Retail Customer Experience: Making the case for custom point-of-purchase content
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Retail Customer Experience, a daily news portal devoted to helping retailers differentiate the shopping experience.
At Best Buy, Paul Flanigan managed the entire in-store network business. He now consults on all aspects of digital signage and retail communication.
In a consumer's home, the advertiser competes with everything; there is nothing endemic about a TV program, a magazine, or the Internet. But retail is different - very different. At retail, the competition narrows down to the category. When Nike competes with Budweiser at home, it's only a matter of who likes what. But when Nike competes with Adidas and Reebok and K Swiss and Puma (to mention a few) on a wall of footwear, the category focus by both the customer and the advertiser at the point of purchase is paramount. This is where the last 10 feet of the path to purchase are won.
Why do advertisers and venues accept external advertising for the retail environment? Why do so many brands and manufacturers just repurpose their 30-second awareness ads to run on the shelf?
The simple answer is that there are not enough data to support the theory that custom content does any better at selling a product than regular broadcast advertising. Numbers get thrown around all too easily: 70 percent of shopper decisions are made in-store. Or is that 50 percent? I recently read that POPAI's MARI project claims that only "three percent of in-store marketing communications is currently passed and seen by shoppers." In a 2008 study from IMI Consumer Track, North Americans were asked what influenced them to purchase brands they don't normally purchase. The respondents said they were influenced by an ad they saw on television 24 percent of the time.
Ugh!
Why should retail marketing push brands and advertisers to create custom marketing content?
You have to stand out. The amount of stimuli waging a war for the customer's attention is close to immeasurable. Repurposing advertising does two things: It tells the customer what they already know, and it tells them you don't have anything to add to your proposition. Result: The customer deselects you because there are other, newer things to look at.
The customer's mindset is different in the store. Marketers must stop believing that "purchase decisions" and "unplanned decisions" are the same thing. An unplanned decision is based on impulse. "Oh...I need shampoo, too. While I'm here..." Where the two types of decisions mix is in the shopper's mindset at the point of purchase. Therefore, the approach to the customer should be different.
Advertising is part of the equation, not the solution; it must work in tandem with everything else. Steven Keith Platt notes that the purchase decision process is influenced by several factors, including how a shopper navigates the store, the displays and all their components, and a shopper's motivation.
Collectively, these factors paint a better picture of how a product gets into a customer's hands. Marketing must sit at the table and be a part of the deal so that proper attention can be given to the messaging that accompanies the product.
The need for extra money to create custom content will diminish. The content will be part of the negotiated deal for the product life-cycle in the store. It will not be an afterthought tapping into someone else's budget. Further, because of its separation from any other kind of advertising, it will give marketers the ability to better measure impact.
While statistics may support some of the arguments, they should never make a case. Knowing that the customer and the environment are completely different in a store than in a home should warrant the argument for custom creative at the point of purchase.
Discussion Questions: Do you see an urgency for more customized in-store marketing for brands? In what ways should brand messaging and delivery at the store level differ from branding efforts around traditional media? What are the challenges in brands coming up with a distinct in-store messaging strategy?