What is Retailtainment?
To improve the shopping experience for visitors, facilitate access to leisure activities and reinvent and reinvigorate our shops in ways that are accessible, innovative and entertaining.
Neo-One interactive and immersive play area – Place d’Arc shopping centre, Orléans
Today’s retailers are trying to reinvent themselves and revitalise their spaces to improve the shopping experience for visitors:
Retailtainement is a trendy phenomenon that bears witness to this!
This word combines the terms ‘retail’ and ‘entertainment’.
This marketing concept involves transforming a shopping centre or retail outlet into a place of entertainment or leisure.
By implementing a gamification strategy, digital screens and sensorial marketing, commercial establishments can increase the appeal of their spaces.
Birth of the concept in the United States
The concept of Retailtainment has its origins in the United States, where shopping centres and major retailers have sought to differentiate themselves in the face of the rise of online retailing and changing consumer expectations.
As early as the 1990s, giants such as Disney Store, LEGO Store and the shopping centres of Las Vegas and Dubai began to incorporate immersive elements to transform the act of shopping into a real experience.
One of the pioneers of Retailtainment, Joe Pine, co-author of The Experience Economy (1999), highlighted the idea that consumers are no longer looking just for products, but for engaging and memorable experiences. Faced with this, brands have innovated by integrating interactive animations, immersive journeys and playful spaces into their points of sale.
Today, this trend is growing steadily and extending well beyond the United States, becoming an essential lever for revitalising businesses and building customer loyalty in search of something new and exciting.
The adoption of retailtainment in France
In France, retailtainment has gradually emerged as a response to the challenges faced by shopping centres in the face of changing consumer habits.
With the rise of digital and online retailing and the decline in footfall at physical points of sale, retail players have had to rethink their strategies for attracting and retaining customers.
Since the 2010s, a number of French shopping centres, including Les Quatre Temps at La Défense, Westfield Forum des Halles and Polygone Riviera, have begun to integrate leisure facilities into their establishments. Cinemas, indoor parks, virtual reality areas, digital zones and interactive events have become essential elements in extending the time spent on site and enriching the customer experience.
Retailers themselves have followed this trend by focusing on immersive concepts: Lego Store shops with their construction workshops, experiential pop-up stores and sports shops with test and demonstration areas.
The adoption of Retailtainment in France can be explained by the search for a new consumer model, where shopping becomes a fun and engaging experience. This phenomenon is part of a drive to make shopping centres more attractive and to position them as genuine leisure destinations that go beyond the simple act of shopping.
The role of digitisation in making leisure accessible
Neo-One interactive and immersive play area – Marina Shopping Centre Casablanca (Morocco)
Retailtainment not only enriches the shopping experience, it also plays a key role in making leisure activities more accessible.
By integrating immersive and interactive experiences directly into retail spaces, such as interactive walls, retailers are enabling visitors to discover new forms of entertainment without having to travel far. This trend serves a dual purpose: to attract and engage consumers while making the act of shopping more enjoyable, particularly for families.
More and more shopping centres are using this approach to transform their spaces into true destinations, where the experience is as important as the checkout. For example, the Dubai Mall, the largest shopping centre in the United Arab Emirates, incorporates an Olympic ice rink, a giant aquarium and even artificial waterfalls, offering much more than just a shopping experience. This type of development, combining retail and entertainment, is becoming a model for revitalising shopping areas and encouraging footfall.
In France, this trend is also developing with the emergence of interactive and digital leisure activities in shopping malls. Interactive play areas, augmented reality activities, immersive rooms and immersive arenas make every visit unique and engaging. These digital installations transform visitors into active participants, strengthening their bond with the brand and extending the time they spend in shop.
Finally, digitalisation plays a key role in this development. New technologies are making it possible to offer leisure activities that are accessible, flexible and renewable over time. With ever more innovative and engaging experiences, retailtainment is becoming a real solution for re-enchanting shopping areas, attracting new visitors and revitalising less-frequented areas.
