Tag Archives: Victoria Secrets

December 24, 2023 · 17:47

Through views reenforced

That is the setting and before we go into the news that the CBC is giving us, we need to take a look at a few past settings. I mentioned it going back to way before June 25th 2021 when I wrote ‘Non Comprehension’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/06/25/non-comprehension/) then there was ‘Inspiration and realisation’ on August 7th 2022 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/08/07/inspiration-and-realisation/) and several more mentions. I even made mention that the UK firms who got the portfolio for Neom city were making mistakes. You see, social media is a bottomless hole, it is like shouting against a wall that is white wondering why the wall doesn’t answer whether it is a vestal virgin, or merely a decently clean wall. It is as I personally see it a decently meaningless metric. Marketing firms like OmniChannel and TRO had figured out years ago that the true metric was engagement. Engagement is pretty much everything. You can rely on the millions of messages you send out through social media, but does it help? Does it basically do anything more than gobble up your budget? Those 2 million placements are close to useless. It is the 5,000 – 25,000 – 125,000 engaging responses that really matters. It mattered to them to respond and it is not “there are 10 non responses to every response”, that too is too hollow for consideration. It is the responses towards engagements that matter, it is the bread and butter of any influencer.

So now we see (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/malls-death-experiences-luxury-retail-1.7065690) ‘Some Toronto malls are booming, but not necessarily because of the shopping’, as such we see that the CBC (and the mall) are figuring out why their malls are now busty with ‘life’ with the added “Instagram-worthy experiences and unexpected places are part of malls’ future success, experts say”. So who are these experts? I have been making clear statements for well over two years. Where were they then? I even created IP to nudge engagement forward, where were they? So when we are given ““In the mall business, you always have to be fresh. You always have to think about what your customers are after and remain relevant for the customer,” said Robert Horst, vice-president of retail at Oxford Properties, which operates Yorkdale.” Where was Robert Horst when I stated this well over two yeas ago? Did he adjust to augmented reality? No, he did not. In the meantime Amazon could come in and make a killing. Consider that America has 116,000 malls, Canada has allegedly 2818 malls, where is their adjustment towards engagement? Oh and that is before you consider that the EU, UAE, Asia adds a lot more to the total number of malls. So where is the nudge towards engagement there? Google and Amazon had 3-5 years to wake up with new technologies at their fingertips. They did nothing and the malls did nothing either. So when we are given “Malls such as Yorkdale and The Well, which recently opened in downtown Toronto, are offering fresh takes on retail and expanding the mall experience beyond simply shopping. Yorkdale estimates it has 18 million visitors a year” did anyone consider just how much they are missing?

Inspectors General from the 1st Theater Sustainment Command-Operational Command Post inspect a fuel “bladder” at a fuel farm in central Iraq, recently. U.S. Army Central uses forward logistical elements to maintain fuel farms under contract with U.S. Army logistical specialists called contract representatives to ensure the operation is being conducted to the Army standard. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Brandon Hubbard, USARCENT Public Affairs)

It is like pushing an Army fuel bag up a hill, you know it goes nowhere without serious added manpower, and now consider what is required to get new tech and the new IP to get adjusted to a totally new kind of audience. This requires a new kind of nudging. And it is important to use the word nudge and not push. Engagement is not achieved by ‘Do this’, but by ‘Did you try or consider this?’ That is how new waves of engagements are created. I had a similar setting of creating more and more awareness for Neom city (as well as the Line and Mukaab) it is achieved through engagement. As such I wonder who else is asleep at the wheel.

So it is nice that we see the CBC article and I have nothing against the article, but as my blog shows I was ahead of these people by years and my blogs point that out. Not merely my blog, players like TRO Marketing services and Omnichannel marketing were ahead by close to a decade, but the other voices. Feel free to listen to them whilst they shout at walls. The response is negligible and that is what needs to be seen. We can believe that malls are dying, or we can set a new stage where their lease on life is renewed. It might not help getting an immediate influx on revenue, but these influencers will start something that gives a new second tier revenue and that matters, because in a stage where economies are dwindling, the second tier is all you need to survive a little longer. Will it save every mall? Nope, it will not, but it will save the early adopters and those willing to invest and that is also the path that Amazon (and optionally Google too) needed to realise. Who many companies are in more then 20 malls? We see Zara, Sephora, Gap, Apple and several others (OK, Victoria Secrets too) in these places. So what did their ‘marketing representatives’ do to boost their visibility and boost engagement? I am willing to hazard a guess that it is very little and I left enough clues lying around for well over 2 years that it needed to be done. There is only one Harrods, there is only one Dubai Mall. The rest? They better work harder to carry the favour of engagement. It was the only way and now we see that I am proven correct yet again. What a lovely way to get to the end of the year.

