My very special guest on The Voice of Retail podcast for this episode is someone who lives and breathes retail innovation - Jose Ribau, Executive Vice President, Digital and Innovation, for CF Cadilac Fairview. In a long-overdue interview, we talk about shopping centre innovation, the tradecraft of knowing when you fail, and the gauntlet of front-line retail practitioners that guide the practical and the possible.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada
Retail innovation is one of those million-dollar phrases tossed out in meetings, boardrooms and media across Canada - but what does it mean, how do you make it happen, and can we recognize innovation when we see it?
My very special guest on The Voice of Retail podcast for this episode is someone who lives and breathes retail innovation - Jose Ribau, Executive Vice President, Digital and Innovation, for CF Cadilac Fairview.
In a long-overdue interview, we talk about shopping centre innovation, the tradecraft of knowing when you fail, and the gauntlet of front-line retail practitioners that guide the practical and the possible.
Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Jose Ribau
Great leadership is about giving people a platform and a voice to impact real change. It’s also about building and enabling teams with a wide breadth of experience and knowledge.
In my current role, I lead Digital Transformation & Innovation at CF and our newly established business entity, Ravel, where I get the opportunity to work in a rapidly changing industry with an amazing team that is focused on creating competitive differentiation and unique experiences.
Ravel by CF is an organization focused on removing the friction from retail shopping and the workplace, unleashing the untapped potential of physical space and customer experience within some of the world’s best commercial real estate. At Ravel, we work with established leaders and new entrants in the ecosystems of retail, marketing, and technology to build a digitally driven innovation platform that connects people, spaces and data.
Prior to CF, I spent almost two decades working in product development and payments with a focus on how to leverage data to improve the banking experience for Canadian customers.
In my spare time, I’m a painter, a cyclist, a serial traveler and the manager of my kids’ hockey and ski teams.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Retail innovation is one of those million-dollar phrases tossed out at meetings, boardrooms, and media across Canada. But what does it really mean? How do you make it happen? And how can we really recognize innovation when we see it?
Michael LeBlanc 00:21
My very special guest on The Voice of Retail podcast for this episode is someone who lives and breathes retail innovation. Jose Ribau, Executive Vice President, Digital Innovation for CF, Cadillac Fairview. In a long overdue interview, we talk about shopping center innovation, the tradecraft of knowing when you fail, and the gauntlet of frontline retail practitioners, that guide the practical and the possible.
Jose Ribau 00:44
It's a, it's a great question, I will say that our, our work really started through the lens of the customer. And I know that's an overused description. But when I, when I describe that, what I'm talking about is, you know, the Amazon journey, and how simple it has become for you to have a product arrive at your doorstep. And so, we can, we basically see that as a competitive journey to what it's like to show up at a property, go to a retailer.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Let's listen in now.
Jose, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this morning?
Jose Ribau 01:18
Thank you so much for having me. Fantastic. How are you?
Michael LeBlanc 01:21
I'm good. Thanks. Great to have you on, on the podcast. You're not my first guest from CF, but it's such an interesting organization. So, I'm really thrilled, you could make the time to join us. So, once again, thanks. Yeah, listen, let's jump right in. Tell us, for the listeners, a bit about yourself, your background, and what you do at CF.
Jose Ribau 01:37
Well, I've been with CF for about three years now, coming on four next year. And essentially, I lead a team of experts over three domains: innovation, technology, and marketing. So, essentially, we are the connective tissue of the organization. But at the same time, also driving forward into the retail and office space, defining new business models, and trying to push boundaries in terms of what it means to be in real estate, both during a pandemic and coming out of a pandemic.
Michael LeBlanc 02:09
Right on. Well, of those three, the most interesting to me, well, they're all interesting. But this, this idea of leading a team of innovation, that's really super interesting for me. The other two are, you know, technology and marketing, they're, they're fun. But this whole idea of a role like innovation, we're really going to dig into that.
Michael LeBlanc 02:28
But before we do that, CF would be well known to the listeners, of course, but just spend a minute, they may not understand the full scope and scale. So, just give us a quick overview of CF. So, we get, kind of, a level set that everybody knows the scope and scale of your business.
