The Majority Report

 On the one hand, shoppers today are more harried than ever and appreciate nothing more than efficiency. On the other hand, shoppers are more harried than ever and appreciate nothing more than relaxation. handheld devices that, frankly, are more interesting to many consumers than any ad or promotion that might cross their paths.

As we pursue the creative potential of “Just-in-Time Television” at retail (see: the HUB, March/April ‘06), we need to be mindful of these two related, but in some
ways contradictory, features of shopper behavior. The same shopper who wants to get in and out of the supermarket or drug store as quickly as possible might also
want to kick back and relax at a favorite bookstore or coffee shop.

The way we communicate with that shopper must align not only with our own marketing objectives but also with his or her prevailing frame of mind. Our job, as
marketers, is to do as much as we can to make sure that we are helping our shoppers get exactly what they want, when they want it.

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The Majority Report

Just-in-Time Television

 Wal-Mart may own the fifth-largest television network  in America, but it is a mistake to assume that Wal-Mart TV  is a medium like ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX. While it is true that Wal-Mart’s television network reaches something like 130 million viewers each week, its viewers are very different from those watching the other four networks for one simple reason: They are shopping.

They are not relaxing at home, engrossed in their favorite programs and hopefully enjoying the commercials as well. In many cases, they are “on a mission,” rushing through the grocery store or focused on the purchase of the latest consumer electronics gadget. Sometimes the last thing they want is anything that will interrupt their mission — which, at least in the case of supermarkets, drug and mass merchandise stores — can be to get in and out as quickly as possible.

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Just-in-Time Television

Across the Divide

Two macro-dynamics are driving the next generation of digital screen media at retail. The first dynamic is the change in technology, and the second is the transition from early adopters into retail’s mainstream.

Taken together, these two dynamics are creating exciting new opportunities. However, it requires shedding certain myths. The opportunity is to use digital sigange to increase sales by offering consumers information or entertainment value when and where they want it.

The opportunity is to use digital signage to increase sales by offering consumers information or entertainment value when and where they want it.  The challenge is to select the right combination of technology and content to support the communications strategy. The bottom line is that, done right, a digital media strategy at retail will return a highly positive, and eminently measurable return on investment.

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Across the divide

Frame of Mind in retail

The retail environment is becoming increasingly competitive, and as a result more retailers and brand owners are looking to break away from the price vs product consumer mentality. This is achieved through creating differentiation and winning customers by delivering enhanced service and customer experience. In order to do this retailers and brands need to harness their consumer research and find new ways of deploying and leveraging new and innovative in-store marketing technology.

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Frame of Mind in retail

My personal instore shopper

As most of us know, when we shop on Amazon.com they have some clever software that provides us with recommendations based on what other members are buying when we log on to the site; that remembers what we have bought and suggests other similar products that we might like and even has our ‘own’ store.

This is relatively easy to do online and the interesting challenge is how does one do this in the bricks and mortar world? Loyalty cards are one options and companies like Tesco and DunnHumby have show how to do this extremely effectively.

Another interesting way forward is to create more interactivity within digital signage systems within the store. At EnQii we are exploring this in several ways…

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My Personal in-store shopper

Merchandising 2.0 : Retail is everywhere a transaction happens.

It used to be sufficient to assume that advertising messages received while consumers were at home would translate into sales in stores. That just isn’t true anymore. Brands today must be wherever transactions happen.

The implications of this are enormous. It means that the future of marketing is no longer just about the integration of advertising, promotions, direct, public relations or any of the other marketing disciplines.

The future of marketing is also about the integration of retail.

Actually, it’s more like the convergence of retail-of on-line, in-store, and print. This is not news to retailers such as Patagonia, Cabela’s and L.L. Bean, all of which started out in the catalog business. They have long understood that when shoppers are embraced holistically, across all shopping platforms at all times, the more loyal they become.

But it is news to the vast majority of marketers, who remain stuck in the past. These are the marketers who talk endlessly about the pressures of accountability in their media spend, and are obsessed over the way consumers use their remote controls to zap past television commercials.

These are the marketers who, frankly, are worried about the wrong things. And, unfortunately for them, the news is even more troubling than they think it is.

The first bit of news is that there is a new remote-control device on the scene and it is called the cellphone. It has nothing to do with television or with advertising as we know it. The cellphone is so disruptive to the marketing landscape that, as USA Today recently reported, even almighty Google can’t quite figure out what to do about it.

