Many would agree that the most difficult part of home improvement is knowing where to start. The decisions can seem endless — from figuring out lighting to decor and furniture — to the point of becoming overwhelming, making it a feat to get a project off the ground.

Enter Cracked Pepper, Behr Paint Company’s 2024 Color of the Year. Described as a “soft black” meant to accentuate a room and add a bold finish to interior or exterior projects, the hue is designed to give potential renovators some inspiration. The focus on inspiration extends to a marketing push led by Behr and partner Home Depot that leverages a mix of retail media, social media and experiential tactics.   

“Highlighting this color is a great way for us to help consumers and really inspire them,” said Jodi Allen, global CMO at Behr. “Helping consumers find their perfect color is something that we really take pride in because we know it’s a pain point in the whole process. We want to help them get unstuck and make the painting journey a positive experience.” 

Simplifying the process

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a single color, but Behr was deliberate in arriving at Cracked Pepper as the right choice. The company surveyed 1,000 consumers about their preferences and attitudes about how color influences their overall outlook. Among the findings, 54% of consumers believe using black tones creates a new energy around the home, while two-thirds say it makes a space feel bolder.

“More than half of these consumers that we talked with said that painting a wall a darker color really will give the room more of a designer aesthetic,” Allen said. “[Our choice is based] on really listening to consumers about what they are looking for and what inspires them.” 

To bring the color to life, Behr and its longtime retail partner, Home Depot, staged an experiential feature showcasing Cracked Pepper in Napa, California. The display included a kitchen, dining room and living room utilizing the color, along with accents and furnishings from the retailer that complement the offering in hopes of fueling inspiration.

“This is a way for us to drive awareness and increase engagement from a consumer standpoint with the opportunity to bring Cracked Pepper to life in their homes,” Allen said. “It’s really important not only to see how it looks in a room but to know how it makes you feel.”

Behr is also holding an Instagram sweepstakes now through Sept. 9, awarding five winners $10,000 each to transform their home using Cracked Pepper. To enter, consumers must follow Behr on the platform and comment on designated posts by the brand noting which room they would paint using the color, along with adding the hashtag #BehrSweepstakes. The activations together could help consumers visualize the way Cracked Pepper could fit into their space, while offering Behr the chance to form a connection with a wider range of consumers. 

Leveraging retail media

Behind the scenes, Behr is leveraging Home Depot’s retail media network to identify and target potential consumers who are in the renovation mindset. Through the collaboration, Home Depot will use its first-party data to identify audiences that are shopping for projects that may involve painting, which Behr will use to target the Cracked Pepper message.  

“We want to get in front of them at the right time and at the right place, whether that’s on homedepot.com or through our third-party partners like Pinterest, Google and Facebook, to create awareness and consideration all the way down the funnel to purchase,” said Molly Battin, senior vice president and CMO at Home Depot. 

“Those are great opportunities to extend the reach of what we know about our customers and to work with the Behr team to make sure we’ve got the right strategy in place for our customers,” the exec added.

Home Depot launched its Retail Media+ offering in 2019 as a way to monetize its troves of first-party data by offering suppliers media-buying opportunities on the company’s owned properties, as well as via its offsite media partners. Since 2019, the number of retailers who have adopted this model has exploded. In April, Home Depot named company insider Melanie Babcock to manage the network and drive new sources of advertising revenue, profitability and sales.

However, a lack of standardization among retail media networks has led to some skepticism about the channel. A report by the Association of National Advertisers earlier this year found 88% of brand marketers feel somewhat or heavily influenced by retailers to purchase advertising on their media networks. Still, for her part, Behr’s Allen is sold on the advantages of Home Depot’s media network.  

“What’s great about that is being able to understand our consumers better and that we are there on the journey,” Allen says. “It’s a great way to feel the connectivity all the way through the funnel and have a great relationship with our consumers.”

More than 33 million customers are eligible to shop at the Army & Air Force Exchange service. That customer base includes members of the military, their immediate family members, retirees and Department of Defense civilian employees.

AAFES, which also brands itself as the Exchange, offers both daily essentials and discretionary items for military members who are stationed in remote locations in the U.S., overseas or even in combat zones.

The Exchange wants to stay top of mind for customers. And it wants to curate a retail experience that meets or exceeds what might be available off base. As part of that goal, AAFES in 2022 added several brands to its apparel and home assortment in stores and online through its e-commerce platform. The brand launches include Old Navy, American Eagle, Fanatics, Sunglass Hut, and Purple mattresses and bedding.

