Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

Check out the great piece over on the Strategic Marketing blog on the Berry network about Decoding the Consumer.  There, Alan See outlines how marketers need to reflect the consumer’s dizzy journey from awareness to purchase and beyond.

It’s a great post - with a version of what I have been repeating for a few months now: a sort of mantra that helps my clients consider how we’re integrating the experience across some specific areas that customers are really into right now.  It’s a mantra because it always contains about the same elements, but naturally gets reconfigured and recreated as needed based upon the Brand purpose I’m working against.  Alan talks about the ‘primary combination key’ for decoding customers as having Search, Social, and Mobile components.  These are all areas that do require serious consideration, given the world we live in, and are also powerful trends that continue to shape it.

I would only add, however, that Site and Retail/Place might belong on our decoder ring - expanding it to be Site, Search, Social, Mobile, and Retail/Place.

Site and Search need to work together to provide quality content to land on for the user who’s looking for you - and that’s true whether you have a Brand.com or not. For example, if the Brand has a great partnership then the search needs to support people who are looking for that partnership information.  And some Brands use their Facebok page as their landing place.  The point is that there has to be a place where the Brand expresses the purpose that gives it meaning and a reason for being.

Retail/Place is all about making sure that there is a continuous consideration of the customer journey all the way to the location where they buy or experience the brand first-hand - which often times can be supplied by mobile, but there can be a role for in-store as well, so I like to consider it separately.

Do you have a mantra?  What do you use to decode the world?

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On Wednesday, Starbucks rolled out their own digital network to over 6,800 stores across the U.S, evolving how we can sit and enjoy the paper and a cup of joe for the third time in their history.

At first they just offered you a place to buy your paper and read it.  Then they offered free wi-fi so you could read your paper online.  But now they have launched a network on their wi-fi - meaning that the first thing you see when you access that network is their new branded page: starbucks.yahoo.com (but don’t try to go there if you’re not in the store - you’ll get an ‘error’:  “So drop by your local store and log on for interesting and important content you can’t find anywhere else. Absolutely free!”)

The content on the network is basically news/weather/entertainment, music and restaurant reviews - keeping everything nicely within brand territory.  And tipping their hat to the increasing pervasiveness of mobile computing, their VP of Digital Ventures, Adam Brotman, stated that whereas some former digital in-store initiatives focused on getting the right screen in the store for the customer to interact with, they see that now the user is “walking in with their own screen” (although some people don’t think they are being as considerate as they appear).

Only a few days into the experiment, I can predict that the network has plenty of advantages for them -

Content - It’s appropriate for the audience (i.e., what they want) and premium-feeling due to how exclusive it feels - even if it’s really not exclusive content (yet - keep an eye on what they do with Apple), but in terms of access it hits the mark.

Brand fit - The portal aligns nicely with their mission to be a destination, an oasis amidst our crazy lives.

Context - They continue to focus on both motivations for visits to their store, and optimizing the in-store experience for people - their biggest competitive advantage, in my opinion.

Plus, if you keep up on the latest in Digital Marketing you know that Location-Based Services are all the rage, and for most marketers the challenge is getting on the right platform, with good content that users will want.  Well - this move by Starbucks puts them in the enviable position of basically owning the channel, rather than worrying about purchasing media on one.  So they get to offer consumers the network and its content at the right time, right place and for all the right reasons.  Very sustainable and smart.

And the above benefits should encourage us to take away a few questions about your brand as well:

1. Which brand experiences should you be evolving next?  Just because you’ve already made an improvement in one area doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity to take it to the next level.

2. Shouldn’t all your brand services and engagements let users BYOS (Bring Their Own Screens) as their motto?

3. How and why would you create a new channel that you own, rather than rent on?

4. Why do you suddenly want a cup of coffee?

Via PaidContent (<—- a really excellent article, by the way)

Update: a good video is posted here about the network.

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A few days ago, a new convenience store called frischwerk opened up in Düsseldorf.
One or two more stores will follow by the end of the year in Düsseldorf.

In this integrated endeavour, we from Leo Burnett Germany were responsible for brand strategy consulting, corporate design, shopper marketing consulting, POS materials, in-store communication tactics, store opening campaign and website design.

When the project started in spring this year – there was just an enthusiastic client with the idea to design a convenience store that would stand out of an emerging but still small market. And LB Germany, glad and excited to be part of this undertaking but also a bit overwhelmed by the complexity of such a huge project.

The journey entailed several workshops and presentations, lots of work and intensive discussions. We were even invited to test some products that were supposed to be listed. In the end, the result was pretty impressive.

The new store addresses two major human needs: On the one hand, people have very limited time to go shopping and so want their shopping needs to be satisfied quickly. On the other hand, people want quality goods and premium service like it used to be in the good old days. And currently, no concept exists in Germany that successfully meets both of these needs in one compelling offer.

