Shopper Insights in Action Conference 2009 Wrap-Up

Thank you all, those in attendance, and those of you who followed our online coverage for your participation during the 9th Annual Shopper Insights in Action Conference. We hope you enjoyed this year’s event and have taken the time to review all of our great coverage as we updated our event site, blog, and twitter with images, video and descriptions of all the great speakers at the conference. Below you will find a summary of all of that coverage during the three days of the conference. Even if you did follow our coverage closely, be sure and review many of our posts again, we’ve updated many of them with video clips of the presentations. Finally, be sure and subscribe to our updates on our blog, twitter, and event site as we continue to provide resources and information regarding the conference as well as the latest industry news and insights. Be sure and share and forward all of these updates to your colleagues who were unable to participate in this experience.

Click the link below to view our wrap-up newsletter from the event.

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Shoppers in a New Economy: A Live Shopper Panel Featuring Shoppers of Various Life Stages and Demographics

Moderated by: Christine Holt, VP & Jennifer Keller, Research Director, C&R Research’s Shoppereyes Division

Looking at four real women shoppers, we get some insight into the mind of the Mom shopper—which we’ve learned is so important for us during the conference. Today’s panel discussion discusses what is most important to these shoppers and to their families. Below is a dialogue that we had the pleasure of hearing during today’s panel.

“How many times a week do you go to the grocery store?”
Christina “Two to three times a week”
Debbie “The same, about 2 times per week”
Melissa, “I try to do it once a week, but a lot of times I need to run out during the week to grab something.”
Allanna, “I shop once a week. I have a meal plan going.”
“Where do you do most of your food shopping?”
Allanna, “My major shopping for groceries is Jewel, they have a good coupon policy. They still take the internet coupons, a lot of places don’t take the internet coupons. I also go to a smaller grocery store about 10% of the time. Household items, I go to Wal-Mart, Target and Walgreens.”
Christina,”I don’t use coupons. I gave up on it years and years ago. I shop at Ultra because Jewel has higher prices. I go to Target, Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club for bulk items (shampoo, cereal). Wal-Mart has good prices on condiments.”
Debbie, “Wal-Mart or Meijer is easier to go to because you don’t have to worry about coupons. Jewel and Dominicks have higher prices.”
“Are there certain types of products that lead you to a certain stores.”
Melissa, “I go to a smaller chain for lower prices on lunch meats and other meats and their meats are very fresh.”
“What is the experience in the different stores? Where do you really enjoy to shop for food and household products?”
Debbie, “I enjoy Meijer’s. I enjoy shopping. I like Wal-Mart because I like the layout and I can get bath items, clothes, etc. Its one stop shopping. Its enjoyable for Meijer because there is always something to catch your eye and something new—I like the shoes.”
Christina ”When I go to Wal-Mart, I can pick up food and bathroom type items. I can get enough food items. I go to a little deli for lunch meat.”
Debbie, “I buy a lot of toys for my grandkids at Wal-Mart.”
Allanna, “I enjoy going to a smaller retailer for groceries because people are really friendly and always ready to help out. They automatically bag and take out your groceries to your car.”
“Where would you prefer to go at the end of the day on your way home from work?”
Christina, “I hit the Jewel, its close to home.”
Allanna, “I send my husband to Jewel on his way home.”
“Is there a place you dread shopping?”
Debbie, “Jewel because the prices are so high.”
Allanna, “I dread shopping at Aldi’s because of the lines.”
Everyone on the panel agrees to like self-check out because it makes things smoother and its convenient.
Allanna, “I like to self-check out because it gives my kids something to do while I check out.”
“Is there anything you would change about self-check out?”
Debbie, “As long as there is someone there to help me, then I’m happy.”
Allanna, “As long as there are people to help out the other people who don’t know what they are doing then I’m happy.”
Debbie, “A couple more conveyer belts would be nice.”
“Tell me about something you saw, in terms of the set up of the store that made it easy or enjoyable for you to shop.”
Allanna, “I like when everything has a clear price. I don’t want to look around for the prices. A smaller retailer has everything on one aisle that’s on sale in their circular.”
“How many make lists?”
Allanna, “I make a list and stick to it.”
Debbie, “I make a list, but I don’t stick to it.”
“Why do you choose the place that you do choose for shopping?”
Unanimously it’s price.
Debbie, “Wal-Mart and Meijer have such low prices that I’m fine with shopping there all of the time. Even if they are a little higher on a few items, I know I’m saving money on something else in my cart.”
“What are you cutting back on?”
Christina, “I have cut back on cereals in order to save money. We now have cheaper cereal in bags and we are okay with that.”
Allanna, “I am cutting down on kid’s treats because of sugar, high fructose corn syrup. I make my own granola bars now. We do more fruits now.”
Allanna, “I make my own hamburger helper, its fresh and its tastes better. My motivations for changing were because I had everything on hand.”
Allanna, “We went from making $75,000 per year to now $25,000 per year and with my skills and coupons we have been able to save $4000 this year for our vacation.”
Melissa, “I buy store paper now. I poked a hole in the store brand to test its softness and it seemed okay with me.”
Christina, “I will try a store brand if it’s on sale.”
“Are there things you won’t trade to private label for?”
Debbie, “Coffee”
Melissa, “Deodorant”
“What was the last interesting new product you saw?”
Allanna, “A new Bounce product that reduces the amount of dryer sheets. I found out about it via email, that came with a coupon to try it. The coupon was $4 off $10.”
Debbie, “I like the microwaveable sausage and bacon products.”
Melissa, “Tide has a new stain remover thing that you can throw in the washing machine. I got a coupon from Tide about it, via email.”
“How do you find out about new products?”
Christina, “I like to sample things at Sam’s.”
Allanna, “I belong to a grocery message board, we give hot tips about what’s out there to try. There are about 10,000 women and men out there. I look for opinions that way.”
Melissa, “Sometimes the pop ups on the internet, newsletters and alerts from different companies help via email.”
Today’s panel gave valuable real insight into the mind of the Mom shopper.