Jose Ribau 02:43
Sure. So, CF has a long history of essentially bringing people together, whether that's in business towers, like the Toronto Dominion Center, or in some of our Landmark real estate properties and retail, such as the Toronto Eaton Center. You know, we've, we've built over the decades, you know, what I would call first, you know, A-class properties. There are 68 of them in Canada that we own and manage.
Jose Ribau 03:07
And being owned by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, it has allowed us to deploy capital and build new spaces for many of our Canadians, and increasingly international partners to participate in. So, you know, we have about $35 billion of assets under management across the Americas and the UK, and increasingly becoming more of a global footprint. And so, our history is well grounded in real estate, commercial real estate. But increasingly, we've been, you know, integrating ourselves into other parts of the ecosystem, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about today.
Michael LeBlanc 03:43
Well, what brought us here today is we wanted to talk about the CF SHOP! MasterCard Gift Card. That's, kind of, the, the, one of the primary reasons we're here today. But before we get into that, I'm so intrigued by this idea about innovation, and innovation, particularly in your category. Let's, you know, your, you just talk about the role and the industries of shopping malls and real estate development.
Michael LeBlanc 04:05
And let's see how, what innovation looks like pre- and post-COVID. I mean, it's not like real, it's not like retail, and shopping centers was this Halcyon Days in 2019 where there wasn't much going on, and everything was smooth sailing. So, there's a lot of innovation happening there, a lot of transformation.
Michael LeBlanc 04:24
And then COVID hit. So, let's talk about pre- and post-, or pre- and during, in terms of COVID. And what, and how you define innovation and how you go about, you know, what does that, what does that blank whiteboard look like? And then what does innovation look like, and feel like, for you and your team?
Jose Ribau 04:42
Yes, big question. But I'll start, I'll break it up into a couple of pieces. You know, innovation in real estate used to largely be mainly about what tenants and client experience you could create, to differentiate yourselves from your competition. And so, that translated to different tenant mix, and that's still important. But as we know, e-commerce and omni-channel have deteriorated the physical experience over the last, call it, five to ten years especially.
Jose Ribau 05:14
And so, leading into the pandemic, innovation really became a driving force for how do we stay relevant, how to connect with consumers, how do we develop a platform that allows retailers to find clients, acquire them, retain them, grow them, and ultimately deliver new services. So really, you know, from our perspective, innovation has never been about innovation theater, it's largely been about embedding ourselves in the right journey for that client.
Jose Ribau 05:39
So, many of the things we were working on before the pandemic actually got accelerated during the pandemic. So, that allowed us to amplify things such as mall-based delivery and fulfillment, which is obviously important for buy online, pick up in store, buy from store, and ship. And increasingly, we found ourselves in a position where we could leverage our scale, to help provide retailers with better pricing, we could leverage our scale to provide retailers with opportunities to connect with customers.
Jose Ribau 06:05
And with COVID, we had to find new ways for customers to navigate the property. So, we introduced, you know, what I would say is, one of the best shopping apps that you can find in the world. We have, have won some awards for it. But ultimately, it allowed customers to put the directory in their pocket. And, and with that, as a deep foundation, we've now moved into things like payments.
Jose Ribau 06:28
And allow customers to, again, they don't want to, they don't want to necessarily touch the pin pad, they want to pay contactless, they're using their device to find the store, they might as well use their device to pay. And so, that, that has allowed us to just really just keep rolling out services that help our tenants defend against e-commerce, but also leverage the omni-channel experience, if they so desire to do so in the property itself.
Michael LeBlanc 06:52
You know, thinking about the innovations in the before time, pre-COVID, what, what ones would you say, and you've, kind of, given us a good introduction about, you know, tenant mix, not necessarily being the kind of innovation we're talking about today. But what are those innovations that led you to where you are today that you say, you know, these, these, these were key stakes in the ground.
