PlayAbly Podcast Episode 19: NRF 2025 Recap: How Playably Stood Out and What’s Next for Retail

In this episode, we dive into the excitement of the NRF conference, where over 6,200 global brands gathered in New York City to explore the future of retail. Join us as the Playably team reflects on their experience, including:

• Insights from showcasing shoppable games and engaging with industry leaders.
• Behind-the-scenes moments, from assembling our booth to memorable conversations.
• Key takeaways on personalization, gamification, and leveraging data for retail success.

Whether you're curious about innovative strategies or gearing up for your next conference, this episode is packed with valuable lessons and fun stories. Plus, a sneak peek at our plans for ShopTalk Spring in Las Vegas!

Welcome to the PlayAbly Podcast, where we dive into the art and science of gamification, customer engagement, and driving conversions. 

At PlayAbly, we turn passive audiences into active customers through shoppable games and playable experiences that transform how brands connect with their customers. Book your free demo here.

Thanks for tuning in to the PlayAbly Podcast! Ready to engage your customers like never before? PlayAbly creates branded Shoppable Games that drive results. Don’t forget, mention the podcast during your free demo, and get $500 off (book here). Learn more at playably.ai

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Transcript

PlayAbly Podcast Episode 19: NRF 2025 Recap: How Playably Stood Out and What’s Next for Retail

Kajal: [00:00:00] And we're back with the Playably podcast. Today, we are talking about the NRF conference. It was last week. It attracted over 6, 200 brands from all over the globe, bringing together retailers, industry experts, solution providers, and of course, Playably. We had three of our members there in New York city, and we are here to talk about what they learned.

Welcome guys. 

John: Thanks Kajal. 

Seema: Thanks for having us. You're saying 6, 000? We could have talked to more brands. 

Kajal: I know, I know. I heard it was non stop talking. So I don't know that you could actually have been in any more brands to talk to. 

Seema: Well, at least one of the things that was awesome is there were so many people from so many different places in the world.

So at least a portion of them, I couldn't, literally couldn't speak to them. though we tried. We tried. There was a Turkish country and we were like, Oh, I've been to Istanbul. we were talking to everyone. trying our best. 

Angelo: Well, now we know [00:01:00] we need a Portuguese next year. 

Kajal: Oh yeah, the Brazilians.

We should have had Gabby there. 

Seema: love the Brazilians. I mean, this morning, my first meeting was most of my team is Brazilian. And it's freezing cold where I am. And it was really cold at the Chavez Center. And they were like, Oh, if only you were in Brazil. I was like, Oh, if only.

Kajal: So speaking of NRF let's start off with like what you guys were doing there. What role did each of you play at the conference?

John: I think Sima should start with that one because she is the star of every conference we go to. 

Seema: That's not true, I do wear really big shoes, bright shoes, and I will talk to anybody at all. So, I would say that I was the front person, so I was like drawing them in, making eye contact, even when like, many people did not want to, finding connections with people.

I think the biggest thing that we wanted to do was showcase our excitement for the product, right? Like there's, [00:02:00] the one thing that's pretty, Funny for me who doesn't come from retail and comes from gaming and in fact all of us in this room in the same way I never bought a scanner.

I don't need to scan anything So to watch all of these products that were so similar and they often put them together So, you know to walk through and it was like microchip microchip microchip and then it was us Gaming. So people kept walking by like, what do you do? And we'd say games, which was fun.

So I think getting the excitement up was a huge part of it. What else? 

John: Well, I thought the size and scale of a conference was beyond anything I've been to. And I've been to CES, I've been to all the game conferences. I mean, people were saying they walk six or seven miles a day. Just from walking the show floor, right?

And initially when we got there Seema and I were there and I had the chance to kind of walk around a little bit and I was like, Oh my God, this thing is crazy across from [00:03:00] us was a cabinet company of some sort. Next to us was a crypto company. And I'm just like, we're going to get lost in this sea of like craziness.