*Updated* Keynote: Breaking the Habit—The Truth About Shopper Behavior and How to Change It

Videoclip Below

Siemon Scammell-Katz, Founder, TNS Magazine

ROI on shopper marketing Habituation vs decision making in-store
Siemon spends much of his time following shoppers and interviewing academics to understand what people buy and how we influence what they buy.

We start out today’s discussion with a big question:
“What has the most impact on the buying point?”

Looking at the physiology of the eye, Siemon shares with us about the eye that we must know when studying eye tracking of shoppers. Our vision process is continuously moving to gather the information in front of us. Or heads are continually moving around to create the scene of what’s around us. If we can understand what information is being sent from the eye to the brain, we can begin to find out all about what the shopper actually sees in-store. Eye tracking can reveal what respondent’s thought processes are, so it’s highly important that we understand how this process occurs.

Eye movement is sub consciously controlled; your eyes are moving all the time.


Sub conscious behavior
The vast majority of things that we do, we do subconsciously—nearly 80%. If we just listen to what shopper’s tell us what they are going to do, we would be wrong. We must study what they actually do.

Category roles

The way that we shop the different categories is fundamentally different, from dairy to health and beauty. Mapping category framework is integral to understanding the behaviors of shoppers before, during and after their visit to the particular category. We need to understand what kind of category that we’re working with, is it a complex category (champagne) or a less complex category (milk).

Habit and Decisions

Subconscious behavior exists in everything we do, to differentiate the different types of subconscious processes, Siemon shares with us the differences between active and implicit learning. Implicit learning is a subconscious memory, low attention—making color the most important thing to recognize. As we move for marketing and in-store behavior, connecting color to the brand can be the most important thing we do to ensure brand loyalty.

Remember: Most shoppers buy similar products each week—it’s called habituation.

In summary, connect consumer and shopper using low and high attention understanding. Evaluate habituation and floaters and measure behavior of both groups.

Updated

In-Store Exposed: What will appeal to tomorrow’s shoppers in this new world?

Videoclip below

Panelists:
Candace Adams, SmartRevenue
Chris Borek, Target
Tom McCann, Staples
Ryan Mathews, FedEx

Moderator:
John Dranow, SmartRevenue

What this evening’s discussion will focus on is the future, product proliferation, media fragmentation and unlimited information (and how these elements) have created an environment in which 50% of decisions are made at the point of purchase. There has been a paradigm shift from big brands, big media and traditional research working to the challenging present where differentiation is essential, impulsivity is required and smart media is a winner. We now have skeptical and highly informed consumers.
Now it seems that economic volatility and changing values have created an uncertain future that has an identity defined by non-tangible assets and the conspicuous accumulation and consumption of goods.
First Panel Question:
“What do you think the future is going to be?”
Candace Adams: We are on the edge of radical change with retail. We will begin to see a huge push. Retailers will be required to lead, to follow or to move out of the way. Thinking about a mall, how many more customers can be brought if I am collocated with other retailers? Some retailers try to tap into the fact that customers are time starved, so we’ll see more retailers following suit. So many retailers have been pushed out of the way, Linens&Things, Lord&Taylor and the auto industry, for example. Consumers are becoming very savvy and we’ll being to see a proliferation of in-store messaging.
Chris Borek: At Target we look at a few different things, we are looking to become more transparent and we think about presenting the shopper with what she wants. Specifically from a store and from a retailer perspective, she wants to know what is on sale, what is new and what things matter the most. Don’t be complacent because your brand needs to evolve.
Tom McCann: The retailing world of the near and possibly distant future means that we will see about 35% of shoppers will have money and be ready for luxury but the majority of customers will look for value. We can’t see the credit card crunch ending soon, and it makes shoppers think more about the purchases that they are going to make.
Ryan Mathews: I live in Detroit, we have been in a recession for 30 years now. I think that we will see more people living under one roof and I don’t think that they will necessarily be all family. The idea of family will evolve and change as people cut back and look for ways to stretch their money. We are on the verge of perpetual change at retailing. Things will never be the same—ever and change will accelerate like a “snowball down the mountain.”