Michael LeBlanc 07:11
You've mentioned a couple during the COVID-era. So, are those the ones you see, you know, when you, when you put forward what your team did to the Board of Directors, for example, you say these are the things you should pay attention to, because these are the innovations that are actually going to move the business forward. Like table stakes versus differentiators. Like is that the way you think of it as well in some of these key innovations?
Jose Ribau 07:32
It's a, it's a great question. I will say that our, our work really started through the lens of the customer. And I know that's an overused description. But when I, when I describe that, what I'm talking about is, you know, the Amazon journey, and how simple it has become for you to have a product arrive at your doorstep. And so, we can, we basically see that as a competitive journey to what it's like to show up at a property, go to a retailer, touch the brand, have that human interaction, and ultimately have that product, either delivered or pick it up, or take it with you, or take it home, or take it to your car, or take it on transit.
Jose Ribau 08:09
So, we looked at that journey in its entirety, and developed innovation concepts. We run them through a process to determine which ones were feasible across each step of that journey. As you said, we presented many of those to the Board to make sure we had support. And then ultimately tested and ran multiple agile sprints at the same time across all of our properties, in fact.
Jose Ribau 08:32
And anything that was not successful we didn't proceed with, and the ones that did pick up steam, and met with the client need, we did proceed with. And so, that was the process that we used. But ultimately, we, we decided to rip the lens off what was historically a visit the shopping center, pick up a product. And, and CF was in the history of providing a great physical experience.
Jose Ribau 08:54
And our malls are known for great sight lines, and that, and that great tenant mix. But what else can we do to stay ahead? And that's where we focused on bridging, that digital with the physical world. And we think, we think we're onto something because that seems to be how customers are shopping now, more and more.
Michael LeBlanc 09:11
You know, I had the opportunity to speak to Professor Scott Galloway last week. You may know of him, but we were talking about innovation. We were talking exactly about, exactly what we're talking about today. And I said, you know, I'm not sure there was actually a lot of innovation during the COVID-era, and he said, you know like, he agreed he said, he thought it was more acceleration than innovation.
Michael LeBlanc 09:31
You know, when you talk about doing different elements, you know, a lot of those things are, kind of, foreseen, they got accelerated. What, why is it hard to innovate in business and retail, and specifically in your category. Like, when you sit back these things don't come easily, and as you said, you've got sprints and multiple iterations. Why do you find it, and why do practitioners, retailers, and mall owners find it hard to innovate?
Jose Ribau 09:55
I'm a big fan of Scott Galloway and I think he's, he's certainly onto something. And I also appreciate his ability to push the envelope on what it means to be good for the planet and good for each other. And, you know, we might have a chance to talk a little bit about that today, but—
Michael LeBlanc 10:12
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 10:13
When it comes to the actual innovative process, innovation requires discipline, and requires a group of dedicated individuals, where this is one of the top five priorities for the company, either staffed in-house or partnering with external experts, or in our case, both. We certainly don't do it all on our own. And that relentless pursuit of that discipline.
Jose Ribau 10:36
It, it actually has, it has the potential for tissue rejection inside the company. It requires funding at a time when others are cutting back, and when you're not hitting plan. And, and, and so when you look at a company who's having difficulty during the pandemic, and asking that company to invest in digital experiences, when we're not clear if customers will still be there at the other end of the pandemic.
Michael LeBlanc 10:57
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 10:58
That's a very tall order.
Michael LeBlanc 10:59
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 10:59
So, I think there's, there's elements we put in place that, kind of, overcome some of those difficulties in real estate, or in some of the other industries that we were able to be successful with. Had we not established that foundation before the pandemic, I think it would have been very difficult to start that process.
Jose Ribau 11:16
And then the last thing I'll say is, back to my point earlier about not having innovation theater, we analyze and have KPIs for every single initiative that we try, test, or deploy. And we run everything through the lens of is it desirable?
Michael LeBlanc 11:32
Right.
Jose Ribau 11:32
Is it viable in the market? And is it feasible for us to actually get this off the ground. So it's quite analytical.