“We want all the brands that the customer is used to and wants,” said Karen Cardin, the Exchange’s chief merchandising officer. Cardin, who started working at the Exchange 32 years ago and has been in her present position since July 2021, said in-store brand launches look different depending on location.

The Exchange operates in all 50 states, four U.S. territories and more than 30 countries. In fiscal year 2022, AAFES reported $8.5 billion in overall revenue, according to the organization’s latest annual report. 

AAFES also has a food service operation that includes franchised brands like Burger King. It operates a variety of other retail services including movie theaters, dry cleaning, convenience stores, liquor stores, hair salons and gas stations. On July 25, the Exchange, which is headquartered in Dallas and No. 54 on the National Retail Federation’s Top 100 Retailers list, marked its 128th year in business.

In recent years, the Exchange has focused on growing the list of name brands that are offered to customers in its stores and through its e-commerce platform.

Brand launch breakdown

Cardin said the Exchange tailors its brand launches in response to its needs and customer interests. For example, Old Navy launched in 60 Exchange stores as a store-in-store offering. “It was on shelves and on racks but it had the Old Navy signing and [you] very much knew it was an Old Navy product,” Cardin said.

On the other hand, Cardin said some brands prefer a more phased approach. American Eagle and Aerie’s launch, for example, was introduced in 15 stores in the first quarter of 2022 and another 15 in the second quarter. Instead of a store-in-store presentation, those brands were presented on the shelves with branding and signage.

Cardin said the merchandise assortment will vary depending on if a military installation is primarily a training base for new service members, like Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, which is home to basic training for the Air Force and Space Force.

Other bases may have more service members with young families, civilians or retirees who live off base in the local community but choose on-base retail to take advantage of better deals and tax-free shopping. The Exchange tweaks its offerings depending on those demographics.

Earlier this year, the Exchange announced a partnership with The Home Depot to offer large appliances to eligible shoppers in-store and online. Eddie Fishburne, director of military exchange programs at The Home Depot, said AAFES leadership approached them about two years ago to gauge their interest in taking on the Exchange’s appliance business.

“The partnership provides the Exchange customer with a wider selection of major appliances to choose from, a better delivery and installation experience, and the added benefit of tax-free savings when purchasing through the Exchange,” Fishburne said via email.

The Exchange and Home Depot said they could expand their partnership. 

In addition to washers and dryers, fridges, freezers, microwaves and stoves, “we have already begun selling some items in the Exchange brick-and-mortar stores such as the iconic Homer buckets, Home Depot branded (HDX) batteries and soon-to-be HDX totes. We will continue assessing other categories to sell both on shopmyexchange.com and in AAFES stores,” Fishburne said.

Cardin said the Exchange also has additional brand launches in the works. She declined to identify them because the details are still being worked out. But Cardin did say the upcoming launches “will be in a similar vein to what we’ve done in the past.”

“Some will be in-store concepts and some will be things that will be in smaller displays within the store. They will be nationally known brands. And I think it'll be exciting for our customers because they're going to see something similar to what The Home Depot provided with a really trusted brand. And it fills a need for the military members.”

Cardin told Retail Dive the Exchange “has a fairly large partner in the hard goods” sector that they’re working with, along with several brands in the soft goods category that they’re in conversation with as well.

Like other retailers, the Exchange also has house brands for apparel, soft goods and consumables. The Exchange’s house brands include Harbor Home, which offers linens and housewares; Buzz Cuts clothes for boys and Pony Tails apparel for girls. 

AAFES says it's the Department of Defense's largest retailer. Cardin said some of the in-house brands are developed in partnership with other Exchanges – the Navy Exchange, the Coast Guard Exchange and the Marine Corps Exchange, which are separate organizations with similar missions and goals.

Military members skew younger in age and are required to stay physically fit, which influences which categories do well with shoppers. For example, consumer electronics and athletic apparel and footwear are the Exchange’s most popular retail categories and brands.

Exchange customers are tech-savvy. “And they love Apple. Apple is always No. 1 for us in our electronics,” Cardin said. Gaming systems, like the Xbox and PlayStation 5 and Samsung TVs are also top sellers. On the apparel side, Nike and Under Armour are top brands.

