Merchandising and commerce content company 10CMS – which works with, amongst others, Conran, Anthropologie , Halfords, Kiddicare, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Dunhill and LK Bennett – has undertaken a total brand refresh and released an updated merchandising platform, as it seeks to press home its advantage around mobile, touch, multi-screen and social commerce. The company’s new name will be Amplience.
CEO, James Brooke, explained at the start of Internet Retailing Expo at the Birmingham NEC on 21 March: “2011 was the year that mobile and tablet commerce arrived. They are no longer on the margins – in terms of growth in their share of visitor traffic, both smartphones and tablet devices are off the scale. That trend towards touch screen devices, from smartphones and tablets to digital kiosks and ultimately, connected TVs, fundamentally changes the way consumers interact with brands and retailers.
“With these new devices a new class of super consumers has emerged – who, as curators of taste and content, use these powerful new mobile devices to find and share products and unique content on social commerce destinations like Pinterest. This dynamic is changing the way that trends are set, and ultimately the way that we shop.
“Marketers and merchandisers need to recognise the emergence of this new and powerful dynamic, and create truly differentiated retail experiences that facilitate and co-opt these new behaviours.
“Our rebrand is about moving with the times and driving home our advantage. It’s not just about content management any more. It is about amplifying the performance of marketing and merchandising content, to deliver sophisticated new customer experiences that drive conversion and revenue on these new devices.”
When it comes to addressing this multi-screen world, the Amplience platform is unlike any other solution. It has been built from the ground up to provide retailers and brand owners with a single platform with which to create and distribute optimised, richly engaging experiences across all digital channels – mobiles, tablet devices, digital kiosks and conventional web browsers.
Crucially, Amplience incorporates native support for touch screens, which enables retailers and brands to re-use content designed for the conventional web channel. The addition of ‘multi-gesture’ functionality creates an experience that is perfectly attuned to the device, rather than ‘good enough’.
Brooke said: “Over the last twelve months, tablet use has rocketed, but average conversion rates via tablet have fallen. That reflects a situation in which retailers and brands are simply not geared up to deliver an optimised touch screen experience alongside conventional web experiences. Instead they’ve presented consumers with content that simply does not work when you try to navigate using touch screen gestures, so the experience has been clunky and off-putting.
“Amplience is about enabling retailers to embrace Touch Commerce, by transforming traditional online channels into engaging Touch Commerce experiences, and to build an entirely new channel on tablet devices like the iPad, without ending up with a complicated and expensive mish mash of platforms and tools. Amplience offers a simple means to drive revenues by embracing a multi-screen world, whilst cutting content production times and reducing the associated costs.”
“Amplience has demonstrated clear insight into the needs of brands and retailers with its offering. The rebrand to Amplience signals the step change in platform functionality the team have implemented to meet the new opportunities of touch-screen digital channels, that will lead the company’s growth over the coming years,” said Jo Oliver, Investment Manager at Octopus Ventures.