So enjoy your day before Christmas and enjoy the last week of this year.

A promise kept

It all started a little before February 1st 2022. It was when I wrote ‘The opportunity for 2022’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/01/the-opportunity-for-2022/) this is when my brain saw the opportunity that Augmented Reality saw for what it was. It took a little longer before I set it the premise to paper and with the videos of the Eaton Centre Mall (Toronto), I saw the setting to engage the audience of a mall (pretty much all 116,000 malls) that AR was the ticket to drive engagement It was then that my mind created 8 pieces of IP, the 9th came one day later when I realised a few items that tarted to mingle in the process. You see, we see mobiles and AR, but we (basically they) do not see the larger stage.

From my MAPINT days, we were working with maps and thematic layers. It is nothing complex. It is a map and over that map we set a transparent layer which we fill with information that overlay the map. Population, usage information, measurements. It could be nearly everything. But when we put a OVER a mobile phone, the phone maker needs to adjust for it. It can be done ‘as is’, but images become messy, and now we get to the setting.

The maker (Tiffany for example) ads the code on to a business card (the back side most likely). The code is for example a ring, a high end ring that now does not need to be shown to the people, with all the dangers of it getting stolen. But that is only a small part of it. The larger part is that the ring is now advertised by the people to everyone else. Thousands will send to thousands and the Tiffany product will reach millions in the stretch of a day, all it costed them was a business card. Optionally the edge will show the Tiffany logo.

Now we get to the thematic layer. That shows the ring in high resolution, but it does so over what was under the layer. So when you photograph your hand with that layer, the intelligence that was in the thematic layer will place the ring on your finger and the intelligence does the rest. Rings, bracelets and you photograph it to set on your hand and photograph it with that selfie you could send it all over the place with the question “Does this look good on me?” And when it is a Tiffany ring the responses will come from ‘great’ to ‘amazing’ A simple equation added to a phone, an iOS or Android phone. I saw this happen well over a year ago and no one seemingly picked it up. Go read up, no one had it and no one wanted to buy it, so I am handing this out for free. So when a Huawei phone adds this option and you can show your feet with the new Nike shoes that only can have 50,000 owners, would you do this? I am certain that you will. The pull of short term gratification through selfie has been well documented for well over a decade.

The AR code was a way to liven up malls, they need to create waves of interactions and that was one of them. Victoria secrets has the option of setting an AR window that overlayed part of their shop, now they have a daily run of Victoria Secrets models showing their goods and it will create a huge following (leave it to single men admiring women in lingerie) and that is not merely the start of it. The AR window is aganst the outside window, as such the models will walk over a local catwalk whilst never being there.

Jewellers, fashion even book shops have options in their repertoire and it draws in the people. It was that simple a jump and who has done it so far? Who got to that point? It is now known that Tiffany and I believe it was Gucci are setting serious coin towards Arm towards the digital development of their wares, which is good. But let it be clear I got there a year early and now because of the Public Domain event, everyone can get there. So you all have a nice day and see what you can make of your goods and where AR can take you.

I kept my promise and I will snore like a sawmill today (its 01:50).

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Science

Tagged as Android, AR, Augmented Reality, Eaton Centre Mall, Gucci, Huawei, IOS, MAPINT, Nike, Toronto, Victoria Secrets

January 8, 2023 · 23:38

Is it me? It could be.