But the flip side actually was a really bright spot in that everyone that we talked to. really wanted to talk to us, right? And so people made the effort to go through seven miles to find exactly where we were. And we, you know, Sima and Angela were having constant discussions of people coming to the booth and everyone around us was like, wow, how are you guys so busy?

I think, you know, just objectively, we were the only real gamification solution there with actual game design, with actual thought about the customer experience and people, you know, that my biggest takeaway was like people appreciated that they sought us out and the conversations that we had were not only genuine, but I think built upon each other in terms of what we could be doing next.

So Despite how cold it was, [00:04:00] despite, the scale of it it was just an incredible experience for our team. 

Kajal: And it was the first conference that we had demos, right? Like really good game demos. 

Angelo: Yeah, it was the first conference that we had demos, and then thank you Sima for bringing her daughter's iPad.

I hope she wasn't so sad she didn't get to go on TikTok on her iPad. So the first time that we had iPads and we had demos, which was really fun. And going back a bit to the role, so if Sima is like, you know, bringing people to the house. John was the one that built the house because I had mistakenly thought that we had a turnkey booth.

We got there what did we have? A paper sign, 

Seema: a very 

John: sad paper sign. 

Seema: say to me, the guy next to us said to me, who's the guy who went to get the signs? Because we printed them out. I was like our CEO.

John: Yes. Running across Manhattan is not something I've done since I was an analyst in banking. So I brought back some nice memories. At least I wasn't in Oxford shoes and a tie.

Seema: I will say that it highlighted for like our booth people because one of the things we did [00:05:00] find is a lot of people who wanted to work with us, we're like, we were cool. We didn't like crack. We were like, okay, this is what we do now. We just bounced with it. And I think especially the people right near us, they were like, look at how great your team is.

I was like, we are, 

Angelo: yes, we solve problems and we get shit done. I think the nice thing that's come up. So we've started the follow up meetings. And then the first follow up meeting we had the client that we spoke with said that our booth was his. Most memorable experience. I mean, obviously we're very memorable people, but he said his vendors that he spoke to he had the most fun chatting with us, which goes to show that I think, you know, this is our third conference.

We finally have each time. We're getting better next time. You know, college is going to take over. So then let me make sure that there is. Proper signage and actual infrastructure at the booth, but we're getting better each time. And it's also you know, we're having a lot of fun building the product and thankfully, you know, they let me sleep in grateful for you, John and Sima for putting the booth together.

So I get my beauty sleep so that I can also talk to everyone and ask [00:06:00] them if they wanted a shoppable game. 

Seema: it's also, you're bringing up something else. One thing that's really great is we really enjoy doing the work we're doing. You know, I talked to the people and I won't say what product it is.

Cause I don't want to out them, but I've talked to a lot of the people at the booths and I was like, what do you do? And they were like, I'm a salesperson. Okay. But like, what are you selling? Like, you know, I'm trying to like, just, I'm just, it was like before, you know, it's before it got real busy and I really wanted to get like something from there, but they had like a thing that I wanted to consume, you know, like candy or water or something.

So it was just like being sort of friendly and they're like, I just sell stuff. And I do think we are different than a lot of the people who are there because we really do believe in it. So John would try to be like, no, she is the person who does the game. Like, yeah, what do you do? Or, you know, they would say like something about data.

And I'd be like, actually, I don't, I don't know anything about numbers, but Angelo does that and we could answer things. 

Kajal: And it was important to note that we didn't have any giveaways or things to draw people into the booth. No snacks, no water, no candy, no coffee, and [00:07:00] to still be the most memorable, 

Seema: I love that.

No kick hats. I know there was a moment where John was going to get the things and we had no kick hats and I thought, oh no, I don't have a table, I don't have a chair, I don't have any kick hats. 

Angelo: we have games. 

Seema: Actually, that was, you know, that's that is true that I think actually when that happened, I had all of the games on my phone, you know, through the arcade.

