Benefit: 3 Reasons Retailers & Brands Create In-Store Content Studios

Twenty-one months after the start of the pandemic, U.S. shoppers are back in stores, brands are entering a new era of innovation, and retail is expected to be one of the most transformed industries.

While consumers, even Gen Z and Millennial consumers, still want to shop in-store, to be successful, retailers must promise shoppers much more than a transaction. Business-as-usual environments are losing buyers and maintaining a sluggish real estate footprint. Brands need to fuel an ongoing content pipeline for e-commerce, traditional digital marketing media, and social media. With this need to entertain and attract fickle shoppers and produce a multitude of branded content, many industry players are integrating content studios into store environments.

Taking a page from the social influencer playbook, brands run their own in-store creative or “collaboration” houses. These content studios allow brands to leverage their own stores and those of others for the growing popularity of live shopping while providing shoppers with an enhanced in-store experience and motivating them to visit.

Here are three main reasons why brands and retailers are creating in-store content studios:

Physical stores are portals for digital sales

Most retailers already use their stores to fulfill online orders, but their physical footprint also plays a role in taking ownership of direct purchases. Sales in the United States from direct purchases could reach $ 25 billion by 2023, according to Coresight Research. While this is only a fraction of overall sales, brands and retailers as diverse as Ulta, Samsung, Petco and Bloomingdale’s are experimenting with direct shopping. A year ago, clean beauty leader Beautycounter incorporated a content studio into the design of its new Santa Monica store. Store staff now regularly stream live click-to-shop product demos while in-store shoppers act as de facto audiences.

Physical stores are steps to digital brand building

The role of social media and digital content in brand building continues to grow and content generated by influencers and users has become essential in building brand awareness and affinity. Integrating production capabilities into store environments creates a neat, brand-curated backdrop for staff, buyers, key influencers, and other celebrities to co-create the diverse assets including modern brands need.

Vans, for example, has long used its stores as literal stages of entertainment and with the recent introduction of its Channel 66 live streaming network, the brand is expanding the reach of its in-store content with interviews and other focused offerings. on the music. For Pride Month this year, they’ve teamed up with LGBTQ + influencers for several of these live-streamed in-store events.

Physical stores are experiential destinations

As traffic to stores increases, responsive brands are responding with environments that foster connection. With their new hair salon near Ohio State University, the 83-year-old Old Spice brand hopes to connect and attract the region’s younger demographic. In addition to housing a studio where visitors, influencers and brand spokespersons can create and be featured in real-time social and digital content for its own channels and those of its retail partners, the brand has designed space as a physical reflection of his transformation from the products your grandfather used to use that are relevant to today’s young male consumer. The location is an event space where consumers can experience Old Spice as both a service and a place to come together and connect with the brand as a creative backdrop.

We have an unprecedented opportunity to re-imagine physical stores as exciting destinations for experience, co-creation and other forms of participatory engagement. And as social and digital content play a bigger and more influential role in brand building, these destinations will play a bigger role in the creation of that content.