The retail industry is at a bit of a crossroads. Big retail segments, like record stores, bookstores, and video rental shops, have nearly disappeared, while others are struggling to fight off online and discount big-box competitors.

Rather than trying to out-discount the discounters, or compete with the scale on which Amazon and other online retailers operate, I think retailers should be reevaluating their value propositions, both to their customers and to their consumer manufacturing partners. How do retailers in general, and your retail chain in particular, bring value to business partners and consumers?

I think the key to this is taking advantage of the two things retailers have in spades, and that all manner of disintermediation and price undercuts can’t take away: knowledge and space. Read More »

That was the opinion of at least one attendee at the MLC’s Shopper Marketing cohort session (check out the presentation here) held on June 29 at the Newell-Rubbermaid offices.  More than 30 marketers gathered for the day to talk about the current state of shopper marketing.  The overall consensus was that the importance of the shopper function has never been more important.  Here’s why: Read More »

I recently had to subject myself to snack shopping for a bunch of seven-year-olds and their dads for a weekend camping trip. (Why I would subject myself to a weekend camping with a bunch of seven-year-olds and their dads is another matter altogether)  What should have been a five-minute blast through the snack aisle turned into 20 minutes of anxiety and frustration.  Why?  Because something as simple as grabbing a box of fruit snacks turned into a shelf-scanning, label-reading nightmare. Read More »

Is a spring thaw coming in consumer purchase behavior?

Not really, it turns out.  In MLC’s recent Consumer Purchase Behavior survey, we specifically tested for changes in buying behaviors to see if consumers are returning to pre-recession patterns.  Spring thaw isn’t quite right—a better metaphor would be something like “dead cat bounce”.

For our global readership not familiar with this grim idiom, the gist is that dead animals don’t bounce very high when dropped.  From pretty much any height.  I should state at this point that no animals, living or dead, were harmed in the production of this blog post. Read More »

I met with a retail-industry member last week that’s in the midst of growing one of their businesses from a regional brand focused on Latin America to a global brand with a strong footprint in the US and the UK.  As we talked about what it will take to enter a crowded retail space, our member expressed it this way, “we need to be very clear what are our brand standards and what are our brand standouts.”

I loved the simplicity of the statement and the depth of the insight. Given the increasing prevalence of mobile/social/location technologies like Foursquare, it can be awfully tough for retailers to differentiate, so the customer experience has never been more important.  Do you know the difference between your brand standards and your brand standouts?  If you are like most businesses, the truthful answer is “no”. Read More »

Sometimes the cornucopia of plenty in American grocery and general merchandise stores can be, well, a bit monotonous. The bread aisle is a monochrome light brown (occasionally accented by, oddly enough, brown shelves), the dairy case a washed out sea of white plastic bathed in a pale fluorescent glow, the men’s undershirts an undifferentiated mass of white, brown and light gray. It’s no wonder, then, that consumers crave a little variety in packaging and presentation. It’s not just to make the scenery a little less boring; it also makes products dramatically easier to find. Read More »

So perhaps the title here is a bit harsh, but something needed to catch your eye. We’ve long known retailers to be a unique beast, managing more products than any CPG marketer could imagine, focusing on category-specific merchandising strategies (often to the detriment of cross-sell), and most recently, managing the tradeoffs between brick-and-mortar stores and online sales.

But frankly, this too often turns retailers into myopic, proximity-biased incrementalists in their customer strategy (too harsh again?). Imagine my encouragement when I see retail CMOs begin to tout the very elements of customer-focused strategy their CPG peers have long known. Read More »

By Tasneen Padiath

I’m no wine connoisseur, so the marketer in me kicked in on a recent trip to my local liquor store.  I considered the attributes I wanted – under $15, preferably red, not too sweet or fruity, a familiar brand name and something that connotes a fun experience. Faced with an array of wines from California to Chile, from Merlot to Bordeaux, I was struck by the enormous difficulty marketers face in differentiating their brands and creating a connection with consumers in the moment.

Granted, I was probably a little outside of the target segment for most wine makers, but what would have altered my decision? A catchy label or even a suggestion from one of the sales people could have nudged me in a different direction. The lesson for me here: while there is immense opportunity to influence a brand decision before a consumer goes shopping, the importance of the in-store experience—whether through product placement, point of purchase signage or a well trained store employee—cannot be minimized. Read More »