Shopper Culture

Retailer Cross-Marketing = Better Shopper Experience

Craig Elston — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:24:59 -0700

Retailers across all channels have been striking alliances in recent years with businesses and government agencies to provide value-adds to their shoppers. Winn-Dixie, a Jacksonville-based supermarket chain, has been actively pursuing such a strategy the past two years as they seek to gain an edge in the competitive battle for supermarket shoppers. Today Winn-Dixie shoppers can buy Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida insurance cards, obtain re-loadable prepaid Visa cards, rent movies from Redbox kiosks, take their Winn-Dixie reward cards to buy gasoline at a discount from dozens of Shell stations and buy Jacksonville Transportation Authority bus passes at some locations.

Such retailer partnerships reinforce the importance of supermarkets seeking to differentiate themselves from their competition based upon the suite of products and services they offer their shoppers. Something as simple as a Redbox kiosk could be what sets a supermarket apart from the one across the street and what drives a shopper to come over to their side.

PMA's BLUR

Brandon Fassino — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:34:00 -0700

Integer's Craig Elston, Senior Vice President, Insight & Strategy, and Morgan McAlenney, Senior Vice President/Digital Czar, will be speaking at this year's Annual PMA Integrated Marketing Conference. This year's theme, BLUR: Where Icons & Innovators Cross the Line, conveys the idea that integrated marketing has finally begun to forever blur the line between traditional promotional marketing, often referred to as below the line and advertising and other paid media or above the line. The conference is being held on March 23 & 24, 2010, at the Fairmont Hotel, Chicago, IL. Please stop by and say hi if you are going to be in attendance.

Click here for more information on The PMA Annual Integrated Marketing Conference, BLUR.

Have private-label brands become the new reality?

Brandon Fassino — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:21:52 -0700

The number of shoppers switching to private-label brands seems to have reached a plateau, with no significant changes after steadily increasing until the second quarter 2009. The question is: Will those people who have switched to private-label due to the recession switch back when the economy improves?For more shopper marketing trends, click here to download the latest edition of The Checkout.

Publix and Wegman's are Customer Service Champs

Armand Parra — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:28:00 -0700

An informed, happy staff and the right product on the shelf prove to be the keys to great customer service. Both Publix and Wegmans made Businessweek's Customer Service Champs 2010.

Publix was highlighted for their new inventory management system which improved "out-of-stocks" by 19% in 2009. Further Businessweek recognized Pubilx's employee grant program paying out workers from the company's privately held stock. According to the article, "the average amount awarded in 2009 was $2,326."

Wegman's was praised for their positive employee treatment, namely their tuition scholarships given out to nearly 1,500 employees. Also, Businessweek emphasized Wegman's 13% increase in their training budgets in 2009, a time when most companies were cutting back.

At a time when many retailers were focusing on price, its nice to see retailers recognized for a continued focus on staff and the shopping experience.

Augmented (hyper)Reality

Craig Elston — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:25:13 -0700

The real, physical world is increasingly being enhanced by information brought to us from the virtual world, this fantastic film created by an architecture student paints an interesting vision of where augmented reality technology could take us.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

I love the ability to view ads as an income stream, as well as the predictions for changes in shopping behavior and shopping culture in the future. How much of this could come true? It's another potential future (along with The Minority Report) that changes the way brands and retailers interact with their audiences in the world. Very cool.

Decorative Barcodes To Customize Your Program

Brandon Fassino — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:14:00 -0700

An interesting article in Springwise earlier this month discussed Vanity Barcodes launching a barcode-customization business much like the one Japanese Design Barcode previously introduced. The implications for brands could be really exciting and fun, especially in the CPG/consumer promotions world. Imagine running a loyalty "collect them all and win" program using nothing more than the barcodes on your packaging. Codes could also be customized specifically by category or product variety.

With the rise of mobile technologies and incorporating things like digital barcode scanners and augmented reality, the potential use for specially designed barcodes becomes very intriguing.

In it's simplest form, custom barcodes could be used as unique branding features on product packaging as another way for brands to differentiate themselves.

I'm interested to see if any of the major CPG brands are experimenting with them yet.

-Contributed by Diane Elliston

Frugal Shopping Behavior May Be Easing–Slightly

Brandon Fassino — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:00:00 -0700

Shopping behavior, while continuing to skew toward reduced spending, appears to be flattening out, with a slightly larger number of shoppers moving away from buying few/cheaper items in October. While spending among both males and females is loosening some, men appear to have been much more resilient going into the holiday season. For more shopper marketing trends click here to download the latest edition The Checkout.

