Leading the AI-first Transformation of Retail Marketing at NRF 2019: Retail’s Big Show

For over 30,000 attendees every year, the National Retail Federation’s “Retail’s Big Show” is a marketplace for ideas, relationships and technologies that can deliver progress for digital transformations at retail companies.

This year, NRF’s 2019 show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City featured forward-thinking discussions around augmented and virtual realities, the Internet of Things, and — perhaps most prominently — artificial intelligence.

To that end, NRF invited Tinyclues (now Splio) to lead the discussion on artificial intelligence in two mainstage presentations and throughout the three-day event at our Platinum Sponsor booth.

The topic of artificial intelligence appeared in presentations and conversations throughout the Javits Center, as retailers continue to evaluate how investments in AI will elevate their marketing strategies. According to a joint survey of 1900 retail executives by NRF and IBM released at the show, 51% of retailers are already using AI for customer intelligence, 48% are using it for demand forecasting, and 38% are using the tech for pricing and promotion. Over the next three years, these numbers are projected to jump to 79%, 85% and 73%, respectively.

For retailers who find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real AI and “vaporware,” Tinyclues founder and mathematician David Bessis hosted a Big Ideas session on how true AI removes complexity from marketing and drives consistent results – including an average of 79% increased campaign revenue, 51% increased customer engagement and 80% increase in marketers’ productivity.

“True AI removes complexity from your marketing. If your ‘AI’ solution requires business rules, or data formatting, or uses a complex interface — it’s not true AI.” David Bessis, Founder of Tinyclues.

Year in and year out, our favorite part of NRF is the many enlightening conversations we have with retail marketers. Over 250 attendees visited the Tinyclues booth (now Splio) to find the only solution built ground-up around artificial intelligence for marketing campaigns – and not around buzz.

This year, we listened as several booth visitors described the challenge of not being able to anticipate customer needs and thus delivering poorly relevant messages. As retailers amass more and more data, it becomes increasingly challenging to separate signals from noise and feel confident that messages they send will resonate and trigger a purchase.

According to a recent Gartner report, nearly 40% of marketing leaders say that reaching audiences at the right moments using advanced techniques continues to be their top multichannel marketing challenge.

At the Tinyclues booth (now Splio), retailers we spoke with are still striving for relevance in core customer engagement moments. They shared that solutions they use today rely on predefined segments like RFM, and they have to parse floods of customer data if they want to go further and identify future buyers. In both cases, campaign performance is stalling and customer experience is suboptimal.

Retailers who use Tinyclues (now Splio) for audience optimization and customer engagement deliver the industry’s most accurately targeted campaigns — without IT effort or data science expertise. As an AI-first solution, Tinyclues (now Splio) offers business-centric features while deep learning technology does the legwork for retail marketers. Tinyclues (now Splio) does what true AI should do: make the lives of marketers easier.

The team was energized by fantastic presentations, fun events and educational conversations with retail marketers at NRF 2019. We look forward to continuing the conversation in 2020!