And so, we built the store’s mission to marry what today is still scattered into different formats: a modern offering with traditional values, a retail atmosphere with culinary propositions, convenience with a smile, lifestyle with unpretentious coziness, organic products with taste, craftsmanship merged with digital services. In short: “Supplies for Body and Soul”.

This desired store experience is reflected in every single item and aspect – people are able to experience with all senses that it’s made with a lot of love and care – just take a look on the photos below.

Even if it sounds like we’re chumming up, this has been one of the most exciting projects – due to a passionate client team who stopped at nothing to bring their ambitious idea to life.

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The Scandinavian grocery chain ICA launched its “I love Eco” label in Norway. Therefore, it came up with the funny “Eco Dance” video below and a website.

Since the video can be personalized and forwarded to friends, it made its way through the blogosphere and generated buzz (search for eco dance on youtube and find out!).

According to ADVERBLOG it is part of ICA’s advertising concept - a long running sitcom about a store.

I don’t know the entire campaign and if the characters of that sitcom are famous in Scandinavia. If so, just imagine the potential regarding further channel communication like theme and in-store promotions or mobile applications etc. Even the word mark and logo are obviously part of the approach to create a green movement associated with ICA’s private ecological label.

Although it reminds a bit of Elf Yourself!, I think it’s a great idea. Congratulations to the agency King!

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The Japanese business magazine JapanInc reported about the test store Sample lab! which plays with the business idea that everyone loves new things that cost nothing. The designated customers of Sample Lab! are women between 20 to 30 years. They can try the newest cosmetics, snacks, electronic gadgets and energy drinks. They have the option to purchase a full-sized version of the product in-store, or to take home more free samples. To avoid “freebehunters” a membership registration is needed for a small budget.

Finally, customers have to fill out a questionnaire about the product they took home. The results are sold to the manufacturer(s). Nobody is surprised about the fact that behind Sample lab! stands a research institute.

via

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One of the largest German discount retailers, Lidl, recently started airing a brand campaign. The campaign itself, well, nothing special: the campaign is strongly reminiscent of Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign, using people situations and using price tags for those situations. Also, the scenes look like they were selected out of stock film reels. Furthermore, it has a brand promise (”A trip to Lidl can be anything but expensive”) that, still reminds everyone: it’s about cheap prices, for which, if you’re honest, you don’t need a brand image campaign, cuz, duh, everyone knows that Lidl is a discounter, not Harrod’s. As a result, it probably tested really well in the pre-tests because it’s not saying anything (that can offend anyone).

What’s really more interesting is the fact that a German discounter actually started thinking about a brand image campaign in the first place. This is highly uncommon. The only “brand” communication we’re used to from discounters is inserts with pork loin offers, at EUR 2.99 for 500 grams for which discounters like Lidl and Aldi shell out a good 200-300 million Euro a year making sure we all have kilos of dead trees in our mailboxes. But a brand film? That’s new. So, what’s going on here?

I basically see it as a discounter’s desperate attempt to stop some trends in the making as far as the market situation is concerned. In Germany, there is a fight over market share going on among the different supermarket retail business models. Like elsewhere, we have three competing models:

1. Discounters (Lidl, Aldi, Penny…)
2. Hypermarkets (Real, Globus, Toom, Kaufland…)
3. Supermarkets (Edeka, Rewe…)

In the past, discounters really ate away the huge amounts of market share of Hypermarkets and supermarkets because of a couple of people behaviors: a) while in the past, discounters where frowned upon for having bad quality, they now established that you can even drive to a discounter in a Porsche if you don’t mind a stripped-down shopping experience: the quality is right, and it is cheaper than local supermarkets b) People’s lives and their shopping behavior has changed: people (especially the younger demographic) don’t shop for the whole week anymore, quick trips to the supermarket around the corner become more common, so hypermarkets with their huge assortment of goods are too far away, less convenient and, frankly, too huge for daily shopping convenience.

However, there are also 3 other trends that might force discount brands to rethink their strategy: a) discounters are everywhere now and have reached maximum proliferation, competing with supermarkets for local relevance which still own local convencience and quality of products, so you can’t grow more by building more outlets b) local supermarkets themselves have responded to discount pricing by increasing their share of private labels, allowing to approximate the price of discounters in a shopping environment that is more tasteful c) Organic foods are everywhere, and expected by people, and while discounters now also carry great organic food, the ambiance of organic food is still more trustworthy and personal in a more upmarket supermarket brand than picking it up from crates stored on pallets and high-fluctuation staffing structure.

So, with discounters having a hard time to grow beyond their proliferation, pure price communication not being sustainable (ever!), and shopping experience becoming a more and more important asset, discounters seem to have discovered brand advertising as a necessity, in order to mitigate the shopping experience strategies of supermarkets, such as REWE and Edeka.

However, I am not sure advertising can really help discounters here (especially if the promise is still just about price). At the very least it can’t help if discounters don’t also rethink their shopping experience strategy. Ads, after all, are just ads. Reformulating your reason for being and providing people with acts that improve their lives, in the context of their shopping needs should prove more successful in building trust than running some ads.

