Driving Traffic to Target

Parker, Colo. -- As a small cleaning-tool manufacturer hoping to gain shelf space in a national chain, SonicScrubbers had a problem: Executives wanted Target to carry two of its new products, but the retailer didn't consider them to be part of a "full, merchandisable line." Determined to get distribution at Target, Kenneth Thiess, CEO, and his team embarked on an 18-month research and development process to make the brand more marketable. The first step was gaining shelf placement. After securing an endorsement and licensing agreement from SC Johnson to use the Scrubbing Bubbles brand name and forging a partnership with a third-party marketing company, shipments to hundreds of Target stores in 23 states began in late June. "If the program was to succeed, we knew we had to find a means to inform, educate and incentivize Target consumers, which is difficult to do in-store for a brand-new product, and without the budget for television advertising," Thiess says.The next step was coming up with an impactful shopper marketing campaign. Thiess says in-house brainstorming predicted a possible correlation between people who spend money to dry clean and those fastidious about household cleanliness, a prediction that confidential statistical data confirmed. Further investigation led Thiess's team to Vesta Green Marketing Solutions, New York, a third-party marketer with experience in dry cleaner-distributed promotions and sampling programs that also has an established relationship with Target. The companies' subsequent agreement created a Target-specific direct marketing promotion featuring coupons on hang-tags attached to dry-cleaning bags. "Our research shows that dry-cleaning users are big Target shoppers," notes L. Jeff Jensen, CEO of Vesta. "Convenience is key for this audience. When we hand-deliver micro-targeted promotions [via the dry-cleaning hang-tags], we have the ability to influence consumers' shopping decisions while they are in a task-oriented mindset." During August, the program featured two distinct, informational coupon offerings at 684 neighborhood dry cleaners identified as being near the Target stores that carried SonicScrubbers' new products. Affixed to the plastic dry-cleaning garment bags on oversized, 17-inch-tall tags were a $5-off coupon for the Power Toilet Bowl Scrubber, and a $3-off coupon for the Power Household Cleaning Tool. The tags directed consumers to a web page for a complete list of participating Target stores, among other information. Thiess says the uniqueness of the distribution channel and the large, hard-to-miss direct-marketing pieces enabled the promotion to be extended into people's homes, without electronics, where they could consider the products and add them to their shopping lists. Thiess says Vesta guaranteed up to four dry cleaners within a five-mile radius of the selected Target stores. Designed internally, "hundreds of thousands" of hang-tags were produced. Results of the hang-tag promotion, tracked weekly through a clearing house, won't be made public "for a while," reports Thiess, although he says he would consider even a 1% redemption rate to be a success.

Driving Traffic to Target

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