This weekly publication focuses on how business and economics trends, technology, and the drive for sustainability impact the global luxury, fashion, and experience economy industries. Prepared by the staff of content strategy agency and think tank It’s a Working Title LLC, each issue provides coverage and analysis of forces and events that shape the B2B and strategy landscape for fashion and luxury.
This week’s stories
Disagreements on the future of fashion in the metaverse featured prominently at SXSW.
Fastex opens the world’s first physical NFT shop at the Dubai Mall.
How brands can fix common CX problems.
Fashion continues to commit to the metaverse, but making it a mature strategy requires content strategy.
Understanding the what, why, and how of fashion’s investments in the metaverse from a content strategy perspective provides a rich source of case studies, best practices, and competitive research for business decision makers and strategists alike. For brands and retailers, the metaverse and Web3 require a different way of thinking and asking questions about consumer experience. It is no longer a linear model of “how do we market our product to consumers?” The whole concept of a metaverse is holistic, even recursive. It is a succession of experiences, an immersive space in which brands and consumers can interact, exchange, and build stories together.
Regarding immersive experiences, brands need an articulated position consistent with their vision, values, and messaging on other channels so audiences understand that they are interacting with the same brand. For retail to succeed in a metaverse environment, brand experiences must be narratively driven, humanized, and, most importantly, seamless, an intuitive, even familiar, exchange of goods between brands and consumers.
https://www.content-technologist.com/fashion-web3/?via=jessica34
Disagreements on the future of fashion in the metaverse featured prominently at SXSW.
There were numerous sessions on fashion and the metaverse at SXSW during the past week. There was some disagreement among presenters as to whether the industry is beginning to pull back from metaverse investments or whether it is full steam ahead. Some noted that the industry’s interest in digital immersive environments was waning after the initial splash of interest over the past couple of years, noting that few people spend time in these environments outside of major events if you exclude discussions of gaming environments such as Roblox or Fortnite. Such views tended to focus on the questionable return on investment for some of the metaverse projects to date and viewed the technology as a fad that now been replaced by a new focus on the possibilities of generative AI. Others noted that the industry is still leaning heavily into digital fashion generally as well as metaverses, noting that we are still seeing significant new investment in the space and that the focus on financial returns is not the point as metaverses have allowed brands to connect with Gen-Z and Gen Alpha consumers. Such views tended to focus more the impact of investments in platforms such as Roblox to point to strong engagement by users.
Fastex opens the world’s first physical NFT shop at the Dubai Mall.
For those who think NFTs are dead. They’re not. And neither are metaverses (or immersive experiences or whatever you want to call them) nor web3. This is all a natural progression in the tech hype cycle. Fashion and luxury brands who want to keep up with Gen-Z and prepare for Gen Alpha, it’s all about investing in smart strategy now before you get left behind.
How brands can fix common customer experience problems.
For retailers, UX and content are absolutely essential to customer experience (CX) and targeting the right stories to the right people at the right time:
“32% of users are willing to drop a brand they once loved due to just one bad experience, and an overwhelming 62% will share their bad experience with others.”
Common problems with retail customer experience:
An overall poor UX (user experience)
Allowing siloed channels
Ignoring mobile users
Limited customer service options
Lacking personalization
Concealing data collection information
Where do brands start to address these issues?
Start with a content audit and evaluation to assess the current state of your digital footprint and to identify areas of improvement.
Conduct user research to get real input on real problems from real users.
Create a strong content strategy to centralize, streamline, and manage content work streams across your organization.
And, yes, all of this applies equally to Web3 as it does Web2 or Web2.5.
https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/blogs/top-cx-mistakes-brands-need-to-remedy-now/