Klépierre: Inspiration Corridor

One of the biggest problems brick-and-mortar retailers face is that many consumers prefer the convenience of shopping online. So Klépierre, a European specialist in shopping center properties, decides to give customers a unique and personal window shopping experience that simultaneously advertises multiple brands available in its shopping center.

How the corridor turns browsing into a saved journey

The mechanism is a walk-in “inspiration corridor” that is described as using an infrared camera and live detection to adapt the interface to the visitor. The walls then show a curated set of products pulled from real-time inventory, and the visitor can tap items to add them to a personal shopping list. At the end, the selection syncs to the Klépierre mobile app, which then helps locate the chosen products in the mall.

Here, live detection means the corridor reads the visitor in the moment and adjusts what appears on the walls accordingly.

In European shopping centers, the winning retail experiences blend discovery and convenience, giving visitors a reason to browse physically while keeping the efficiency people associate with online shopping.

The result is a browse-first experience that keeps discovery and wayfinding in one flow.

Why this beats “more screens”

This lands because it does not ask shoppers to learn a new behavior. It upgrades a familiar one. Window shopping. The corridor simply makes browsing feel personal and actionable, then removes the “I’ll never find it again” friction by saving the picks and turning them into a navigable list. The stronger move is not to add more screens, but to make physical browsing easier to finish. That works because discovery, selection, and store-finding happen in one continuous interaction.

Extractable takeaway: If your category is losing visits to online convenience, do not fight browsing. Instrument it. Let people browse with their body language and taps, then hand them a saved list that makes the rest of the journey feel effortless.

The quiet business intent

The real question is whether one shared experience can turn mall-level discovery into measurable value for multiple tenants at once.

Klépierre is not only showcasing technology. It is selling a multi-brand promise. One interaction can route a shopper to several tenants, lift discovery across stores, and create measurable signals of interest without needing a single retailer to run the whole experience alone.

What mall operators should borrow

  • Curate across brands. A mall operator can create value by packaging discovery in a way individual stores cannot do alone.
  • Connect to live stock. Recommendations feel credible when they map to what is actually available right now.
  • Make saving the default. “Tap to add” is the key bridge from inspiration to purchase intent.
  • Close the loop with wayfinding. The experience should end with “here’s where to get it”, not just “wasn’t that cool”.
  • Design for low friction. The corridor should work in seconds, even for someone who did not plan to engage.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Klépierre’s Inspiration Corridor?

It is an in-mall interactive experience that personalizes product recommendations on surrounding walls and lets visitors tap to save items to a shopping list that syncs to the mall’s app.

How does the personalization work?

It is described as using live detection, for example via an infrared camera, to adapt recommendations and the interface to the visitor in the moment.

What problem does this solve versus standard mall advertising?

It turns passive promotion into active selection. Instead of only seeing brand messages, shoppers leave with a saved list and a practical path to find products.

What is the main metric to watch?

Saved items per session, app sync rates, store visit lift for featured tenants, and conversion from saved lists to purchases where measurement is possible.

What should you be careful about when deploying live detection?

Be explicit about what is being detected and why, keep the experience usable without any personal account setup, and avoid language that implies storing identities or profiling.

Happy Holiday Videos 2013: Agency Stunts

Welcome back. Hope everyone had a great holiday season. Now for a great start to 2014.

Taking off from my last post, here are a series of holiday action videos created by agencies around the world in their lead up to Christmas 2013. By “holiday action videos” I mean greetings built around a single visible action or interaction, not a passive message.

Holiday greetings that behave like products

The mechanism across this set is simple. Use the “holiday card” moment as permission to ship a stunt, an installation, or an interactive video that people can experience rather than merely watch.

In global agency culture, holiday cards are a low-stakes sandbox for experimentation that teams can ship fast and share widely.

The real question is whether your greeting can demonstrate something people can experience, not just a sentiment you can post.

This format is worth copying because it turns a seasonal hello into proof of craft.

Why this format keeps working

These pieces earn attention because they trade greeting-card sentiment for an observable action. Put in a coin. Click a button. Gather people in front of a webcam. One clear trigger, one visible result.

Extractable takeaway: If you want something to travel during peak-season noise, design a one-step interaction that produces a visible payoff, and make the payoff easy for someone else to describe in a sentence.

Christmas Chocolate Coin Factory by W+K London

Wieden+Kennedy London turned their Hanbury Street office window into a Christmas installation. Passers-by who inserted a 1 pound coin into Dan & Dave’s Chocolate Coin Factory activated the machine on display which then dispensed a special gold Belgian chocolate coin at the other end. All the money collected from this coin factory was donated towards building a new playground for Millfields Community School in Hackney, East London.

Disrupted Christmas by Holler

Holler, an agency from Sydney, created a live interactive installation that gave the general public a chance to disrupt the agency as it worked throughout the day. Electric Muscle Stimulation (EMS) units were hacked and hooked up to the Internet via IP cameras. Then key members of the agency were connected to the EMS units, and the Internet via a live stream. The public could then watch the agency staff online and instantaneously zap them at will with the click of a button.

For each disruption the agency donated $1 to The Factory, a local community centre with a long history of supporting socially and economically disadvantaged local residents.

The More the Merrier by Publicis Groupe

The Publicis Groupe was back again with another Maurice Lévy holiday video. This time they worked with DigitasLBi to create a video that uses your webcam to detect how many faces are watching together, and then adapts the video based on the number of viewers.

The Epic Christmas Split by Delov Digital

Delov Digital from Hungary used Chuck Norris to top Jean-Claude Van Damme’s epic Volvo split with the help of some serious digital enhancement.

A repeatable structure for next year’s greeting

  • Give the audience one trigger. A single action that anyone can explain and repeat.
  • Make the payoff visible. Something that changes on-screen or in the real world, immediately.
  • Design for retellability. If the idea cannot be summarized in one sentence, it will not spread.
  • Let craft do the selling. Use the holiday excuse to demonstrate what you can build, not just what you can say.

A few fast answers before you act

What makes “holiday action videos” different from normal holiday ads?

They are built around a visible action or interaction. The greeting is the excuse. The experience is the asset that people talk about and share.

Why do agencies use holiday cards as a playground for experimentation?

The stakes are lower and the audience is receptive. That creates room to try unusual formats, technical tricks, and interactive mechanics that would be harder to justify in a client campaign.

What is the common mechanism across the best ones?

One clear trigger and one clear payoff. Insert a coin and get a coin back. Click a button and something happens. Add more people and the video changes.

How do you choose a mechanic that people will actually try?

Pick a one-step trigger that feels effortless, then make the payoff obvious within seconds. If someone cannot explain both in one sentence, the interaction will not travel.

How do you keep it from feeling like a gimmick?

Anchor the interaction in a simple human reward. Delight, togetherness, surprise, or a small act of good. Then keep the mechanic effortless so the idea does not collapse under friction.