On a recent trip to Key West, my husband and I ate at a lovely
restaurant called Bagatelle. When we got the bill, my husband pointed out the scale at the bottom of the
receipt where customers are asked to “rate your service today.”
Being in shopper marketing, I immediately found this
intriguing and thought it was a simple, clever way for the restaurant to get
instant feedback.After we left,
my mind went to thinking about what they do with the information.Do they compare the amount of the tip
to the rate they receive? Do they have other questions like “rate your meal
today” or “rate our décor today”?And could there be other Post-Tail™ tactics that could be executed in the
same fashion to build a rapport with the shopper? Interesting thoughts.If you have observed a similar tactic
or message, let us know about it. And if you are a merchant, I’d love to hear
about how you use this information.
Crown Imports is looking for new ways to help boost their popular Corona brand. They're not going to abandon the long-standing beach campaign, but they are willing to try new things that align with the brand's equity. For example, Corona is taking a cue from big premium light beers by running a mega summer promotion. In addition, the promotion will be supported with national TV spots. A beer promotion during the summer months isn't big news; the big news is how they're using above-the-line advertising.
Very rarely do the big beer brands put resources into developing TV spots to support retail promotions due to the price tag associated with TV production. Kudos to Corona for promoting their promotion! However, the biggest news lies in how the TV spots are directly driving shoppers to retail. From the 1/25/10 issue of Beer Business Daily, "One ad shows a couple on the beach, and the camera pulls back faster and faster through the jungle and back to the store where the beer was purchased." It's a huge win for a retail promotion to have promotional TV spots. But to actually depict a retail environment on TV in an effort to closely link the promotion to purchase? That's relatively unheard of. With the exception of Keystone Light, no other beer brand has shown the retail space in ATL executions. This overt link of ATL and retail promotion could arguably be viewed as a new genre; perhaps we could call it "ATL shopper marketing".
It's great to see Corona branching out with a summer promotion, supporting it with promotional TV, and linking it closely to retail. I wonder if other brands will continue down a similar path and see the value in integrating all consumer and shopper touch points with a cohesive message. I'm sure they'll find that the sum is grater than the parts.
When does your consumer become a shopper, and is that time frame changing and beginning to blur? When is the best time to strike with your marketing message? Has that timing changed? Is your organization adjusting and adapting to the new Web dynamic world we are all living in?
These questions came to mind as I watched a video a colleague passed along from Ad Age about Vail Resort's marketing strategy and how it has changed in response to their target's change in behavior. Click here to view the video.
In a nutshell, Vail learned that the window for planning a ski vacation had shifted from six months in advance to a time-crunched two-three weeks. Vacationers were no longer planning at a leisurely pace. Instead, they were condensing their time frames. The time it took from the moment they thought of taking a ski vacation, planned and booked it, to the moment they actually showed up with their skis in hand ready to tackle the mountain has gotten much shorter. That shift from six months to three weeks is now a much quicker journey through the Shopper Continuum™ from Pre-tail™ to Retail to Post-tail™.
As a result, Vail pulled a vast majority of their branding budget (mainly big, glossy magazine ads) and reallocated it to a dynamic-messaging strategy where they could use social-media outlets to craft more timely and relevant messaging to would-be vacationers. Did they shift their strategy from targeting consumers to targeting shoppers? I would argue that they did. They identified the most opportune time to hit their target with the right message at the right time - when they are in a shopper mindset. A would-be vacationer's shopping environment is the Web; that is Vail's storefront. Vail has appropriately shifted their marketing gears to take advantage of this change in behavior.
Will it pay off? Time will tell, but I would bet my new pair of K2s that it will.
Hanging flat-screens and speakers were recently installed at a local mall's food court. During this holiday season, a “text in your song request, and get entered to win an XBox” promotion took advantage of this new entertainment technology. I decided to participate. I texted in my song request, and received a text reply stating “…Your song will play in less than 1 minute. Reply Xbox and enter for a chance to win an XBOX 360!” So I did. I then received another text stating that I was entered, the drawing date, and the url for the promotion background and rules. Once my video started playing I received another text stating, “Your song is playing now! Reply bestbuy to get $30 Best Buy gift card offer w/Xbox 360 Elite purchase. Expires 12/31/09.” So I did, and received a promotional code to give a cashier.
This is an interesting promotion because, first, the goal was to drive people away from one shopping location (this mall) to another shopping location. (Best Buy was not located inside this mall.) Second, the location and interaction of the promotion was unique. Third, the promotion helped identify purchase intent for an XBox in a friendly way. I got to listen to my chosen music without ever having to enter the contest or replying that I was intending to buy an Xbox 360 by year’s end.