The challenge is that Google’s algorithms and the way it serves advertising were not designed for mobile devices. They were designed for desktop computers. This means that their search function, famous for returning thousands of results, is effectively irrelevant in the cellphone context.

As Dan Olschwang, ceo of JumpTap, points out: “If somebody asks, ‘Where is the closest gas station?’ they need that information now, and they don’t need 20,000 results.” Compounding Google’s problem is that people don’t want to see banner ads or even text ads on their cellphones, either.

In fact, they don’t want to see advertising at all. They want information. They want to know where to find what they’re looking for, at the most convenient location and at the best price. This is a whole new art-and science-of communications that marketers must master to remain competitive.

Information is the New Advertising

In the last issue of The Hub, I wrote about the way young people use cellphones at retail, and made the obvious point that it is nothing like the way older folks use them (”Teeny Shoppers,” Jan/Feb ‘08).

The late Geoffrey Frost, who was Motorola’s chief marketing officer, envisioned this future in a Hub interview nearly three years ago (”Motorola’s Edge,” Sep/Oct ‘05): “I jokingly refer to the cellphone as ‘the device formerly known as the cellphone,’ because it is morphing and evolving into so much more,” he said.

Geoffrey wasn’t specifically talking about the cellphone as a remote-control device for shoppers, but he did hint that the nature of advertising itself was about to undergo a major reassessment, saying:”There’s an obsessing over what is advertising really-where is it going? I think the big question should be, ‘What isn’t advertising?’ Once upon a time, none of the things that advertisers now take for granted existed. There was no such thing as a radio commercial or a print ad, or an outdoor board. They were all created as ways to have a conversation with the public.

Just as we are talking about cellphones as ‘the device formerly known as the cellphone,’ it might be fun to begin to talk about advertising as ‘the industry formerly known as advertising.’ Some companies get a certain momentum by looking from the outside back in to see what they’re really up to, or what they could be up to.”

Tragically, Geoffrey never had a chance to explore the profound questions he raised. But we have the opportunity to pick up where he left off, to take that step back and think about the possibilities. Each of us certainly has something to contribute to the discussion he started.

Cellphone as Linchpin

Geoffrey never said it, but I’ll bet he’d agree that the cellphone is the linchpin of the future of marketing itself. The reason is simple-for most of us, the cellphone is at hand at all times. If success in marketing requires providing shoppers with the information they need, when and where they need it, then the cellphone is absolutely at the center of that success.

This is true whether the shopper is sitting at home watching television, online surfing the web, reading a magazine, newspaper or catalog. It is true whether a shopper is riding a bus, at a game, or on the beach. Anywhere a consumer sees a message, there is an opportunity for a shopper to complete a transaction by cellphone.

It is most of all true in the retail store itself. The cellphone is, in fact, the missing link of in-store communications and merchandising. Over the past five or 10 years, we’ve seen retailers install digital signage in stores. We’ve watched Wal-Mart pioneer its own in-store television network and Shop-Rite experiment with videoscreens on shopping carts.

It’s all been very interesting to watch, but as with so many leading-edge efforts, little of it has fully capitalized on the real opportunity. That opportunity is not about jamming as many advertising messages as possible in the consumer’s face; it is about helping shoppers make the most of their shopping trips.

Time and again, we’ve heard shoppers say that shopping can be an exercise in frustration because they can’t find what they’re looking for, can’t find the information they need or get the best price. Well, the solution, as I suggested in last month’s Hub, is right there where it has been for a while now-in their pockets, on cellphones.

If the remote control has spelled the death of advertising on television, then the cellphone ushers in the re-birth of advertising-as information-at retail. The cellphone is the new remote control of marketing, and this time it is our best friend.

Just-In-Time Media

These new digital media networks are not the passive broadcasters of canned content of the past. They are interactive, networked screens, tailor made to help shoppers shop in real time, with a big assist from their handheld devices.

In much the same way that manufacturers have worked with retailers to produce “just-in-time” delivery of products to store shelves to ensure that shoppers can buy what they need, when they need it, brand marketers must now work with retailers to provide “just-in-time” delivery of information to in-store media networks, as well.

Doing so will require a major shift in how agencies and their clients view retail-as a medium for the communication of messages in real time. This evolution likely will unfold in much the same way that other interactive media joined the mainstream-only much faster.