Michael LeBlanc 11:38
So, you'll set, you'll set standards of failure. In other words, if it—
Jose Ribau 11:41
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 11:42
If it doesn't perform to x, if it does y, we'll consider that a failure. Which, you know, you hopefully, you have a few, because if you're not, you know, I do believe that if you're not failing at a few things, you're not trying hard enough. Particularly in the innovation space, right. I mean, who gets it right every time, but I think—
Jose Ribau 11:59
Totally agree.
Michael LeBlanc 12:00
You know—
Jose Ribau 12:01
I should also, sorry to interrupt, Michael, but I should also add, it's in partnership with your key stakeholders, right.
Michael LeBlanc 12:09
Right.
Jose Ribau 12:09
So, when I talk about, you know, there's, there's our team and then there's the broader organization.
Michael LeBlanc 12:14
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 12:15
Our property partners are the first to, and once we develop that strong relationship and, and trust, they're not shy to tell us when something isn't going to work. Or to help us pivot during the pandemic. The partnership with our property teams, who, as you know, are big supporters of the RCC and of, of the retail industry—
Michael LeBlanc 12:36
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 12:36
Are the first to tell us this is not what clients want. And so, that, that is another element, is being humble enough to—
Michael LeBlanc 12:43
Do they, do they always know? Like, you know, the old—
Jose Ribau 12:46
No.
Michael LeBlanc 12:46
You know, the old Ford saying, right? You know, if I asked customers, they just would have wanted a faster horse, kind of thing, right.
Jose Ribau 12:51
Absolutely, no, but we, let's put it this way. We also don't want to do this in a vacuum.
Michael LeBlanc 12:56
Sure.
Jose Ribau 12:56
And so, there's a fine balance. We consider them strong internal stakeholders and partners, but we also do the direct to client research with them.
Michael LeBlanc 13:06
Right.
Jose Ribau 13:06
And so, we have, we have that ability to push the boundary, and recognize that, you know, their input, along with everybody else. But we've tried very hard, again, this is why it's difficult to do innovation—
Michael LeBlanc 13:18
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 13:18
Inside a company. You're, you're trying to balance all those different stakeholders. And, you know, again, it comes down to what are you trying to solve for? So, if we were trying to solve for disruptive innovation every day, the model I'm describing probably wouldn't work.
Jose Ribau 13:34
If we're trying to develop core innovation and what's called adjacent, where you're just slightly on the perimeter, then those stakeholder views are very important. Because you, for example, back to the gift card, if we wanted to introduce an electronic gift card, but our guest services couldn't help the customer purchase it. Well, that's, that's dead in the water, right.
Michael LeBlanc 13:53
Right.
Jose Ribau 13:53
So, that's just an example.
Michael LeBlanc 13:55
I had a wonderful interview with a woman who's a futurist, and I, kind of, was intrigued by the whole idea. Because I think you work, a little bit, in the future as well. And I was asking her about her tradecraft, because, of course, it's not just staring out wistfully in the sky and thinking about what will happen next.
Michael LeBlanc 14:11
Talk about your team's tradecraft around the future. Not just projects itself, but how far out do you look in that lens and say, here's where we think things are going, in a very broad sense. Do you, do spend some time, I guess we could call that ideation but, you know, it is a much more rigorous process when done professionally like the, like the way you do. Is that, is that embedded in your process, or is that just nascent and part of it.
Jose Ribau 14:35
You know, again, it, innovation is discipline. And no, and I'm going to make it sound really boring, but, but, but yes. So, looking out, we dedicate a certain percentage of time, so I'll just give you myself as an example, I dedicate about 10% of my time to looking at what the future is, and of that 10% I would say the future is already here, most of the time. And so I'll give you, I'll give you one example.
Michael LeBlanc 15:05
Just before that, even, it's just not perhaps evenly distributed is—
Jose Ribau 15:08
Correct.
Michael LeBlanc 15:08
Is the saying, right.
Jose Ribau 15:09
Correct. And so, and so, you know, and this is an example I've used before, and others have used but, you know, just before the pandemic, I spent some time in Asia, and I visited with the Alibaba New Retail Group, and the Hema store. And went through purchase journeys that were all, you know, supported digitally.