While text promotions provide the next chapter for CRM programs, I’m curious to watch how the face of CRM will evolve and change in this new digital age.
A full-page iPhone print ad in USA Today(R), featured 16 call outs and 16 brands—18 brands, including iPhone and AT&T(R). It's not a very sexy ad at all—a bunch of logos inside a big black rectangle with lots of text. There’s a lot going on. Doesn't this go against what a print
ad should do? One singular message, one singular thought? It could
be argued the main message here is, "There's an app for that." There isn’t even a directly spelled-out call to action. Yet, when I saw
this ad, I read every single app call out and immediately went to my
iPhone and downloaded four new apps. I loved my iPhone even more
after engaging with my new-found apps. The ad works. Maybe not the
way marketers once believed print ads should work back in the '90s
or even five years ago. The world of communication is changing. Who's
still playing in the 1990s?
Consumers are showing signs of spending their money again, although the economic downturn will likely have lasting effects on consumer spending habits. A recent PriceGrabber.com Consumer Behavior Report indicates that consumers are changing their mindsets from cutting back to spending cautiously and will not go back to previous extravagant spending habits. When shoppers decide that they're ready to buy, they often turn to the Internet, albeit clicking for very different reasons in recent months. The basic human needs of people stay the same, even during a recession. Consumers want to learn about the best products and services for their needs, and spending time online saves shoppers time and money. As a result of the tough economy, 93% of online consumers spent more time or the same amount of time shopping online. By researching products and comparing prices online, consumes boost their confidence about their product purchases. The time spent online keeps increasing because search is now habitual. There is even a special kind of consumer playing a bigger role - those who can't buy anything without first looking it up online to get the lowdown. (Re)Search is a pathway for shoppers. Search marketing is the best customer-acquisition tool in the online space.
The Internet is a bright spot across the media landscape. Despite the economic crisis, total US online ad spending is expected to rise in 2009 to a record high of $24.5 billion and continue to reach new heights each year through 2013. Online advertising can be tracked, measured, adjusted, and tightly targeted. Today, as many consumers look for bargains or new Internet trends to emerge, words or phrases that attract more consumers can be added or modified almost immediately. 65% of online shoppers conduct product research using search engines, and the percentage of those searching before making a purchase (finding online and offline retailers) has risen. When marketers link ads to an individual’s search query, the high relevance breaks down the customary advertising resistance. Through search advertising, shoppers find the products and the content that motivate them to buy... a path to purchase beyond the current recession.
- Contributed by Integer Media (Pam Taylor, Media Director)
We recently started polling Shopper Culture visitors about various topics that are relevant to what's happening in the industry. The poll is intended to be a fun way to see how shopperculture.com visitors compare to the rest of the country. One question we asked recently was how much you used certain digital media in your shopping habits. Here are the results:
Online purchases ranked the highest with 87.% of respondents saying that they've "Made a purchase online in the past month". This agrees with a trend that can be seen in the May edition of the The Checkout, which saw a national increase in online shopping of 3% from March. The second most popular digital-shopping application that shopperculture.com visitors have used in the past month was "Downloading a coupon," at 42%. This number also supports a trend from the May Checkout data: Given the recent economy, many shoppers are turning to new shopping behaviors they may have dismissed in the past. Money-saving techniques are being used the most. 45% of people said they have started using more store or manufacturer coupons and 31% have started using internet coupons more often.
An astounding 21% of shopperculture.com respondents said that they have used a mobile shopping app in the last month, only 6% of those surveyed in The Checkout said they used their mobile phone as a shopping aid. However, this was a significant increase from March, which indicates a trend toward increased usage of cell phones as shopping tools.
It seems like Shopper Culture visitors are more technologically advanced than the U.S. representative sample from The Checkout data, but it's interesting to see that we share some of the same sentiments about saving money and shopping convenience as the rest of the country.
The May edition of The Checkout will be available here soon, and don't to forget to take the Shopper Culture Poll over there on the right hand column of the blog.
