Marks & Spencer is aiming to further tap into the growth opportunities of its Home division by implementing a raft of new creative technologies – including CGI and augmented reality – as part of a wider strategy to boost customer experience across the furniture and upholstery zones of its website.
With online sales now accounting for over a third (34.4%) of M&S Home sales, the retailer has signed a two-year partnership with creative technology and content production studio Happy Finish to establish a new strategy for rich customer experiences and content creation.
The Happy Finish studio team will be charged with using a digital approach to solve challenges around displaying hidden innovations for all products, deploying augmented reality for product visualisation and creating scalable imagery across all furniture and upholstery areas.
The partnership is designed to enable M&S to deliver richer lifestyle content using CGI. The Happy Finish team will aim to showcase the products in a realistic form and to continuously evolve and reflect growing customer expectations in the omnichannel environment.
M&S.com head of digital content Stuart Stiles said: “Improving the online customer experience is a crucial part of reshaping M&S. We’re excited to be partnering with Happy Finish to push the boundaries of immersive experiences and to really show off the style, value and quality of our products across all digital channels.
“Working with Happy Finish allows us to be at the forefront in adopting creative technologies which merge the physical with digital as we focus on maximising our omnichannel advantage.”
Happy Finish chief executive Mirko Scolari added: “This partnership is the perfect opportunity for Happy Finish to use our core competencies in digital asset creation and immersive experiences to maximum effect. It’s brilliant to be working with such an iconic, forward-thinking business to deliver cutting-edge immersive experiences as part of the evolution of retail.”
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