Jose Ribau 15:24
And I had the option of, you know, buying the product, putting it in my bag, having it delivered, having it picked up at the end of the, at the end of the shopping journey. And, and it was all done digitally on my device, but I was physically interacting with the store and with—
Michael LeBlanc 15:42
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 15:43
People in the store. And that has since transcended into live stream demos, and the ability to buy those products from anywhere in the world. So, the technology isn't the barrier. I think it's the structural opportunity within the stores and within the transaction flows for that to happen. But that's not happening in Canada. And it's not even happening at scale in North America. I mean, you've got, you know, the Amazon Go and a few other examples where you're starting to see it, but we're—
Michael LeBlanc 16:10
Small, smaller example.
Jose Ribau 16:11
Yeah, this was two years ago. And they were doing it at scale.
Michael LeBlanc 16:13
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 16:14
Now different demographic, different levels of density. But that's an example of the futures already here, we just have to figure out how to go about doing that in partnership—
Michael LeBlanc 16:21
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 16:21
With our retailers.
Michael LeBlanc 16:23
And which future is going to work in, you know, I'm always cautious about taking lessons from China, the market is so different. You know, from, and we've been talking about live stream coming to North America for a decade. But it's, you know, it's entrenched. But it does get me thinking, more to our point today, about things like super apps and apps.
Michael LeBlanc 16:40
Now, you mentioned the LiVE app, talk a little bit about that, and how it integrates in your vision about integrating with payment. So, let's get it, get us closer to what we're talking about today. But the LiVE app, I mean, you know, launching an app is not innovative in and of itself. How did you approach launching an app that would in and of itself, so to speak, be innovative and move your agenda forward, and then connect it to payments?
Jose Ribau 17:05
So, the, you're exactly right, the idea of an app isn't, isn't new. But I think the idea of putting the digital directory in your pocket and being able to navigate the mall was an important first step. The second was allow customers—
Michael LeBlanc 17:18
Why do you think it took, you know, it's one of those things that baffles me a little bit. It's one of the biggest pain points I have, as a consumer, in many big locations is just where is, where is something, right? That navigation. It does seem like one of those things like, you know, head slapping, we should have done this before.
Michael LeBlanc 17:37
Why does it take so long for all of us to start thinking about location as a key priority? I love your app, by the way, I downloaded, and the three-dimensional view. You know, I was going to Sherway today, and I'm like, where's that store? I just literally used it this morning. But it's so fascinating to me. I mean, it must've been popping up year after year as a priority. But how did, how did you finally get it done?
Jose Ribau 17:57
Well, first of all, thank you for downloading it and using it, and thank you for shopping at Sherway. I would say, I would say it's, it's, it's complicated once you get into the data. So, it's, it's one of those things where, if you think about a property that has, let's say, you know, 350, you know, stores.
Jose Ribau 18:16
And they're changing all the time, and the data for the location and the hours might change, the products within that store might change, and where it's located within the property. So, on a daily basis, and throughout the day, you got to have a process to land the data, cleanse it, make sure it's up to date and accurate, because there's nothing worse than sending yourself, Michael—
Michael LeBlanc 18:36
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 18:36
To the wrong, to the wrong location. So, customer disappointment is one. The second is the cost of setting it up, developing the architecture, with the future view in mind, also is, can be, you know, difficult for some to, to do. You can stand up a Nation app, that's not connected anything, and you can do that overnight, and it won't really be valuable—
Michael LeBlanc 18:57
Right.
Jose Ribau 18:59
But then you can't make any changes. And so, I think once you get into the details of what it means to actually stand up that app, and do it at scale across, in our case, you know 18 shopping centers, French and English dynamic, updated real time.
Michael LeBlanc 19:10
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 19:10
And during COVID we added capacity counters, where the sanitization stations were, where curbside pickup was. There's a whole team of internal and external people who have to sustain it and run it all day, plus servicing in case it goes down.