Building brand loyalty with those who serve

Brand launches are important for increasing brand awareness, brand value and customer lifetime value, which is the amount of money a customer spends with a brand over their lifetime, according to Alexis Taylor, a marketing consultant at Clicksuasion Labs in North Carolina.

Taylor worked for the Marine Corps Exchange for 10 years; the last three years with the organization were in the MCX’s advertising and branding division for the Marine Corps Exchange at Camp Lejeune-New River in North Carolina.

“Previously, shopping with the Exchange system, although reasonably priced, was viewed as purchasing potentially lower quality or lower valued items,” Taylor told Retail Dive in an email. “When consumers can purchase well-known and well-established brands in one place and without sales tax, they are more apt to look to the Exchange as a one-stop shop and prolong their brand loyalty.”

Taylor said the Exchange system’s challenges include its limited total addressable market. 

“However, retirees and their family members retain most shopping privileges for the duration of their lifetimes,” Taylor said. “Therefore, the market size increases each year as members retire and new members join the Armed Forces.” The exchange’s sales model also benefits from offering tax-exempt purchases.

“In an economy where inflation is at a seemingly all-time high, having the ability to offer tax-exempt retail experiences to their market increases the likelihood of increased consumer brand conversion rates,” Taylor said. “Consumers are feeling a decrease in spending power and are more likely to switch the way they shop to manage expenses.”

Baby registry site Babylist is set to open a flagship showroom on Friday in Beverly Hills, California.

The 18,000-square-foot location is staged to offer guests a large area for testing its wide array of baby products and adding them to their registry. Included in the space is an all-terrain stroller track to allow customers to test out products on various surfaces, according to a company press release.

Within the showroom, there is a 1,300-square-foot onsite shop that has a curated selection of small giftable and maternity items that will be available for purchase, the company said.

After testing out pop-ups in New York and Los Angeles last year, Babylist is ready to commit to brick-and-mortar retail.

Babylist has partnered with 36 brands who have made investments in the showroom as it relates to how they are represented and experienced onsite. Those brands include BabyBjörn, Chicco, Etsy, Frida, Gap, Hanna Andersson, The Honest Company, KiwiCo, Our Place, Savage x Fenty, Thinx, Tula, Wayfair and others, the company said in its announcement.

“We’ve always believed that real-life interactions have a place in the baby category,” Natalie Gordon, founder and CEO of Babylist, said in an email to Retail Dive. “With legacy retailers like BuyBuy Baby shuttering, we’re at an inflection point where consumers are looking for a place to test and try a variety of baby products in person.”

Babylist was among the bidders that wanted to buy BuyBuy Baby from Bed Bath & Beyond after that company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Dream On Me Industries, one of BuyBuy Baby’s vendors, last month received court approval to purchase the baby retailer’s trademark and digital assets for $15.5 million.

Gordon said Babylist designed its Beverly Hills showroom to mirror what it shows virtually. “The showroom guides new and expecting families through the home (living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, and nursery) — where they can see top-recommended products across categories in real-life environments to touch and try them in order to best evaluate what is right for their growing family,” Gordon said. “Babylist Beverly Hills was designed for hosting events, creating content, and allowing consumers to test products in an enjoyable environment.”

Babylist has a diversified business model with multiple revenue streams, including its own e-commerce shop, affiliate and partner commerce, health insurance reimbursements and a media business, which includes its full-service content studio The Push. The studio has full-funnel marketing offerings for brands including Shipt, UrbanSitter, Nike, FTD and more, the company said.

Through its registry platform, Babylist makes money when people purchase a gift for themselves or a baby. Customers may choose to purchase directly from Babylist’s e-commerce shop or from an affiliated retail partner such as Amazon, Target, Etsy or Pottery Barn Kids. Last year, the company’s platform generated $900 million in gross merchandise value, while the brand reported revenue of $290 million, the company said.

While not ruling it out, Gordon said the company does not have current plans to add more showrooms in other cities.

Fenty Beauty is partnering with Roblox to launch a four-week Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin experience on Roblox, the company said in a press release on Tuesday. The experience centers on product creation, allowing users to make their own Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer.

Players can visit the Fenty Beauty Lab to customize the ingredients, applicator and shade name of their lip luminizer, among other things. Users can vote on their favorite creations and founder and CEO Rihanna will choose one to produce physically; the product will be available in 2024 on Fenty Beauty and Sephora’s websites. 