Second Panel Question:
“How are you preparing for the future or how would you recommend others prepare for the future?”
Candace Adams: One of the things that should be done is to enhance customer loyalty and moving away from just wanting to turn a product. By doing so, competitors will become more savvy and steal those customers from you. No longer are we students of commerce, we are students of psychology and behavior. It’s important to embrace technology as customer’s become even savvier. It’s also important that you take ownership in your retail space. You should make your shopper’s experience clean and clutter-free. Be true to your brand and don’t go off strategy.
Chris Borek: We are doing things that we haven’t done in the past, but providing price points in advertising. There has been a departure from shiny glossy figures to the affluent, savvy soccer mom who is the CEO of her family. Target is looking to a multi-channel focus to create a guest experience; Target provides information where she wants it when she wants it.
Tom McCann: It’s about brand, how you treat your brand and using technology to connect with your shoppers. Being where your shoppers are when they want to hear from you. Over the future, small business people are very conscious about value and will be continually interested in value and quality and making sure that they understand how much Staples values them and their role as business owners.
Ryan Mathews: Uncertain does not mean unknowable. The future will be science and social science and art. We should create sustainable relationships with customers, a lifetime relationship with a customer. “You have to own your own identity as a retailer,” Candace Adams and Mathews is in agreement. In a retail environment you create your identity around the things that you have available to your customer and that is an art form. Information, in and of itself can be dangerous.
Candace Adams: It will be crucially important moving forward to be instilled in the digital technology around us, to connect with shoppers.
Ryan Mathews: Increasingly, customers will be agnostic about platform they will enter and exit wherever they see fit. Digital media will make it easy for everyone to be a marketer of a particular product. You should use these tools in the digital space but use them naturally.
Chris Borek: It’s about earning her trust, it’s about figuring out how she really feels when she thinks of Target first and then other retailers second.
“What about bad online reviews?”
Tom McCann: When you open up your websites for reviews, you have to accept that sometimes customer comments may be bad or detrimental to products.
Ryan Mathews: You are either open or you’re not.
Chris Borek: You have to be a part of the conversation, you just can’t avoid it.
Final Thoughts:
Candace Adams: You must continually work to evolve yourselves. It should never be static.
Chris Borek: Knowing what you stand for and knowing what you don’t stand for. Figure out what is appropriate to evolve and not deviating from that evolution.
Tom McCann: Your brand and your customers, how you are going to relate to your customers and looking at how to adjust your strategies to those things around you is so important.
Ryan Mathews: Challenging times produce great successes.

Updated

*Updated* Keynote: Emotions in the Aisles: Quantifying In-Store Emotional Response with Bio-Sensory Metrics

Video Clip Below

Michael Lee, Found, Chairman and Chief Science Officer, EMSENSE CORPORATION
Elissa Moses, Chief Analytics Officer, EMSENSE CORPORATION

Michael starts off this morning’s discussion presenting the EmSense Enabled headsets that combine both neuroscience and other bio-sensory inputs to create a robust model of human response. The primary focus is measuring brainwaves and it also measures heartbeat, among other bodily responses.

EmSense delivers deep insights is not the impact of on the shopping experience on consumers by capturing such bio-sensory measurements as emotional response and cognitive thought.

The headsets have been used by all types of shoppers across varying retailers.

During the course of the EmSense headset experiment, researchers ask the following questions:
How do shoppers feel thorough the journal?
How do they behave?
Where do they look?
What products they think about?
What emotions do the products garner?

EmSense has created, essentially a new box of tools and metrics to use for market research purposes. By utilizing breakthrough shopper insights and world class partners, they’ve earned unparalled resources and a new research paradigm.

Case Study: The Retailer’s Perspective, Foot Locker
Background and Objectives
1. Explore the Visual Search and Selection Process
Focus on shopper experience, communications and visual merchandising
2. Examine bio-sensory shopper response patterns
Eye tracking
Cognitive response to store stimuli
Emotional response to shore stimuli

Elissa shares with us an example of a shopper going to a London location of Foot Locker wearing the EmSense Enabled device. We were able to see the approach, threshold, browsing, considering, payment and exit of the shopper in the store. We found that the average person gives a “No” to about 116 shoes. The average point of sale fixation is 2.43 seconds.
EmSense discovered that the negative emotion while browsing for an item until an item is selected for evaluation, at the point of decision, emotions overtakes cognition.

Another element to the in-store experience relies on how staff can enhance the customer’s experience. As the staff is highly influential, there are a few keys that lead to purchase of a product. By interacting at the right time with the customer, it can have a direct impact on a shopper’s decision to purchase a particular item.

Case 2: The Manufacturer’s Perspective
Brand X (will be masked for this conference)

Context makes a big difference for shopping. Shoppers remain cognitively engaged through their journey at Big-Box; Emotion is highest during navigation and evaluation. At specialty stores, the shopper journey shifts from high cognitive engagement to positive emotional response as the shopper moves from evaluation to selection.
Specialty shoppers scan over 20% more times than Big-Box shoppers, driven by the larger category. At the Big-Box, Brand X is dominated by Cognition throughout the journey. At the specialty, Brand X is dominated by positive emotion.
Context is “King.”

Case 3: The “Wrong Emotion” in the Aisle or “How to Prevent the Next Tropicana”
EmSense and PRS have combined technology to offer the most comprehensive quantitative approach:
Assess Current Packaging and competition (guide re-design)
Evaluate New Packaging (select/optimize)

Depth of insights provided by overlying eye tracking with congnitive responses
Not since the New Coke in 1985 has there been such a blatant shopper backlash in rejecting a new form and package change for a beloved product. FF to 2009 and Tropicana creates a 20% decline in sales based only on a packaging change.
Showing the dashboard, EmSense notes that the old Tropicana packaging got the highest marks whereas the new packaging had seriously low remarks. They also looked at competitive products; Florida’s Natural was neutral where Minute Maid was positive.

