Understanding the concept of “Phygital”
What is Phygital?
Phygital is the contraction of “Physical” and “Digital”. It describes strategies which blend physical experience and digital solutions, using the best of each, in an effort to enhance the overall experience.
Who uses this technique?
Many industries have been implementing with a lot of success, notably in the retail and travel sectors which have seen in Phygital the opportunity to augment significantly the personalization, service, and customer care.
Education and training, are also leveraging this approach, enabling an immersive experience leading to higher information-retention rates.
The gaming industry as well as the advertising world have also blended the frontier between digital and physical
What are examples of Phygital?
A mobile application offering dedicated functions when in store, such as price finding, reserving an item, receive a personalized notification with a promotion, or a plan of the shop
Booking in-person appointements or order click-and-collect from a digital platform
Amazon Go: Pick what you want in a store “observing you”, and leave… the payment is processed seamlessly with your Amazon account.
Test drive a car in your living room, with an augmented-reality application positioning the new model in your home and driving on your furniture
How can I develop Phygital experiences?
As with any innovation, we recommend analyzing how your customers interact with your brand in store and online, identify the friction points or opportunity pockets, to start developing compelling solutions.
Developing such an experience shouldn’t be done for the sake of it, it should be done to augment the experience, provide a clear added value to the customers, removing hurdles and friction, enabling a seamless experience.
What’s next?
With the development of new technologies such as carrying smells through internet, the growth of Virtual and Augmented Reality, the power of Artificial Intelligence, and the perpetual will of creative companies to innovate, we expect more blending of the digital and physical experiences moving forward.
You don’t have to be a Silicon Valley company to start looking into this, we can help you identify the right opportunity for you and your customers.
Learn more about Phygital
