Diptyque: The Future of Luxury Retail

From consumer insights across the world to the latest tactics and trends, you're listening to leap into luxury, the go-to marketing podcast for luxury brands. I'm MJ and today we're talking to Cecille Lissota, head of marketing for Germany and Austria at DipTik. With a wealth of experience in the luxury industry, Cecille has previously held key roles at Elviam H and Zalando. A unique perspective shaped by years of living and working in China brings a global lens to her understanding of luxury marketing. Cecille, thank you so much for joining us today. Ah, thank you for inviting me. Not at all, it's been a while since we've done one of these. This is our second season of leap into luxury, which is kind of an exciting season so far. We have some great guests coming up, but super excited to talk to you today about the specifically about retail attainment. So we're diving into the captivating world today of retail attainment and as the lines between retail and entertainment blur, brands are finding innovative ways to engage customers through immersive experiences. But Cecille, how would you define retail attainment and how does it differ from, I don't know, traditional retail experiences? Well, I think I will just decompose the word, retail attainment. So it's basically combining shopping with entertainment. So it's the idea to create a more engaging and enjoyable experience for consumer. So how it differs to traditional retail experience, I would say it's kind of because it's all about the experience. So in a traditional way, you would put maybe more the sale at the forefront. Whereas here selling is almost secondary. So here you want more like to create this immersive experience. You want to tell a story. You want to have more interaction with the consumer and basically you want to create a memory. It's interesting as well because I guess that creates much longer term loyalty with a brand. You know, more traditional way of looking at it, chasing that sale. It's very transactional. Whereas what we're doing with retail attainment is really investing in a long term relationship, lifetime value. Yes, definitely. I think for me it's part of community building. You know, it's really like giving the sense of being part of something more than just entering a shop. It's really having these in real life experience that maybe people were missing so much during COVID time. So that's why it's becoming more and more popular today. Totally. And why do you think it's particularly relevant to luxury? Do you think it aligns with luxury brand experiences or what is it that you think particularly makes irrelevant to this sector? I think it's crucial actually for luxury because if you think about what is luxury, luxury is not just about selling a product. It's really about creating extreme value for consumers. So it's basically going beyond the product. It's about offering a universe. It's being part of something more than just a product is when I buy a product, here it means I'm part of something more. I'm buying the brand, the values, this whole universe that comes with it. So retail attainment is a perfect platform actually for storytelling. So that's why actually luxury and retail attainment goes very well together. It's also such a nice thing to have though, isn't it, for a global brand. I mean, in the crux of COVID, it was stripped away, that opportunity to have experiential entertaining events and moments for consumers was stripped away. But then when we came out of COVID, there were many brands that weren't able to justify doing these above and beyond executions because of budgets or what have you. But it is a really lovely thing to have on a global scale though. There's a lot to activate across that for a big luxury brand. And getting it right must be so crucial. Do you have any examples of brands other than yourselves that diptych, of course, who are doing this well and activate well? I think you can have different types of experience. It can be just turning your shop into an experience or it can be like creating something way bigger. So if you think about, I think maybe the best example I have is from China. I love actually the S.K.P. mall, which was actually before COVID. I think it was even more successful than Harrods. So it was named number one, yes, worldwide. Now post COVID, I'm not so sure. But basically S.K.P. is a huge mall for luxury brands in Beijing. And you have a thousand apart of it. And with S.K.P. sales, what they created was more than just the shops. More than just malls with shops, but really like an art exhibition. And interestingly, they used gentle monster as creative director. So the glasses, the Korean glasses brand, gentle monster. And basically, when you enter the shop, you already have an installation from gentle monster about farming of the future. So it brings you already into such a mood that you're like, okay, where am I going here? And on each floor, you will have different kinds of exhibitions about Mars. It's kind of like what life could be on Mars. But you will have some penguins, for example, interacting with you when you pass by. So it's a bit of a crazy moment where basically you would just go there in order to see these exhibition. And at the same time, the shops are very interesting. Like the Louis Vuitton shop, for example, is not like the usual Louis Vuitton shop that you will find anywhere else. Here, when I was there last time, it was like a chess board with giant chess pieces in neon green. So that's really like, and just going there basically makes a very enjoyable Saturday afternoon, you