Unilever x Whale | Future Digital Store

Unilever, one of the FMCG giants, is also actively developing digital retailing. At the beginning of 2019, Whale participated in the second Unilever Innovation Day for the first time with its project Future Digital Store, which drew attentions from many business sectors, and then started the cooperation with Unilever. As of September 2020, Unilever has deployed Whale smart display devices in its supermarkets.

Whale assists Unilever in achieving the goals such as increasing customers' duration of stay in stores, improving advertising communication capability, and transforming in-store customers into online members.

Whale smart shelves collect store visits as customers pass by the shelves with CV cameras. When a customer approaches a shelf, the camera can sense the customer and capture customer portrait data and behavior data in real time. Then the shelf will display different welcome messages and goods recommendations on the screen, and finally realize the precision marketing.

The smart screen acts as a virtual shopping guide. The screen can show goods-related discounts and other marketing information for customers. The camera can recognize the facial information, identity information, shopping preferences, goods browsing routes and other multi-dimensional information of customers. And the [alivia], as a business platform, performs data analysis and pushes personalized discounts to customers. When paying for goods, customers firstly scan the QR code on the screen with their cell phones and then choose how to pick up the goods: take goods away or home delivery.

In addition to optimizing the customer shopping experience, Whale has also changed the operation of traditional stores. The [alivia], a self-developed business platform, is used to analyze data and drive business operations to help store operators achieve business growth.

Unilever will focus on the cutting-edge technology and business innovation, challenge new consumption modes, maintain the cooperation with emerging and innovative companies, and achieve a win-win situation with hi-tech companies.