Click to enlarge

Tesco: The BOGOL?

Craig Elston — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:48:00 -0700

Tesco recently held a two-week "Buy One Get One Free Later" (BOGOL) event in selected UK stores which allowed shoppers who bought participating items to claim their free item the following week, using a voucher they received at the register.

This event proves interesting for two reasons:

1) Tesco received feedback that while customers like BOGO deals, smaller households sometimes can't use the free product before its use-by date. Knowing this, Tesco provided a solution to those households dis-inclined to pantry-load and gave shoppers another reason to shop the solutions-oriented retailer.

2) Tesco' "BOGOL" event wasn't solely shopper-insights driven. In fact, Tesco was in part responding to pressure from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which said in August that two-for-one deals were resulting in thousands of tons of food being thrown away. Defra threatened to introduce legislation to reduce waste if stores failed to act.

In today's market, where shoppers demand customized offerings and time- & cost-saving solutions, retailers and brands must be both flexible and creative when exploring promotional programs. And in a world where environmental concerns continue to dominate headlines and headspace, retailers have both a responsibility and unique opportunity to explore programs and initiatives that satisfy both shoppers wallets and green sensitibilites.

- Contributed by Kristina Boyer

Image Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Above-The-Line Shopper Marketing

Brandon Fassino — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:00:00 -0700

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.

--Contributed by Robyn Gelfand

Positivity On The Upswing

Brandon Fassino — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:21:00 -0700

Brands, retailers and shoppers are ready for some much-needed happiness. With brands becoming more caring (looking to win hearts and minds beyond wallets), retail sales up (compared to last year's dismal numbers) and consumers venturing out again (albeit looking for some serious deals), it's time to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and latch on to the affirmative.

So what about this recession can you leverage? The January issue of Family Circle fully embraced the idea of putting on a happy face: "If you've been stuck in black-cloud mode, get inspired to find your own silver lining." While shoppers are starting to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and begin buying into the good life again, are you giving them something that adds to their newly embraced positivity? Click here to see some examples of brands that have taken optimism and made it their own.

Coupon Usage Continues To Increase

Brandon Fassino — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:00:00 -0700

Coupons, always one of the more popular shopping aids, have become even more important in the second half of 2009, indicating the economic effect of the recession on shopping behavior. Use of mobile phones, while still relatively limited, has nonetheless increased over the course of the year potentially due the growing usage of smart-phone shopping and information-seeking applications. This is especially true with younger shoppers (18-24), 15% of whom report using mobile phones as shopping aids versus 5% for those aged 35 and over. For more shopper marketing trends click here to download the latest edition The Checkout.

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Chicken Soup for the Brain

Armand Parra — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:52:05 -0700

A Wall Street Journal article today took a close look at the "neuromarketing" research Campbell's did, when redesigning their in-store signage. The article stated that "for two years, Campbell researchers studied microscopic changes in skin moisture, heart rate and other biometrics to see how consumers react to everything from pictures of bowls of soup to logo design". As you can see from the picture on the right, the shift from the old imagery to the the new is significant. Formerly believed emotional cues, like the spoon, were discovered to be less important than steam which provided a feeling of warmth.

As techniques like this become more cost effective and more pervasive, it raises serious questions about the future of the creative process. At what point will too much science kill what is an appreciated art-form? Or, in the end, will brands simply want the science which will correlate to sales?

Introducing The Checkout 2010 Launch: Issue 1.10

Brandon Fassino — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:52:31 -0700

The first Checkout of 2010 picks up where 2009 left off, and shows that private-label brands are continuing to gain strength over name brands. Is this a temporary reaction to recent economic pressures -- or the new reality? What factors are shoppers considering when choosing between name brands or store brands that ultimately lead to their decision?

This issue's In Focus: Name Brands, tightening budgets, lowered consumer sentiment, and an unsure economic future -- to remain competitive in this challenging shopping environment, we discuss a number of tactics name brands can use to remain relevant.

Click here to download the new issue of The Checkout and read more.

To She or Not to She

Brandon Fassino — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:57:34 -0700

So here's a question. Let's say you're a brand with a target audience that's 21 to 34 male and predominantly single. And let's also say that more than half your sales come from the grocery channel where the solid majority of shoppers are married women. So, do you style your in-store communications to sell Mrs. Shopper? Or do you stick to branding for Mr. Target? Though the latter doesn't make much sense, if you start changing the way you look and sound to better reach someone outside your target audience-the opposite of your target audience even-you wind up compromising your brand and confusing the conviction. What to do? This video's been out for a while, but I think it illustrates the lack of understanding that some brands approach the female shopper with.