Michael LeBlanc 19:22
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 19:23
You now have a little business within the team that's actually being run every day. So, it is, it is a logical thing to do. But it requires ongoing investment and I, without naming names, I can tell you one of our peers in the States, after two years of trying, gave up on it because it became so difficult for them to do it without a big data platform.
Michael LeBlanc 19:43
It's a beast, right. As you can say it's, it's a beast to get all that stuff right, because you're absolutely right, you get one thing wrong and, you know, you've blown every bit of credibility that you had to begin with, right, ah, forget it, the stores moved, this thing's no good, kind of thing. So yeah, I can see that.
Michael LeBlanc 19:57
Let's talk about CF SHOP! MasterCard Gift Card. So, that's one of the things that brought us here today. Tell us about what this initiative is, and what you're doing. Well, first of all, as I said, tell us about what this, this, this product is, and then how it integrates into your innovation strategy and right in time for the holidays, so good timing.
Jose Ribau 20:18
So, in a nutshell, this MasterCard-based prepaid gift card is, is available electronically. You can gift it, load it, send it, your recipient receives it as a link. And within, within minutes, you're up and running. And it's loaded into your Apple Pay or your Google Pay. So, it's a contactless version of our physical gift card. So, in a nutshell, that's what it is. It could not have been possible without the partnership with EML Payments, as well as MasterCard and Apple, in addition to our acquiring services provider, which happens to be TD Merchant Services. So, we, it's a multi, multi-dimensional program, as you can imagine. It's the first—
Michael LeBlanc 21:01
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 21:01
In its category. And there's no other company like us doing this within a closed loop environment. And we built it on the basis of what customers were looking for. So, there are customers who want the physical plastic, so that gift card remains. They want to put that in an envelope, etc. But now we've given the option to, you know, gift it to someone electronically, and they can go and pay contactless on their device. So, the idea that was, came from the same customer research I talked about earlier. And customers were looking for something during the pandemic that allowed them to give more easily without having to necessarily do a physical transaction.
Michael LeBlanc 21:40
And, and so just to be clear, it's retailer agnostic, so you can use it at any retailer in the properties? Talk a little bit about that.
Jose Ribau 21:50
And this is actually why we selected MasterCard, as our, as our partner, as our payment network. Their acceptance level, covers our properties, covers, you know, sure 98% of retail. And, and is, is a great, you know, product that will actually work on the rails. We didn't want to risk something that obviously didn't work. So, it's, it's very helpful from a retailer perspective, because what we're doing is we're driving that in-person store experience.
Jose Ribau 22:19
So, even though it's electronic and digital, when the customer comes to the property, they're paying with their device, so they're physically tapping with their phone, at the retailer, and then the spend for the transactions typically goes up when they're starting off with a gift card that someone's gifted them. So, the redemption levels are quite high on the retailer side.
Jose Ribau 22:38
So, they love the gift card program, because it generally provides them with, you know, an opportunity to capture some segments who might not have a credit card or have been given a gift. And so yes, it is, it is accessible by all retailers. And it's something that, by the way, we now have, because it's digital, we have the ability to do offers—
Michael LeBlanc 22:56
Right.
Jose Ribau 22:57
Custom offers. So, we can pick a retailer and run a program for two weeks, or whatever period of time, and do a matching program, or have them go to store, if you do ABC, you get a top up on our gift card, you get an additional gift card. You know, these are programs that we now have, because we have it in the app, we actually are able to drive a different customer experience than before.
Jose Ribau 23:17
And, and this is something that I've been talking about for the last number of years. Payments typically happen at the end of your shopping experience. But we should actually be embedding payments during the shopping experience. So, what we're trying to do is move that customer through to say, look, here's an, here's, here's, here's a gift card, we've developed a partnership with X retailer, go ahead and use it and you're going to get a benefit.
Jose Ribau 23:43
And that benefit might be gift with purchase, it might be an additional gift card, it might be a bonus, it might be a discount. And anytime we do those campaigns, we see the basket sizes higher. And we see that the retailers end up benefiting from those additional visits.
