The two Westfield shopping centres in London pride themselves on being leaders in digital advertising. Following on this trend, they are launching their spring/summer 2012 collections with Futurefashion, an all-digital event.
Personalisation and social media sharing is the name of the game. Futurefashion celebrates sartorial style by providing a platform to create shoppers' personal interpretation of spring/summer trends. Anyone can create their own fashion looks and moods on digital touchscreens. They can browse and select from over 500 fashion items on one of five 103" (2.6m) LCD touchscreens, introducing a change in the way we shop and self-style. The screens are showing the season's most sought-after fashion and trends, including tribal, retro, brights and candy.
Shoppers can begin by touching the screen to browse images from trend-themed galleries, each housing current high-street and luxury apparel, accessories and illustrations and props. Spring/summer fashion from Westfield's 700-plus brands can be navigated on-screen and looks can be created on a futuristic editorial-style canvas by dragging items to adapt and personalise a unique spring look.
Once shoppers have curated their spring/summer look, they can share it to Westfield's Facebook Gallery and choose to have a bespoke shopping list of items selected with prices automatically emailed to them. If they choose to, they can also easily share their style via their own Facebook and Twitter pages using Social Photobooths and Tweet Mirrors.
Of course, smartphones cannot be excluded from the equation. All fashion products shown on the screen are embedded with a QR code, which can be scanned and used to obtain a discount code which can then be used in stores. Tech-savvy shoppers who have near field communication (NFC) enabled handsets will be able to scan and collate discounts which can also be redeemed in-store, all at the touch of a button.
Myf Ryan, Westfield general manager of marketing UK, comments: "It is important for us to respond to the rise of the online retail world which offers the convenience of browsing and buying at the click of a button. We hope that by introducing new ways to interact with fashion through the latest technology in a retail environment, the boundary between bricks and mortar and online shopping will blur and a new age shopper who can seamlessly shift between both will emerge – more empowered than ever in how they shop."
To round it all up, Westfield is also boasting a 3D Lenticular Catwalk Show to showcase the latest looks. The campaign will run from March 27th to April 1st at Westfield London and April 4th to 9th at Westfield Stratford City.