BeautyTouch shopper engagement launches at Harrods

MultiTouch Ltd, developer of the world’s first modular multi-touch LCD screen for large-scale displays,has announced that two 55” MultiTaction Cells have been used in the first interactive media platform dedicated to the beauty industry.

Called BeautyTouch, the concept is the result of an innovative collaboration between Urban Retreat at Harrods, and DigiTact Ltd, a software company specialising in experiential retail technology.

BeautyTouch helps sales assistants keep customers engaged for longer, deliver brand messaging on demand and lengthens the window of opportunity to encourage a customer to make a purchase. The platform focuses on using interactive technology to enhance the shopping experience for consumers, and provides previously inaccessible insight to brands on the behaviour of retail browsers using embedded data capture filters. By using gesture technology and Enriched Reality – MultiTouch’s own object recognition technology – BeautyTouch lets consumers dynamically browse, share, email, give feedback and request further information about on-screen content in real time, and in an environment that brings branded content to life.

Urban Retreat has been recognised within the Beauty Industry as an innovator, so it was no surprise that creative director, Reena Hammer was keen to adapt MultiTaction Cell technology to specifically suit the beauty retail industry.

“Having met with the Digitact team, it was clear that this technology had the ability to inspire and engage both brands and consumers – something which is at the heart of our business,” explains Reena. “Being stagnant has never been an option for us. And from a commercial point of view, as a business we saw the value of the real time data and information it could provide us. As we continually strive to move the business forward and understand our customers better, this type of technology will only act as an accelerator for us. This technology has a pretty face but brains too!”

Digitact founder and CEO, Ben Gibson comments: “A key approach we have to interactive technology is its dual purpose in providing an entertaining and functional user interface for consumers, but also it’s ability to give our clients deeper insight into how their customers are browsing. Better data is the key to continued business success and our embedded data analytics suite helps the BeautyTouch concept obtain that.”

Ben adds: “One of the primary reasons for selecting the Multitaction cells was their ability to recognise objects and markers, which is not something that had been deployed in the beauty sector until now”.

Hannu Anttila, vice president of business development of MultiTouch comments: “We are delighted to see MultiTaction Cells in use in such an iconic department store as Harrods, and we are thankful to DigiTact, a key partner in the retail segment, for undertaking this fantastic project and making it such a success. MultiTaction Cells are currently being used in a huge range of functions, and the opportunities for the retail sphere are clear from the Beauty Touch application.”