-Contributed by Thomas Daniels

Dockers Is Taking Shazam to Next Level at Super Bowl XLIV

Brandon Fassino — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:04:28 -0700

Shazam is still one of the more brilliant smart-phone applications ever made. The app lets you tag a song, identifies the name of the song and artist, and tells you where you can buy or download that song.

The notion of hear it, like it, buy it relies on people’s impulsive behavior, and it’s well-suited to music, video, and other digital content. How can brands that sell atoms—not bits—use this technology?

During Dockers’ Super Bowl commercial, people who use Shazam to tag the song in the ad will be directed to Dockers content and their new marketing campaign, including a chance to enter a consumer promotion.

Since more people will have access to phones than laptops during the Super Bowl, this is a smart way to link TV ads to digital material.

What kind of impulse behaviors is this taking advantage of? Watch it, look it up, learn about it?

Click here to learn more.

--Contributed by Leslie Young

The New Normal

Brandon Fassino — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:00:51 -0700

The "good life" has become hanging out with friends...(still) owning your home... surviving H1N1. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has forced Americans to change their lives in ways large and small. It's a world of New Normal with more belt-tightening, less disposable income and in many cases, a newfound gratitude for the most basic human comforts: family, home and health.

Some financial wounds leave us bruised for the short term, while others leave lifetime scars. Nonetheless, if the cycle of recovery repeats itself, the most lasting change is a watershed shift in consumer attitudes. Gone are the times of impulse spending. Now everything is looked at through a new value lens. Welcome to the new Normal.

Click here to read more on the New Normal, in this month's edition of the Integer Pulse.

2010 POPAI Market Smart Conference

Brandon Fassino — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:34:48 -0700

The Integer Group's Craig Elston, SVP Insight & Strategy, will be speaking at the POPAI Market Smart Conference today January 21, 2010. Craig will be presenting the Shopper Continuum™, providing conceptual framework and sharing a learning model from three perspectives: Shoppers, Manufacturers, and Retailers. Please stop by and say hello if you are in attendance.

Click here for more information on tomorrow's POPAI Market Smart Conference.

When Does Your Consumer Become a Shopper?

Michelle Tremblay — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:37:49 -0700

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.

Integrating Online Shopping Experiences With Offline Retail

Brandon Fassino — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:15:55 -0700

As an online shopper, one thing I have become really accustomed to is consumer reviews and user-generated product ratings. Whether you're looking to buy a new TV at Best Buy or order a book off Amazon, right there, at the point of purchase, you have the honest feedback from consumers who have already used the product. Thanks to online shopping, we no longer shop "alone", we have the information and opinions from hundreds of our peers to help reinforce our purchase decisions. This is one experience I think gets lost at traditional brick-and-mortar retail.

With the rise of social media, mobile applications, and instore digital-POS signage, we have had the technology to integrate these experiences for some time now. So why have we yet to see a major effort from traditional retailers to try to adapt some of the popular online shopping features to the offline shopping experience?

One retailer that is experimenting with social shopping technology at traditional brick-and-mortar outlets is Sephora, a leading beauty-products retailer. Sephora recently launched a new mobile application that allows shoppers to read product reviews when considering a purchase instore. By logging on to m.sephora.com, shoppers can enter the 12-digit UPC or product name and browse information, consumer reviews, and ratings on the product they are holding in their hand.

It will be interesting to see how traditional retailers begin to adapt to the changes in shopper behavior brought on by online retail. How far will they go to try and create a seamless shopping experience between online and offline for their customers?

Target Holds "Great Save Event" to Compete With Costco and Sam's

Lesley Bendinelli — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:19:39 -0700

For the next seven weeks (beginning January 1, 2010), Target will offer bulk items as seen in club stores Costco and Sam's - without the club membership fee. All 1,740 Target stores will participate, offering bulk items such as paper towels, detergent, and other household necessities in its seasonal aisles.

The move aligns nicely with Target's "Expect More. Pay Less." strategy, especially at a time when shoppers are motivated to purchase only necessary items. By offering a club-like experience with a fun, trendy Target twist, the chain is likely to attract shoppers who feel justified in buying extra items they don't necessarily need because they'll save so much. Will this "Great Save Event" be enough to serve as an additional trip-driver to Target, stealing share from club stores?

Target says it has no plans to offer year-round bulk bargains, and will use this year's event to determine if it will be repeated next year.