But according to a recent article in Variety, an unprecedented level of deal-making with Hollywood studios has swept up not just e-tailers like Amazon.com, Overstock.com, but also traditional retailers like Target, Walmart and Toys R Us “in the battle to nail down exclusive product pacts.”

I’m not sure the “frenemy” relationship is yet a thing of the past—but all indicators are that both sides are getting much more comfortable with this relationship and learning to operate within its boundaries. Kind of like agreeing to disagree with a significant other after a kerfuffle, we learn that this disagreement doesn’t need to bleed into other areas of the relationship (tell me when you figure this out btw ). In this brand/retailer relationship there’s definitely enough “win” to go around—and rumor is that focusing on the win is what it’s all about these days.  Yes, in Charlie Sheen’s world, this is bi-winning. (You read right, Charlie Sheen made his way into the {rr} blog.)

Traditional retailers are battling for unique DVD merchandising extras in exchange for more favorable shelf space and promotions.  Online, this is just getting started—but we’ve got to race to catch up because these days, 40% of consumers visit retail websites prior to a store visit. Savvy brands are ensuring that their brand presence is prominent (check out the great example with my daughter’s favorite movie “Shrek”) when shoppers are deep in the purchase funnel. Another example is Toys R Us’ promotion of the movie “Rio” which comes online with a plush toy character; video games on sale for pre-order and free shipping; embedded trailers; and downloadable coloring sheets.

This multi-channel collaboration between retailers and brands will definitely grow richer and more expansive over time, and I for one am very excited to be a part of it.  It benefits both parties with more loyalty-building tools, and most importantly it’s a sustainable approach because consumers are the biggest winners: we get relevant content in the shopping channel that makes the experience more fun, more engaging and ultimately more rewarding.

The backdrop for these meetings was the unveiling of a study that we conducted with Forrester Research in concert with Bazaarvoice, which uncovered some interesting findings on how UK shopping behaviour has evolved with the advent of social and mobile.  These changes have surfaced a critical imperative for retailers: designing a customer-centric vision in order to define a consistent, seamless customer experience, regardless of channel.

To provide some context for the reasoning behind this imperative, I’ll re-cap what we shared with our audience of retailers at our London event earlier this week:

44% of all UK shoppers have “channel-switched”—going from online to the store or vice versa

Online shoppers are decidedly undecided.  Over half have not determined the brand they will purchase before researching/buying a product online.  Shoppers commonly discover and evaluate products in one channel but buy them in another.  To better meet customer expectations and provide better service, retailers should build towards seamless consistency between online and offline channels.

Four out of ten (42%) of UK shoppers have used a mobile phone while shopping and 16% use their mobiles to compare prices.  (View accompanying video snippet here.)

This fast-growing subgroup of the wider shopper population is composed of savvier, more discriminating people.  Ever elusive, if a mobile shopper receives a discount coupon on her phone for the store across the street, she’ll quickly thank you for your time and go. Retailers must provide information that complements this knowledge quest in order to capture and retain shoppers’ attention, the first step to capturing their business.

Shoppers rely on three types of content when deciding what to buy: product details, user reviews and personalised recommendations

Shoppers crave, appreciate and use content from multiple resources.  When making offline purchases, 71% reference store or retailer websites, and 54% refer to the manufacturer website for more detailed information about the product.  Product reviews help validate and confirm online or offline purchase choices, while recommendations have a strong impact on a shopper’s decision process, particularly when they complement information needs at a given stage in the sales cycle. Nearly half of shoppers made purchases that were recommended by an online retailer site.  The takeaway?  Retailers need to look for ways to provide this type of content and ensure that it is timely, accurate and relevant.

To read our new whitepaper on “The New Rules of Engagement: for Today’s Empowered UK Shopper: Connected and in Control,” please visit: http://www.richrelevance.com/newrules/whitepaper/

So, back to DDi. First off, the opportunity to meet with the heads of design of major multi-channel retailers was really a treat as they are not my typical audience or peer-group.

More relevantly, the content and form of the discussion they had was fundamentally different than the discussions I have with my fellow gear-heads. The concept of innovation—in the form of a new format store, or the use of a new type of digital display, creating a raw oyster bar, or testing the assortment by region—was not only distinct in the form of the innovation, but also in the constraints. It takes more time, money and on-premises hands-on doing to innovate in a store environment. They had to really, really think about not only what they innovate, but how. As a result of this, my conversations with the store designers weren’t just an interaction concerning me as the subject-matter expert on digital innovation. In fact, it was just as much about me learning from them how they’ve designed their organizations, processes and finances to support innovation.