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More and more manufacturers and retailers are using service solutions enabled by technology. Some examples of in-store digital ad displays and real-time promotions can be found in a recent Business Week article.

One of my favourites: The Israel-based Aroma Espresso Bars.

According to the Business Week article: “When you order a morning coffee at a café owned by Israel-based Aroma Espresso Bars, an image of a croissant may suddenly appear on a digital display next to the cash register. Stop by for a sandwich or salad later in the day, and the display could flash a picture of a suggested beverage. Aroma Espresso says sales of desserts and drinks featured on the screens have increased as much as 68% in outlets where it has installed the display systems, starting about a year ago.”

And here is an example I’ve found in the Retail Customer Experience Magazine:

The SlideBuy Shopper Information System by Frank Mayer & Associates Inc. is a touchscreen placed on existing store shelving. It allows shoppers to inform themselves about the products. By gliding forth and back, product information is directly taken to the shelf without displacing existing products.

Since digital and retail worlds are more and more converging, it won’t take long until well-known social media applications from the Internet arrive in the store. Maybe Aroma Espresso Bar will soon start to display reviews, votings, rankings and recommendations by their customers.

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With more and more questions about traditional advertising effectiveness, non-traditional marketing methods, apart from digital marketing are gaining importance.

For inhouse shopper marketing discipline here at Leo Burnett, the following Deloitte study is music to our ears. The first moment of truth, meaning people and their behavior in front of the shelf is a key vehicle to increase relevance of your brand’s products.

Says Brandweek:

Nineteen percent of consumer packaged goods manufacturers and half of retailers rank shopper marketing as the most effective activity for generating strong return-on-investment. Overall, 75% of manufacturers and 86% of retailers studied ranked in-store marketing among the top four activities in terms of gaining strong ROI.

No 30 second spot will help you when your product isn’t staged the right way and can’t show off it’s unique purpose to people in the approriate context.

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Geschmackslabor, German for Flavour Lab, is a new restaurant located in a former school in Bremerhaven. The ‘lab’ part of the name refers to letting customers add flavour to their meals.

Dishes are served ready-to-eat, but diners are encouraged to enhance them by adding one or more of twenty custom-made seasoning oils that Geschmackslabor has on offer. The seasonings are all based on very pure olive oil, which is infused with flavors ranging from Arabica coffee and rosemary to papaya and coconut. Geschmackslabor’s menu suggests which seasonings go well with which dishes, but the whole point is for customers to experiment and find their own delicious combinations. The restaurant supplies plenty of bread for trying out different oils before adding them to food, allowing customers to sample a full range of spicy, sour, salty, sweet and bitter. The oils are also sold separately at EUR 4.90-5.50 for 100 ml.

Adding olive oil to prepared food may not appeal to every consumer, but Geschmackslabor’s DIY approach to ‘finishing’ a dish definitely adds a new level of experience to eating out. It’s an adventurous, taste-focused alternative to the usual ketchups and hot sauces, and should appeal to those daring consumers that trendwatching.com calls trysumers. 

 

Website: www.geschmackslabor.com
Source: clipped from Springwise: Promising new business ideas for entrepreneurial minds 8/20/08

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Today, the Wall Street Journal reports about the latest efforts of the marketers to tailor ads to specific consumers in the store. The approach is mostly that the marketers install new digital screens that are appearing next to cash registers and in store aisles. Because cameras are embedded in many of these digital screens displaying the ads, marketers are hoping to serve up ads based on the consumer’s appearance. In detail WSJ describes two cases of Dunkin’ Donuts in USA and of Procter & Gamble in Germany:

Dunkin’ Donuts is among the first marketers in the U.S. to begin testing the technologies, at two locations in Buffalo, N.Y. People ordering a coffee in the morning can see ads at the cash register promoting the chain’s hash browns or breakfast sandwiches. At the pick-up counter, customers see ads prompting them to return for a coffee break in the afternoon and try an oven-toasted pizza.

In a separate test, Procter & Gamble is placing radio-frequency identification tags on products at a Metro Extra retail store in Germany so that when a customer pulls the product off the shelf, a digital screen at eye level changes its message. When a consumer picks out a shampoo for a particular type of hair, for instance, the screen recommends the most appropriate conditioner or other hair products, says John Paulson, president of G2 Interactive, a digital-marketing arm of WPP Group’s G2 Network.

Furthermore they write that all of these “instore targeted advertising” options are still in their infancy and much research still needs to be done to evaluate the best types of ads to display and the way consumers respond to messages.

“I’m a skeptic on technology in the shopping environment,” says Andy Murray, chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi X, the Publicis Groupe agency that focuses on in-store marketing. “Screens need to be useful to get people to pay attention, and if stores are just using them to sell products, shoppers won’t be receptive,” he says.

Press article WSJ August 21, 2008

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