In recent times, the points of sale have undergone much more drastic and radical changes than all that occurred in the last 100 years. So different and revolutionary, if you will, that we still don't know what impact they will have.
This is due to two factors, which are dramatically changing the way we shop.
One is the Internet: the physical shopping experience is completely affected by a means that allows comparing prices and models, and receiving the opinion of other people… among many other effects. At the time of deciding today, a lot of aspects that did not exist before influence, and that is why many businesses today are going to become obsolete, and eventually they will cease to exist.
This is not an opinion, but a fact. Take Blockbuster as an example. We were used to a video club where the client could consult and ask for a recommendation… but that hardly exists anymore, and just as that company - which at one time was the market leader and had a lot of stores - closed, there are many other commercial proposals that are already closing.
But the other, more importantly, is that within the marketing industry it is already known that the way we make decisions was not as we thought.
When studying how purchasing decisions were made, most of the people surveyed explained to the interviewer all the arguments they had to acquire certain products, and from that point on, an entire industry was built on how they should be sold.
But although customers said they bought a car - for instance - because of its engine or its appearance, deeper studies showed that this is actually a lie.
It should be noted that these studies are over 20 years old, but we are only now understanding their impact. The point is that people believe that they buy for the reasons stated, but in reality they make their purchase decision much earlier, and in a much more emotional way than they think. He takes it even before he finds out that he has already taken it, and then he looks for rational excuses to justify what he decided.
Checking this drastically changed marketing, because if what you are looking for is to have a shopping experience focused only on rational data, the Internet can be overwhelming, as it has more information than can be processed. So, the only way to enrich the shopping experience is to generate experiences that create emotional ties with consumers.
And that's where a whole new aspect of retailtainment comes in, which has to do with introducing emotion, interactivity, involving the user in an experience that is out of the rational: helping them get inside a brand, not a business.
For example, there are 3 scent developers on the market that today are dedicated to producing specific scents for certain stores.
Smell is associated with a very primary cortical part of the brain. What we smell triggers is not rational, but then you can say "there was a rich smell", and the way it influences you when you are entering the premises is much more profound. That is one of the aspects of the boom of companies that are understanding the value of the emotional, which is much more influential in the purchase decision than other aspects.
At the time of establishing an emotional bond with a consumer, he stops thinking with rational parameters; stop evaluating the benefits in terms of price, durability, in marketing… because you already have arguments beyond reason.
It is said: "I like it, and I don't know why." Maybe you have a lot of arguments to choose the brands you use, but they are reasons to justify a choice you already made. You can even overpay for it, and you know it and don't care.
A lot of things happen the moment we start to get excited, and the most interesting from a marketing point of view is that we lower our defenses and are much more likely to buy. So, if we choose a brand like Apple, we don't compare processors or see what RAM speed they offer us, because the connection with that brand is much deeper.
There are already many companies of all sizes that work on this concept, they analyze how to connect, how to seduce the consumer into an experience where smell was worked, where vision was worked, where the experience of trying on clothes is interesting… Today, the PdeV changes completely because it tries to appeal to the senses and generate a pleasant experience, so that the client knows that this business is different from others and always chooses it.