know. And since you're there, you're walking by and eventually you enter into a shop and you buy. So that's a very nice combination where your primary purpose is actually to have a good moment and eventually you will buy something. So it's more like the buy product that comes with it. And here this is the entire mall, basically, where brands just capitalize on it. That's fantastic, because obviously some differentiators for brands are there in store experience that they're offering customers. That's how they can fast track that brand loyalty and that brand sentiment. Obviously during COVID things went online a lot more. And through that time, Gen Z and the younger generations were coming into their styles and what they liked and the brands that they liked. And we're having a purely online experience of those. Do you think this is brands trying to get people more installed to build up that sentiment, to build up those experiences, to create memories? I think you really have different types of needs and types of moments. I think we should not kind of like separate offline and online. It's kind of more creating an omnichannel experience for consumers. And I mean, in fine thinking, it's Sunday, you know, 10 p.m. Obviously I will be online. I mean, Sunday, 10 p.m. in France or in Germany, where I'm now, everything will be closed. So then if I'm looking for an experience, I will go online and luckily some brands are already playing with technology like Metaverse, for example, which can be quite immersive. But again, it depends also on the needs that you have. If I'm looking for specific products, it's very transactional. Maybe going online would be my go-to platform because it would be fast and convenient. However, if I'm on a Saturday afternoon, I have nothing to do. It's quite nice to just go, you know, to like a main shopping street and then see what's going on and then you may discover something very nice. So true. Do you think speaking about Gen Z, do you think that kind of the omnichannel experience at that level of expectation and the desire for a more entertaining retail experience is driven by them kind of coming up through a more immersive age? Like when I think about that generation in particular, they're so switched on all the time. And I wonder if that's kind of pushing brands to chase these more entertaining retail experiences to drive that loyalty. I think it's not only Gen Z. So it's true that we focus a lot on Gen Z. But if you look at older generations, like even millennials, which are not that old, come on. So thank you. Also part of millennials. Now I think you're looking for something more. I think in the past, when maybe 20 years ago, it was nice to have a nice product. Nowadays we're more looking for experience. Maybe it's more like about postmodern society, where maybe a trip to Barcelona may be nicer than just a channel dress. So I think we are really striving to make the best out of our life. And it's true that Gen Z may be more emphasizing this. But I guess like the older generations are quite happy. And I can speak for Diptic. I mean, we have like really consumers from all ages. And it's very interesting to see even older generations coming to our experience and being really amazed with what we are creating. That's right. You are right. And actually I was reading your report. from Bain and Co earlier this year and they did say that post-COVID experience is the primary driver in spending across every generation, so it could, I suppose, be a reaction to the lack of experience we all had for that year. What are the key elements that you think contribute to a successful retail attainment activation? Well, I think I will start with the obvious, but it has to be very authentic with a brand. So it has to be really, you know, a line with a brand DNA, with a brand identity. If I'm thinking and I'm sorry, I'm going to speak a lot about ZipTik because I mean, this is a apologise about that. But if you think about ZipTik, for example, we just opened a couple of months ago, like a so-called space called Lameshom, which is like the house in France and we open in London and in Paris. And this is basically your house. So you have a full experience of the ZipTik products, but instead of having the ZipTik products on a normal shelf is actually in a house. So you see in settings, so you have a bathroom, you have a living room, so you can really see the products as if you were actually visiting a friend, which makes it very different. And we have also a white space and in this white space we do different things. So every couple of months we change it, we open a cafe because we were launching a limited coffee collection, then a couple of months after, we had an artist and we collaborate with Villainouaay where we did limited candles. So it's kind of like always moving on and changing so people can just come back again and again. And here in terms of authenticity, I mean, ZipTik products are all about the art of living. This is what we offer the art of living. So what's the direct connection, the most direct connection, then opening a house, actually a home. So that's for me the number one key success factor is really the authenticity. The number two, I would say it's also quite obvious, but it's really creating something relevant to consumers. Sometimes luxury brands tend to be very top-down and forget also a bit about the consumer and this is maybe coming back to the Gen Z that we need to actually think about them and kind of like, yeah, involve them in the experience. So we want to offer them value, we want to create an emotional connection with them. So that's