YOU’RE AT THE electronics aisle in Target, staring at wall of gizmos trying to decide which smoke detector will replace the incessantly beeping hunk of plastic in your kitchen. You have many options. Probably too many. Then you see something called the Nest Protect. It looks cool—a sleek, shiny, high-tech version of what’s in your apartment.
It’s unclear from the Protect’s perch on the shelf why it might be better. Or why it’s so expensive. The box features words like “compatibility,” “wireless range,” and “installation.” Overwhelmed, you put it back, and grab the unassuming white disc that costs eight bucks.
One of the great difficulties of selling internet-connected devices in a story like Target is convincing people the gadgets are worth the money, and the time to master them. “Selling these products in brick-and-mortar is really challenging,” says Jake Barton says. “It actually takes a fair amount of storytelling.” By storytelling, he means explaining exactly what a product does and why it would make your life easier.
Barton is the founder of Local Projects, a New York design studio that worked on the 9/11 Museum’s interactive installations and the touch tables at the Cooper Hewitt. Local Projects recently joined Target to build Open House, a retail space in San Francisco that uses interactive storytelling to show customers how smart products like the Nest Protect might work in their homes. With the Internet of Things market projected to reach $1.7 trillion in 2020, an educational approach to selling the devices will be key to retailers. “There’s some hand holding that needs to happen,” says John Byrne of Infonetics Research. “Because there’s an intimidation factor and a lack of information.”
Given Local Projects’ résumé, it’s no surprise Open House looks like an interactive museum dedicated to 21st-century consumerism. The space is arranged like a 3,500-square-foot suburban home, if that home happened to be filled exclusively with internet-connected gadgets. In the kitchen, you’ll find Drop’s connected scale and a connected cook thermometer. A side table in the bedroom displays Withings’ wireless blood pressure monitor and a Sonos speaker. The walls are translucent, awash in the warm glow of Phillips Hue smart bulbs. It’s as though Philip Johnson’sGlass House and the Jetsons’ futuristic pad had a lovechild.
Because Target’s Open House is filled with sensor-laden products, it detects your presence almost immediately and serves up gee-whiz interactions without prompting. As you pass gadgets, conversation bubbles pop up on the wall, lending the devices a friendly, cartoonish character. The house is built to highlight the connections between all the products inside it, which are shown with flight path-like projections shooting from one gadget to another. Two multi-touch tables let you learn about each product and visualize how they work together in a single ecosystem.
“Showing how some of these products work together isn’t something we’ve seen in retail before,” says Casey Carl, Target’s chief strategy/innovation officer. That’s because showcasing functionality requires more room than a typical store aisle allows for. It’s also because we’re still learning how these gadget work together. “It’s this huge incoming trend,” he says. “But it’s still very nascent within consumer products.” Although individual IoT products sell well at Target, Carl says showing how they work together presents a far more compelling case for consumers to take out their wallet.
Open House is a retail space, but also a test lab where consumers will learn about products, Target will learn about its consumers, and startups (some of which Target is incubating in-house) will learn what it takes to sell their gadgets to the masses. As Barton explains it, “To reach the scale these startups need to reach they need to almost go through a retail 101.” Open House is retail 101. Building out what’s essentially a retail laboratory is a smart move for a company that wants to be a one-stop shop for your lifestyle needs. Eventually, Target’s goal is to apply what it has learned at Open House to its 1,500-plus stores. By getting a foothold in the tech community, Carl believes Target will have a head-start on what might be the big trends of the future. “We want to see more effectively what’s next,” he says. “So we can see more effectively what’s around the corners.”
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