And so, I mean, I was sort of thinking like, you know, maybe people don't want to touch my phone. Everyone took my phone and just play it away. I was like, okay. But we actually have a thing. And I think that's so clearly for that brand versus some of the other people who are giving you a bag that doesn't mean anything to your brand.

Kajal: So we talked a lot about personalization and gamification on this podcast, obviously, because we are Playably. I'd love to know, did NRF showcase any like fresh approaches that resonated with you? Did you get any new ideas from talking to people? I know we talked to prospective clients as well as partners.

John: I mean, one idea that we [00:08:00] had was we definitely need to put a leaderboard up of the people who come to our booth and play our games. Cause they would get into it, right? And they're, they're playing and I could see a world in which they're going to come back later in the day to move up the leaderboard.

And the dynamic was so natural, right? It was like, as soon as they were shown the game, they would dive in, they would start playing it. And for me, it was just like, wow, I could imagine what. Consumers are doing that in their own homes when they're playing the games of our brand. So I think that that idea of, of gamification of our own booth, but even more so I found at like a lot of the social events often you'd end up talking to other vendors, but.

You know, this idea of like building a team and building a community of like minded vendors, complimentary vendors. You know, there's a lot of, you know, I, we saw it in gaming as well, but a lot of teamwork among the vendor community, which I [00:09:00] think is really positive. It really speaks to the quality of the people that are there.

But it was for the most part, 99. 9 percent of the people there were awesome. One, maybe not so much. 

Seema: Just one, but we know who they are. I do think that one of the things that was really great for a lot, I will say for some of the vendors, like the salespeople, some people were like, Oh, your job is more fun than ours, which like, that's okay.

You know, everyone has whatever, but I think another thing they thought when they talked to us is, Oh, how can we make our work more fun and interesting by partnering with you? And so like I walked into the, and there's just. I mean, I also have, for work, gone to Comic Con you know, CES. The one thing that is a little hard about this conference is, like, particularly Comic Con, there's so many fun things to look at.

Even if it all kind of has similarities, you feel excited. Here, there's a lot of kind of the same thing. You know, like, unless you're literally looking for a digital sign, this whole aisle of digital signs isn't a [00:10:00] huge big deal for you. I walked by somebody and I was saying, Oh, do you ever like, you have like a, like kind of a thing that could be a leaderboard.

Do you have a game? And they said, no, I always dreamed of it. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm a game designer. You always dreamed of it? You dreamed of me? And he was so excited. And he was like, like, what could you do to this? And I was like, well, whatever you would want, like, you're just the hardware, right?

And he said, yeah. I said, well, we could do whatever. We could turn this into Candy Crush, which is one of my faves. And he was like, you can? And I was like, yeah. But that kind of synergy, it was really wonderful because I think in the past, before we had product, it was hard to show what we did. So that was a great experience here.

Angelo: Yeah. I guess one big insight that I got from the conference is that compared to ShopTalk, which is our previous one, ShopTalk tends to draw a lot more. e commerce heavy crowd and this is NRAF is National Retail Federation. So there's a lot of retail brands, including supermarkets.

And we also got a lot of interest from dispensaries and tobacco shops. So I guess initially, when we. [00:11:00] Started play. We were kind of focused on the e commerce use case. How can you get that traffic that comes to the website to engage and, you know, not bounce within eight seconds because eight seconds is all you have.

If you guys didn't know that, but we got a lot of interest from these cannabis companies and retail stores about wanting to make that in person engagement more exciting. So it's not just the, you know, the digital activation or like a fun game that you could play. Online, but how can you bring some of those gamification elements into the store while you're waiting to get checked in so that you can get people to engage so that you can get them to subscribe to your email list?

I'm in a volleyball league and one of the persons I played with, he told me that he just bought a cafe that's opening in Brooklyn. And I'm like, yeah, as soon as you can afford to buy a game, he just bought a cafe in Brooklyn. How is he going to be able to stand out? How does he get people to like, you know, follow him and like, how is he going to stand out from all 

Seema: these people?

