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Nelson's last order at the Battle of Trafalgar - "engage the enemy more closely" - has real echoes today. Recent POPAI research cast the shopper in the role of the enemy for some store managers as their queries "got in the way" of the store management process (Barriers to Progress 1986).
Much has changed since Napoleon was reputed to have termed us a nation of shopkeepers. With the demise of personal service, manufacturers and retailers have become out of touch with what their shoppers would really like to buy and how best to present it. You can see this best in the increasing levels of shopper promiscuity between outlets.
What Nelson recognised is the need to focus our efforts, in his case in the form of a revolutionary approach to the French fleet. In our case it is a matter of approaching the real problem of making sure that the store environment produces a really satisfied (and spending) shopper.
So how can you deliver "old-fashioned ideas" of service and tailored product presentation to the modern facing, that increases shopper satisfaction, new product trial, and overall sales at the same time. The revolutionary answer for today's problems lies in the use of technology. POPAI's global MARI (Marketing at Retail Initiative) is designed to address these and other issues through an ongoing programme of research that measures shopper engagement with display through to interaction with product and final purchase. The unique (and protected) principle behind MARI is tracking exactly what people in store do just before they buy. And what they do when they fail to buy.
MARI works with up to 200 specific respondents per store. Each wears the ClipCam video recording system so it is possible to analyse exactly what they see and determine where they go. In addition, a short interview gains additional information such as demographics, propensity to purchase within category, mission, after-visit activity, basket size and content. An audit is carried out of all the display material in the store noting the exact position, brand, message and type of the display. In the UK an average supermarket will have approximately 5,500 display items that may influence the shopper.
All of this information is put into a sophisticated database and when used with the MARI active dashboard it is possible to evaluate the performance of any display by type, location, message, brand, category etc against a number of other performance criteria such as interaction and conversion. All in all it is the most powerful shopper engagement analysis tool ever used.
Shoppers move through a number of stages before they buy. MARI can define those stages and assess the relative performance of each.
Stage 1: they pass the display
Stage 2: they look
Stage 3: they interact in some way, pick up, compare, check the label etc
Stage 4: they buy an item (potentially reject another).
What MARI has uncovered is the relative importance that stores should place on type of display, and on the location of display. And, of course, on signage and positioning in general.
The proof-of-concept tests in the US and UK demonstrated to the retailers and brands involved (Asda/Wal-Mart, Morrisons, 7-Eleven, BP, Safeway, Walgreens, Anheuser-Busch, FritoLay, Hersheys, McKee Foods, PepsiCo) that for the first time they would be able to have a consistent measure of display performance in-store.
This is explosive stuff, as Lord Nelson might have said. As an example, a dump bin registered an impact rate of 38%. When compared with the overall rate of 16.6%, this is a significant over-performance. Convert this into brand and category performance and the results are clear.
MARI benchmarking takes place for the store as a whole so every category would have a reference point of performance through a series of industry standard ratios. In this way the performance of every brand, category, display, location and message type can be assessed. The findings will highlight what works and what doesn't, how relevant particular displays are to target shoppers, and take the guesswork out of display type selection and location.
The watchword is engagement. Brands and retailers find it difficult to assess the performance of PoP on a long-term basis. There is a general feeling that material 'works,' but the facts of what works, how, and to what target demographic are not known. Individual brand or category studies start to look at the issue but these are generally not published, and the knowledge gained is lost with the movement of key staff into new roles.
But new technology means you can do more than just focus attention on key products. It can let you actually give shoppers an unbeatable chance to try something new, just the once, and get their reaction to it and at the same time incentivise them to come back to buy again.
Storecheck has developed a website, at http://www.yousay.org, that offers the direct equivalent of the old-fashioned shopkeeper's recommendation - and polite question the following week: "Would you like to buy another?" All a product needs is a six-letter code flashed on to the pack (even a temporary label will do fine). The message "try me," plus the offer of a high value coupon, offer the chance to get a substantial return.
The site, powered by Storecheck, has full store records of all main retailers, big and small. The shopper logging in (and 60% of homes can do this) records their opinion of the product, the exact shop they bought it from, and leaves their address to get their coupon. This pulls shoppers back into the store, and the category. But you can limit the cost without harming the effectiveness. The site allows a single claim per household, or per person, so ensuring the very tightest possible targeting. The vouchers, despatched by post and tailored to the individual store, build early loyalty to a product and store.
Retailers can see how this might work by visiting http://www.yousay.org and entering the code 'abcdef'. Any views? Email colin@storecheck.co.ukn
Has the number of customer complaints about the price of goods increased recently?