New packaging failure is objectively predictable when:
New packing does not evoke cognitive engagement
Consumers do not note the brand logo and are unlikely to recognize their brand
Shoppers do not easily see the SKU type demarcations
Negative or absence of emotion when viewing the packaging

Updated

*Updated* Keynote:A Fresh and Easy Place to Shop

Video Clip Below

Simon Uwins, Chief Marketing Officer, Tesco’s Fresh & Easy

The recent rise in popularity of shopper insight and shopper marketing is a bit “amusing” to Simon Uwin’s and his company. For them, their kind of business, what people think about the brand is wholly dictated by the shopping trip. The shopping trip is absolutely fundamental to their brand.

Tesco has a simple purpose, “To create value for customer to earn their lifetime loyalty.”

Embedded in this purpose are two simple ideas:
1. We have no right to exist unless we create value for customers
2. We must earn their lifetime loyalty

Our (Tesco’s) values
1. No one tries harder for customers
2. Treat people how you like to be treated

Talking to people is the key to research, by moving from desk research/store visits to qualitative exploration of grocery shopping behavior to the drill down on specific aspects: however, if you just talk to people and ask them, what they tell you is not necessarily what they are going to do.

After talking to people, shoppers really like convenience but convenience can sometimes bring highly processed foods. A lot of times, people felt that they had to go to other stores in order to stretch their budget further. By talking with people, Tesco realized that there is a need for a convenient, fresh and healthy place for people to shop—that didn’t break the budget.
By creating a simulated shop Fresh & Easy was able to conduct a brand positing study near Los Angeles that allowed them to showcase their differences from other grocery stores.

The way to spread the word about Fresh & Easy was simply to keep talking to people. By doing so, you should plan to explain what you’re trying to do (and body language is absolutely essential), ask for feedback and always make sure that you do something about the feedback that you receive.

Fresh & Easy follows these strategies to ensure their brand and their organization:
A Fresh & Easy Shop
A Good Neighbor
A Great Place to Work
We Keep Things Simple
We’re Passionate About What We Do

Simon offers this great mantra for retailers, “You will not have happy customers unless you have happy staff.”

Fresh & Easy is now building a broad customer appeal and earning amazing customer advocacy.

Updated

Improving Your Payback: Keys to Assuring that Shopper Insights are Used and Activated

Bruce Vierck, VP and Andy Cremer VP, Retail Planning and Design, RTC

Preconceived Ideas Limit Success
As shopper marketers, you get a lot of ideas and solutions thrust upon you from brands to retail but you get handcuffed to figure out what the real solution can be to success. Working with a beverage company, RTC started out at the water aisle, which needs sectioning to properly appeal to the shopper. Shoppers in the water aisle are very educated and savvy consumers, so research had to be done to figure out a solution that should work for the shopper, for the retailer and for the brand. RTC did a “quick and dirty” research of interviews, feedback, etc. RTC gave participants tasks like finding specific brands and then recorded what shoppers did was surprising. Participants sometimes did not notice signage pointing to a product and had difficultly finding their specific product among the bevy of brands.

RTC identified key principles:
Shoppers look for “red or blue” (Coca-Cola or Pepsi)
Shoppers filter and brand logos on signage
Shoppers have difficulty locating new products
Shoppers often look down, rarely do shoppers look up

So what RTC did was created a “color” coded aisle, making Coke framed and working to frame other big name beverages by color. It’s important that we start by framing the problem.
In the dairy aisle, it has not changed its overall organization in the past 50 years. What RTC wanted to get to was, “what is the path to purchase?” “What drives a purchase?”

They asked participants in the study of the dairy aisle to make a journal about their purchases of dairy products and RTC did “shop alongs” with participants to see how they make purchases and what is the most important to them and to their family. What occurred is a transformation of the dairy aisle to make sure that shoppers get information quickly and are able to make purchases based on what’s important to them as shoppers.

There is no bridge from knowledge to vision.
RTC did a study for a cell phone manufacturer within the Big-Box retailer space. Shoppers didn’t understand that they could walk out of the store with the phone after the purchase and shoppers were unclear on the process involved to purchase the cell phone. Because the Big-Box retailer had such low prices, many shoppers did not believe that the phone was “real” because the purchase was so low. It was an interesting learning experience for RTC. They were able to put out display cases for the products to show the shoppers that the items were real. Utilizing display cases, despite the price will instantly ensure a product’s credibility to the shopper.

Track 1: What Shoppers Really Want

Phil McGee, Director, Shopper Insights & Category Management, Campbell Soup Company

Meal preparers are not prepared for the new role of having a spouse, a baby or living alone. Successes in the roles of a meal preparer are largely dependent on the success of people in the roles of family, caregiver or individuals on their own. Putting the meal on the table has a bevy of rewards, from it tasting good to being under budget. Meal preparers want to have the people that they are serving to be happy with their role. What the meal preparer do is transmits her nurturing and sharing her love with the people that she is serving. It’s important that we understand this, to work with the meal preparer to ensure that they feel confident in their role as the primary food giver. At the highest level, there is a reward of self actualization; it becomes core to the meal preparer’s identity to be the meal preparer.

Understanding the role of the meal preparer:
Every meal preparer has about 20 different questions that they are asking themselves whenever the people they are caring for ask, “What’s for dinner?” It’s incredibly stressful for the meal preparer, and they will answer this question or related questions about 10,000 times. At some point, it happens that the meal preparer gets overwhelmed and that’s where we as retailers and product developers can step in and help the meal preparer by making their life a little easier.

