool that allows the user to build the TV in different sizes and shapes. Again, truly beautiful and for OOH, as some real practical applications. I think that the ability to create to a specified size, rather then having to build around the set sizes of traditional has value to both home and OOH uses.

Samsung press picture

Connected Cars

As with TV's, this was again a year for incremental growth for the connected car industry. We're still a ways off from everyone being able to use self driving cars, so again, we're still seeing lots of concepts, not actual cars. There's so much that needs to change before self-driving cars are a thing, and the car technology is only a piece of it. During the show, we talked about how the entire eco-system that needs to changed, from car dealerships to insurance companies. For example, for sake of discussion, there are some 150 million or so potential customers for insurance companies today. But, if the car is driving itself, then who needs to have the insurance? It could possibly mean that their potential audience goes from 150 million to maybe less than 100, as only the companies building or delivering self-driving cars would need to be insured. That's just one example of an item that would be a huge change to the insurance industry and all of that needs to be resolved before we see a ubiquitous roll-out of self-driving cars.

One thing that got a lot of attention was the announcement by Audi of holoride, their new experience that turns the car into a mobile gaming platform using VR.

Audi press picture

As they describe:

Audi is demonstrating the immersive futuristic technology with “Marvel’s Avengers: Rocket’s Rescue Run,” an in-car VR experience for backseat passengers being brought to life by Disney Games and Interactive Experiences. Wearing VR glasses, the passenger in an Audi e-tron is transported into a fantastical depiction of outer space: The Audi e-tron now functions as the ship manned by the Guardians of the Galaxy, as the passenger makes their way through an asteroid field together with Rocket, a character that will appear in Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame in spring 2019. Every movement of the car is reflected in the experience in real time. If the car turns a tight corner, the player curves around an opposing spaceship in virtual reality. If the Audi e-tron accelerates, the ship in the experience does the same.

Right now, the system is designed for use by passengers in the back seat and it got good reviews and it will be interesting to see where this technology can go in the future. They clearly made a smart move by partnering with Disney and bringing Marvel characters into the experience.

We had an interesting conversation on the show floor about the future of content in cars and how they would drive car buying decisions in the future. For example, if you had children and you were thinking about buying a luxury car, would knowing that Audi had exclusive Disney game content, would that sway your purchase decision. It also means that our history of content distribution could be very challenged by auto manufactures. Could Ford win the distribution of the Super Bowl broadcast in the future and you could only watch it in a Ford vehicle?

Bell Air Taxi

One of the newest exhibitors in the connected car area was Bell Helicopter, showcasing their Nexus products at CES for the first time. Designed as an air taxi, think Uber in the air. It was certainly very cool and I can see executives using this in crowded environments like NY & LA. It is designed to be flown autonomously, taking guests easily over crowded highway drives. It was designed to be flown without a pilot, but I when I asked how people felt about getting into a helicopter without a pilot, they admitted that the test runs all included one until people's comfort level had increased.

David Polinchock

Connected Home

As with the above items, we're seeing everything getting better with connected home tech, but not really a lot new, at least for me. The biggest press in this category was for connected toilets, so that says something. Homestly, does my toilet need to be Alexa enabled? Is it really that difficult to lift or put down the toilet that I need Alexa to do that for me? Admittedly, I did really enjoy the smart toilet I got to use in my hotel in Seoul. I mean, it's going to be in the single digits here this week, that heated seat would be awesome! But beyond that, I'm not sure the value here for most people. But look at how Kohler describes the "experience" in their press release:

The lighting features on Kohler’s flagship intelligent toilet have been upgraded from static colors to dynamic and interactive multi-colored ambient and surround lighting. Paired with the new speakers in the Numi toilet, these lighting and audio enhancements create a fully-immersive experience for homeowners.

Kohler media kit

They took a lot of grief in social media for talking about the toilet being a fully immersive experience, which they honestly deserved.

There were a few things that I liked, including the Bitdefender Box. With some many connected devices coming into the home, security is becoming a very critical issue. Tools like this protect everything in the house and Bitdefender adds things like parental controls and even cyberbullying protection. As everything becomes connected, expect to see more products like this on the market.

I also really liked the idea behind Walabot Home product. A sensor system designed for the home, it will detect falls and automatically calls for help when detected. With so many seniors living longer and alone, again, I think we'll see a lot more of this kind of tech in the future. What I liked about it was that it was very non-intrusive and seemed pretty easy to set up. I also know many seniors who wouldn't wear one of those "I've fallen and I can't get up" bracelets and this is a good alternative.

