Oatmeal, SmartShop and Tommy Hilfiger

'What do these three US retail brands share?' you ask? The answer is that all are looking at ways to improve your next retail experience.

BREAKFAST ON THE GO

First, Quaker Oats. Earlier this year, this PepsiCo-owned company decided that as UK consumers increasingly don't find time to eat breakfast at home, they'll find a way to have breakfast come to you ... in the form of a vending machine. The company trialled its shiny new machines at that most British of institutions, the House of Commons, with plans for a wider roll-out later in the year. These machines dispatch hot cups of porridge at any time of day with the aim of repositioning this hearty food as a healthy energy boost that's better for you than a KitKat or a Yorkie. Clearly the business case is compelling: Britain has over 500,000 refreshment vending machines with an annual intake of £1,500,000,000 according to the Automatic Vending Association. Expect their next frontiers to be car parks and football stadia.

PERSONAL OFFERS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Next, your grocery shopping list can now be retrieved by a scan of your finger print, proving that biometric technology is not just relegated to the bureaucratic world of passport checks. New York-based company Smart-Shop is a cutting-edge payment and marketing system whose kiosks can print a list of targeted special offers in line with past purchases, or print your list uploaded online from home.

Invented by Gary Hawkins, the 47-year-old owner of an independent grocer where his Smart-Shop kiosk proudly sits, his store is the test bed for a technology that could change forever all of our supermarket visits. 'We want to move marketing from a mass to an individual basis, and provide value and convenience to the consumer in a way that benefits everyone,' said Mr Hawkins in a recent interview in the Financial Times. His kiosk tracks shoppers travelling as far as 30 miles away for his store-brand gourmet foods, in-store bakery and butcher. His store, claims Hawkins, was one of the first to launch a loyalty card, back in 1993 – before Tesco in the UK – taking a decade to build the database.

But he's not alone. Several hundred other American supermarkets have been installing similar biometric payment systems over the past 12 months, including Jewel-Osco. What's different about this retail technology is the speed with which a shopper can be given 20 promotional offers directly relevant to their purchasing patterns. According to Hawkins, vegetarians won't get the coupon for Black Angus beef, while those buying basmati rice might be offered one for a new Thai sauce. Unlike Tesco's Clubcard, the SmartShop system works on individual data records, rather than demographic groupings so can be effective without the need for a shopper's email address.

AMERICAN BRAND, LOCAL STYLE

Then there's the retail changes that Tommy Hilfiger has had to make in order to keep extracting revenues from design-savvy consumers in Western Europe. His shop in Dusseldorf sells designs that Americans would never associate with the traditional red-white-and-blue of the Hilfiger brand. Hilfiger Denim is one of 34 such stores in Europe specifically catering for European tastes, with grey walls and dark wood flooring, in stark contrast to the bright, white American stores.

The price points of this European merchandise are significantly higher than the ranges in the US, but so too is the quality as competition at the premium end is intensifying. 'We still view the US as an important region, but it may not be as important as Europe and Asia because of the growth opportunities there' according to a recent interview with Tommy Hilfiger. But to keep succeeding he will need to keep on top of his European consumers who prefer the designer salons of Paris and Milan to American designer fashions. 'Most American brands tend to take every strategy used in their home market – products, pricing, marketing – and apply it in the same way overseas', according to VF Corporation's Karl Heinz Salzburger, president of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Though Hilfiger began its European expansion as long ago as 1997, it didn't get it quite right. Despite opening a flagship store in Bond Street in 1999 and selling to every department store that wanted his merchandise, the exclusivity soon disappeared while counterfeits and consumer confusion flourished from the volume of cheap knock-offs. Hilfiger soon learned to adapt to the European culture, chasing big department stores and small independent boutiques simultaneously. Most importantly, its European division transformed its marketing tactics, changing the American packaging for underwear (pictures of well-built hunky men in briefs and boxer shorts) in favour of a woman in bra and panties standing seductively behind a boxer shorts-sporting man in order to stand out. Hilfiger Europe also decided to make slimmer cuts for its jeans and trouser ranges to be more on-trend locally than continue pushing its baggy rap star jeans as sold in the States. It also shrunk the size of its logo on merchandise.

To localise yet further, the company has assembled a design team of nearly 40, based in Amsterdam, to better cater for local European tastes (leather jackets and cashmere sweaters for Italians, conservative shirts and woven-cotton sports shirts for German men) as well as adjusting its brand strategy by avoiding the use of the 'Tommy Jeans' brand in Europe since its 25 45 year-old customers are not entirely romanced by this range.

THE FUTURE OF RETAIL?

Despite the divergence of each of these American organisations, they all share the same goal: to transform our retail experiences for the better. Only time will tell if they have truly succeeded, but in the short term at least we can take comfort from knowing our British political leaders are being changed for the better with all-day instant access to a wholesome, hot breakfast.

This article featured in Market Leader, Summer 2007.