Background and challenges: Nestlé Waters testifies to its Retail Staging solution

Presentation of the interviewee : Camille Pras

Camille Pras is Merchandising Manager at Nestlé Waters.

Presentation of the company

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Nestlé, founded in 1866, is the world leader in the food industry. In 2021, the company had 276,000 employees, 354 factories in 79 countries and a turnover of €90 billion.

Nestlé Waters is a subsidiary of the Swiss Nestlé Group, which groups together its bottled water activities.

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Introducing Retail Staging

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Retail Staging is a suite of tools created by Retail VR. It improves teamwork and facilitates the deployment of merchandising strategies at the point of sale.

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What were your objectives with this solution? 

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The objective of using this solution is to differentiate ourselves, to bring something new to our customer meetings. 

For example, it allowed us to bring our client Intermarché to our headquarters and present our projects to them.

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It is important to note that we have a multimedia infrastructure within our premises, a very innovative digital room called the DAT room. Among other things, it offers a giant 4K screen. This immersive infrastructure has allowed us to replace the physical showrooms we used to have in Noisiel and now allows us to receive our customers in the best conditions.

Thanks to this infrastructure and the Retail VR solution, we were able to fully immerse the Intermarché teams in a virtual store in the brand's colors.

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Our main objective was to make the store want to follow us in the implementation of our merchandising innovations.

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Solution and feedback: Nestlé Waters testifies to the Retail Staging solution

What facilities/difficulties did you encounter in setting up?

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First of all, we had a rather short deadline, one and a half months to create the showroom. And, internally, the teams were a little apprehensive about using this solution and the project because, from experience, it takes time to set up. It's a new concept, so it's very critical. 

I first contacted the RDE (retail development manager) at Nestlé Waters. Together we defined the objectives of the meeting with Intermarché and prepared our POS, our packaging and our merchandising recommendations. 

Unfortunately, the visuals of our POP displays were not always in 3D and we didn't always have the exact dimensions, so we had to worry about that. 

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The Retail VR team was very responsive! They were always there to answer our requests and to tell us if what we sent them was modelable or not. 

Matthieu Muratet, customer success manager, was very available for us! We set up project follow-up points with Matthieu. Frequently, we set complementary points to have a close follow-up of the project and to keep our deadlines.

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What are the advantages of this solution?

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This solution allowed us to show, within an immersive showroom, the planograms without dressing in the linear. Conversely, and thanks to the solution, at the touch of a button, we can show the same planograms with the shelf covering this time. This is very practical to highlight the changes and the merchandising efforts we are making. 

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We were also able to show the event operations in the store context and, thanks to the immersive solution, there was a better visibility with our employees and our customer. 

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Overall, these tools have allowed us to differentiate ourselves, to innovate, to change from our classic Powerpoint presentations.  

Our meetings become more interactive and immersive!

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What benefits did you perceive? Have you had any feedback on this usage (client/platform side)

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We have had great feedback on the solution! 

On the client side, the Intermarché teams perceived novelty and innovation. They appreciated being able to visualize the project, to see the rendering of the linear dressings.

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It should be noted that the environment is customized with the brand's colors, so we are in a real Intermarché store with the latest concept to present our innovations. The fact that we were able to reproduce the brand's codes so precisely was greatly appreciated. 

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Conducting our presentations with the Retail VR solution is going to be much more memorable for our customers than our competitors' because of the immersiveness of the solution. This is a real advantage. 

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To finish, we asked a lot of Josselin Monnot, our Key Account, he always made himself available for our meetings and above all he succeeded in making everyone want to use the solution!

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Collaboration and follow-up: Nestlé Waters testifies to its Retail Staging solution

Why did you choose Retail VR?

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We chose Retail VR for its ability to accompany us in the innovation of our merchandising practices. 3D is a technology that convinced us because it is visually very realistic and allows us to simulate our customer journeys in an immersive way. 

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Our contacts at Retail VR are always very available and very proactive to meet our needs. Moreover, the use of the platform is quite simple and the requested optimizations are often feasible, which is very appreciable.