Angelo: a car and book. He would love it. 

Seema: I feel like Brooklyn like they need like a chill kind of thing. I will say that for me that so I come out of creating games that would go from [00:12:00] digital to physical. I really enjoyed talking to people who have physical space. I mean like I like e com it's.

Fun to do a digital game, but to be able to talk to people like there was a tile company in Central America, you know, and they wanted a game like a tile game that you could do at home, but then you could also do something in the store or an unnamed turnpike system that wanted something that could also be in store.

And that's the way that. I, used to work where I'd create something digital and physical. And what I love about that is that we get to then do both sides of the customer experience. And so it makes it even more enriched, but also more likely to succeed. So I was really thankful that a lot of companies thought of that and wanted to brainstorm about that.

Kajal: We should go beyond that. We should just gamify their in-store, their e-comm, their booth, when they go to conferences. We'll just, you know, have everything stand out. I think, yeah, there's a niche there for us. 

Seema: I think a lot of people were saying, can you do like a B2B game for us? And we said, we can do anything.

John: [00:13:00] Yeah. The world is better when it's walking 

Kajal: around talking to other vendors, other people, were there anything obviously gave a patient is great and awesome. And the star thing of 2025, but what else did you see as big opportunities for retail or for e commerce?

Seema: I was walking the very first day at 7. 30 in the morning towards the Hudson with two women who had gone to some event. So I don't know if it's because it was literally the first thing of my conference Or basically first thing, but it did repeat every time we find a seamless way to collect data.

She had gone to some other event. It wasn't us who said it, but obviously that is something we do. And the idea of being able to collect data is something a lot of people were talking about. I will say that I'm not at all biased, but I think ours is the most fun way to do it. But collecting and using data was very, very big.

John: Yeah. I mean, definitely. I was surprised to see a lot of data infrastructure kind of building on what Seema said, like [00:14:00] CDPs you know, a lot of heavy duty infrastructure that kind of went over the heads of most people who are there. But if you're there as an I. T. person and recognize that you might need a data lake or something like that, then I'd be You know, it's, it's a trend that's been in the making for the last five years.

And I think it's really come to retail in a big way where it's like identity trying to get a consumer anonymous identity established is something that's critical. We also saw a lot of loyalty programs a lot of people talking about retention and loyalty. In a world in which acquisition is so expensive in the world in which Facebook and Google and a lot of people were discussing this, you really have to focus on your existing customer relationships as well, right?

 so a lot of discussion around, you know, different ways to approach loyalty, different ways to reward customers and found those to be, you know kind of a partnership opportunities for us. [00:15:00] 

Angelo: So if you're listening and you're at a loyalty vendor and would like to partner with PlayAway, feel free to reach out to Angela at PlayAway.

and we can set a call up. 

Seema: Because I think, you know, a lot of the people we did talk to about all of these kinds of things, they can't, they don't want to specialize in games. Why do that when we can do that for you? 

Angelo: Yeah, but they also can't. 

Seema: you're right, you're right.

It is, there is a lot of, that's another thing actually I found so interesting in talking to people about games is they don't really understand how games work. So like, I talked to them and they're like, can you do this? And I was like, yeah, but there's not a game, you know, like a game has to have a win state or whatever simple thing that we sort of understand inherently.

They, you know, like, so there was a lot of things that we kind of inherently understand that it was interesting to hear people kind of relate to us their experiences about games. The biggest one being like, just scratch, you know, like the spinners and the scratches.

I mean, Kajal, you would have, I was like, no, we don't do spinners. And I did tell many people [00:16:00] about the podcast, but that was nice to be able to improve our ability to share what a game is. 

Kajal: Yeah. And I think we didn't really know about it ahead of time. We found out pretty late thinking, but being part of the startup.