Integration of animations and events
Animation and event organisation are essential pillars of Retailtainment, attracting visitors’ attention and strengthening their emotional commitment.
Neo-one entertainment – Grand Quartier shopping centre, Rennes
At NeoXperiences, for example, we are playing an active part in this transformation by offering interactive solutions tailored to major events. During the Olympic Games, our interactive walls were installed in several fan zones, including Argenteuil, Sceaux, Vincennes and Club France, giving visitors the opportunity to test their agility and precision through immersive sports games. This type of activity encourages interaction, prolongs the time spent on site and creates a memorable experience for participants.
See our fan zone created for the 2024 Olympic Games
Our solution has also won over a number of shopping centres, including Marina Shopping in Casablanca and the Place d’Arc shopping centre in Orléans. By integrating fun, interactive experiences, these establishments are boosting their appeal and stimulating footfall, transforming shopping into a genuine moment of entertainment.
The use of immersive technologies
The rise of immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) has revolutionised retailing by offering new and engaging in-store experiences. These technologies enable brands to immerse their customers in interactive worlds, where the act of buying becomes a genuine sensory experience.
Many brands are exploiting these innovations: some fashion retailers are offering augmented reality fitting rooms, while car dealers are allowing customers to view and personalise a vehicle in 3D before buying.
At NeoXperiences, we have developed interactive and immersive solutions:
- Neo-One interactive wall, which transforms any space into a zone of play and interaction thanks to wall projection.
- Neo-Move motion capture, to create immersive experiences by tracking users’ movements using ultra-precise body-tracking technology.
These technologies enable shopping centres and shops to offer captivating experiences, encouraging visitor engagement and brand recall.
The benefits of retailtainment for businesses
Retailtainment doesn’t just offer consumers a fun experience: it also represents a real performance driver for businesses. Brands can attract more visitors, extend their time on the site and increase engagement. The concept also helps to differentiate brands from their online competitors, by offering unique and memorable experiences that build customer loyalty.
Increased in-store traffic
Retailtainment plays an essential role in the appeal of physical shops by offering visitors an additional reason to visit. By integrating fun, interactive experiences, retailers are able to attract a wider audience and extend the time spent on site.
Devices such as interactive window displays and touch-screen terminals attract passers-by and encourage them to enter the shop. The more engaging the experience, the more it will arouse the interest and curiosity of potential customers.
Strengthening customer loyalty
As well as attracting new visitors, Retailtainment helps to strengthen customer loyalty by creating memorable experiences and developing an emotional attachment to the brand. Consumers are increasingly looking for unique and engaging interactions with retailers, and an immersive and entertaining environment keeps them coming back for more.
Initiatives such as interactive loyalty programmes, exclusive events and personalised experiences based on customer preferences are all effective strategies for building lasting customer relationships.
Differentiation from online competitors
E-commerce has profoundly transformed consumer habits, but it cannot offer the experiential and immersive dimension that retailtainment can. By incorporating elements of play, discovery and sensory interaction, physical shops stand out from the crowd by offering a unique added value that online shopping cannot match.
Shopping centres and retailers that adopt this approach transform their spaces into living and entertaining places, where visitors come not just to buy, but also to enjoy an engaging and interactive experience. It is this strong competitive advantage that enables physical stores to remain attractive in the face of the digitalisation of the market.
The future of retail technology
Retailtainment is constantly evolving, and its future looks promising, driven by the rise of immersive and interactive technologies. Companies today are looking to push back the boundaries of the customer experience by incorporating ever greater creativity and innovation into their retail spaces.
Artificial intelligence, mixed reality and real-time personalised environments are opening up new possibilities for making the shopping experience even more fluid and immersive. In the future, shops could become true hybrid spaces, where the boundaries between commerce, entertainment and digitalisation are blurred in favour of a more natural and engaging interaction.
Brands that know how to take advantage of these new trends and integrate interactive experiences will have a clear advantage in winning and retaining the loyalty of tomorrow’s consumers.
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