Within the virtual gaming environment, players can also go on scavenger hunts, explore mazes and learn more about the brand’s most popular products, such as its cleansers, fragrances, and lip glosses. The brand will release new Fenty avatar accessories every week.

Fenty Beauty makes its Roblox grand entrance as many others have built virtual brand representations on Roblox, including Nike, Gucci and Forever 21.

Many have also tied their digital experiences to physical products: Last December, Forever 21 introduced its F21 Metaverse Collection, a real-life apparel collection based on its popular Roblox items, including the Forever Beanie. And earlier this month, DressX unveiled a three-piece digital wearables collection on Roblox inspired by physical products sold by YouTuber and TikTok creator Mackenzie Turner. 

“Beauty experiences are meant to be fun, so I’m excited to provide everyone, everywhere, a glimpse into our world and a new realm of amusement with our makeup, skin care, and fragrance,” Rihanna said in a statement. 

Though Roblox presents an opportunity for brands and retailers to generate revenue from digital goods, experts have also warned about the possibility of the game fading from popularity in the future. For now, major beauty brands like E.l.f. Cosmetics, Estée Lauder and L’Oréal have turned to the metaverse and other emerging channels as a method to reach younger shoppers.

The Fenty Beauty news comes as Rihanna steps down from leading lingerie brand Savage X Fenty, where she had been CEO since 2018. She will reportedly serve as executive chair of the company. 

To provide first-time homeowners with resources, Home Depot on Wednesday unveiled its New Homeowners Hub, according to a company press release.

At the hub, first-time homeowners can view do-it-yourself guides, design ideas, product recommendations and other useful resources. The retailer’s virtual workshops demonstrate skills such as changing light fixtures, painting rooms and replacing garbage disposals.

According to a Home Depot and Morning Consult survey, 74% of millennials said home maintenance was the most stressful aspect of homeownership, followed by home improvement projects (68%).

Through Home Depot’s new hub, the retailer is targeting its home improvement expertise toward younger consumers seeking to upgrade or repair their homes. Per its survey findings, 80% of millennials and Gen Z respondents want to do repairs, renovation, design and decor projects, but only about a quarter of millennials and a third of Gen Z respondents feel “very confident” about embarking on a home improvement task. 

“Our research has shown that lack of proper knowledge, tools and time were the top barriers for millennials navigating home improvement projects, which is especially stressful for a generation of current and soon-to-be first-time homeowners,” Molly Battin, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at The Home Depot, said in a statement. “Helping homeowners complete projects is part of our DNA, so it was a natural move to create an online resource designed to empower our customers with everything they need to confidently turn their first house into a home.”

Though Home Depot is reaching out to new homeowners with its hub, the retailer previously crafted content for other groups. In March 2022, the company launched a virtual workshop series to provide professional contractors with business advice, including social media best practices, spotting trends and managing business expenses. About a year later, the retailer introduced a Virtual Kids Workshop experience within Redcliff City on Roblox, a digital experience inspired by its in-person Kids Workshops. 

Besides Home Depot, other retailers and brands have created educational content for customers. REI, for example, offers online educational presentations for its customers, enabling newcomers and experienced adventurers to access its expertise before their next journey.  

As Home Depot seeks to attract younger homeowners, the retailer has reported a dip in earnings and is working to curb its costs. In its Q2 earnings report, the retailer’s sales and its comparable sales both slid 2% year over year, and it changed its full-year guidance for sales and comps to decline between 2% and 5%. The company is also executing a $500 million cost-savings strategy that will cut its supply chain holding capacity, executive vice president and CFO Richard McPhail told investors and analysts at a June 13 conference. 

Target wants the retail industry to know it’s brought its “Targét" touch to grocery and omnichannel. 

Ease, joy and affordability are the pillars of the retailer’s framework for differentiating itself to customers, Chief Growth Officer Christina Hennington and Chief Food and Beverage Officer Rick Gomez said during the National Retail Federation’s conference in New York earlier this year.

Like other mass retailers, Target has benefited from the initial pandemic years prompting one-stop shopping, as well as recent months-long high inflation placing a renewed focus on value — leading to mass retailers attracting more grocery shoppers and posing bigger competition to traditional supermarkets. 

While Target a few years ago lagged other large national retailers in areas such as grocery assortment and having a loyalty program, the Minneapolis-based retailer has not only worked to catch up, but now, according to Gomez, sees its innovation in food and beverage and omnichannel as providing competitive advantages over traditional grocers and other mass retailers. 

