News

Retail Top 100 2012, No. 31: Interactive storefront windows

December 11, 2012

Saks Fifth Ave. and Starbucks were among those pushing the boundaries of interactive storefront displays to captivate passers-by in high-traffic locations. EBay introduced interactive store windows in New York City and San Francisco encouraging holiday shoppers to make charitable donations to Toys for Tots by scanning a QR code. Displays fronting Starbucks stores in Toronto and Vancouver encouraged passers-by to assemble their favorite Tazo teas using gesture controls via a vinyl screen and projector, while Saks and Stylelist.com tapped downtown agency Gin Lane Media to create a three-window display featuring 64 iPad 2s and nine 27-inch flat-panel Cinema Displays for the high-end retailer’s flagship Fifth Avenue store. The display featured original imagery, streaming content, tweets from around the Web and user-submitted photos with the #StylelistatSaks hashtag. Running a native iPad application built specifically for the installation on a local network, all the iPads were able to talk “to each other to produce elegant fades and control what device should display,” said Gin Lane’s Digital Creative Director Dan Kenger.

Download the complete Top 100.