Who Else Wants to Kinect with Customers?

Businesses have been looking for ways to reinvent marketing to customers for years now, but I think a solution has finally been found. Interactive marketing.

No, I am not talking about your standard trade-show, try this, or join me in my presentation kind of interactive marketing. I am talking about using technology in ways that encourage customers to spend long periods of time in and around your store.

Microsoft created the Kinect, an affordable, fun way to play video games that was quickly adopted and modified by marketers and hackers alike unleashing massive potential to make impressions through interaction with customers. The Kinect has given businesses the unique opportunity to create memories with their customer base with out budget busting events or paying technology companies large sums of money to develop these techniques.

The video below shows how retail stores are now using augmented reality to stage virtual dressing rooms within their stores. These dressing rooms allow shoppers to ‘try-on’ as many outfits as they desire, helping them decide which articles of clothing they like before entering the dreaded (by most women) actual fitting rooms.

Companies such as Swivel allow you to create an entire outfit – virtually. They have since set up their virtual dressing rooms at stores like Bloomingdales and even have an at-home version.

Banks and retailers are also implementing interactive store fronts which allow people to stand in front of the store and share an experience with the windows. Timelines and flipbooks are the most commonly used presentations that I have seen. Interactive window displays create the same memories as virtual fitting rooms, but they also make an average business into a destination that potential customers want to visit and revisit.

Companies are specializing in how to leverage Kinect for business and ditching their previously expensive interactive solutions – I’m excited for this trend and feel that as consumers our shopping experiences are about to become much more exciting!