LIVE! FROM MILAN. IT'S NEMO NEXT SHOP
NEMO NEXT SHOP at the Franchising & Partnership tradeshow, Milan, November 8 to 11, 2002.
by Michelle BIenias
It’s been a busy week for us at VRWAY/VRMAG, first with the relaunch of VRMAG and now our participation at the Franchising & Partnership tradeshow – Europe’s biggest distribution tradeshow - in the enormous Fiera Milano buildings. The EXPOcts event, an established observatory of trends and evolution in the franchising sector, explores new ways of doing business in franchising, innovative formulas and employment opportunities.
The team arrived in Milan early Friday morning (Nov 8th) so that our photographer, Giuseppe Pennisi, could capture the exhibits before the gates opened and the crowds swelled into this cavernous tradeshow complex. As Giuseppe finished shooting each VR, he brought it back to our little cubicle in the complex, where Vito stitched the pics together. At the end of the day, we sent the work to Marco Lüthi and Michel Tinelli, which worked until 3 the next morning getting the VRs together in Flash (for maximum compatibility) and Quicktime so the NEMO virtual tour could go live. By mid-afternoon Saturday, we already had over 300 visitors to the site, exploring the exhibits virtually while the tradeshow was in progress.
What, you may ask, is VRMAG doing at a franchising tradeshow? We’re there as our alter-ego, VRWAY, supporting NEMO NEXT SHOP, an exhibition gallery of real and virtual shops - experiments that set the trends and guidelines for retail all over the world – shopping, as it will be in 2005. We’re also there to demonstrate the practicality of using VRs in a shopping environment, a concept that may finally be ready for acceptance, judging by the interest garnered by our booth and display.
NEMO NEXT SHOP focuses on the shop of the future, based on a concept developed by EXPOcts, a leading trade fair organizer; RDS Consulting, retail strategy consultants; and the Sabatini Group, an integrated communications, event and shop organization, in collaboration with POPAI, Point of Purchase Advertising International, and GDOWEEK, the weekly publication on modern distribution. Antonio Fossati, Giacomo de Gennaro and Marco Della Croce, all of RDS Consulting, realized the idea and came to VRWAY for technological support, while Paolo Haigh Castiglioni, of Studio Architetti, designed the project. Thomas Bialas was the curator, BCPT associati did the graphics and Luigi Rubinelli was the scientific coordinator.
Visitors enter the show through the NEMO NEXT SHOP project, an exhibit done in deep red that immediately awakens the senses and opens the mind to its innovative and original concepts and formats: the hyper-technological shop where shoppers pay with digital fingerprints; the computerized trolley – interactive, multi-sensorial or virtual; the automated 24-hour shops with no staff.
NEMO NEXT SHOP takes the form of an archipelago of islands centering on different themes. Visitors to the show dive into the future as soon as they come through the door, with projections of images illustrating what is to come: visions, experiments, provocations, prototypes, technologies, unrealized projects, and macrotrends in futureshops. A second island is dedicated to the precursors of next-commerce, the trendsetters of futureshopping: a showcase of case histories and trends. Another island focuses on the supermarket of the future, the very soul of shopping, featuring examples of the most innovative supermarkets around the world. But the strongest trend depends on the consumer: more than just a customer, a social citizen who makes choices, who is not dependent on corporate marketing strategies but makes his or her own decisions about what and how to buy. The human element, though it may seem passive before technological trends and the strategic macrotrends of corporations, plays a crucial role in shopping in 2005. The consequence is a change in the concept of target, in linear planning of marketing, in corporate CRM. My Shop is the last section, dedicated to the central role of the customer in shopping in 2005: My Shop collects customers’ expectations, and offers people an opportunity to plan their own ideal shops.
NEMO NEXT SHOP is also a conference offered by POPAI and GDOWEEK, a talk show bringing together experts from the field and the public to debate “the importance of the customer in the future point of sale”. And it’s also a research program; a laboratory and study center focusing on future trends in retail and its various forms, providing new stimuli and information on next-commerce, the commerce of the future
As the tradeshow is still in progress as we write, we'll update you in a future edition about any exciting developments concerning VRs being used in the retail industry.
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