Today I saw (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64171008) the article ‘Amazon to axe 18,000 jobs as it cuts costs’. OK, they published it 2 days ago and I do not watch every site every moment of the day (I have an actual life). So consider that I wrote ‘Girdle your loins’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/30/girdle-your-loins/) which was roughly 3 months after it was offered to three parties. It represents $6 billion in the first phase and up to $20-$40 billion in the second phase. Can anyone tell me why two days ago we get to see “Amazon plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs, the largest number in the firm’s history, as it battles to save costs”, here I was thinking that my idea could have saved these jobs and now that Tencent is 9-15 months away the options for Amazon are diminishing. Then there was ‘Overlooking the obvious’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/22/overlooking-the-obvious/) which actually also refers to an earlier article. There I set a stage with optional close to a billion in revenue with optional new corridors for AWS to grow, and with a new stage where we see a new need fro hardware and advertisement in new directions, Google isn’t even there yet. That billion was based on almost 200,000 malls globally, 116,000 of them in the US and that is before you realise how many stores players like Zara, Gap, Sephora, Apple, Victoria Secrets, Country life and that list goes on and on. So is it me or are these players too lazy, too cowardly and not in the right stage of play? And that is not even considering the hardware people might want, the options that are related to it and even several IP options that are not on anyones dance card at present. What are they doing? They are axing 18,000 jobs and they leave billions on the floor? What kind of technology firm is that?

Now, you might think that I am delusional and I would think that too, but I refer to things I wrote in the past, something that could grow into a $20 to $40 billion A YEAR market. So tell me, how delusional am I? So I could be crazy, but I see clearly where this is going and even as there is some small risk (there always is), the fact that Amazon left it on the street gives me pause to think that they have a lot more problems and optionally different ones. Optionally it is in a direction I never considered. That is not their fault, it is not my fault, but they left billions on the street (as I personally see it) and there is even more IP (a little more risk), but as Meta becomes a reality it represents an optional $2.3 billion (my initial max assessment of the IP) as well. So as I take notice of “Boss Andy Jassy cited the “uncertain economy” for the cuts, saying it had “hired rapidly over several years.”” And there was me thinking he was on the ball. So even as I am not debating that decision, the idea of leaving that much on the floor, enough to give most of them an alternative and an alternative setting towards the future on a global scale implies that someone is not drinking the proper gatorade and they are going for the dodgy stuff, but that is my view on the matter and I could be wrong. I admit that part. When certain Big Tech (not Microsoft), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holdings give no response it is time to consider that I am the one who is wrong, but I feel that I am not, my mind is still mauling the designs over and over and seeing more and more improvements, even with Real estate sides, with 5G wearables that are not on any list at present. I believe that either I am a bigger dreamer than Jules Verne, or I am onto something. OK, lets be clear Jules Verne came up with the idea of a rocket to the moon long before WW2, as well as a submarine when it was still not possible to have one for such trips. The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine was launched in 1954, half a century AFTER Jules Verne passed away. So I might be a bit arrogant, but I see solutions that could impact the Line (KSA), malls and new forms of advertisement and none of those are part of the up to $40 billion (my maximum expectation), but that too is under debate. Yet that number is based on part of a 1.8 billion Muslim population and Tencent is a mere 15 months away at the most to do what I foresaw was going to happen one way or another.

So, is it me? It could be. Yet I personally feel that this is not the case. As I see it some people have no idea what is possible and they are merely faking it for now. So what will they do when Tencent comes in and takes it all? Give you a lame excuse that they do not understand the technology? I will let you decide, but consider what we clearly see and what I published over the last two years. Yet, feel free to consider that it is alas, but these 18,000 people will have to go. There is no shortage for workers, is there?

Overlooking the obvious

Yes, that is the setting, it is in part a question and in part a statement. You see, I returned to the place of the crime (my writing) and in ‘Presentation and awareness creation’ (June 6th, https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/06/presentation-and-awareness-creation/) and ‘The mind, it continues regardless’ (same day, https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/06/the-mind-it-continues-regardless/). First of all, lets be clear this solution would fit dozens of malls. I merely used this one as there were plenty of walk through video’s, in addition it is spacious and it is in a large city (Toronto, population 2,934,544) as such it is not the largest city but in size rather respectable and as I was testing my idea for the 5G implementation I created, I also saw anther few options, when combined would merely enhance what some malls could experience. My mind also looked to implement safety features and images in augmented reality, which would actually enhance safety in these places. The 5G is a bonus, but one that could proper my (expected $8.4B) solution into an 11 figure one and who would I be to pass up on that option? 10% of that is serious cash, an amount my wallet is not showing at present. Google not Amazon has the lead here, but it also made me realise that they could do a lot more in places like this, I merely wonder why they did not go there. I made searches all over google, but I cannot find them, as such I wonder why not?