why it's important to also have the consumer. So it's not just a brand, it's also the consumer. So that's more like what I would say the obvious factors. But thinking of it, I think you can have other interesting ways like layering the experience, meaning if you do something in your store that depending on the customer's time or need, you want to be either transactional or offering the full experience. So you want to be adaptable and be flexible with the person you have in front of you. And I think maybe the last point what we discussed before it's really like having something which is an omnichannel strategy where basically you incorporate all your different channels and not just one single experience in one corner. So I'd love to know actually obviously you work on retail tame and executions quite regularly. How do you guys leverage other media platforms? How do you leverage, for example, social media or any other media platforms, placements, print anything to really bolster those activations? Sure. I think it's really about social media, the platform that we use the most. We also use our newsletter. But here it depends also on the objective that we have. If we want to offer an experience for our consumers, then obviously we will focus more on newsletter. If we want to offer an experience where actually we are more thinking about brand awareness or sales in general, then we will go through social media. And here for social media, obviously we can go to our own accounts, which can be a challenge for luxury brand like us because we have an international account, which means that when you have an international account, it's not just like I mean I've been in charge of Germany and Austria, so it's just about Germany and Austria. So it has to be somehow relevant for everyone. So here we will use sometimes a press or influencers, very selected influencers that can communicate about it, not anyone obviously, so it's more like friends of the house that we will select. But what I prefer, what I think is the most efficient ones, is in your settings to have something visually impactful. And it doesn't have to be like a photo, you know, wall, for example. No, it can just be like a very nice display that is very Instagrammable. And that actually people will post. The rich will be limited, but the engagement would be generally much stronger. And that's generally what I when I love. And then we discover that we have some consumers that actually are more like KOC. And that's a cherry on top of the cake. It's quite interesting at the moment that kind of shift that a lot of brands are doing where rather than kind of engaging influencers as much as they used to, they're now engaging super loyal customers and using UGC that they would generate to leverage social media in that way. Yes, I think it's way more authentic. And coming back to what we were thinking about Gen Z, Gen Z are the super power, you know, to kind of like not just what is not authentic. And that's why it's even more important to be authentic. And obviously, I mean, word of mouth coming from a friend is always more powerful. Yeah, that's so true. I always buy the many, many, many products that my friends recommend much to my bank, Stas May. Okay, so we've kind of talked about the different, the different ways you can leverage social media. What would you use as a metric to kind of measure the success of those initiatives in that case? Because they're all quite different, I suppose, how you would measure a brand awareness initiative would be very different to a more transactional KPI? Yeah, I think here when I do a retail payment activity, it's really starting with what for? So what is my objective? And sometimes my objective is sales. So then my metrics would be quite simple, if we'll be the sales. So but sometimes my metric can be drive to store. So if you try to store how we more look at the traffic, so which is also something that we measure in our in our shops. If it's brand awareness, I will more like measure, you know, like the rich that I gather, you know, across social media, plus the traffic. So I will do a combination of those. So I think it really depends on the objectives that I will set up. And I think retail payment doesn't serve for one objective. You can have several different ones. Fantastic. If you're collating all of that data after you've executed and you're analysing, you know, with success, did it go well? Did we achieve what we wanted to achieve? Are you also using social listening tools and listening to your community for that kind of feedback? Do you feel like you you can speak to them and ask them what they want after the fact and then take that and optimize for it again in the future? Yes, actually we can. I think we are very lucky and diptych because we have a community of fans that are really like very, very genuine, very talkative, but in a very nice and constructive way. I know it sounds maybe cheesy, but I had an event with consumers it was 10 days ago and it was incredible to meet the people and hear their feedback. So I think it's also being like directly in contact with the people. It's not just about having, you know, the sales advisor on the floor and gathering this quality to feedback. I think even as a marketing director, you can also go there and talk directly to the people. So you hear actually directly. So it's not quantitative, it's more like a feeling, but you still gather a lot of very interesting elements, very interesting feedbacks. And after if you want to more quantitative, what you can always do is sending us a day per newsletter and you know that if people