Three ways to develop effective retail shopper marketing
Good point-of-sale marketing changes minds and wins wallets at the check-out. In this guest post, Asher Hunter reveals his three tips to developing effective in-store communications.
The store is our most important media channel. The media landscape continues to be more fragmented, but the reach of the retail environment remains constant. 
Over 12 million people in Australia have shopped at a supermarket in the last 7 days. That’s significant reach and all in close proximity to making a buying decision.
In 2009, P&G introduced its ‘store back’ marketing concept. Summarised as “If it doesn’t work at the store, it’s no longer a good marketing idea for Procter & Gamble Co.,” in an Ad Age article, the innovation forced P&G’s ad agencies to think more explicitly about how a creative concept will play out at the store level and connect with above the line media.
P&G made a publicised move towards a shopper focus, but the movement was not restricted to them alone. In fact, many companies view packaging as the most important touch-point with shoppers.
Since then, we have seen significant growth in shopper insights and marketing teams with budgets aimed at more effectively engaging with shoppers’ in-store.
However, the store environment is still often an afterthought when developing and testing creative campaign concepts.
The retail medium and the shopper mindset provide significant challenges
The way people process information in a retail environment is very different to traditional media. On average, shoppers spend very little time evaluating alternatives in any category and rely on their non-rational system 1 (auto-pilot, as described in the book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman) to help them navigate the tens of thousands of SKUs in a given supermarket.
Shoppers subconsciously process information in a retail environment and utilise heuristics (aka shortcuts) to make decisions.
For example, shoppers use the Colgate red colour as a visual cue for finding the toothpaste category and then use the pack symbols (e.g. the Colgate Total imprint) to find their preferred brand.
The other challenge for shopper marketers is the lack of control they have on the channel. Unlike other traditional media channels, in which you buy the space and you can dictate the content, shopper marketing necessitates getting the retailer on-board with the creative execution and motivated to ensure compliance.
In a nutshell, the retail environment is an increasingly important channel, but it comes with unique challenges.
Tips to develop effective in-store communications
In order to be successful, shopper marketing creative needs to: a) bust through the clutter; b) connect with the shopper; and, c) ultimately, positively affect purchase behaviour.
Below are some tips to develop more effective in-store marketing. This is by no means an exhaustive guidebook, but hopefully the points below provide some ideas for your next in-store activation.
- Win-Win-Win
The ole ‘win-win’ has become a bit of a cliché in business, but there is no way around it when it comes to shopper marketing. In fact, we need to add an additional ‘win’. At the 2016 POPAI Conference, Troy Apperley, shopper marketing Manager, Savoury at Campbell Arnott’s talked about three key stakeholders to consider when planning any in-store activation; people (shopper), brand and place (retailer).
Troy and Taby Taylor-Ziane, strategy director at 31st Second, used the recent ‘Switch the Sandwich’ campaign to illustrate how you can deliver clear benefits to all three stakeholders.
The objective of the campaign was to encourage shoppers to use Crispbreads for lunch as a healthy alternative to traditional bread. The campaign included off location displays in the fresh section of the supermarket with complementary products (tuna, avocado, tomatoes, etc), POS displays and recipe cards.
The campaign delivered clear benefits for all three stakeholders:
- People (shopper): delivered a healthy and easy lunch solution
- Brand: enabled off location to grow penetration
- Place (retailer): category growth and drove fresh (tuna, avocado and tomato)
Switch the Sandwich campaign
So what?
When planning your next shopper marketing campaign articulate clearly how the activation will benefit PEOPLE (shopper), BRAND and PLACE (retailer).
- Don’t give away the house
Great shopper marketing campaigns drive significant volume without eroding margin. Take the Chivas Regal Christmas Personalisation campaign. Shoppers are on the look-out for novel and easy gift solutions at Christmas.
Chivas Regal were able to increase participation in premium spirits by enabling shoppers to print personalised labels for gifting.
According to Richard Dumas, head of shopper marketing at Pernod Ricard: “The campaign delivered a return way above projections. The campaign was successful because it provided a simple solution that was relevant to the shopping mindset at that time of year.
“Commercially, we kept costs low because we only incurred costs for those shoppers that redeemed the personalised labels online without discounting the product.”
Deep discounts are often a key element in shopper marketing campaigns, but they impact significantly on the bottom line.
Discounts attract shoppers that are loyal to the discount (e.g. they will buy whatever is on special) and also reward shoppers that would have purchased your brand anyway; both play to the short-term rather than create long term value for the brand.
So what?
Consider the dollar impact of a price promotion and look for ways to be relevant without giving away the house.
- Play to shopper heuristics (aka shortcuts)
Heuristics are essentially decision making shortcuts that guide our everyday actions without consuming a massive amount of brainpower. In a retail environment, these heuristics enable us to find and decide on a products without weighing up all the pros and cons of the options available in a deliberate manner.
Shopper marketing can be more effective if it identifies the heuristics that impact decision making for their product and play to them.
There are numerous decision-making heuristics, way too many to cover in this article. An example of a heuristic is the anchoring bias: the first bit of information we’re exposed to becomes the comparison point for all future information.
Tip: display your WAS price in a comparatively large font to the NOW price.
Revlon recently won the POPAI pinnacle award for best temporary display. The award submission states: “The new product shape is glorified and creates a beacon in-store from five meters or from across the store”.
The activation is a good examples of tapping into the “visual preference heuristic” – creating a clear visual shortcut for the category – which is also distinctive to the brand. It also provides an off-location space for Revlon and the new product launch to cut through an extremely cluttered cosmetics aisle.
So what?
Create a list of all the heuristics that play a significant role in your category and consider how your shopper marketing activations can tap into this.
Final thoughts on the final frontier
To conclude, the retail environment is an increasingly important communication channel, but it comes with significant challenges.
We can learn a lot from how brands have successfully communicated in-store and this article highlights three tips to consider:
- Win-Win-Win: clearly outline how your activation will benefit PEOPLE (shopper), BRANDS AND PLACE (retailer);
- Don’t give away the house: consider ways to be relevant beyond purely price promotions (put that money to better use); and
- Play to shopper heuristics (aka shortcuts): understand and leverage the decision making heuristics that impact your category.
Asher Hunter is the managing director at Metrix Consulting