That innovation ties into Target positioning itself at the intersection of affordability, one-stop shopping and experiential retail, both in-store and online, with “affordable joy,” Gomez noted. 

“At Target, we think about building a shopping experience that's differentiated on multiple dimensions. But it's really about creating an emotional connection to that consumer,” Hennington said in a one-on-one session with Kantar with a packed audience on the last day of the conference. 

Here’s what Hennington and Gomez, who are also both executive vice presidents for the retailer, shared in separate NRF sessions Tuesday about how Target is innovating with grocery and omnichannel.  

Taking a ‘holistic’ approach to value

With the challenging economic environment and the looming threat of recession, Gomez said Target is tapping into different components of value to appeal to consumers. 

“Value is top of mind, but we have to think about value more holistically than just price,” Gomez said, noting consumers also want quality, ease and convenience. 

Gomez highlighted Target’s private brands as a prime example: Good & Gather, which launched in 2019 and is now a $3 billion brand, offers high-quality, better-for-you options at an affordable price while Favorite Day, which debuted in 2021 and is growing by double digits, focuses on indulgence.

“We call them ‘own brands’ and not ‘private label’ because we put as much care and attention into the research, the design, the packaging, the quality as any great brand,” Hennington said.

To provide value through ease, Gomez spotlighted Target’s dinner solution meal bags, which cost around $15 and include the ingredients needed to make family-favorite recipes: “It’s been a huge success.”

Using assortment as a differentiator

Target’s multi-category offerings provide one-stop shopping that people can’t get at most grocery stores, Gomez said: “We’re a $20 billion grocery business. It's a big business for us — bigger than a lot of regional grocers — but it's only 20% of our mix.”

Hennington said Target is looking to provide inspiration with its assortment. 

Drilling further into assortment advantages, Target has a three-pronged approach to its food and beverage business that sets it apart from conventional grocers: own brands; national partners who can offer exclusive, limited-time items; and small, emerging brands often from BIPOC founders and women, Gomez said.

Target is growing its private brands portfolio. “Our own brand portfolio is actually growing 2X [compared to] national brands, and I think that's our guests saying, ‘We are looking for value during these tough times,’” Gomez said.

The retailer introduced a new private label line of pre-mixed cocktails called Casa Cantina last year and in 2021 added a plant-based line under its Good & Gather brand. Target’s Favorite Day is one of the top fastest-growing private label brands by household penetration in the second quarter of 2022, according to findings from Numerator. 

Target’s over $30 billion worth of own brands is a large part of its “secret sauce,” Hennington said.

Gomez noted that Target supports emerging brands to help them scale their business at Target “and beyond.” For example, the retailer worked with the McBride Sisters wine brand to launch varietals: “They've gone on to other retailers and they're selling in other places, but we're really proud that we were able to partner with them in the beginning,” Gomez said, adding that the brand’s Black Girl Magic wine has been “hugely successful” with Target shoppers. 

Hennington also pointed to the commitment Target made in 2021 to invest more than $2 billion in Black-owned businesses by 2025, which the retailer said in May it’s on track to achieve.

While Target, like many other food retailers, has had to stay focused on supply chain availability for the last couple of years, increased innovation in food and beverage that provides “newness” is an area Gomez is especially excited about. Health and wellness, in particular, is one area where Target customers are leading edge and interested in trying new things, Gomez said, pointing to its vegan, plant-based line launched with Tabitha Brown at the start of this year. 

“[It’s] very approachable, very affordable and it has done incredibly well,” Gomez said about the exclusive line.

Experimenting with store formats

Target has completed over 1,000 remodels to date and is rolling out different store formats to meet different markets, Gomez said.   

In March 2021, the retailer promised to invest $4 billion annually in remodels, new stores and online fulfillment enhancements. Last year alone, Target pledged $5 billion to scale its operations in 2022 with work on its digital, fulfillment and distribution capabilities.

For example, the retailer has dozens of small-format locations, which it heavily leaned into in recent years, in Manhattan and paired with college campuses, Gomez said. 

Last spring, Target unveiled its first net zero energy store, which is located in Vista, California, around the same time Amazon announced its pursuit of a net zero carbon certification for a new Amazon Fresh in Seattle.