register to the newsletter, they are already kind of like interested in the brand and people like to share their opinion. I mean, I'm here today sharing my opinion. And I'm saying it in an expert, you know, so it's more about you know sharing soads and having interesting discussions. Yeah, I think it's I think it's really good to kind of engage with customers in that way and I think more and more brands are doing it, which is great to see because there was a there was a little era where you know we are marketing, sat up in our ivory tower and we kind of thought we knew what everybody wanted and sometimes we did know what people wanted, but also I think sometimes you do lose the connection from like the people who are really buying your brand and it's with that kind of re-engagement of customers and that direct communication with them, you can learn so much like whether that be about product development or campaign, like there's just a way of knowledge right here fingertips if you choose to engage with people. I fully agree with you. I think it's important to have quantitative survey because you can really have something very objective and for some elements it's extremely useful. But on the other hand it's also very important here to not lose the ground. And I'd diptych for example for every Christmas holiday we are always invited to go at least one day you know in stores to help sell the product. And it's always a fantastic moment you know to share with people. I bet that's a busy day in the run-up Christmas. Yes that's why we do it during holidays because we are also healthy. But we are also to make sure to be really well prepared you know. So because being a marketing person doesn't mean you know how to sell products. No all wrap them. God smother wrapping that I get when I go into a diptych store. It's probably me. I can't wrap at all. I'd be so terrible at that. I can I can peel off the salad. It's really nice to hear this actually because I mean I suppose in modern days if you aren't listening to your customers it can show. I mean they will they will lay out public right there and there on different social media platforms. If you're not listening and you're not adapting to what they need you get called out and it sounds like you're so far ahead of that that the brand sentiment is just well we're trying to. We're not saying we're super far from it but we are trying to. So. A lot of what we've spoken about has kind of been more traditional activations but how are you seeing emerging technologies playing a role in the future of retail attainment. I think things are changing all the time and maybe even in China you've seen more of this where they're so on top of new technologies. How do you think that's going to start shaping things? Yes very true actually. I think China is more advanced for many elements. I think retail attainment is way more advanced in China than it is in Europe. There are two technologies. I'm a big fan of. I have to say it's augmented reality and virtual reality. I think these two technologies when they are embedded well can be really amazing. You do not see that often in Europe but I know like in China it was for like a luxury car company like an electric car company and they were actually like offering a VR experience where you had to queue and fortunately that's a problem with VR so I'm not so sure in the future the technology needs to be better but then you had to put your glasses on and it was a group of three and then you were discovering how actually these electric technology works with even some little exercise to do. So basically you combine a surprise effect because I think the technology is still new so you're very excited by trying this kind of new technology and then you combine with gamification which is also getting getting more and more traction and at the same time it's very informative. So that's definitely something that I found extremely interesting and for luxury it would be perfect because you can also like discover all the craftsmanship. I mean sending consumer to like your manufacturer may not be that easy but creating a VR experience showing actually the process could be so interesting, so immersive so that for me would be very interesting to see. Yeah I think I agree especially if you were to look at like a watch brand in Switzerland or you know you said about where the product is so driven by that kind of level of skill and technicality it'd be absolutely amazing. Yeah I think that would be amazing. But you see more is with AR. AR I think it's a bit more a bit easier because you don't need to have these big glasses and in terms of setup just with your phone you cannot access to it. And here you see a lot of like tried on virtually. Like in China Louis Vuitton was doing something with Wichette, you know Wichette being the WhatsApp over there and you have a lot of mini-program in the app and here they were doing this for the sneakers where you could basically have these tried on sneakers and also like mix matching with different styles. So this kind of like tried on virtually is quite fun I think and this we see it more and more. Yeah and it also helps with the shareability, the virality of it. You can reach a few more people using a platform like that. But it's interesting what I wanted to ask based on this was obviously these uses of technology and retail attainment are fantastic. But is there a way that they can be personalized per consumer? Obviously personalisation has been the hot buzz word for a while in this industry when it comes to marketing as you know and everybody talks about how you know that newer