After weeks of hard work, sleepless nights and countless cups of coffee, we unveiled the latest iteration of our groundbreaking 5D Retail Experience Platform at Retail’s Big Show: The National Federation of Retail’s 102nd Annual Convention & EXPO. We had fun showing off  how 5D can customize, personalize and seamlessly synchronize the shopping experience, the biggest hits being the co-shopping feature and our synchronized transparent displays. We’re preparing a post focusing on some of the emerging trends in retail, but wanted to share some of the highlights from the two day event. If you weren’t able to make it in person, you can check out the experience here: emergingexperiences.com/5D. And be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest news and events coming from the Razorfish Emerging Experiences Group.

Creating the next big thing in retail is no easy task, but when you get to work with some amazing technology, it can be a lot of fun. Pictured above, Razorfish Emerging Experiences Associate Director Ryan Kellogg is seen hooking up our brand new transparent displays.

Some of the amazing brands that received a hands-on demonstration included Macy’s (pictured above with CEO Terry Lundgren on the far right), Ralph Lauren, Lowes, Walmart, Tesco, Toys“R”Us, Estée Lauder, Louis Vuitton, Loreal, UNIQLO, H&M, Levi’s, Wells Fargo, Staples, Total Wine, Swarovski, Gucci and Moods of Norway… just to name a few.

We presented the 5D platform to dozens of international delegations, including this one from Brazil (which had to be translated in real-time).

Our experience was one of the most popular at the event and was visited frequently by the media, including American Public Media’s Marketplace (seen above with Razorfish Emerging Experiences Vice President Jonathan Hull).

And when it was all over, we had the fun task of tearing it all down (which was a lot faster than putting it all up).

Get your hands on the 5D experience by embarking on a unique shopping journey that utilizes a variety of platforms and technologies, including a first of it’s kind, seamlessly-synchronized transparent interactive display wall. It’s located in the Microsoft booth (1005) on Level 3. And to see more of 5D in action, head on over to emergingexperiences.com/5D.

Our lab is buzzing with activity as the team prepares for the National Retail Federation’s 102nd Annual Convention & EXPO in New York. On display will be the latest iteration of Razorfish 5D— the world’s first cross-device, cross-OS, connected retail platform. Launched at last year’s NRF convention, 5D has already been launched in several markets and was used to create Audi City London, a one-of-a-kind immersive virtual showroom. This year we’re showing how our platform can power customized, personalized and seamlessly synchronized shopping experiences. We threw in some augmented reality and a bunch of transparent displays as well.

Our team will be demonstrating the 5D experience in booth #1005 on Level 3 of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. If you can’t make the show, be sure to follow us on Twitter to get the latest updates.

Most Contagious, that is.

We’re excited to announce that Audi City London has claimed Contagious Magazine’s Most Contagious Retail Award at a ceremony today in London. This experience was a year-long collaborative effort between Audi and a wide range of partners, and was launched near Piccadilly Circus just ahead of the summer Olympics. It is delivered by one of the most technologically advanced retail environments ever created and features a variety of multi-touch displays for configuring your Audi from millions of possible combinations. Once you’ve created your personalized Audi at this groundbreaking dealership, you can toss it onto one of the floor-to-ceiling digital “powerwalls” to visualize and explore your configuration at a true 1:1 scale. Audi City London is a true dealership of the future and an effort we were proud to be part of.

Photo: Gaurav Singh

When we’re playing in our Lab, we’re always looking for creative ways to push the limits of technology. Some of our projects are just for fun, and others, like London’s Audi City, completely reinvent the way people shop. We were even thinking about digital wallets before they were cool. So when we set out to create the Razorfish 5D platform, our goal was to design a powerful and highly immersive way for brands to connect with consumers—before, during and after the shopping experience. In our latest video, we show how our 5D platform seamlessly connects a variety of digital devices to better attract consumers into the store, drive product engagement and arm store associates with more contextualized digital tools. The end result is a fun and personal experience, the way shopping should be.

In early October, the Emerging Experiences practice’s San Francisco office brought our Razorfish 5D retail platform to Oracle OpenWorld. Within this global event was the first ever Customer Experience Summit. This event gathered industry leaders together to discuss strategies for driving customer-centric initiatives while interacting with some of the most future-forward experiences and minds.

