Macy's Interactive Store Windows: At Last, A Reason to Visit a Department Store

When's the last time you were truly amazed at a department store? It seems like the magical aura department stores had in Miracle on 34th Street vanished long ago. But Macy's (M) has brought the magic back with an interactive store-window display in its New York and Hollywood stores that ties into another movie, Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The technology still has a few bugs to work out, but expect crowds to gather for their chance to make brooms dance and plasma bolts explode by waving their arms in front of the window set, which AdWeek described as "very Diagon Alley," the shopping street for wizards in the Harry Potter books. If passersby hold up their hands, their hands appear inside of the movie screen in the Macy's window and can act on the objects that appear. They can also make their face appear in lieu of a character's head.

An infrared camera reads the movements of people near the screen -- but not too near, a problem which frustrated some visitors. The technology is similar to that used in Microsoft's new Xbox Kinect.

For the uninitiated, in the just-opened movie, Nicolas Cage plays a former student of Merlin who defends Manhattan from evil with the help of a gifted college student (Jay Baruchel). The movie even includes a salute to the classic Fantasia cartoon section in which Mickey Mouse loses control of broomsticks he enchants.

It's not the first time interactivity has been used in department-store displays -- last winter you could tweet a message with a special Twitter hashtag at Saks and see it appear in the window's computer displays. So it's not the first, but possibly the best use of technology to spice up a store display yet seen.

While apparently the technology isn't perfect, Macy's new windows will likely make many moms with squirmy, bored kids on their hands say: "Now, that's a reason to go to the mall!" And shop, while they're there. Macy's plans to keep the displays up all month. '

Too bad they're not in the windows of more stores. Department store executives should be thinking about more ways to bring this kind of enchantment and fun back to the experience of shopping their stores.

Photo via Flickr user all of olive.