One strategy that meal preparers do is depend on easy meals (easy to prepare, takes no planning, having all of the items on hand and low in cost). The biggest trend we are seeing is a big demand for simple, easy to prepare meals.
Another strategy is that meal preparer’s seek help, in the areas of planning, preparing and executing the meal. Going to a restaurant is sort of “cheating” for the meal preparer. The most fulfillment that a meal preparer can have is if they create something themselves and its well received. Having help from others, via recipes and quick heat and eat meals, do not offer the same amounts of pleasure for the meal preparer.

As retailers, there is a white space in the areas of enabling meal preparers to execute a healthy and tasteful meal that is well received. It’s the “Home Depot” effect, i.e., “You Can Do It. We Can Help.” What grocers can do is find a way to help the meal preparers do it themselves—or making the grocery store their partner. Merchandisers can help meal preparers by showcasing entire meals not just the ingredients, doing so can be tremendous help to the meal preparers.

This can not only benefit meal preparers, but it can benefit the retailers. In-store recipes that are used by meal preparers—and those meal preparers promote retailer loyalty. A good recipe from the store means that the store provides something that the meal preparer needs and that loyalty to brand, to store and to product is ideal.
The center of the store is a retailer’s most valuable—but least productive—asset. The center store refers to packaged goods.

What they’ve done, Campbell’s, is help to solve the meal preparer’s dilemma of creating a meal by creating an in-store, center store located prototype that provides all of the information that meal preparers need.

The Art of the Possible: Strategies for Achieving the Phenomenal

David Plouffe, Campaign Manager, Obama’s Presidential Campaign 2008

David discusses how using grass roots organizations and online campaigns can make the impossible happen. Changing over time, they created websites and utilized social networks to raise money – and they did, in the billions. Also, the Obama campaign used grass roots to organize—they changed the elective. Using online and grassroots instilled in younger votes, also having a candidate who appealed to the younger population helped, too. Utilizing community involvement was critical but this involvement came from friends/family of individuals to spread like wildfire for the Obama campaign.

Volunteers organized themselves using, mybarackobama.com, allowing the movement to expand in ways that campaign couldn’t imagine. These volunteers, who were organizing themselves, contacted the campaign headquarters as they demanded information, data, etc to enhance their efforts.

In turn, campaign headquarters was able to feed videos and information directly to the volunteers and to the people interested and supportive of the campaign. By using videos online, they were able to create their own television station.
“When you talk about politics, people tune you out.” But during their campaign, 50% of their supporters/volunteers had never been involved in politics before, which proved to be an advantage to the campaign as people started listening to those who were passionate about Obama—not about politics.

What the campaign used primarily was very “old school” visual tactics. The campaign did not utilize Twitter as it was not yet popular, nor did they use texting. The technology was not yet there to connect with individuals on that platform. The issue came to make mybarackobama.com a home for all of the information that volunteers and supporters would need.
However, they announced Joe Biden’s appointment as VP pick via text.

People should get information direct to them; it makes it valid and more authentic. In our businesses, we should work to connect with shoppers and with our employees on a direct and authentic manner to build up a solid relationship and achieve growth.
98% percent of organizations out there do too little communication to employees and clients about changes to the company and it’s important, again, to achieve authenticity and ensure a solid foundation for future growth.

You don’t want people spending time during their day, worrying about direction and strategy. You have to be clear and communicative about strategy, doing so allows members of the organization to feel secure in their position so that they can do their job effectively. Communication is key, on all levels, for a company’s growth.

If you are trying to empower people, they have to understand how important they are to the achievement of the company/brand. Because the Obama campaign relied so heavily on volunteers, it was integral that they encourage and empower people on a personal level.
Anytime that the campaign did not follow a “traditional playbook on how to win the Presidency” in the USA, they succeeded. Go against the grain, the status quo and be confident in making these changes—doing so can mean success. This does not mean that it’s important to be needlessly risky but every time that the campaign became stagnate, failure followed. It’s important to have a daily briefing on trajectory to ensure that the strategy stays the same.

*Updated* The Return to “Personal Selling” at Retail

Videoclip Below

Herb Sorensen, Ph.D., Global Scientific Director, Retail & Shopper, TNS SORENSEN

The Return to “Personal Selling” at Retail

Dr. Sorensen starts off this evening discussing “there are those who make it happen,” “those who watch it happen,” and “those who wonder what did happen.” As retailers, we should be the ones that make it happen to move the multi-trillion dollar industry forward.

Moving to the basic human needs of air, water and food (clothing and shelter could be optional) what we have is that people have needs but also people have wants. Retailing actually drives the aspirations of the human race. People learn about these things through retail, and retailing builds upon the wants and needs of humans to drive the industry. If you create something that humans want and need, humans (customers/shoppers) will come and get it.

There are three components to retailing:
1. The mental process (wanting and/or needing a product)
2. Money
3. The actual delivery of the goods to the customer/shopper

Through the centuries retailing has gone from a medieval marketplace, to an outpost for services to merchants selling products (creating a middleman). Historically, retailing was always a personal selling, someone always had something else that an individual wanted. The induction of the mediator (the retailer) is a fairly new construct.

