Experiential branding and marketing firm Creative Realities has announced that Laura Davis-Taylor has joined the organization as vice president of Global Retail Strategy. Davis-Taylor, who was recently named by Retail TouchPoints Magazine as one of the industry's "Top Analysts," will oversee the firm's retail strategy initiatives. She will be part of Studio CRI, the firm's strategy and creative group.
"We've always believed in the importance of big picture strategy," said Creative Realities' founder and CEO, Jason Friedman. "We're excited to add a renowned retail strategist to our team and to expand our capabilities for clients."
Davis-Taylor says she decided to join the Inc. 5000 firm because she sees it as a visionary company that has the leadership, resources, and global reach to help change retail.
"Retail is at a critical juncture," she said. "Companies can either become obsolete by applying old-school marketing dogma to the retail environment - what I call 'find me, sell me' philosophy - or they're going to understand that, in the future of retail, the consumer has as much authority as they do over their brand, and they'll embrace consumer experience, which I call 'know me, help me' philosophy."
Davis-Taylor began her career in 1992 by working in the advertising industry. Early on, she decided the best way to help clients was by getting a wide-ranging understanding of all consumer communication channels. She took on projects in traditional advertising, brand planning, creative services, account services, merchandising, and environmental design and founded the interactive division for the Southeast's largest private ad agency.
Miller Zell hired Davis-Taylor as a vice president. There, she used her cross-channel expertise to work with retailers like Wal-Mart, Circuit City and H&R Block. She helped these organizations create strategies for enhancing all of their customer experience touch points.
By working with retailers, Davis-Taylor realized the importance of brand strategy and in-store messaging to connect emotionally with customers and influence buying decisions. Prior to joining Creative Realities, Davis-Taylor headed Retail Media Consulting (RMC), which she founded to help brands build strategy, activation methods, and measurement analytics around digital media in retail stores.
Davis-Taylor serves as an advisor for several organizations in the fields of retail, customer experience, and digital signage. She is the Chair of the POPAI Digital Signage Advocacy Committee, a board member of the Digital Signage Expo Advisory Board, and a board member of the Digital Content Circle advisory board.
Davis-Taylor is also an industry thought leader. She co-wrote the book "Lighting Up the Aisle: Practices and Principles for In-store Digital Media" (2007), and contributed to the soon-to-be-released "Digital Signage Best Practices Guide" (2010). She has keynoted and been an expert panel member at dozens of events.