consumers are demanding. I don't know who's out there demanding, they're demanding personalisation and we can achieve that absolutely digitally. But can we achieve that through technology in person? Well I think the technology can already help you know by building a strong CRM system across devices and across you know platform of line and online which is it sounds easy but actually is way more complicated. So like a strong CRM system technology can definitely help on that. But then to have more like personalised experience it can be simply with a human interaction. We always think you know technology AI can personalise things but simply you know like having an event for example where you have different slots where you don't have too many people at the same time then you have a person you know like a moderator or a sales advisor giving actually something very personal it's almost like an individual consultation. So that's for example I think create personalisation and then it can be also in the giveaways that you are giving. So at DeepTik what we do often is working with illustrators and so people will come to our shop and or a corner in a department store and we'll have an illustrators which will actually then for example like we did we did last week and in Munich and even like that where we created a bookmark and on the bookmark each person had their name written on the bookmark by this illustrator plus some aquarell effects matching obviously the style of our new collection. So that's already giving personalisation without having to be too crazy with technology because it's simply you know like proposing something that you can adapt to a person. So sometimes we think crazy but actually simple elements can be already charming. Yeah I think we've got into the point with because technology is so advanced you almost think that it's the only solution whereas actually sometimes the old ways are the best for certain things and it does I think that like what you've described there that kind of personalisation with a human interaction feels extra personal because you know that it really is just for you it's not just you know a CSV file that's been uploaded with your name in Brutalple. Exactly. Okay so the final question from me would be well too really. I'd love to know what your favourite retail attainment experience that you've done with Diptyk has been to date and then also what your dream event would be for them. Where do you want it to be in five years? Okay that's a tough question. So I think the the one that we did that I really liked was something very simple it was creating an eye-struck in front of one of our shop and and so it was kind of like you know two tables and small eye-struck and our objective was obviously to sell more products in a boutique where we are lacking traffic. So here it was actually perfect because you have you know this kind of restaurant effect where people you know see somebody's and they're like oh kind of a formal you know like oh something must be happening here I have to come and and people were getting an eye-scream if they bought something or if they were registered you know to our to our newsletter so it was kind of a way for us you know together more data I would say. So clever. But in a very lovely way the eye-screams were delicious. And I have to say that we did this during two Saturdays and re-witched the highest actually sell out on those two days of the year. So that's something that was lovely beautiful very deep tick and at the same time successful so I think that's one of my favourite one so far. Wow that's a nice little story to give out your FD with isn't it? Here invest in more retail attainment look at the sales part. So if you have a sales objective it's always easy to measure. Yeah and where would you what would your dream be like what's what's next what do you hope to do one day? I think one day I would love to you know open a maison in Germany so that would be lovely because this is such a fantastic space and And especially with this white space that you have in each maison, here you can create something every month, so every two months. And that's something that is having a cartoblanche like this, that you can enjoy having the space to enjoy this. I would love it. And obviously integrating some technology. As I said, that makes huge VR fans, so having a way to integrate technology that is seamless without the boundaries of a complicated device, I would be really like, yeah, I'm very happy to organise this in five years. Well let us know when you do, because we'll be going to first flight over to Berlin. Okay, we have a appointment taken. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, Sussi, thank you so much for talking to us today. It's been really great and such a great topic to discuss as well. It's not something we've managed to touch upon all that much in the last series, so it's a really great to discuss it with you. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been such a treat talking to you and learning more about what deep-teaks goals are and where you see the retail, entertainment space going. Oh, thank you. It was a pleasure exchanging on this topic, you know, because it's a fascinating topic. And I'm sure in the future we will hear more and more about it. Oh yes. We'll see you at the Berlin Maison soon. Well, soon I'm not so sure, but we say in five years, so I'm hopeful. Yeah. Within five years. Thanks. Amazing. Thank you so much. No, you're welcome. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us at Leap Interluxury Podcast on Instagram to find out who we'll be speaking to next.