Massification: Going from a cobbler making shoes to a shoe factory making mass quantities of shoes.
Mass production – factories
Mass distribution – supply chain (waterways, airliners, railways, etc)
Mass retailing – self-service (developed about 100 years ago, we don’t have to sell to the shopper, the shopper sells to themselves)

The fundamental thing behind this mass productivity was a huge benefit to not only the retailers but to the shoppers. This massification also drove people’s perception of what they need. Initially shopper’s have a vague idea “a vague wish” that they’d like to have/purchase something. But as shoppers are fed this product, its available, the shopper goes from a vague desire to a need.
Think: “I wish. I want. I need. I got."

Dr. Sorensen shares this quote with us to sum up the historical change of retailing.

“One hundred years ago, retailers ran their stores by watching their customers closely. Somewhere during the last hundred years, spread sheets, slotting allowances, and quarterly performance replaced the basic principles of the business.” Norm Myhr, Group VP Sales Promotions and Marketing, FredMeyer

Passive Retailing: Merchants vs. Salesman
There is a major problem as stores are becoming a “black box,” because retailers/sellers think that because they have all of the data, retailers have all that they need to know about selling and about the customer/shopper. Below, Dr. Sorensen discusses strategies that will not work, but are still in place by many (unnamed) retailers.
Strategy:
Keep shopper prisoner to get a reward of frustrated shoppers
Making items hard to find, means losing profits
No help in making the choices, default to price to “sell”

Massification of Communication
Massification of communication includes advertising to consumers/shoppers outside of the retail space; from roadside signs to TV commercials. This approach really took off about 100 years ago with radio and TV as Proctor and Gamble’s creation of Soap Operas so that they could sell soap. There was an entire industry that grew up focusing on the mind of the shopper.
The mechanism for selling in mass media, the mental states that go on in mass communication are very different than personal selling, but it’s the closest thing that we have to personal selling. Personal selling, in this context refers to connecting two human beings (individuals at the ad agency to the individual shopper).

Mass Media Fragments
In 1995, 3 commercials reached 80% of women 18-49 years of age
In 2000, it takes over 92 commercials to reach the same amount of people
This means that the mass media, as we knew it is gone, replaced with fragments of media.
Now, we’ve realized that the people that retailers should sell to are in the store. There is an increased focus on in-store experience, packaging.

“The number one media in the store is the package.” Dr Sorensen

The ability to sell, the lack of accountability of the ad agencies and marketers not knowing what worked and what did—so throwing money at the situation is not the solution. The people who are selling, out in the mass media, largely, didn’t involve the immediate palpable feedback from the shopper/customer. Most of the people who know the most about personal selling are out there selling. There is a massive intellectual deficit in terms of how to do what it is that we should be doing: selling to shoppers, fulfilling their needs.

The “Amazonification” of Retail
There is a great deal about personal selling that the offline retailers could learn from online retailers, because online retailers are really involved in personal selling. Using Amazon.com to illustrate his point, Dr. Sorensen discusses that Amazon’s first goal is to sell a Kindle but the second goal is to show the shopper’s other items that were purchased by shoppers on Amazon. Also, Amazon is readily available to take your money through one click. Online merchants have learned a lot of the art of personal selling and brick and mortar store could definitely learn from online retailers.

Dr. Sorensen recommends a 1980 report by the Harvard Business Review, “Retailing Without Stores” by Larry J. Rosenberg and Elizabeth C. Hirschman. This kind of thinking, outside of brick and mortar stores has gone on for many years prior to the rise in online shopping.
“Internet” in the Store?

Will retailers succeed by putting the internet in the store? Using carts equipped with internet devices allowing shoppers to have an “Amazon-like” experience in-store could be beneficial to the shopper and to the retailers. Now, with internet enabled phones, customers are able to compare prices on items in-store. How far and how fast will this move the industry?

The single biggest sin that brands and retailers make is failing to tell shoppers what to buy.
Encourage retailers to call out top selling products by using a simple 4x4 inch card that plainly says “top seller.” Busy shoppers, used to Amazon experiences will purchase these items. There was an increase in grocery sales by 4% for the 1st quarter of 2009 over the 4th quarter of 2008.
Ice cream saw a 116% increase in sales.

How can you help return “personal selling” to your store, your brand and to the industry?

Be sure to check out Dr. Sorensen’s book Inside the Mind of the Shopper

Updated

*Updated* Finding the Right Shopper at the Right Time Online

Video Clip Below

Jim Lecinski

Managing Director, U.S. Sales & Service, GOOGLE, INC.

Just attended a great session with Jim Lecinski and learned what retailers must do in order to get the optimum results of search engines to point customers to their products. From creating innovative ways to corner the market on “New Information Buyers” to learning that every product no matter the price is being reviewed online, Lencinki’s presentation laid the groundwork for what’s really next for marketers/retailers looking to enhance their search engine presence. Jim worked to build the evidence that it’s not just about cars and big purchases, but about smaller purchases as well. The decision to buy even the smallest item is a decision based at home, through the consumer, using search engines and other customer reviews.

Here are a few takeaways that we’d like to share:

People who are watching every dollar spend more time researching purchases. 78% supplement their purchasing decisions with research, 34% plan to purchase more online

People are researching deodorant and shampoo, 20 millions searches were done for deodorant last year.

GOOGLE asked U.S. Consumers how their shopping habits have changed since the downturn in the economy.

54% spend more time researching products online before they buy them in a store

53% use search engines more to research purchases

39% buy more products online (rather than in-store)

Eight words or more search queries are up nearly 20% in the last year.

How should you be challenging your teams to work with these new “info shoppers”?