Digital signs are a great way to attract people’s attention with
moving graphics, movies, informational banners, and more. But how well do these
displays work? Audience-measuring technologies allow real-time monitoring,
metrics, and analysis; which allows marketers and advertisers to know who is
viewing their displays, how many views have occurred, how long people stay at a
display, and during what time of day they are there. This information can
provide great ROI for both digital and static displays. Advanced software
detects and isolates the faces of people viewing a display and can determine gender
and race and even estimate a person’s age. While this may seem a bit intrusive, the software
applications that perform this type of analytics do so anonymously. To respect
privacy, it is a general practice not to record images or other personally
identifiable information. In most cases, the camera that is used to capture
information is not easily detectable by people near the display, which reduces
the creep factor for consumers.
A global uneasiness has emerged as institutions, rituals, customs, and beliefs are being challenged by failing businesses, economic upheaval, and even sports scandals. Thanks to the 24/7 news cycle, the multiplatform media machine carries updates on air, online, and even on the go. This barrage has driven consumers into a CULTURE SHOCK.*
This "shock" felt around the world has transformed consumers into anti-consumers who are unable and unwilling to spend. How can you manage this strategic downshift in buying? Read more on the March issue of the Integer Pulse here.
That’s exactly what high-end retailer Hyde Park Jewelers is
hoping people are doing. They want to communicate with potential customers when
and where they are “in the mood for love.” So, they created a “ring-sizer” coaster
that has shown up in bars around Denver, making it easy for the lovestruck to
consider Hyde Park when they are meeting the woman or man of their dreams for a
drink.
And to make sure that popping the question is that perfect
moment, Hyde Park created biggerwow.com, a website that
focuses on ways to make the proposal unforgettable. With content that focuses on items like
setting the mood, and proposal do and don’ts, Hyde Park helps out the
soon-to-be-married in a fun and lighthearted way.
Interesting and engaging is a perfect way for high-end
retailer like Hyde Park to disrupt normal behavior
and interact with potential
consumers in a new environment and with a new medium. And when matched with the great messaging
strategy surroundingbiggerwow.com, both end up feeding the consumers desire to have this time in
their life (engagement) be the biggest and best it can be.
It’s ideas like these— ones that benefit both the consumer
and the retailer—that create the “perfect moment” for everyone.
"One has to take calculated risks in business, but it's also important
to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong. We
were doing this to win, and if we weren't going to win then we had to
pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single
standard."
Moving quickly on bad news is bold step, especially for Japanese CEO, many of whom might have postponed a decision even in the face of the inevitable, in order to save face. Building on this, the Wall Street Journal cited five management tips from the Toshiba CEO:
For those of you who are concerned about Toshiba's future, don't worry too much. CEO Nishida reminds us that HD DVD was one of 45 strategic business units or "areas of growth" and 44 still remain.
A number of recent articles, here is one, covered the announcement of Microsoft's partnership with MediaCart and Wakefern Foods (ShopRite) to deliver interactive shopping carts into ShopRite stores.
Working at a retail focused agency, it is always interesting to see investment in our arena by major media players, e.g. CBS buying SignStorey.
Along with the creation of Nielsen In-Store and P.R.I.S.M., these types of announcements bring increasing credibility to the industry and attention to the power of in-store marketing. Further, this represents a marrying of online technology (Atlas) and an in-store vehicle, which shows a very positive evolution of thinking.
However, all that excitement aside, I have a certain amount of skepticism about the success of this vehicle. I think for a select group of early adopters, it will be embraced. But for many shoppers, are they really ready for this?
Grocery shopping used to be simple; go to store, get cart, put stuff you need in it, sometimes there were signs that told you what was on-sale. Now, you can enter your shopping list online before you go, it'll download to your cart computer; and tell you about specials on a contextual basis when you hit the right aisle. As a marketer, again, think this is fantastic. Love the blend of technology and context to deliver truly targeted ads. However, I'm just not sure your average shopper will think they "need" all this, but that's just my opinion. Time will tell.
On a side note, (and I owe this to a colleague at another in-store company) what happens when carts are stolen? Your average shopping cart costs something like $150 (i looked it up). What happens $1,000 shopping carts start disappearing? How are retailers going to feel about losses in that arena on a daily basis? I mean this in all seriousness, and would love to hear how the deals are configured and if they account for loss like this.
Although this YouTube video is primarily focused on highlighting the paradigm shift in mass communications to 1-on-1 communication, the more important message here is about the opportunity to build a brand in a virtual, social environment.
Check it out:
Consistent with characteristics of a community, second life is made up of residents that create their world, their identity, and choose their friends. More importantly, they thrive on word of mouth recommendations. As viral communication thrives, Secondlife provides yet another platform for sharing.
Residents create avatars reflecting their personal identity in this virtual world. And many brands are already taking advantage of this. Avatars can visit the American Apparel virtual store to view the latest clothesline, buy Dell computers, and read news updates from Reuter.
