RetailWire asks: is the "seamless" store experience important?

There's another interesting conversation going on over at RetailWire, this time about how important it is (or will be) for retailers to provide a seamless transition between their brick-and-mortar and online properties. As RetailWire's editor George Anderson notes, "consumers can order a product online and pick it up in a store. They can order an item online at a kiosk located in a store. Today, retailers are looking for ways to integrate the virtual and brick and mortar shopping worlds to better serve consumers' needs and drive sales in the process." Of course, such integration comes at a price, and many have wondered what (if any) benefit there is to making it work.

Well, specifically they wonder about the benefit to the retailer, since the benefits to customers are obvious (better service, more options, etc.). And while some might argue that anything that benefits the customer is sure to benefit the retailer in the long run, the cost of making services like pick-up-at-the-store and product line extension kiosk networks can be large, and the logistical challenges associated with such projects are ongoing.

Even with that argument in play, though, it seems like retailers will eventually have to do whatever they can to make sure that their real and virtual presences are compatible, and ideally, completely integrated. To whit, here's the comment I left at RetailWire using Barnes & Noble (one of the companies actually doing something -- finally -- about linking their website and retail stores together):

I really like going to bookstores and trying out the merchandise before purchasing. However, if I can't find a book on the shelf, or an associate helps me to determine that it's out of stock, my choices are to either go to another store or have the book shipped (to the store or directly to me). I'm lazy, so in most cases the former isn't a viable option. As for the latter though, if the store *doesn't* have an easy way to order and ship it to me, I'll just go home and buy the item from Amazon, since either way I have to wait for it. Worse, I might just pull out my web-enabled phone and make the purchase from another vendor while I'm still in the store. Only by making access to inventory and alternative purchase processes as simple as possible does the brick-and-mortar retailer have any hope of securing that sale from me.

While I might be atypical in this regard right now (though I doubt it), I certainly won't be in the not-too-distant future.

Tags: integrated marketing, retail marketing, self-service, kiosks

Advertising Age offers advice for targeting college-age consumers

It's back-to-school time, and as practically any retailer will tell you, B2S is quickly becoming another critical season (maybe even second to Christmas). While college-age shoppers are notorious for being fickle and hard to target, this article from Advertising Age notes that their fondness for cable TV and web surfing is giving marketers much better control over how and when they show their ads:

When it comes to advertising, for example, students are just as much about viral marketing as they are about keeping it verbal. Two-thirds of students said they learn about new brands, products and services they would like to purchase from friends, with 61% citing word-of-mouth as their preferred method of communication. That's up considerably from 2004, when 48% said they prefer word-of-mouth advertising. Of the brands most important for students to share with their friends, movies and electronics are the two key categories, with 60% citing movies and 48% citing electronics, respectively.

"Word-of-mouth is possibly seeing more strength in the advertising category [because] it's not perceived by most college students to be an advertising platform or a marketing tactic," Ms. Skey said. "It's just an information source or a social media of sorts."

As a result, social-networking patterns have changed in the last three years as well among the college demo. Ms. Skey said students are maintaining fewer personal profiles across the many
social-networking options (down from an average of 17 in 2004 to 7 in 2007), but keeping more friends on average in less places. Essentially, they've already gone to the trouble of aggregating their potential audience reach for marketers hoping to reach them on MySpace and Facebook.

Both of these trends seem to indicate that it's going to be harder to optimize in-store media for this demographic as media choices continue to expand and (consequently) target specificity continues to improve. However, one thing that we do have going in our favor is that because our medium is place-based, it already has an extra degree of specificity that broadcast TV and even cable lack. Can we use the fact that our screens are in stores to better connect with this key demographic during this very important time of year (in the retail calendar, anyway... down here in Florida I'm personally waiting for the beginning of "yay, I can go outside again" season, which usually starts in late October).

I think the answer is yes, provided that the advertisers running content on the screens are willing to do a little more integration work. Many of these companies are already using social networking and word-of-mouth campaigns to build buzz and gain mindshare with 18-24 year olds need to extend these projects into the store on their POP displays, and of course their in-store media. The latter could prove especially beneficial, since they can be updated frequently to reflect the dozens or hundreds of minute changes that often take place in below-the-line efforts like organized word-of-mouth.

I've still yet to see advertisers jump on board with a truly integrated in-store advertising campaign, but as they continue to work harder to reach ever more elusive and media savvy demographics, it seems like it will only be a matter of time before this becomes commonplace.