Background: the Retail VR and Enov partnership
Company overview: Enov
Enov is a "human-centered" marketing and innovation research agency. The Enov team is made up of 90 experts based in Paris & Lyon. They support major advertisers across a range of industries, in France and internationally, particularly on marketing and sales challenges (understanding targets and markets, innovation, customer experience, communication...), whatever their target (B2C, B2B, B2B2C). Their mission: "Put your customers at the heart of your decisions and your organizations."
About the interviewee
Lambert Lagrevol is the CEO of Enov. For 20 years, he has been working with FMCG accounts and retailers on the marketing and sales challenges facing brands and retail chains.
Enov's missions
- Observe, engage in dialogue and collaborate with consumers
- Turn insights and data into "actionable" outcomes
- Engage your brands and your teams around the customer
What's at stake in the studies: the Retail VR and Enov partnership
What motivates your clients to carry out these studies?
Whatever their industry, our clients aim to optimize the performance of their brand mix on the shelf and, more broadly, to build a category vision that influences the "first moment of truth" in front of the shelf. Ultimately, this helps enhance the shopper experience. Two types of clients turn to us to conduct these studies: - Retailers: To test a store concept, a shop-in-shop or POS displays, for example - Brands: For a merchandising layout test, a pack test or an innovation launch
What benefits have you seen for your clients?
For Retailers
Get to know shoppers better and understand their actual (or expected!) experience: Analyze how shoppers think and behave in order to offer a product layout (in store or online) that matches their logic. Test a new merchandising layout or a new store concept: Increase the appeal of the aisle or store and boost brand performance, while making shoppers' choices easier and offering them a seamless experience.
For Brands
Strengthen the category story: Build a merchandising vision informed by shopper feedback and present this argument to retailers, in order to maintain or challenge the category captain role on our client's key product families. Evaluate and optimize the performance of the product/range mix on the shelf by testing different packaging options. Measure the performance of a new product or range before launch by modeling share of choice and sales volume. The Virtual Shopper eXperience addresses these challenges: an innovative, headset-free 3D reconstruction solution for virtual shopper testing at home, accessible via a simple link. The main goal: immerse consumers in a realistic and ultra-agile experience!
The added value of our partner Enov
What defines Enov's approach? How do you stand out?
We work differently. In this changing world, we believe in working together, and differently, with our clients, with consumers and with our teams. Our goal? More agility, more interaction, more co-creation, through hybrid, tailor-made research setups. The Virtual Shopper eXperience perfectly illustrates this conviction!
What does virtual reality bring to shopper studies?
The goal is to use VR to offer shoppers immersive research experiences, in order to deliver more reliable & predictive answers to our clients. We immerse shoppers in an ultra-realistic environment, as close as possible to real life, to collect more behavioral data (and go beyond what consumers say). Our Virtual Shopper eXperience tool was born from a partnership bringing together - the best in insights: ENOV - the best in retail tech: Retail VR
What benefits have you seen for your clients?
The first benefit is RELIABILITY. The results of our virtual fieldwork are consistent with actual category performance. The second benefit is SPEED. Within a few weeks, the client has a clear, well-argued go/no-go to present to its retailers, along with operational recommendations on the optimizations to make to the pack or the layout.
The third advantage is undeniably AGILITY. Virtual reality makes it possible to test many options (pack or layout), modify them at the last minute or add another option just days before fieldwork begins.
The fourth advantage is that it is ITERATIVE. This technology makes it quick and easy to rerun & improve "point of sale" tests, notably by co-developing new options with the relevant team members.
News: the Retail VR and Enov partnership
Our Virtual Shopper eXperience is an award-winning innovation: it received a Gold Trophy in the "Most Innovative Retail Solution" category at the 8th Nuit du Commerce Connecté in 2021.
Retail VR and Enov regularly speak about virtual shopper journeys at events such as Marketing Week, POPAI, Digital Retail Days and more.
https://youtu.be/1CPbJf-2Y48
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