Now, Target is seeing opportunities to also open larger stores, such as the nearly 150,000-square-foot location it opened in the fall in Katy, Texas. Leveraging different store formats is all about meeting the needs of individual markets, Gomez said.

“We want to show up in a way that's appropriate for that community” regardless of store size, Gomez said.

Boosting omnichannel services

Target has long had a strong reputation for its in-store shopping experience, but the retailer is positioning itself as an omnichannel retailer that blends in-store and digital, Gomez said, noting customers are intertwining different shopping methods. 

“They may start digital and end up in stores or start in stores and end up in digital. They may be in stores and they're on their app at the same time,” Gomez said. “So we need to build both and we need to have the best of both. ... One of the things that we're doing is we recognize that the store experience is just as important as digital.”

The pandemic prompted Target to transform its business overnight, Gomez said, by expanding same-day services and allowing shoppers to get dry and frozen grocery, alcohol, fresh produce and more in a four-minute drive-up pickup. Target has also brought its widely popular in-store Starbucks cafes into its curbside pickup service and has also expanded its pickup and same-day delivery options for alcohol. 

After testing Starbucks drive-up orders in about a dozen stores, Target has now rolled the option out to approximately 250 locations.

“We’re not advertising [the Starbucks drive-up option]. We’re not marketing it. Quite frankly, we don’t need to because the social media alone is driving a ton of trial,” Gomez said. “And our guests, they love it.”

It’s a prime example of how Target is turning to innovation to bring “a little bit of happiness to people’s everyday moments,” Gomez noted. 

Creating a customer-focused loyalty program

Collecting data is important but Target learned the hard way it needed to build a customer-first loyalty program in order to successfully glean shopper insights.

When Target first tried to launch a loyalty program about four years ago, its initial offering was “transactional” by rewarding spending with points, said Gomez, who admitted that Target was lagging other major mass players in offering loyalty programs. 

After roughly a year and not getting the desired results, Target pulled the program: “We lost sight of what we do, what we believe in, which is: data is in service of our relationship,” Gomez said.  

In its next attempt to create what is now Target Circle, the retailer made personalization the centerpiece, allowing members to unlock offerings that are tailored and relevant to them and also letting them vote for which local charities in their communities they want Target to make donations to. With more than 120 million members currently, the program is one of the largest and fastest-growing loyalty programs in the U.S., the Target executives noted. 

Hennington said that Target is connecting its loyalty program data with its retail media network, Roundel, to further boost its customer experience and also deepen its vendor relationships.

“You have to put the consumer at the center ... The point of innovation is to make sure that you are either addressing their pain point or providing the delight that your guest is looking for. I think innovation comes big and small. It's in products and services. And we focus a lot of innovation on ease, providing the joy [and] providing affordability,” Gomez said. 

Hair care brand Living Proof is the latest company to join the metaverse and debut a virtual store. Through e-commerce platform ByondXR, the interactive showroom features four unique rooms. Rooms in the virtual store take shoppers through product testimonials, an AI-powered quiz for a customizable hair care routine, a virtual Living Proof salon and a room dedicated to the brand's sustainability efforts. As customers navigate through the virtual space they have chances to win free samples of Living Proof products upon finding 3D Fortifying Tech easter eggs.

In the Living Proof metaverse space, customers can participate in an AI-generated quiz about their hair routine and submit a selfie to detect hair type, volume, curl shape and color, powered by digital beauty experience creator Revieve. Upon an assessment, the program will recommend a routine of Living Proof products to achieve the desired results.

"Living Proof has always used cutting edge technology to solve real world hair problems," Living Proof CEO Zach Rieken said in a press release. "This new digital experience is the perfect vehicle to further immerse Living Proof's community in our brand and to learn more about how our innovations are continuing to push the boundaries of hair care."

Personalized beauty is a newer trend in the retail space, but there are several other startups pursuing the strategy as well. Another beauty company known for its quiz-based selling strategy is hair and skin care brand Function of Beauty.

This activation by Living Proof builds on the current interest in extended reality, a recent innovation in retail tech and a trend followed by many. Experimenting with the metaverse and virtual stores has gained widespread popularity, with the latest to do so being Alo Yoga, Saxx, Tatcha and others.

Sustainability is also at the forefront of Living Proof’s activation. The last room in the virtual space teaches users how to recycle their hair care products through the brand’s partnership with TerraCycle.