In-Store Inferiority Rant XL

Observing the annual media coverage of Super Bowl advertising always inspires a jump up on the soapbox, because it exacerbates the perceptional disparity between media advertising and in-store marketing.This year, that disparity was crystallized with the coverage of one Super Bowl advertiser in particular, Gillette. Along with all the other in-game ads, spots for the company's new Fusion five-blade razor (six if you count the flip-side trimmer) were analyzed, critiqued, rated, and ranked in a variety of media outlets, both trade and consumer. (Advertising Age's Bob Garfield, the Blackwell of TV advertising, gave them a snarky thumbs-down.)But more than a week before the Super Bowl, Gillette (assisted by new parent Procter & Gamble) began the rollout of a couple hundred thousand Fusion displays and related signage to drugstores, supermarkets and mass merchants. By the time the game -- and those spots -- aired on Feb. 5, you basically couldn't walk into a store that sold razors without seeing one in a prominent location.Gillette's hometown Boston Globe ran an article about the launch that devoted significant attention to the in-store activity. Otherwise, what should have been recognized as the most significant aspect of the launch campaign (as well as the most complex) received little more than a few media mentions.Such is life in the media-obsessed world of product marketing. Wal-Mart's new "Save More, Smile More" TV campaign gets heavy scrutiny, but a corresponding redesign of all in-store signage is ignored (except by us). Few cared when news broke of Target's in-store TV network in late 2005, but everyone is currently lauding the chain's ingenious guerrilla marketing effort in Torino (where it slapped bull's-eye logos on commuter trains).Thinking about the attention paid to display marketing reminds me of that old line about relieving yourself in a dark pair of pants: nobody notices, but at least it gives you a warm feeling inside. So just in case nobody else bothers, we'd like to give the merchandising and field marketing teams at Gillette (along with the P-O-P producers and marketing agencies that helped them) a very, very big thumbs-up.By the way, didn't the whole Super Bowl advertising phenomenon -- the coverage, the commercials, the Monday-morning buzz -- seem pretty dull this year? Maybe Super Bowl XLI would be a good time for everyone to start paying attention to what's happening in the store.Peter Breen Managing Director, Content In-Store Marketing Institute

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