Already we are seeing specialists in digital media networks cropping up on both the agency and client sides of the business. This process will accelerate until digital media networks become a line item in the media department’s communications plan. Where it took interactive about ten years to reach that point, this time it will likely happen within the next two years.

Which means that the future of marketing-the convergence of retail, the emergence of digital media networks and the cellphone as the linchpin-is not really the future at all. Because, as Geoffrey Frost noted, in a nod to science-fiction writer William Gibson’s famous quote, “The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

As Geoffrey explained: “What he’s saying is that there are people of the future, already walking among us. If you can figure out who they are and co-create with them, you’re actually doing a rather amazing job of not only anticipating, but also shaping where the world can go.”

STUART ARMSTRONG is president of EnQii Digital View Media North America (enqii.com), specialists in digital displays for out-of-home and in-store solutions. Stu can be reached at (917) 856-1620. The Hub Magazine - View Article

Dooh: What’s in a name?

DOOH: What s in a Name? Digital signage musings on what’s working, what isn’t and what is needed. Stuart Armstrong is president of EnQii Digital View Media North America (digitalviewmedia.com), specialists in digital displays for out-of-home and in-store solutions. This is the first of what I hope to be many columns for Sign Business. I am delighted to be the monthly contributor on the topic of digital signage. However, let me come right out of the gate and say: digital signage is not the topic I am going to focus on. I am not a fan of this overused and simplistic term “digital signage”- A term I only use as shorthand, so people know what I am talking about when I first introduce the subject.

Laura Davis Taylor of Retail Media Consulting likes to say, this is not a Screen on a Stick , but that is what the term digital signage connotes. On the other hand, digital out-of-home (DOOH) is a more accurate description because it is a variety of complementary media that engage consumers with mes sages at the right place at the right time. Narrowcasting also works, contrasting this medium from broadcasting and underscoring that this is not a one-size-fits all medium.

So what is DOOH? It is a communication medium that needs to engage, inform and entertain within an environment, whether that is a retail store, doctor s office, fitness center, hair salon, or airport terminal. The onus is on the design which, in order to be effective and not intrusive, needs to consider optimal location, size and orientation, and most importantly the content.

Simply put,the content needs to match the mind-set and needs of the viewers while also taking into consideration staff personnel that may be in the vicinity of the media for hours at a time. Anything short of this will lower the engagement levels and will not be a sustainable business model for the network owner or the advertisers.

DOOH shouldn’t be considered an isolated marketing medium, but rather an essential part of an integrated marketing program, http://www.whennetwork. com) calls it Proximity Marketing. His network of more than 200 wellness centers throughout the country is seen as a valuable asset by both the staff and the members.Why is that?

• Wellness content is highly informative and entertaining.
• Wellness center owners have access to a portion of the screen to drive localized content.
• Real-time news and weather
• Participating advertisers offer up content that is informative and entertaining… not a 15-second ad spot designed for TV
• WHEN surrounds the screen and brand engagement with take-one brochures, instructor-led seminars and sampling programs.
• Staff training can be offered off hours.
• Mobile marketing through opted-in SMS text messaging is being explored.

Programs such as this are seen as highly valuable to all constituencies and significantly helps to drive the revenue models for DOOH media owners.

DOOH has also been referred to as Captive Audience . A term I find lazy and misleading. As a consumer of media, just like we all are, I do not regard myself captive to any messages. It’s easy to divert your eyes to any message whether it is in New York City’s taxis, elevators, gas pumps, or in grocery store checkout lines. It implies that the audience has no choice but to watch what you want to push onto their retinas and into their brains.

The broadcast model of reach and frequency is quickly becoming archaic as it is being replaced with targeted reach and frequency. The ability to get the right message at the right time to the right person best practice digital out-of-home media accomplishes this and will therefore captivate an audience and more likely make a brand impression and initiate a desired behavior.

What’s in a name? Everything. This medium is not a Screen on a Stick which is what digital signage suggests, nor is it Captive Audience, which implies the viewer has no control over what he or she is seeing. Instead, I’ll call it digital out-of-home media or simply, DOOH a variety of complementary media that en gage consumers with pertinent messages at the right place in the right time.

Please feel free to engage me in discussion or send me your views.

SB April 2008 SIGN BUSINESS SBAPR.indd 76 3/5/08 12:04:54 PM

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