And then in the booth section we were entered into a meeting pool where we could meet with different VCs that we matched up with. And I think we had a couple of meetings there that John took. How was that for you, John? Like, was that helpful? Did you find that? It was, you know, a good to have those connections was a good use of your time.

John: Yeah, I thought it was great. You know, investors come in all sizes and shapes. And these being focused on retail you know, we had some really relevant discussions, you know, as, as playably, we're not currently raising, but it's always good to establish those relationships. The way we kind of looked at it when we were talking to those investors was like, there were additional feet on the [00:17:00] street in terms of, you know, they talk to everyone, they see a lot of stuff from a very high level.

So being able to exchange notes about current trends and the impact that they've. seen from different startups. I did notice that a lot of the startup activity is coming from the corporate venture side. You know, large supermarket chains or large retail conglomerates are looking to invest in startups or acquire the technology early.

This is something that you see in tech a lot, but has expanded onto the retail side. So a couple of the investors That we talked to there. We're like, even if you're not raising, what we'd love to do is get you in front of, our supermarket chain or get you in front of one of our LPs so that we can start to establish that relationship.

And that'd be my advice for startups going to NRF is like, make sure every conversation that you have is a way to expand either your market share. [00:18:00] Or the people who are aware of what you're doing, right? So, you know, we've already heard back from a couple of these investors about, next steps, different conversations.

So I thought that was a really nice add on to the conference. 

Kajal: And I'm podcast is made to be helpful to people. So I would love to give away our secret sauce of what do we do when we follow up? We have a conversation, somebody is interested in it. What are the next steps? Like what should brands be doing?

Angelo: So what we do with the any brands that we meet that are interested involvement. We have them book right there. So that's super helpful in terms of, you know, we have the Calendly open they book right away. And then what we learned from shop talk was that if we sent the emails to our. Google or Gmail's like sometimes that invitation would go to their spam box.

So by setting up we used HubSpot meeting service we made sure that our emails didn't go to their spam inbox and that they were able to confirm and select the meeting time that worked for them. The other thing that we do from, you know, since I [00:19:00] had all the sales stuff is that we add them on LinkedIn and then we send them a message saying, Hey, it was great to meet you, and we also confirmed the time.

So that has also been super helpful in terms of making sure that we get all these follow up meetings to. Attend. And then I guess my advice for the brands. We spoke with one small business owner. So a lot of these conferences the brands go for free and at shop talk, the brands are, what's the word?

There's a lot more in it for the brand in terms of like swag and food. I'm so one of the and also content because the talks were basically like, I guess gatekeeping or was like, you had to pay. For an all access pass in order to attend the talks and get all the content. And so usually that's free for brands, but to upgrade in order to get the talks, just get to the keynote was another 2, 000, which is a lot for a small brand.

The other thing is that Javits center is a food desert. So I would recommend it's 

John: like that.

Kajal: If you have a conference there, make sure you bring some tasty [00:20:00] snacks 

Seema: snacks and comfortable shoes. I will say that for brands also for any of these conferences I would definitely one thing that we were saying is that you never know when you might need somebody so like You know, you can be honest with us.

We don't need you right now. And I've had, we've had some brands where we've talked to them at least two conferences, three conferences, and it's just nice talking to them. Like, we're not, I don't, some brands, some vendors maybe are doing a hard sell, but particularly for something like us, we're okay to wait, right?

We'll keep you on our newsletter list. So as a brand, you should feel free to have the conversation. You just don't know where it's going to go. 

Kajal: Any final thoughts on NRF before we sign off? 

Seema: I can't believe it's already done. We were working so hard between Shop Talk and NRF and we're really excited for the next Shop Talk.

And I think the next Shop Talk is going to be here sooner than we think. 

Kajal: Shop Talk Spring at the end of March in Las Vegas. [00:21:00] So if you are a brand, you can probably go for free. I think on the website they offer that to brands because they want to get more and more brands there, but we'll be there and we hope that you will come see us.

We'll give you updates on our booth once we find out. Thanks for tuning in. 

John: everyone.