Michael LeBlanc 23:58
Now, when you're thinking about those campaigns, you have some data about where that card’s being used. Do you get down to campaigns where you try and do some cross-sell, cross-shop or just make the offers more relevant? Is that, is that on the future roadmap as well?
Jose Ribau 24:13
Yes. And so, I would say, you know, we're early days, we literally just launched the product, but the goal—
Michael LeBlanc 24:19
Not to get ahead of ourselves, right? Yeah.
Jose Ribau 24:21
Well, no, but as you, as you're, as you're correctly identifying, within the app, you can favorite brands and you can set up personalization, you can set up an account, and you have to in order to receive the gift card.
Michael LeBlanc 24:30
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 24:30
So once you've done that, and you know which brands you followed, that gives us data to go to those brands and say look, you know, there's, you know, 1000 users who have favorited your brand, and we can run a campaign to try and leverage the funds to drive them to your store. And then do cross-shop, you know, customers who shop at, you know, retailer A, also shop at retailer B.
Michael LeBlanc 24:55
Sure.
Jose Ribau 24:56
And, and so yeah, over time we're going to use that data once we have enough scale—
Michael LeBlanc 25:00
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 25:00
To actually drive those, those cross-shoppings, and really that's what customers are saying they want, right? Ultimately—
Michael LeBlanc 25:06
Relevant offers. Yeah, they want—
Jose Ribau 25:07
Relevant. Yeah, it's got to be relevant.
Michael LeBlanc 25:08
Yeah, yeah. Now you, you just don't have intention. You have actual behavior though, with that card, right.
Jose Ribau 25:14
That's right.
Michael LeBlanc 25:14
So, you actually, you know, where they've shopped. And, you know, that's easier said than done in terms of coming up with what's next. But you've got a good sense of putting the two together, both intent and reality. Right now, you don't know if it's, you know, gift, right now, it's always, when I ran CRM at Hudson's Bay, what used to baffle us, a little bit, some days is gifting, right. Is that for them? Am I going to spin them down the wrong place because they're buying gifting? Like, that's always a challenge for CRM programs, right?
Jose Ribau 25:38
And I would say you're exactly right. The difference here is we have the audience.
Michael LeBlanc 25:43
Right.
Jose Ribau 25:43
And I would say for the retailer's themselves, you know, I mean, you know, this from your own background and working in this space. Like, it's very difficult for you to know who that customer is that's walking in your store.
Michael LeBlanc 25:47
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 25:50
The minute, the minute our, our app can become a vehicle to help you know who that client is. That's gold.
Michael LeBlanc 26:04
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.
Jose Ribau 26:05
That's gold. And so, we, you're exactly right, we have intent, and we also have purchase outcome. And then we can track that to say, did it work? And we're willing to invest in that. Like, this isn't just something we're putting on the shelf and saying, I hope it works. Like we're actually backing it up, you know, back to our discussion earlier.
Jose Ribau 26:23
You know, in order for this to be successful, we've also got to have budget to help complement it. We know retailers are suffering during the pandemic. So, we're, we're trying to demonstrate to the industry that CF is here to help. Not just in terms of rent negotiations, and everything else that's been going on, but actually putting dollars and cents into offers, capabilities, and make sure that these retailers survive. And the customers come back to property because of that human interaction is something we're all missing.
Michael LeBlanc 26:49
Yeah, absolutely. All right. So, it's a funny question to ask someone who's in charge of innovation. But what's next? I mean, you must be always thinking about what's next, what's on the whiteboard for 2022. Give us a glimpse into, into 2022. And, you know, taking all these learnings from, I guess we, I was calling the post-COVID-era, and now I'm not sure anymore, the goalposts keep moving pretty fast. But, you know, what's next, what's, you know, you've just launched so many interesting things. But anything you can talk about for the whiteboard for 2022.
Jose Ribau 27:18
Well, I'm, I'm sitting in my office, which is overlooking the Toronto Eaton Center this morning. And, and the way I got into the building was I used a different innovation that the team has also launched, called CF Concierge, which is a digital app for office. And so, now imagine the beauty of us marrying those two into that super app experience. Where I could go as a CF, you know, tenant, employee working in a, at a client who is in one of our towers, and then going to Toronto Eaton Center for some shopping and using a digital app, to recognize offers, etc.
