WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

With this new QR code placement, Estée Lauder knows that this will be useful to their target audience, but is not necessary to get the message of the print ad.

“Given the high-end nature of the brand, a good deal of Estée Lauder customers and prospected have smartphones,” Mr. Hasen said.

“What I especially like is that Estée Lauder provided enough printed information for the reader who does not have a scanner, the right phone or interest in a QR code,” he said. “The QR code is added value.”

1-800-Flowers.com says "customers are migrating to mobile apps"

In December 2012, more than 175 billion online searches were conducted worldwide. That is 65,000 searches per second, of which 65 percent were handled by market leader Google.

Three years ago Metro launched a joint venture partnership with dunnhumby, a firm best known for helping retailers like Tesco and Kroger put customers at the center of every decision. That partnership has already yielded a 7.6 percent increase in Metro’s customer reach via the weekly flyer.

Greater than 95 percent of shopper communications are now fully customized, and Metro attributes a year-over-year sales increase of $39 million to five million mailings consisting of 37 million personalized coupons. In addition, the Metro & Moi loyalty program now reaches more than one million households and has paid $50 million Canadian in cash rewards to participating customers.

we surveyed 100 mobile designers to discover how long they expected it would take to build core front- and backend components of an Android or iOS app.  We averaged the responses and then teamed with the designers at Visual.ly to visualize the time required to develop each component of an MVP-quality native app.

The number one fact that retailers need to accept is that the customer is now in control. The retailer’s job is to make sure the brand is everywhere the customer wants to be and to make sure the transaction process as simple as possible. Whether that process takes place on a tablet, a smartphone, a computer or a kiosk, transactions must be simple for customers and tailored for the brand.