Shopper Culture

Becoming e-Adaptable

During the past ten years, we’ve all experienced how the Internet has changed shopping for the average consumer. After all, there is not only Black Friday after Thanksgiving for price-conscious consumers but also Cyber Monday for shoppers searching for deals from their desks. And what happened to the computer store in the strip mall down the street? Retailers now call their on-site stores brick-and-mortar locations because Web sites are holding their own by bringing in substantial revenue. In fact, Circuit City brick-and-mortar stores recently closed, but www.CircuitCity.com is still alive and kicking.

As the Internet and e-commerce changes the face of shopping, traditional media is adapting to keep up and stay connected to consumers. Have you ever ordered pizza from your TV or interacted with a magazine ad online? Maybe you used your cell phone instead of clipping coupons from the Sunday newspaper. If you haven’t already, you soon will, as broadcast and print media start becoming more “e-adaptable” to please consumers and retailers alike.

New Take on TV Dinners

November 2008 was a monumental month in couch-potato history.  Partnered with TiVo, Domino’s Pizza simplified the ordering process and brought consumers just a few remote-control clicks away from a hot pizza at their doorsteps.

TiVo subscribers now have the option of using their TiVo remotes to order pizza and other items featured on the Domino’s menu in the Music, Photos, & More section in the TiVo menu. As a proactive step to further drive sales, viewers are also served pop-up advertisements when fast-forwarding through Domino’s commercials. The pop-up asks the viewer if he or she would like to order a pizza, then directs them to the Domino's TiVo menu. Customers can also track the status of their orders through the TiVo interface.

Other companies are also tapping in to interactive TV for their e-commerce needs. In March 2009, Fandango.com (owned by Comcast cable provider) launched an application with Dish Network where customers could purchase movie tickets using an interactive onscreen interface with their remote controls. 

Augmented Reality

The magic of Augmented Reality (AR) is clearly catching on. But is it a gimmick or a viable addition to a company's bag of marketing tricks? In simple terms, AR combines real time images with virtual ones to create entirely new 3D graphics that appear onscreen, but give the illusion of jumping out of it. While AR has a lot of hype surrounding it, it's not the WHOLE program. It's an effective tactic that adds excitement and - most importantly - interaction, along with other elements working together to achieve total program goals. 

Click here to read more on the latest from the our Midwest office and to see how brands are using AR to help connect with consumers. 

New Release: The Checkout Issue 4

In focus this month: Private-label brands.

Whether it's Trader Joe's or Rancher's Reserve, Kirkland or Kroger Value, private-label products are increasing in both share and stature. This month, we explore how people are shopping this important category. 

Also featuring: Brands in the spotlight.

Kroger, Walmart, and Target are perceived as carrying some of the best store brands. Specifically, brands mentioned frequently include Walmart's Great Value and Equate, Kirkland (Costco), Archer Farms (Target), and 365 (Whole Foods). The name brands shoppers are least likely to trade out of include Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Tide. 

Click here to download the latest issue of The Checkout.

Time to Integrate Retail Experience in the Real and Online Worlds

Our team at, Integer London, recently wrote a piece to Admap Magazine, discussing the integration of the retail experience in the brick-and-mortar and online worlds. Ian Thomas discusses the need for retailers to create a seamless journey for the customer between the physical and online store. To do this requires recognizing that shoppers “research in one channel, buy from another and then switch back to online channels for customer service post-sale.” There are a handful of retailers that are doing a good job of facilitating this process; the one paving the way is Best Buy. In its current campaign, it touts ‘Delivery, hook-up, and recycling’ for TV sets. By bundling hardware and software together with delivery, and installation services via Geek Squad, Best Buy are positioning themselves as a "solutions provider" rather than just a retailer. 

Thomas also argues the efficiencies of further integrating a business into a 'digital home', one in which everything from stock control to online storage of receipts and guarantees are housed on a single IT platform. This will provide more effective CRM possibilities because of its ability to track individual customer purchasing behaviors. Digital stock can inform consumers about how many products are available in a particular store, as well as give real-time information to the retailers about what is selling and what isn't so they can tailor their communications to help push products.  

As retailers begin to better understand the evolving shopping landscape, we will begin to see the line between the real and online worlds blur more and more (see our white paper on Digitail™). The value from this integration comes from both the retailer's increased availability to the consumer as well as the ability to have more targeted and timely communications.

Check out the August issue of Admap to read the entire article from Ian Thomas, "Time to Integrate Retail Experience in the Real and Online Worlds.

Be Good To People

In April 2009, we made a presentation at the In-Store Marketing Institute's Summit on the convergence of the retail and digital spaces. In that presentation, we made an assertion, based on the research we conduct every month on changing shopping behaviors in the U.S., that we are living in an age of conscious consumption. Conspicuous consumption is dead.

So it was interesting to see this business at a farmer's market a couple of weekends ago.

Be good to people is a small business with a big purpose. They are trying to create a movement that will make the world a better place. And it all starts with shopping or, more specifically, the purchase of apparel and lifestyle accessories that carry the mission of the business.  As the company's Web site says:

It's performing simple acts of kindness, and recognizing others for their "Good."
It's a renewed feeling of hope, relief from today's negative news.
It's joy in simple things. Returning to basic, core values.
It's communicating a shared belief, like-minded people spreading a positive message.
It's a movement.   
Changing the world, one person, one kind act, at a time.
The idea is simple.
It's black and white.

When you buy something from them, 5% of that money goes to their People Being Good to People Fund. From this fund they recognize and reward people who do good and are good to others all over the world.

Simple.

Perhaps this it is the merging of conscious and conspicuous consumption - telling the world how great you are through your shopping behavior. While the notion of using your purchasing power to do good (such as productRED™) is nothing new, this is such a simple humanistic message, a reminder to us all of basic values we should all uphold everyday, that it has the potential to be very successful. It's a great conversation-starter and a philosophy that, I hope, has few detractors. 

So sign up with them on their facebook group, pick something up, and see where that coversation takes you.

Monitoring Social Media To Find Helpful Consumer Insights

The importance of listening to what consumers are saying about your company cannot be understated. A new field called Social Media Monitoring makes this process much easier to perform. And faster. Plus, you get to hear what consumers are saying to each other about your company - a lot more candidly than what you often get from the traditional survey or focus group. Many leading companies are using free and paid online services to help get ideas for future products and promotions, adjusting messaging, improve positioning against competitors, and measure the effectiveness of recent marketing campaigns. 

Read a recent article from the Denver Business Journal on the topic, written by Ken Barber, Integer's Director of Digital Marketing here.

Come Curious. Leave Inspired.

That's the title of the In-Store Marketing Expo that takes place October 6 through October 8 in Chicago. This year, The Integer Group®, in conjunction with our sister Omnicom agency M/A/R/C® Research, will present a new body of work.

Our Denver office will present with M/A/R/C an update of our ongoing research that helps us understand the changing nature of the shopper. The session is titled "The Changing World of Shopping Behavior" and runs for an hour, starting at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 8.

Some of the data has been published in The Checkout this year, but our research delves a lot deeper than we are able to publish in a regular newsletter, so there will be greater depth and analysis on a number of different topics.

If you will be in Chicago, please drop by, catch the presentation, and say hello.