Updated

*Updated* Convert More Shoppers to Buyers by Improving and Integrating the On-line In-store and On-ad Experiences

Videoclip below

Sheila McKay, Customer & Channel Insights, Hewlett Packard

Sheila took participants through an innovative session that focused on how consumers purchase products from Hewlett Packard.

McKay placed the different types of shoppers into five categories:

Purchaser Profiles and the Shopper Journey

Convenience Retail Buyer
“Quick, easy and fast” These shoppers know exactly what they want, they don’t want to research or give much fuss into the decision. The best way to reach these customers is through in-store marketing

Retail Enthusiasts
Absolutely love to shop, they like shopping for technology process. Will try demos and talk to the sales associates. There path is much longer; however, they spend the most in comparison to other shoppers.

Researchers
These shoppers must know everything about a product before they can make a purchase. Their path is very long, confusing and very hard to nail down. These individuals will make their purchase either online or in-store.

One Stop, Web Stop
This is the second most lucrative group for retailers. These shoppers will not shop around.

Online Only
They visit a ton of websites before they make up their minds. They are willing to trade off brands for the best price.

Exploring the Shopper Journey for Consumer Electronics

Shopper frustrations, misleading signs and procedures in hard to shop places can be difficult for shoppers to access the products. By working with the retailers, its important to see how the products are being displayed in store. Sometimes the stores will provide not enough information or display the products in hard to reach areas, behind lock and key or in some cases, simply a box could appear.

Another issue that HP has seen is online there is way too much information available for consumers making simple products seem very advanced. Also, be vigilant with regard to search tactics. If a shopper searches for your product online, what other products appear in their search?

Finding the right supplies to go with a particular product can be very difficult for the shopper as they navigate the tricky store experiences and online searches.

Customers love big overhead directional signage, cross-merchandising and organized/clean retail spaces.

Ultimately, customers are trying to simplify the shopping process by matching their needs to the right product.

Updated

*Updated* Think Green. Act Green. Convey Green. Sell Green.

videoclip below

Greentailing in Tough Times…
How are Consumers Reacting and Retailers Responding?
Neil Stern, McMillianDoolittle
Author, Greentailing

“Earth Friendly products won’t save the Earth if they don’t save people money.” Wal*Mart (1997)

Green-tailing is broad-based.
Drivers of change
“An Inconvient Truth”
External factors
Wal*Marts move in 2005 to use 100% renewable resources
Competitive Factors
Embracing green because its been success for competitors
Internal Factors
Demographic and behavioral shifts

“It Isn’t Easy Being Green…”
“Greenwashing” is a danger, the act of misleading customers.
Cadillac Hybrid Escalade
Frozen food vendors using a green factory but not green ingredients

The Consumer’s View on Green
Green began gaining real traction with consumers in 2007. Green continues to grow in importance to consumers. Importance of environmentally-friendly stores and products since economic climate has changed. The green performance stigma is disappearing.
Supermarkets and discount stores made headway in 2008 in communicating green—especially supermarket/grocery stores and discount stores. Apparel specialty retailers are not keeping up with other industries to appeal to green focused customers.
Greentailing 2.0: conscientious retailing built on environmentally sustainable, socially responsible and economically profitable business practices.
Think Green. Act Green. Convey Green. Sell Green.
Think Green
Green as a mission or core value, it will not happen in a company unless its built into the mission of the company. Greentailers set tangible goals.
Mark’s and Spencer’s Plan
1. Become carbon neutral
2. Send no waste to landfills
3. Extend sustainable sourcing
4. Help improve the lives of people in our supply chain
5. Help customers and employees live a healthier lifestyle
In your companies, who has a green officer—sustainable officer? Sustainability experts polled predict that 25% of Fortune 500 will appoint executive level Chief Sustainability Officers in 2009.

LEED certified retail buildings and using green technology within the retail space can prove to be beneficial to the consumer retail experience and the customer understanding of the retailer.
Greener packaging, smaller size, less transportation, less for the consumer to haul home has started to pop up on retail shelves.
Sustainable packaging to grab 32% of market by 2014.
Politics of plastic bags. CT, NYC and Seattle may impose five to twenty-cent tax on plastic bags. Tough, as we’re trying to change 50 years of habits with people, will take time.
Recycling programs have been nearly over-successful as they try to deal with the demand that retailers have to recycle products. Best Buy and Crocs dealing with these issues and supporting recycling efforts now. Staples is offering rewards for people to recycle items with them—
Green Housekeeping “Green” Seal of Approval, stepping in where the Gov’t has yet to regulate green products. Tesco, product labels shows a figure that measures the total emission of greenhouse gases during the production, distribution, storage and use of item.
Organic products growing double digits; but economy has taken an impact, consumers have moved away from organic products as they tighten their belts during rough economy.
Green cleaning, companies like Method have bridged the gap between cool, effective and green—a trifecta of branding.
Local has become the new organic. Local implies small, natural production process. Local means supporting fellow neighbors and the local economy.
Sears will begin selling men’s suits made of fabric blend of wool and polyester spun from recycled fabrics.
Conveying Green:
“We believe in being a good neighbor who cares about the environment” says Fresh & Easy in the UK
Buffalo Exchange
The clothing retailer donates to local nonprofit agencies in the community through its Tokens for Bags program, generating nearly $285,000 for local charities.