So the premise becomes:

Why are they overlooking the obvious?
This is a hard question, it is not always visible in the eyes of any beholder that is not an insider of a place like Google. Yet consider that Zara has 6829 stores (globally) and it is a $30B operation, which means that one solution would fit dozens, if not hundreds of stores. Sephora operates 1,900 stores globally (29 nations). As such it is also a many implementation setting. Gap has 3,000 stores Victoria Secrets has well over 1,000 stores and the list goes on. And now the one little element. How many malls have all these stores? Are you starting to catch on that a place like Google has been overlooking the obvious? The premise, the question and the statement all in one place and I am at a loss why they missed it, others missed it too (Amazon being one) a setting that allows and screams innovation and they both missed it and I am merely adding to the IP and testing the application of 5G IP I had before and Eaton Mall (Toronto) was a place to test it first, but it is in no mean the only place. Other places in Canada, the US, UK, France (Paris) and more places that could be benefitting the setting I designed and when you think I am bluffing, or as some stated ‘You are full of it’ consider the mall you know best, the mall you usually visit and I can test this globally, som players are not on the innovative page and in this day and age that is funny as hell. We see statements like ‘MoneyGram speeds digital transformation initiative with assist from Rafay Systems & Amazon EKS’, we see ‘Amazon payment services delves into fintech innovation and the future of payments at Seamless Middle East 2022’, ‘Dematic to ‘accelerate supply chain innovation’ with Google Cloud’ and ‘Sabre and Google developing framework to transform future of travel: Sriram Gopalswamy’ all mentioning innovation, mention of fintech but none of them truly about enhancing your pleasure as a shopping consumer, or the importance of retail innovation reaching you. All forgotten paths that should have been on the forefront of their minds. They forgot the number one part here. The consumer, the user, they forgot about you.

Do not believe me, check for yourself and you will see that I am right, check for yourself! As such I see a new niche opening. I am not sure that it is good to have too many niches (Microsoft tends to buy them and screw them up for all concerned) but that might be my overly negative view on the matter. What does matter is that I created a little over a year ago pieces of IP that a tech player like Google still does not have, still does not cater to and in the process leaves the people out in the cold (or in the cold in a mall hallway near you).

A setting now clearly shown. The statement and the question and Google seemingly cannot answer it (neither can Amazon). Why are these players overlooking the obvious? The US has 116,000 malls, and neither looked at the obvious? I let you ponder that part and when you add the Canadian and European numbers that number becomes frighteningly large.

Have a great day.

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as 5G, Amazon, Canada, Eaton Mall, Eu, France, Gap, google, IP, Microsoft, Paris, Seamless Middle East 2022, Sephora, Toronto, UK, USA, Victoria Secrets, Zara

June 6, 2022 · 00:41

Presentation and awareness creation

That is the setting I was considering today. It goes beyond my 5G IP, that is pretty much done for. There are more avenues to consider, but perhaps a a later day. I initially thought of adding to this, but when I was looking at the Eaton Centre Mall, my mind wandered in another direction. You see, these places are making themselves obsolete to some degree. I know that we are in the post Pandemic stage, yet when I see the massive lack of people, the stage of such a mall with its rental needs will find itself short of tenants sooner than expected. The Lindt, Apple, Abercrombie and Victoria Secret will remain, but it is the stage of the rest that sets the tone of the mall and no matter how much space H&M gets, this mall in Toronto needs more people, like 2500 more at least. As I see corridor after corridor, the same solution that applies to Monte Carlo and Riyadh also applies to malls like these. They need more the other two might not need more, but the creation of traction is everything. Nearly any mall manager can tell you that. It is presentation that sets the stage for awareness creation and some malls need it a lot faster. So other venues are needed, funny enough, the technology is there, the options are there, but the coin is not dropping with either Google or the Mall manager. You see a place like that needs augmented reality. When you see the queues, the foodcourt lines and the people waiting in a place THAT big, augmented reality will create awareness with the visitor and presents the people with sides of the Mall and it’s shops that are currently not happening. More important, places like TRO and Omnicom taught me the important of engagement and these malls are not engaging, they are not inviting engagement. Having a Tim Horton app that takes and records your data just doesn’t cut it, in this I reckon that augmented reality will, especially in a wide open space like the Eaton Centre Mall. I watch the dozens of people stride their mindless walk, so see or be seen, and it is no longer about being seen, dozens of people all wearing the same blue mask, like one large family. And all that empty pace remains unused. So how log until someone in one of these shops wakes up considering there is more to simple awareness creation? There is more to the presentation of self? Three places that could benefit and dozens of other places equally not waking up. In all this I wonder why Google hasn’t offered those services already, they had two years to get there act together and I reported on this option as early as July 28, 2016 in ‘What we waste away’. More clearer on February 1st 2022 when I wrote ‘The opportunity for 2022’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/01/the-opportunity-for-2022/) well over 90 days ago. As such I feel that Google and places like that are asleep at the wheel. One augmented reality for Lindt and it sets the stage that 500 shops would be seen to and lets not start on how Apple hasn’t seen the light of that. With well over 500 retail locations? I stated it before, someone is asleep at the wheel at these places and there is a reason that I have all this IP (close to a dozen). Those who doubted me just look at what augmented reality offers and wonder why it is not everywhere. I rest my case.