And you thought is was all for online gamers, recently Secondlife became one of the cutting edge virtual classrooms for major colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton. Administrators host lectures, inform students of projects and chat live outside of the traditional classroom.
The future of the virtual platform is at its infancy. At a virtual world conference in October 2007, IBM and Linden Lab announced plans to develop open standards that will allow avatars to roam from one virtual community to the next. The goal is let a person create a digital alter-ego that can travel to many virtual worlds, keeping the same name, look and even digital currency. And Secondlife isn’t the only opportunity to get involved.
If you’re not sold yet, there are hundreds of ad, design and marketing agencies dedicated to creating destinations and opportunities on Secondlife. If hundreds of companies are being created to simply service this platform, it’s definitely not a fad.
With the increase of clean-store policies, companies must build their brands out of store to influence that purchase decision before they walk in the door. And with consumers spending less time with traditional media and more time online, companies must shift dollars to reach them. Promo Magazine Industry Trend Report for 2007 reported that marketers are spending 32% of their promotional dollars online (only higher medium was Direct Mail) to generate promotional support.
From tracking consumer “IM” relating to your product to testing a new product before it hits the shelf, Secondlife provides research capabilities as well. These residents are early adopters and will champion new products if you give them the opportunity. Building brand loyalty takes time and trust, and Secondlife provides a highly-targeted medium to reach current and future customers.
Afraid of jumping in and taking a risk? You should be more afraid of getting soaked on the sidelines from your competitors' cannonball. It’s just a matter of time before your competitors announces their presence. Andrew McGregor expressed this in the YouTube piece, but I agree. “In five years, the brands with the most social presence online, will also be the most competitive in the marketplace.”
15,000 attendees turned out to the 2007 Cable Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, and more than a few must have been perplexed by this year's improbable show theme:
"Competition works. Consumers win."
For an industry many consider anti-competitive and consumer-unfriendly, the show theme seemed counter-intuitive, if not outrageous. Competition? Perhaps the idea was to pacify Day One's featured speaker: Kevin Martin, Chairman of the FCC.
The FCC under Chairman Martin has been publicly critical of the Big Cable. This chart, compiled by the New York Times, helps explain why. The cost of cable television in the United States has outpaced inflation by a significant margin. This fact seems to indicate that the cable industry - led by Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider - is taking advantage of a monopoly status to raise rates at will.
The cable industry strongly insists there is no monopoly. While Comcast is by far the largest provider of pay TV, they go head-to-head with other cable providers, like Time Warner, in many local markets. What's more, phone companies like Qwest offer the same bundled packages - phone, high-speed internet and pay TV (through satellite partners) nationwide. Comcast would point out that they lost 65,000 subscribers in the last quarter. There's plenty of competition, the cable industry contends. The cable industry has been deregulated since 1996 through an act of Congress, and that's just the way Big Cable likes it.
Chairman Martin has been pushing the other members of the five-member commission to invoke the "70/70" rule of the Cable Communications act: when 70% of U.S. households are cable-ready, and 70% of those households subscribe to cable, the government is empowered to regulate the industry in favor of lower prices and more diverse programming. In an agency meeting last week, the commission rejected the "70-70" finding, citing unreliable data, in a vote considered a blow to cable consumers in general and Chairman Martin in particular.
Despite this defeat, the FCC have recently affected other, smaller changes that benefit consumers and the competitive landscape. For example, as of last month, specific cable companies may no longer have exclusivity on apartment buildings; building managers must allow competition between rival cable companies and satellite TV.
But this represents only a minor victory for consumers. In the remaining 13 months of his appointment, Martin's goals are more ambitious:
Cable ownership limits, imposing a 30% cap on Comcast's share of the pay-TV market while preventing other giants like Time Warner from making substantial new acquisitions
A la carte legislation, allowing cable subscribers to pick and choose which specific channels they want, instead of paying for large bundles of channels that go unwatched
Increased diversity programming, lowering the price of channel access to minority and women programmers
Dual carriage, forcing cable operators to carry local TV signals in both analog and digital form until all cable subscribers have upgraded to digital reception equipment
Chairman Martin is drafting a revised proposal for a possible vote at the agency's next meeting, scheduled for December 18th. Consumer groups and cable proponents alike eagerly await the outcome. Is Big Cable too big? Does the pay-TV industry require government regulation? How will TV viewers benefit from greater competition? Stay tuned.