In other words, as a function of the increased complexity of these environments, these folks had better learnings about how to foster retail innovation than most “innovative” retail technology companies I’ve met!

• McDonald’s “Foster innovation within a framework:” To facilitate freedom as far down within the organization as possible, McDonald’s creates very strong and consistent frameworks (constraints) which define the McDonald’s brand and experience. Further they create processes to support divergence away from the norm. In this way, individual store or region managers can cater their in-store experience to their client-base.
• “Self-funded innovation:” Some of the larger retailers classify projects as self-funded or not. The self-funded ones are a “slam dunk” because they replace assets/infrastructure whose costs exceed those of the new solution (doesn’t speak to value, but…). This approach tends to cater better to businesses that have a significant degree of inefficiency of cost. However, it would be foolish to ignore the existence of this opportunity. It is indeed worthwhile to consider creating processes and a “cabal” which supports accelerating ideas of this form.
• Fail-Fast/Cut the Cord: Here was the most impressive example of discipline. All of the execs with whom I spoke directly highlighted their willingness to create structures (both in generating pilots and in single-store concept testing) where failure was embraced as a byproduct of progress—and in fact as a fuel for revolutionary thought and insight. Further, they expressed the rigor and will to try something (almost anything), learn from it, and kill it within 2 weeks or a month. Just think: What about a barbecue and rib bar in an organic food store…? …in San Francisco? Tried. Failed. Learned. Succeeded in Detroit.

When I think of the offline world, I generally think of a huge up-front cost and an overwhelming reluctance to fail. I think of the engineering/development and IT worlds as agile and willing to fail-fast. While both statements may hold elements of truth, the passion and discipline of these offline retail experts was invigorating. The net-net of this past weekend is a feeling that I need to raise my bar on building and executing against an infrastructure of innovation.

Simple: No Baggage. Amazon received the top ranking based on providing top-notch service as well as in providing its own product recommendations to users, “This combination has made Amazon the gold standard of trust and recommendation in the U.S.”, according Nigel Hollis, EVP and chief global analyst for Millward Brown.

Amazon was architected to displace the very nature of our in-store shopping experience by giving us a rewarding, enriched online shopping experience. The ability to have a totally personalized shopping experience in the comfort of your own home and know that you are a) seeing nearly all the potential product options available b) getting the very best price and c) able to look at the opinions of other Amazon shoppers and d) have products recommended specifically for you more than compensates for the immediacy of picking up that same product from the store down the road.  Amazon built a retail operation that put the customer at the very center of their thinking and they created the mechanisms—recommendations, reviews, premier membership—to exceed customer expectations.  In the 16 years since Amazon launched, they’ve repeated this process millions of times to the point where they have achieved total credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of the consumer.

So what’s a national retailer with a multi-channel footprint to do?  Embrace your “baggage” and you’ll find that it’s actually your golden opportunity. Evaluate sales floor opportunities, personnel, online experiences, and customer call centers and look for ways to put the customer at the center of your thinking across all of these channels.  This exercise probably sounds challenging and that’s because it is!  It means breaking down silos of thinking and operations.  It means using core data and analytics across your organization in a holistic fashion to create synergies for customers regardless of what channel they are shopping.  It means identifying new methods and/or polishing old mechanisms with the objective of delighting customers. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it means recognizing that shoppers actually want to be persuaded to be loyal customers to your brand. You just need to give them more reasons to vote for you with their dollars and their brand loyalty.

My interest in the topic of cross-channel brand management isn’t just limited to this blog post. In fact, I’m about to embark on a national tour with Paco Underhill, the celebrated author of “Why We Buy” and the CEO of Envirosell to address the various issues faced by retailers as they try to help their customers cross channels. Any retailer that says they don’t consider Amazon a competitive threat need to look no further than the Millward Brown report as the true temperature gauge of where today’s shopper is vesting their brand loyalties.  In cities across the U.S. we will be meeting with retailers to highlight the areas of opportunity—and to be honest, dysfunctionality—in their organizations that are keeping them from competing with the likes of Amazon.

