Perceived trends in the retail and luxury sector, signals detected for the end of the year…Guillaume Cavaroc, Business Director – Luxury, Retail & E-commerce at Meta takes stock in this column.
What is your vision of the major current trends in the retail & luxury sector?
The trends are quite different between the luxury sector and that of mass distribution. Luxury is currently going through many upheavals, particularly due to the economic difficulties in China, which represents 40% of the world market. Nevertheless, the sector should remain in slight growth this year. The challenge for luxury houses is to find the balance between authenticity, know-how and innovation by adapting their digital strategies while retaining their essence and continuing to satisfy both their historical clientele and new generations. At Meta, we support the digitalization of communication for major luxury houses around the world. Our products serve the emotion and desirability that these brands wish to highlight while making it possible to address a younger clientele than their traditional clientele. The use of new formats and creative languages such as “Reals” makes it possible to adapt to the new consumption patterns of new generations. With Reals, advertisers can leverage the power of video and storytelling to improve their performance: 79% of respondents say they have purchased a product or service after watching Reals. Personalization of experiences is also a crucial issue that our advertising algorithms now enable. Generative technologies will also play an increasingly important role in meeting this demand for personalization at scale.
Since the start of the year, we have also noticed a certain refocusing of priorities on generating in-store traffic, alongside major brand campaigns, broadcasting of fashion shows and product launches. This involves implementing tools to measure the omnichannel impact of Meta campaigns, as mentioned above. For example, Rimowa now systematically measures the impact of its Facebook and Instagram campaigns on its in-store sales.
The challenges of traditional mass distribution, food and non-food, are different. Long boosted by rising prices, mass distribution is now facing stagnation or even a decline in volume consumption while inflation is falling sharply. At the same time, the sector is facing a profound transformation of its promotional communication model. Long based on the paper prospectus, this is, for regulatory, economic and environmental reasons, gradually disappearing.
The digitalization of promotional communication is therefore the major challenge for large distributors, whether they have already stopped using paper prospectuses (like E.Leclerc) or whether they are in a period of transition. How can we continue to communicate every week about these multiple promotions? How can we meet local requirements, with specific offers for each store? How to broadcast effectively in each catchment area and control coverage and repetition? What creative format should I use? How to measure the impact of Meta digital campaigns on in-store traffic using checkout data? These are all challenges that we have been supporting distributors on for years but which will significantly accelerate in 2024.
The year has been difficult for consumers (purchasing power, inflation, economic context), will the end of the year be positive from your point of view?
It is difficult to predict consumer behavior after such an eventful year. However, the last trimester is always a crazy race where everyone is trying to “make their year”. Consumers are more than ever looking for “good deals”. Holiday shopping starts much earlier, with fewer shoppers waiting to start shopping in December compared to previous years. At Meta, we are aware of this and we support advertisers during this key period. Our technologies are proven: globally, 53% of shoppers discovered brands or products during the holidays thanks to Meta technologies and 55% of them said that Meta helped influence their purchases for end-of-year celebrations*. Additionally, 65% of shoppers said they enjoyed discovering items that are relevant to them and that they weren’t actively searching for*, highlighting the importance of personalized advertising to drive sales during the holiday season. ‘year. So it’s no surprise that brands are relying on AI more than ever during the holiday season to achieve the best advertising performance.
What are the new features presented by Meta this semester?
This semester was rich in innovations, both in the fields of mixed reality, AI and connected glasses for our users but also concerning our advertising offer for advertisers. Our advertisers directly benefit from Meta’s advances in AI. Today, almost all of our advertisers use at least one of the AI-driven advertising products in our Meta Advantage suite.
* “The Seasonal Holidays” study, an online survey conducted in December 2023 by YouGov on behalf of Meta, among 17,906 shoppers aged 18 to 64 in 13 countries: Germany, Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Korea , United States, France, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, Sweden and Thailand.
Source: www.e-marketing.fr
