adidas’s Jonathan Muir on Creating Customer Communities Through Retail Activation

On today’s episode of the Retail Experience Show, Bobby speaks with Jonathan Muir, Director of Retail Activation at adidas. They discuss what retail activation is and how it can be used to increase acquisition and engagement by focusing on the products, stories, and experiences a brand presents to its customers. They also discuss ways to achieve true omnichannel engagement, how to measure retail activation’s success, and how the future of brick-and-mortar will be found in one-to-one experiences.

 

Topics discussed:

 

• How Jonathan created Baseline, a niche sneaker business, and worked for Nike on ways to increase personalization before becoming the Director of Retail Activation at adidas.
• What a day in the life of a retail activation director looks like, from connecting with retailers on the ground to overseeing how customers perceive the brand, its products, and its stories when they walk in the door.
• What retail activation is, and how it can ignite product, marketing, and operations to create a blaze for a brand.
• Why brands need to constantly be creating and iterating around retail experiences for their customers — not just do something once a quarter or year.
• Advice for brands who want to lean further into retail activation, and how brick-and-mortar can be used as an acquisition channel to create brand fans.
• How to achieve true omnichannel marketing through data collection that drives customers back into the store.
• Why the future of retail will be found in brick-and-mortar retailers creating communities for customers that they can't find online.