Emerging Experiences set up our Razorfish 5D retail experience in beautiful Union Square park. We demonstrated how a seamless customer journey can cross over touch tables, gestural sensors, digital screens, tablets and mobile apps to transform the retail experience.

The 5D installation for Oracle CX showed how each element of the contemporary brick-and-mortar store can be enhanced and streamlined. Digital displays, smartphones and HD touch tables communicated with each other to provide infinite shelves as well as an immersive experience to tell the stories behind the store brands.

Tablet software provided store associates with the opportunity to not only help shoppers select items, but even interact with their customer’s smartphones. The 5D retail experience also demonstrated how virtual dressing rooms with augmented reality can enhance the retail experience. Each of these touch-points in turn generates massive amounts of data about the sales process.

Sharing our retail story with the attendees at the Oracle Customer Experience Summit was both extremely rewarding and entertaining. We look forward to returning next year.

We’re excited by the launch of a revolutionary showroom experience for a premiere automotive brand. After a year of collaboration between Audi and a wide range of partners, Audi City has launched near Piccadilly Circus in London, ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Audi City London is a groundbreaking dealership experience delivered by one of the most technologically advanced retail environments ever created. The digital environment features multi-touch displays for configuring your Audi vehicle from millions of possible combinations. Your personalized car is visualized in photorealistic 3D using real-time render technology, making the Audi City vehicle configurator the most advanced in the world. After personalizing your Audi, you can toss your vehicle onto one of the floor-to-ceiling digital “powerwalls” to visualize your car configuration in life-size scale. From here, you can use gestures to interact with your personalized vehicle, exploring every angle and detail in high resolution using Kinect technology.

A purely digital showroom can’t deliver on the tactile experience of buying a car. Therefore, a store associate can save your configuration on a RFID-enabled USB stick and guide you into a personal consultation area that features a variety of tactile objects. These objects help the customers get hands-on with the materials of the vehicle including car exterior color and finish options and interior upholstery options. Each of these tangible objects are digitally-tagged through RFID technology. You can bring bring any of these physical objects over to the configurator experience and the corresponding exterior paint finishes and interior options will automatically update your vehicle configuration.

When purchasing a car, the customer journey occurs across multiple channels. In order to integrate and simplify the car buying process, we’ve allowed customers to retrieve their online car configurations in the showroom environment. In addition, any car configuration made in the showroom is synchronized to your personal USB stick. Simply pop in the USB stick at home and the web-based configurator is automatically launched with the exact car configuration you created in the showroom. This allows Audi to deliver a “start anywhere, end anywhere” buying cycle for the customer, which has proven elusive for retailers.

Not only is Audi City a premier showroom environment, the dealership concept represents a fundamental shift in retail strategy for the brand. This new small-footprint retail format brings Audi closer to their customers, not only geographically but also emotionally. The smaller-footprint concept will launch in metropolitan environments and reach a younger urban and digitally-enabled demographic. After hours, the environment will serve as a cultural center in the larger community by playing host to readings, round-table discussions and art exhibitions.

“Audi City combines the best of two worlds – digital product presentation and personal contact with the dealer” says Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management at Audi. “People are placing greater emphasis than ever before on a direct and personal bond of trust with their vehicle brand – especially in respect of the increasing variety of products and available information. Thus, with Audi City we are creating a one-stop-shop for experiencing our brand. It is right in the midst of our customers’ lives, yet seamlessly connected to the online range offered by the four rings.”

Audi announced at the London launch that 20 showrooms in other major international cities will follow by 2015.

Fresh out of R&D from the Razorfish Emerging Experiences team is a product code-named “5D”. 5D started out as an idea to re-invent personal shopping. Our goal was to create a retail experience platform for both consumers and sales associates that enables multi-channel sales through immersive and connected digital devices in retail environments. And the only way to do it is to seamlessly integrate five key components – devices, content, experiences, analytics and CRM with a touch of digital magic!

The team announced 5D at the 2012 NRF Convention & Expo in New York City in partnership with NEC and Microsoft. Leveraging Windows Embedded, Microsoft Surface, MS Tag, Windows Phone and Kinect for Windows we created a prototype around a fictitious brand “Razorfashion” that demonstrates how various touch points along the customer journey can attract consumers into the store, drive product engagement and arm store associates with more contextualized digital tools.

You can read the full press release here