To learn more about and register for our upcoming event in New York on March 24 please visit http://www.richrelevance.com/events/respecttheshopper/nyc.  Registration is not yet open for our San Francisco (4/27) and Chicago (4/29) events but drop us a line events@richrelevance.com if you’d like to attend one of those events.

The campaign upholds the belief that consumers expect a seamless experience, tailored to personal interests, where shopping translates smoothly from one channel to the next. Reflecting shoppers’ appreciation for a consistent, streamlined experience, a recent Forrester study found that favorite online brands (topped by Google, Yahoo! and Amazon) share three primary attributes—trustworthiness, helpfulness, and relevance. With these three objectives in mind, this campaign is thus intended to represent the…

• 52% of online buyers who believe it is a hassle to return items that they purchased online.
• 70% of US online consumers who display multichannel behavior, having researched a product online and then purchased it offline.
• 35% of US online adults who have searched for a brand or product as a result of viewing an online ad.
• 42% of online buyers who expect to be able to return/exchange items purchased online in a physical store
• 27% of shoppers who want to be able to order products online and pick them up in a brick-and-mortar store.

Through the point of view of our shoppers, the “Respect the Shopper” campaign asks retailers to take a second look at how customer experience plays out across all channel(s). Retailers who offer multiple channels of interaction—Web Site, IVR, Call Centers, Email, and Mobile—struggle to maintain the fidelity of each individual channel let alone synthesize these silos into a cohesive experience. By integrating multi-channel customer data retailers can deliver that idyllic experience that Forrester calls “Experience-Based Differentiation”: obsess about customer needs; reinforce brands with every interaction; and treat customer experience as a competence.

So, what does a “Respect the Shopper” mentality deliver? A shopping experience so streamlined, so problem free and so incredibly customized to the individual shopper that it fundamentally differentiates a brand. A shopping experience that generates the zealous consumer response “I want more of that.”

Beyond the crisis of our recession and the recalibration of American consumer spending, we are experiencing a revolution in our access to information about pricing and products. As if merchants didn’t have enough problems, they now have to chase a customer that is already three steps ahead of them.

In the 1980s the retail community was made up of leaders. Fashion trends were dictated by New York and Paris, the head merchant at Bloomingdale’s could celebrate a country or designer and the customer would follow. Pricing was managed behind the scenes. If we were willing to spend our days bouncing from store to store, we could trade gas and time for a better price. Mostly we did not.

Paco Underhill and David Selinger, CEO of RichRelevance, present new perspectives on multichannel convergence at the National Retail Federation Big Show, January 2010

In 2010 the power and convenience is in the consumer’s hands. Between the web enabled mobile phone, the Internet and world of brick and mortar, we can find the cracks and inconsistencies in the business models of our merchant and banking communities. Our citizens are challenging the basic concept of branding. If multiple entities have the same name they must be connected. Our business branding gurus are having their lunch handed back to them.

If I have a Citibank credit card and Citibank bank account doesn’t that count for something? If I want a Citibank mortgage – how does putting all my financial eggs in the same basket benefit me? The sad truth is that it doesn’t.

It’s even worse in the multichannel retail world. Where the store, the website and catalog may all report to different masters. That cooking set may be sold in the three different places at three different prices and subject to different sales and promotions. What a mess.

Our multichannel world needs to get its ducks in a row. We need to be singing at least from the same hymnbook, if not the same hymn. The point of convergence is to advance this revolution of supply chain management, putting it not only into hands of merchants, but into the pockets and acquiescing protocols of customers as well.

We have a lot to gain from sorting out the mess. We should be able to shrink the size of our stores. Want to buy it and take it home now – one price; buy it now and get it next week at a discount. Buy online and forgo the shipping cost by picking it up in the store. That’s just the start of a pricing revolution.

A web-enabled phone also resets our advertising model. Why blanket coupons through the Sunday paper when you can deliver them in-store? Manage loyalty programs, not just on purchase patterns, but based on a permission-based personalization. That dress matches the sandals you bought last month.

It also sets up the greening of packaging, where instructions are downloadable and product information is customized based on the ability to know exactly who you are communicating with.

Rich Relevance and Envirosell are collaborating in the multichannel clean up. Check us out and try us on.