Lastly, I was a fan on the Nanoleaf lighting system. This personalized and interactive lighting system seems to have more value to me than the traditional connected lights usually seen. I love it for OOH and industrial uses, although there would certainly be people who would use it for their homes as well. With my daughter heading off to college in the fall, we might start a new trend in dorm room design!

David Polinchock

VR/AR

Again the story of VR/AR this year was that everything was getting better. As you may remember from my Google Glass days, one of the biggest complaints was that they really didn't look that good. While I thought they were fine, I can tell you that Sydney always felt uncomfortable wearing them!

Companies like Nreal are working on mixed reality glasses that can deliver both an outstanding mixed reality experience and good looking glasses. So, once again, HMD's got a little better and there were more stand-alone headsets that are expected this year, but honestly, there just wasn't the excitement that there was on the past.

You can see by this list of articles, VR/AR was there, but it didn't generate the hype it was in the past:

• At CES 2019, VR and AR took small but meaningful steps forward
• At CES 2019, VR feels like a dream gathering dust
• Remember virtual reality? Its buzz has faded at CES 2019

Now, that doesn't mean that VR/AR is over or disappearing anytime soon, so don't fret. One of the things that I did like was seeing VR used throughout the floor to demo other products. For example, it was everywhere in the connected car section, so it is being used to tell stories and drive engagement. Expect to see more of that at future CES events.

Future of Retail

One of the challenges with doing these things for a long time, is that you start to see things coming back for a second time. That was the case with a couple of the items at CES this year, but the good news is that they are being done well and that there's usually more acceptance of these technologies today.

For example, JD showed off several technologies at their booth, their first time exhibiting at CES. These technologies, while they've been around before, show off where retail could be heading in the future. One allowed guests to "try" on different outfits by standing in-front of a screen, as seen below.

They also showcased their smart vending machine, something that several exhibitors showed at CES this year.

Yi Tunnel showed off some great image recognition tech, both for checkout and vending machines. I have to admit, the demo of the image recognition check out was pretty impressive. It could recognize things like fruit very effectively. Without a doubt, we'll see a lot more of this kind of tech in the future.

One of my favorite things at the show was Robo-shark, the shark shaped, underwater drone. First of all, it looks damn cool! And the three screen, control system, who wouldn't work use that! Here's how they describe it:

ROBO-SHARK is positioned as a high-speed, low-noise ocean-like bionic underwater robot platform. This product can perform tasks such as fast approach, high-mobility patrol, and high-speed tracking of underwater targets. ROBO-SHARK uses shark as a biomimetic prototype and replaces the propeller propeller with a three-joint bionic tail fin, which can effectively reduce the running noise of the product and save energy consumption. In addition, the outer casing of the product is made of sound absorbing material, which is concealed. The product can be propelled at high speed through the caudal fin and has a speed of up to 10 knots.

I mean, don't you want one right now?? Unfortunately, it's a custom product, so I couldn't get a good price, but I did want one!

There was a lot more there and I may do some additional writing, but I think you get the idea. Lots of good things, just a little better than last year. It's still a fun show to attend and 2020 might still have some surprises in store!

Can You Be an Influencer if You're Not Real?

A recent article in Verge, Virtual creators aren’t AI — but AI is coming for them, talked about the rise of AI influencer, like Lil Miquela:

One of Instagram’s hottest influencers is a 19-year-old intelligent robot. Lil Miquela’s 1.5 million followers watch her eat sherbet on the beach, visit her favorite art galleries, and hang out with other robot models. Except, Lil Miquela isn’t really an artificially intelligent being. She’s also not a robot.

According to the article, there's a lot of VC money going into this space, which I guess is how the world works these days. But, can we really call them influencers when there's absolutely no chance they can use any products at all? Now, the influence business has had challenges and more and more we know that quite often, they are really nothing more than paid spokespeople.

Wikipedia defines an influencer as a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media. I would add, and I think most people would as well, that they can influence us because we believe that they have knowledge and experience with the product/service they're talking about. If someone you know recommended something to you and it turns out they have never used it before, that would seriously decrease the influence they had to get us to use that product.

So what's the value of an artificial influencer? If you know they have never, and could never, use the product, aren't they just a commercial? I can certainly see this tech becoming a great tool for customer service and creating better in-store experiences, but I'm not sold on it as an influencer. I may just be old fashioned, but I think in order to influence me, you need to have actually used the product. Let me know what you think in the comments!