EXCLUSIVE: Woolworths has tried the virtual retail wall. Now it’s Target’s turn. And the hopes are big that it might turn into something resembling a groundbreaking retail model.
For Walt Disney Company it is an equally important test of how it uses technology to engage with consumers. Its Disney Princess Virtual Wall went up at the Event Cinemas in Castle Towers in Sydney’s Northwest today.
The project marks the final weekend of a six-week cinema event Disney has called The Disney Princess Festival in which a series of its movies have been brought back for cinema. The aim of the Disney Princess Virtual Wall is to get cinema goers to use a QR code to download a Disney Princess app which carries content from across the Disney portfolio and products which can be purchased delivered by Target.
“It’s something that could potentially open up a new retail model for us,” said The Walt Disney Company’s director of ad sales and promotions, Sean Sparks. “It’s also something Target recognises and we’ve worked with them to find opportunities where we can innovate in that technology space.”
Target and Disney’s ambitions are modest. If they get 100 people to buy product off the virtual wall this weekend, the two parties will be happy.
“We will take the learnings from this and build on it,” said Sparks. “We’ll be talking on board how consumers interact with the Princess app and the virtual wall. They are all the things we are looking at.
“Rather than leading with just a media solution, we are putting consumers and technology front and centre. It’s about how we find a retail solution for Target rather than just a traditional media solution.”
Sparks said it was also a world first for Disney and it too was looking at how in brings together all its diverse properties and assets into digital initiatives like the virtual wall.
“Whether we build out more of these walls or look at other apps from a retail perspective we don’t know yet. But we’re very much looking at ways to innovate as a business and make technology front and centre.”
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