How it started

The Samsung Shopper Insights team in the US aims to bring fresh shopper insights & inspiration to the marketing teams. Based on extensive shopper journey work, it was clear that there were three main challenges:

1. The path to purchase is overwhelming: too many brands, models and tech
2. Shoppers lack trust in the info they find and seek signals that they have made the right choice at each stage of the journey
3. Although ‘Value’ seems to be a loose construct, all shoppers expect brands to deliver it

How we inspired change

We organised a retail safari to get to the inspiration needed to tackle the three challenges. 30 Samsung cross-functional members met in NYC in August 2022. Each team visited 3-4 out-of-category retail locations in Manhattan.
They were tasked with experiencing these places as shoppers and documenting key insights on the four Realms of an Experience Framework: Entertainment, Educational, Esthetic, and Escapist.
The teams then reconvened for an afternoon workshop to discuss observations and implications. A digital safari exercise for the same brands was also completed by cross-functional team members to explore how the physical and in-store can be integrated.

How it lives on

The team collected 200+ retail observations via WhatsApp and 50+ digital observations and mapped them along the four Realms of the Experience Framework. Together, they created 80+ ideas to improve the Samsung Home Electronics retail experience and presented their best ideas in a ‘Shark Tank’-style pitch.

All was debriefed in a session on key learnings and big ideas. Also, next steps were defined, such as a presentation with the broader Home Electronics Team (~700+ employees), idea screening, and planning for a Retail Safari for the Samsung Home Appliances Team).