In many parts of the world, in-store retail media has exploded, with once-reticent retailers now open to full branded bays in every aisle, and displays galore. This rapid increase has brough opportunities, but also high costs. It is rare that I see a branded display that really earns its fee. But this one, from Gillette in the UK is different. On the surface it appears to be just another branded display. But actually, it is rather clever, and rather strategic. It will drive both purchase and usage of the brand and the category – a real win for Gillette, consumers, shoppers AND the retailer. Want to know why, and how you can apply these learnings to your business? Read on!
What is the definition of excellent shopper marketing?
In our best-selling book, ‘The Shopper Marketing Revolution’, Toby Desforges and I posited a controversial definition of shopper marketing excellence:
“Shopper marketing is the process of understanding shoppers and using that understanding to develop a marketing mix which influences shopper behavior in such a way as to positively impact purchase & consumption of the brand and or category”
What is so controversial about it? It talks about changing both consumption and purchase behavior. Most other definitions of shopper marketing focus on the role shopper marketing plays in getting people to buy. That’s fine. It’s important. But to us, it felt like rather a low bar. Getting shoppers to buy is easy (display and discount, done!). But getting an extra purchase without changing consumption too is a low-value prize. If consumption doesn’t change, then all we’ve done is increased stocks at the home. And all that has done is to retard the next purchase.
But if we can change consumption too, real growth happens. More gets consumed. And if the consumption experience is largely positive, it is likely to lead to a subsequent purchase.
Powerful in-store retail media – built out of consumer insight and an understanding of consumption barriers
Which brings me on to the Gillette example shown above. What makes it special? At first sight it looks like many other branded-bay executions – a big, branded sign and not much else. And its very big, which means it is very expensive. But so what? Have I lost the plot? Isn’t this basic? But hold on – let’s think about it for a minute. There is actually a understanding built into this – of the barriers to increasing usage and purchase of razors.
In-store retail media can drive incremental consumption as well as purchase
Because in this category, purchase frequency is a barrier to usage. And aisle penetration is a barrier to purchase frequency. Think about it. How often do people go shopping in a supermarket? Weekly? And how long does a pack of razors last? A couple of months? So its not a regular purchase. It’s an infrequent purchase. So helping the shopper remember to buy is important.
In categories like this, driving awareness in-store, reminding a shopper to buy, could be of high value. But remember our definition of shopper marketing. It’s only high value if we change consumption too.
So let’s go back to our consumer: in this case a guy shaving at home in the morning. He’s on his last blade, he notices. Must remember to buy some more blades. Or if he is like many men, must remember to ask his partner to buy the blades. Hmmm. Can you see the problem?
What happens if the blades don’t get bought? Does the guy rush out that morning to his local store to buy new blades? He does not. He continues to use the existing blade. And may well do that until the next weekly, or bi-weekly shop. Perhaps two weeks of extra usage for the old blade. Up to two weeks of lost usage for the new blade. Two weeks of lost sales: that is 4% of sales value lost from this consumer. If this happened just twice a year, we’d be looking at close to 10% lost sales.
And lost forever. Those shaves will never be got back. Never recovered.
So you can see how prompting, reminding a shopper that either they need to buy blades, or perhaps that they might need to buy blades so better stock up just in case, adds value in this category. We can only know how valuable this is by understanding a little about both consumer behavior and shopper behavior and how they interact.
In-store retail media messaging – it isn’t about the advertising tagline
What else can we say about this display? Some might say that they are missing a big message – telling people why they should buy the brand. Where is the ‘best a man can get’?
My response to this is two-fold. Firstly, that there is messaging (it’s a little smaller, and we’ll get to that in a moment).
But more importantly, who are they targeting? If they are targeting people who know nothing about Gillette, then perhaps, a reason to buy is key.
But there are few shoppers who don’t know the brand.
And (think back to the blades opportunity above), most of the value of this display will be selling blades to people who are already in the Gillette system. A reason to buy the brand is perhaps of secondary importance.
In-store retail media Excellence addresses consumer and shopper barriers
But there is some text. It’s smaller. It’s not designed to attract shoppers to the brand. Its designed to help them decide which type of blade to buy. Which brings me on to the second brilliance of this display – the use of colour
Colors are a non-text language in themselves. And in this case they are used to overcome an important shopper barrier. In this category, for this brand, one of the biggest barrier to purchase is what we call ‘choice confusion’. There are too many options, the shelf looks cluttered and is hard for the shopper to decipher. This can prevent purchase or encourage the shopper to buy based on a simple differentiator. Often this is price. When faced with too many choices, people will go for the cheapest, or what is on deal.
In the wine category, for example, a very significant percentage of shoppers buy what is on deal, because the price promotion labels help them cut through a highly cluttered shelf.
Here, Gillette use colours to quickly help a shopper see that the shelf is segmented. Not all razors are the same. It helps an existing user quickly find what they are looking for. And then the text is in place to guide a new shopper to the right blade for them. The text can be small, as this detail is something the shopper will want to read when they are standing close to the shelf.
In-store Retail Media Excellence – sometimes simple is best
There is nothing complicated here. Nothing ground-breaking. But the combination of insight into consumer behavior and shopper behavior, plus an understanding of shopper psychology, leads to a superlative execution.
Deliver Retail Media Excellence yourself – think consumer AND shopper barriers
If you want help in creating integrated consumer and shopper insights: if you want to ensure that your retail media overcomes both consumer and shopper barriers to deliver sustainable growth, check out our training programs (in particular our consumer and shopper insights workshop!) or get in touch now. We can help directly by building insights, identifying growth opportunities and building the shopper strategies (and the agency briefs) required to turn those insights into action. Alternatively, we can guide your teams through the process, building growth strategies and capability at the same time. If you invest at retail and want to grow – get in touch now – I’m sure we can help!
