Appeasing the Appliance Shopper

Product specifications and reviews are the Holy Grail for shoppers of major home appliances. Consequently, delivering that information to shoppers on the path to purchase is a priority for product manufacturers such as LG Electronics and retailers such as Best Buy.Whether or not they're wielding smartphones, shoppers want help. "One of the things we know with retail research, and how people are researching products today, is that word of mouth is more important than ever," says Jeff Weidauer, vice president of marketing and strategy for Vestcom, a shelf-edge solution company based in Little Rock, Ark. "Word of mouth used to be neighbors talking over the mythical back fence; today, word of mouth is all about Facebook, [and] reviews posted on Epinions, on Amazon.com."If you can bring that to the shelf edge, then you provide the information to the shopper while he or she is in the store looking at the different products, which is even more valuable. The retailers who are doing that and making information more easily available to their shoppers are the ones shoppers are more likely to return to when they make another purchase in the future."In August 2010, Best Buy began bringing information to shoppers via QR codes that are carried on every shelf tag in stores. Shoppers who scan the code are taken to the retailer's mobile site to view product information provided by manufacturers. "We did it for a very logical reason," says Best Buy spokesperson Kelly Groehler. "We sell the technology that makes this possible, so we know consumers are going to be using the very technology we help them adopt to compare, shop and get more information to make better decisions about their technology investments, including appliances."A Brand or a Retailer Experience?Best Buy admirably controls its space and message by sending consumers to its own mobile site, but this can limit options for brands such as LG, which launched its own mobile site in 2009.LG's mobile site – called "Mobile Shopping Assistant" and created by digital agency Publicis Modem, New York – features short videos, specs and reviews, and also identifies the nearest retailer that sells LG products. LG knows how many hits the site gets, and how many visitors are watching videos, reading reviews or reading specs. David VanderWaal, director, in-store marketing, for LG's home appliances and entertainment, says "Over 20% of our overall hits to our website is coming from the mobile site. That's a pretty enormous figure."Despite its success, LG has the daunting task of competing with Best Buy's mobile site on the electronics retailer's own turf. While LG's P-O-P does carry the manufacturer's own QR codes that link shoppers to LG's mobile site, thanks to partner agency North Forty, Hiawatha, Iowa, those codes are just not as obvious as Best Buy's coded shelf tags."That has been a challenge to integrate; why would I want a brand mobile experience activated with QR codes when I've got a Best Buy experience?" VanderWaal says. "We've tried to work through that with [Best Buy], but at this point it's still a work in progress." VanderWaal says it depends on what LG is delivering vs. what Best Buy is delivering, because incrementally they're always looking for the sum of the part being greater. "They can have experiences for Best Buy shoppers that include brand experiences, and if the sum of the parts is greater than what they do on their own, they're all for it. But I don't think we've hit that formula with them yet."In essence, their default position is always going to be, these are Best Buy shoppers first, so we want it to be a Best Buy experience."Best Buy's Groehler says the retailer typically brings the shopper back to a Best Buy page (via the QR code), but "we do work closely with our manufacturer partners for the information that's provided. We come at things in terms of where the technology's going in people's lives. I think we look at it in terms of how do we help you get the most out of all the technology in your life, whether that is in your hand, on the go, in your home, in your car."Working With the RetailerBest Buy by no means works alone. Manufacturers and agencies provide content for the Best Buy site and collaborate with the retailer on in-store displays and media. Working with LG and Best Buy, North Forty designed a laundry endcap that featured two LG washers, rather than a washer and a dryer, to show the difference between top-loading and front-loading units.In the most recent iteration, the endcap includes interactive LCD monitors with short videos of how each type works, a must for such appliances since they would require water and are not usually powered in-store. North Forty and LG scripted continual-loop videos while Best Buy put together the introduction featuring its "blue shirts," as store associates are called.LG wants to highlight the top-loading unit, as it has led the front-loading market for four years, says North Forty director of creative content Muna Matthews. The agency recently made several pieces of P-O-P for each LG appliance SKU with a QR code to fill the gaps left by retailer information tags. "Those little retailer fact tags really don't do a good job of helping you say, 'OK, what's different about this model, why is this one $100 more, what do I get, what features do I get, what colors are available?'" she says. For the shopper who's on an unassisted sales floor or is not looking for a sales associate, she is going in and looking for information that wasn't always readily available or really clear, says Matthews. "We've created pieces that actually have a strategy. If there are five washers on the floor, here are the core features, here are some advanced features. This one has a 3.7 cubic foot capacity, this one has 4, this one has 4.5."Further Assisting the ShopperIn its own shopper marketing, LG considers consumers who do not use mobile devices as well as those who are in an unmanned area and/or would rather not speak with a store associate.With the help of partners – East Rutherford, N.J.-based TransWorld Marketing and Publicis Modem – LG created its "Personal Shopping Assistant," an interactive kiosk that appears in 1,000-plus HHGregg, Home Depot, Fry's and Best Buy stores.Shoppers using the kiosks can sort products several ways – by color, price, type and size – and take a short lifestyle questionnaire to get started. The kiosk gives model recommendations and detailed model information. "It's based on the insight that shoppers are overwhelmed by all these choices and technology and they have trouble just forming initial consideration sets," VanderWaal says.Because of the unique status of appliances in shoppers' minds – high expense, low frequency – shopper marketers need to consider how to balance information sources. Digital, supported by personal, or vice versa? All digital? Only personal? How informed is the shopper, given all the information at his fingertips outside the store?"As a retailer you have to review all of those and say, 'What's a differentiator, what are we going to do different and better than anybody else?'" Vestcom's Weidauer says. "Are we going to try to compete on price, on service, on after the purchase relationship?"Says VanderWaal: "Personal touch in a digital age sounds opposite, but customized solutions without a personal touch are still not going to work because there is, especially for something like an appliance, a high-risk, high-financial implication."People want to feel like they're being heard. Digitally, that's hard to do unless you invest big time in back-end infrastructure-type things, and that's where a sales associate and the retailer can hit home runs."

Appeasing the Appliance Shopper

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