Michael LeBlanc 27:57
Right.
Jose Ribau 27:57
Imagine we're going to be able to stitch those two journeys together, office experience and retail experience. And have those products held for me, delivered to my floor, taken up to my office, potentially put in my car. So, we're going to basically be bringing together these two experiences into one journey. Which again, for anybody who's thinking about, what are some of the benefits of returning to the workplace, we have a vested interest in making sure people return to the workplace safely—
Michael LeBlanc 28:26
Yeah.
Jose Ribau 28:26
But also, that it's interesting. That they can go and shop, and eat in our restaurants, and have a seamless experience, and stitch that back to the property. So, over time, this LiVE by CF app and our CF Concierge will ultimately come together, and you'll have everything from food delivery to mall-based fulfillment, to, you know, products and retail offers and payments.
Michael LeBlanc 28:48
Right.
Jose Ribau 28:49
And so, we see a day throughout the next, call it 18 months, where we're going to be, you know, with the luxury of a bit of time now to plan. This is one of the things I love about CF is we, we don't sit idle, you know, in our space just because people are, you know, struggling with when, when can I return to work, and cases are up again in Ontario, etc. But in our case, this is the time we're taking to actually design those roadmaps and started putting plans in place to execute so that we're ready.
Michael LeBlanc 29:17
Well, I love where you're going with that because I, my mind casts forward to a property like Sherway with, which has got a lot of residential around it, right built in. And that's a big part of the future, probably, of major malls where you've not just got the commercial, but you've got residential. So, my mind starts to wander about how these all things stitched together.
Jose Ribau 29:34
You're absolutely right.
Michael LeBlanc 29:35
Interesting. Yeah, listen, this is super interesting. Where now, where can listeners go to find out more? Connect with you? Are you a LinkedIn guy? Tell us a bit more about that.
Jose Ribau 29:44
Yeah, I'm very prominent on LinkedIn. For sure. So, you can find me there. It's pretty easy to follow and connect with me there. For the gift card itself, especially when we're entering into the holiday season, I encourage people to go to cfshopcard.ca, and you can buy and send this card. I encourage you to try it out for yourselves and then reach out to us, either on social media, Cadillac Fairview, or cadillacfairview.com.
Jose Ribau 30:10
And we will certainly help you, especially on the retail side. We're open for business, and we want to help you survive and connect with customers. So, those are our channels. And we're very much on there and, and I want to appreciate, you know, everything the team has done to help us get to this point, especially given how hard it's been to do this remotely, and also the RCC and, Michael, your role in terms of bringing this podcast forward, because I think it's very important for the industry to have a voice and no better voice than yours.
Michael LeBlanc 30:38
Well, thank you. And, and, you know, I'm only surprised that it took us this long to get on to the mic, or in hopefully, in the future, in the same room together. I've been wanting and hearing your name, quite often, so many people respect what you're doing at CF. So, it's great to have you on the podcast, good way to start our journey together.
Michael LeBlanc 30:54
And I think, I, my personal opinion is, is innovation, you know, this period of COVID, you know, for some retailers, they were, let's just get through it. Others are just, you know, we, we have supply chain issues. I think real innovation in the retail sector, we're going to go through a three-year period of just incredible innovation. And you're a great poster child for that. So, thanks again for joining me on The Voice of Retail, and I wish you continued success, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.
Jose Ribau 31:21
Thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate your time and your interest in what we're doing. And good luck to you and I hope you stay safe.
Michael LeBlanc 31:27
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure and follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy podcasts, so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests on the show.
Michael LeBlanc 31:45
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E LeBlanc & Company Inc. And if you're looking for more content, or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
innovation, retail, retailer, cf, gift card, customers, pandemic, property, app, journey, store, tradecraft, client, eaton center, digital, bit, mastercard, tenant, people, run