Why all the world’s (going to be) a store
From one-click checkouts to interactive ads, Publicis Groupe’s Angel Bellon thinks innovation will lead to new ways to shop. Here’s how inclusion and international influences could fit into that picture.
Angel Bellon has worked for one of the world’s largest entertainment companies. Now, as VP and head of cultural intelligence at Publicis Groupe's The Community, he works primarily with one of the world’s largest retailers. When he thinks of the future of shopping, he sees many similarities to the studio world. The future lies in three areas: a portfolio of physical and digital storefront concepts; branded content as entertainment; and a diversifying consumer base. All of this will lead to every space and even everyone becoming shoppable.
Matt Carmichael: What trends are you watching that you think will shape things in the next five years?
Angel Bellon: Every single aspect of our real world is going to be a retail channel. Our physical world is going to be one big Pinterest board that's going to be shoppable. I’m seeing a lot of out-of-home innovation happening, where it's becoming more creative, more virtual, more sensorial, a way to engage people in the outdoor space. In South Korea, when you're at the Metro station, you can buy groceries and ready-to-eat meals that can be delivered to your home after the train ride.
Carmichael: The whole world becomes a billboard?
Bellon: I even think people are going to be walking billboards. You see someone on the street and take a picture of something they’re wearing and find it online and be able to buy it instantly. We see models doing the runways, and I can imagine brands hiring models to walk around busy metro areas and they themselves are shoppable. IRL will come to mean In Retail Life!
Carmichael: What happens to actual stores?
Bellon: Brands are going to think of their retail footprint as a portfolio. You’ll have the flagship, which is where you’ll find experiential retail. Pop-ups are more temporary and might have limited editions collections. A smaller format might be a higher-end experience or products.
Carmichael: And in the digital world?
Bellon: They’ll be replicating that in the digital space with spaces that are for specific needs, specific consumers and specific assortments of products, all leveling up to deliver one brand message. Because ultimately there's only so much that you can do in a store.
Carmichael: We will see more branded experiences in the big boxes?
Bellon: The retail store has been about conversion. It's for the bottom funnel. But what we're going to see is thinking about retail as the full funnel. Sometimes it’s not about conversion. It could be about brand-building. It could be about education. It could be solely about service.
Carmichael: How does this not turn into a capitalist hellscape?
Bellon: Branded content experiences are what people are going to look for. If you are a retail company, and I would say any brand is at this point, you have to think about yourself as an entertainment company. It's still advertising, but it's giving you something. It's additive to their experience, and it's bringing value and innovation to something that they're going to enjoy.
“If you are a retail company, and I would say any brand is at this point, you have to think about yourself as an entertainment company.”
Carmichael: How is a more diverse population changing retail?
Bellon: A brand needs to think about whether it is retaining a diverse consumer or recruiting a diverse consumer and making sure that the product assortment reflects their culture. And there are so many other people that are not from those communities that are looking for those products, whether it's different ingredients, different products, different foods or looking for different recipes for education because they're interested.
We understand when it comes to entertainment that non-diverse audiences are looking for diversity. If you look at what's happening in music — Latin music and Afrobeats, K-pop, J-pop — we understand that it's not only Black, Hispanic and Asian people that are listening to those genres. They transcend. But when it comes to products in different categories, we automatically think that it's only those communities that are buying those products. We really need to rethink that.
Carmichael: And yet we keep running into cases where brands face backlashes and backlashes to the backlashes?
Bellon: In my work, I really try to debunk that. Yes, there are people that are feeling excluded, but that's a very vocal minority. They do not represent the majority of the country. We have to stop appeasing a small minority. And not all backlashes are created equal. We need to be mindful of that as well. This is not just about race/ethnicity, it’s also about looking at who are the underserved in retail, like men and older people.
Carmichael: So what should a brand do?
Bellon: The biggest thing is being ready for your brand to go viral in a good way and having a plan to galvanize that momentum. But also, be ready for your brand to go viral in a bad way and know exactly how to respond, taking into account your brand as well as the potential people that you were trying to recruit in that initiative.
Carmichael: What are some of the challenges brands face when trying to recruit new demographics?
Bellon: Whether it's on the agency side or the brand side, the people working on these projects do not represent those communities. One or two people is not enough. We need to make sure that we're doing the proper research and having people on those teams that belong to those communities, as well as people that have been trained as researchers to remove as much subjectivity from the process. That way we can abandon some of the corporate myths that we all have perpetuated at some point. We need to reflect our consumers’ reality, not what we believe it to be.
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