Customers can have a direct conversation on Messenger, Facebook’s instant messaging system, with a Tommy Hilfiger “concierge”, who invites them to take a look at the videos of the 2016-2017 spring/summer fashion shows and discover the new collections. During the chat, the virtual PR from the fashion house learns about the tastes and preferences of the person they are chatting with, and so can help them make purchases with targeted advice. After the first experiments, Tommy Hilfiger has testified that this method of interacting with customers has had great commercial success. The new feature, however, is not the use of a social channel, but a “bot” (software that simulates the behaviour of human intelligence) that holds a one-to-one conversation with the other person and learns what they like, so it always has the best information to offer to them. The bot is called Tmy.grl and, according to press releases from the US fashion house, on just one day, Friday 9 September, it generated 80,000 views on the site tommy.com for the pages of the TommyxGigi capsule collection (designed by Gigi Hadid) and sales that were up 220% compared to the same day last year. “Digital innovation is at the heart of our strategy – said Tommy Hilfiger during New York Fashion Week, during which he applied the principle of “see now, buy now” with touchscreens, on the e-commerce channel and on social networks -. On Messenger, the Tmy.grl bot introduces a new level of accessibility, involvement and customisation for our public.” For those who think that digital is the future, here is one more demonstration that the future is now. (rp)
Tommy Hilfiger experiments with the robot that chats and gives style tips. Sales go through the roof: +220%
