Are robots the future of retail or just bad PR?
As Lowe’s, YoSushi! and many others attract attention for embracing cutting-edge technologies, the PR-able nature of retail brands working with robotic tech is undeniable. But can using tech for PR purposes sometimes do more harm than good?
In 2013, I saw one such campaign taking place. A drone-based sushi delivery was being filmed in Soho and quite frankly, it was embarrassing.
Brands only need engage with new tech to do two things: improve their offering for themselves, or for their consumers
The drone invariably failed to deliver it’s payload to the assembled actors in any fit state to be consumed. But far worse, was the fact that an agency and client had chosen to waste time, money and effort on producing tech PR fluff.
This type of approach is damaging to those that look to use technology to improve a client’s business. Brands only need engage with new technology to do two things: improve their offering for themselves, or for their consumers. Spending time and money on getting coverage of an innovative but plainly useless tech development, simply highlights a client’s misunderstanding or lack of interest in the evolution of their sector. The danger is that this approach misdirects attention, time and effort away from the way technologies should be integrated into new industries.
Amazon, interestingly, is a company that has tried to have it both ways. Robots have been integrated where they are immediately most useful, by efficiently delivering items across the gargantuan warehouses that power the company – the process is twice as fast with this in place. The technology makes sense in the capacity in which it is being used and success comes from the speed and accuracy of a completed set task.
Adopting tech
Amazon proves that retailers can have success in adopting robotic technologies, but I’d argue it’s currently the exception. A number of retailers are dipping their toe into artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics – with Toshiba’s partnership with the Mitsukoshi department store in Japan potentially the most extreme example – but these attempts to gain business benefit through the adoption of newly available technologies tend to be hamstrung from the start.
Retail sales are a complex thing. Technology is as advanced as it has ever been; recently demonstrated by Google’s DeepMind, which was able to beat human champions at Go. However, this advanced learning algorithm is still making decisions based on previous experience and recognisable patterns and unable to understand why it’s doing what it’s doing.
A purchase decision is a very particular construct and the role of a sales assistant within that is more complex still. So while the retail experience can be optimised through pattern recognition, developing a truly competent sales assistant (such as Lowe’s attempt) is still a while off. For that style of thinking, technology such as DeepMind would need to be able to understand why it should (or shouldn’t) play Go in the first place.
For new technologies to be embraced they need to be implemented in the most useful ways possible
Form factor
The Lowe’s robot retail assistant highlights a tech trend that is often a key flaw in brands technical developments: the desire to present new technology in a recognisable form.
Lowe’s shouldn’t be trying to replace the idea of a shop assistant in-store with a robot that moves and mimics an actual human assistant, because the concept of a shop assistant was defined decades ago in a very different world, and is actually limiting to the technologies available. Given the world we now live in, the idea of a shop assistant is potentially a sub-optimal solution to the problem at hand; therefore there is no reason for it to be our starting point.
What we need to do is strip away the idea of a shop assistant to the simple functions that need to be performed. For example, impart knowledge of a product range, present a particular item (or item in a certain size) and then apply the technologies we have to see how we can do this best. For new technologies to be embraced they need to be implemented in the most useful ways possible, not used to try and reinvent an existing approach and mimic the sub-optimal.
De-programming
Why spend money making a retail robot blink correctly when we could use this time and energy to reinvent the retail experience for the better? Well, because humans are creatures of habit.
Consumers need a good reason to do things differently. We love a path of least resistance (documented as early as the 1800s) and if this path isn’t presented to us, we tend to work with established technologies until minimal acceptable results are achieved. Unfortunately that means when a new approach is presented to us, we have to undergo a degree of de-programming to unlearn what we know, and learn what we are yet to appreciate. How to short cut this? Present an upgrade, not a replacement.
Real value
With so many barriers, how can robots in retail really be of value to the consumer? Any significant developments in this field will most likely be born out of automating the retail experience so the physical store can interact with the available technology and data on any individual in question.
For example, your smart-coat may supply your sizing information to a store upon entering, allowing any items of interest to immediately be shown to you in the correct sizes; and if you’re known as a repeat customer, a discount or specific sale price could be applied to specific items, just for you.
The ideal shopping experience: can technology deliver?
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Foursquare’s recent Attribution launch seemingly allows direct footfall from ads to be tracked and measured. Imagine if a retail environment was able to tailor itself not only to individual consumer data, but the ad campaign that drove the consumer in the door.
Ultimately the adoption of new tech in retail will succeed based on finding how it can provide a genuine consumer benefit and deliver it in such a way that maximises engagement. To power real innovation in retail, we need to avoid the most accepted form factors and embrace the wide ranging data consumers are increasingly able to provide. With a little less energy on tech PR stunts, and a little more consideration on how brands can provide genuinely useful consumer innovations, retail will catch up. Tech always does.
James Bartram is creative technology director at ais London
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