2 Comments

Filed under IT, Media, Science

Tagged as Apple, Canada, Eaton Centre Mall, google, H&M, Lindt, Monte Carlo, Omnicom, Toronto, TRO, Victoria Secrets

December 23, 2020 · 11:24

The cool aide look

Most of us react to it, we sometimes invoke reactions, and at times we set the reaction to what WE think is the cool reaction, there is not one exception, not you, not me and not those around us. So to set that premise we need to look at some ‘definitions’ as they are told to us, but also set markers on what we expect to see, they are not the same.

Branding
““Broadly, a product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need, including physical goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organisations, information, and ideas” (Kotler & Keller, 2015)”, yet that is not enough, there is also ““A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association)”, this is all the foundation, but consider the following

Emotional marketing tells invokes a feeling that connects audiences with brands with an optional personal/human way. As any media channels, devices, objects and platforms emerge, they ensure that people have plenty of access to brand events. What’s more, there are now a host of ways for companies to convey their identity and vision, making emotional marketing much simpler, yet how does any consumer see that?

That is the stage I found myself in, I was in a store and the staff member was standing next to a tote-bag roughly 60 by 40 stating ‘Victoria Secrets’, now I in my giddy nature asked, What did you buy at Victoria Secrets? The lady got quite upset, there was inference, no innuendo, merely what I stated. Now, I am not holding her reaction against her, some might state that I had no business stating what I stated, and if that is so, why on earth did she have a tote-bag like that? To minimise her profile during headwinds? Branding is more than the definitions, we made it as such. The T-shirt stating Nasa, ‘Just do it’, enjoy Cocaine, the examples are there by the thousands and it has no intention, or attempt in stopping or slowing down.

For me the reaction was a bit strong, but I had never stated anything like that, as such I wondered why people overreact. This was not about emotion, this is about something else and we need to take consideration of the reaction, both the person making it and those hearing it. We seem to fall in the gap of branding and as such the use and abuse of branding is about to turn a corner.

Japanese
As I see it, we are becoming a ;little too Japanese in this. There some girls wear shirts with slogans and they do not know what it means. Now, we might have that with Kanji, Hiragana or Katakana, so it works both ways. But consider, how many women do you know wearing a shirt stating ‘I am a Whore’? It seems that people all over the world have become blind to what they are wearing and then overreact to the reaction, is it about manners (never say anything), yet is that not the opposite of what branding is trying to achieve? Branding is more than noticing, it is about conversing and about the creation of awareness, people talking about the brand creates awareness.

The problem
There is a problem, for any version of a view towards awareness, we see (a+1)(b+1), when there is linearity, we see 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 and so on, yet if any view invokes 10 opinions we get 1, 121, 441 and so on, and that is when the views and opinions are in a set stage, now try (a+1)(b+1)(c+1), a setting for views, opinions and reactions. So 1 view gives us 10 opinions and 20 reactions. Now we get 1, 462, 6237 and that is before we get to social media where the numbers really stack up. At what point will this come to blows, because that will happen, if one persons indication matters, so what happens when a person asks that question who has no idea what Victoria secret is? OK, that is really thin ice, but there is every chance that they haven’t heard of that brand in Loshchinka (Siberia).

No matter how we slice this, the reaction brought me out to consider branding, we take it for granted, but who is aware of what they are branding, or even that they are branding and if branding is a way to invoke a reaction, is there any consideration on the reactions we give, all whilst we are branding?

Just some food for thought