Test, Tweak & Try Again

Kudos to Mike Eckert and his team at Design Phase for winning “the double” in 2014 for the Walt Disney Co. The Disney Infinity Display Program won the “Best of the Times” award at the Shopper Marketing Conference & Expo, which the Design Phasers can now stack on top of the OMA Display of the Year trophy they won in March.English soccer fans will know that a “double” (winning both the Premier League and the FA Cup in the same season) is a real rarity in Europe. Design Phase’s 2014 achievement (it also took top honors in 2009 as well as Platinum awards in 2011 and 2012) is even rarer.Shout-outs to this year’s other platinum-winning teams: Kraft/Walmart/Mojo Marketing; Nestle-Purina/Great Northern Instore; and RockTenn/Integer/P&G’s Duracell.I was especially glad to see that last Platinum award as it represents a well-deserved “last hurrah” for P&G’s Bill Smith, a 1996 Institute Hall of Famer who will be retiring this month after 30-plus years with the company. Smith too is something of a rarity, having spent virtually his entire career on the display side at P&G, where he’s won a ton of awards. I’ve seen him walk a store with clients. He can clinically dissect everything – the good, the bad and the ugly – but he does it in such a nice way that it probably doesn’t hurt … well, as much. He says he’s retiring to focus on church and charities, but I know who I’d call if I ever needed to find out why my merchandising wasn’t working.If 2014 could be summed up in a single phrase, I think it would be “The Year of the Omnichannel Shopper.” The topic dominated conversations at the recent Shopper Marketing Conference & Expo and tops the lineup for next March’s Shopper Marketing Summit as well. Sometimes it seems that, like the weather, everybody talks about omnichannel but nobody knows what to do about it.While that’s an exaggeration, when you apply common-sense eyeball tests to some of the more extravagant projections out there, you do experience cognitive dissonance. For example:If there really is an avalanche of cross-channel CPG shopping going on via mobile devices, how come I so rarely see anybody actually doing it out in the aisles?Why, if the average family habitually buys only 130 of the 50,000+ SKUs in a grocery store, would they need to do so much online research every week?And okay, maybe all Millennials really do want to share their drugstore shopping lists on social media, but I can’t believe that anyone – outside of staffers at data analytics companies – wants to read them.Happily, most of the extravagant claims for digital shopper marketing are being displaced by more realistic, experience-based assessments. At the Expo, I repeatedly heard speakers say that digital’s role on the path to purchase right now is all about “testing, tweaking and trying again.” There are dozens – one speaker said hundreds – of metrics that could be applied; just pick a few KPIs that matter most at your company and start stacking up little victories.Our special report, “The Omnichannel CPG Shopper,” also puts things into perspective. Built upon GfK’s just released FutureBuy 2014 study, the article shows that while more shoppers still go online for consumer electronics than they do for Comet cleanser, the center-store category percentages are creeping up steadily and significantly. And while supermarket shoppers are creatures of habit, they are being driven online by price concerns and then become open to persuasion. And social media’s role? Look at the data and draw your own conclusions.Given my skeptical tone about things like social media, I imagine a few readers assume that I’m a technophobic Luddite. Actually, according to GfK’s FutureBuy study, I’m quite the opposite. In fact, I think I’m an LEC. or “Leading Edge Consumer,” which according to GfK is characterized by three qualities:I’m a “passionate shopper.” You bet. I’ve used just about every shopping app there is, from Shopkick (too much pointless point gathering) to Walmart’s self-checkout scanner (all feature, no benefit) to BuyPartisan (in case you really need to know if your favorite breakfast cereal is a Democrat or Republican). I’m an “early adopter.” I’m still the only person I know who has actually used Amazon’s Sunday delivery service. It was weird. I’m pretty sure the delivery guy was an office worker driving his personal car and on his way to Sunday dinner.And I’m an “influencer.” Well, maybe. But you’ve read this far, haven’t you, so I must be doing something right.And if not, I guess I’ll just have to tweak and try again in 2015.Bill Schober is editorial director of the Path to Purchase Institute. He can be reached via e-mail: bschober@p2pi.org or phone: 773-992-4430.

Test, Tweak & Try Again

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