Updated

*Updated* “My Western Family”

Videoclip below

Learning from Roger White, Director of Marketing, Associated Food Stores, Inc.

How love, laughter and store brand products come together. White discusses how the use of a quirky family attached to Associated’s private label helped to fuel purchases and to create quite a following online via “Mommy blogs” and chatter.

Creating innovative ways to connect with customers is integral to moving your brand forward, with “My Western Family,” shoppers now have a valid, real connection with Associated’s private label, “Western Family.”

By creating webisodes of “My Western Family” they offered $1000 to anyone who was able to finish the ending of the webisodes—they had over 60 entries. Winning entry was done by a high school drama department who moved next door to “My Western Family” as the “Leading Brands.”

Making a drama out of the differences between private labels and leading brands, played out in witty satire. But what other drama must families go through when deciding to purchase a store brand over a leading brand?

Facebook offered Associated more chatter as participants in the $1000 “My Western Family” challenge solicited the votes of friends/family to Associated’s sites.
How can your private brand go viral to aid in store brand growth?

Updated

Inspiration for Innovation & Design *Updated with videoclip*

Peter Dixon, Senior Partner, Creative Director, PROPHET
Andy Stefanovich, in charge of what's next, PLAY

Imaginary thirteen second cocktail party! Ask the person next to you, “What inspires you?”

Audience reactions:

“Greatness”
“Children”
“Curiosity”
“Play”
“Kids”

We are creating artificial barriers of inspiration, it’s important to let the barriers be gone. One client is building an inspiration policy, it’s an HR directive to be inspiring.

• Inspiration is essential
• Inspiration is a corporate responsibility
• If you are not feeding your employees with new inputs…you cannot expect new outputs

Applying personal inspirations to business output will provide huge benefit.
Inspiration + Design = Innovation

What would inspiration mean for your business?
“Ethnography”
“Artifacts, symbols and richness”
“Access, language and an entry point for the topic”

Where does inspiration come from?
Context.

What can only your business accomplish?

What is the truly unique thing that only your business can accomplish?

Framing things in really powerful ways; frame and set up constructs for people to access inspiration for a topic.

To create a truly unique shopping experience, you must infuse the entire process with inspiration.

A holistic process for creating the retail experience

Look at more stuff:
Important to develop a regular discipline for seeking direct and indirect inspiration

Design thinking:

A transparent process, iterative ideation and fast-prototyping; an openness to experimentation, failure and continual improvement

Make it real & really matter:
Make the business case, fact-based evaluations of trials, prototypes and in-market improvements

6 sources of inspiration:
1. Company capabilities
New stuff you can do
2. Customer insights
What they didn’t know they needed
Direct
Indirect
Tangential
3. Cultural & industry trends
It’s happening out there
4. Challenging conventions
“The Costanza principle”
Doing everything opposite that you think you should do—with success
5. Experiential analogs
“Its like ________ + ______”
6. Brand
It can tell you where to look

The world is the source of inspiration. What is the world thinking, saying and needing right now?

Innovation is not related to brand, innovation without an ability to create value is not really innovation. The marrying of innovation processes with economic indicators makes a success.

Case Study: Infiniti
Infinti brand cars: To create a differentiated customer experience, basic car dealership conventions were challenged.
New showroom for Infiniti: enter—lobby—lounge—gallery
A process to bring process—building desire was integral to the customer experience success of Infiniti.
Garnered to create focus but to build an environment of modern luxury.

Case Study: Conoco
Materials, finishes, icons and featuring reflected the analogous sources.

Case Study: Wal*Mart
To try to expand on an already successful model, the new brand promise, “Save Money Live Better,” meant that the store experience needed to change the dialog with the shopper.
Making the dialogue, “Inspiration for what she wants.”
Inform and inspire at the shelf and in the aisle

You need inspiration. She (the customer) needs inspiration. The world needs inspiration.

Follow us for live updates via Twitter: www.twitter.com/shopper360 use hashtag #shopperinsights to join the conversation!


Updated

* Updated * Large Company Perspective: Putting the Marketing Back into Shopper

Videoclip below

Jon Troy, Director of Category Management & Shopper Insights, Johnson & Johnson

We were thrilled to hear from Jon Troy today as he discussed the role of shopper marketing from Johnson & Johnson’s perspective.

Today, shoppers have all the power and your consumers are in a buying mindset.

“Now, with so many vehicles out there and consumer consuming media in so many different ways I really don’t know where they are. The one place I know they are is in the store. They’re in the store and in Buy mode.” –VP, Marketing of Johnson & Johnson.

Troy discussed how today’s shopper challenge is being blinded by the clutter. We must use shopper marketing to inform, engage and inspire the customer. In store marketing has to have an emotional connection—leading the customer to purchase. The path to purchase a particular product starts at home, with circulars, online and by word of mouth.

Troy also noted that it’s important that we manage the path to purchase as a shared responsibility. The most successful organizations are communicating with consumers along the entire pathway to purchase. They are doing this holistically, from Marketing to Sales as a Consumer transforms to a Shopper.

Below are a few more highlights from Jon Troy’s presentation today:

Johnson & Johnson Shopper Marketing—Organizational Alignment
Building J&J brands and categories through identifying and understanding relevant shopper targets and informing, engaging and inspiring them along the path to purchase.

Core principles of Johnson & Johnson:
Insights to strategy to activation
Enterprise wide, not just Sales
One J&J capability

Troy relays that organizations should want to define the category as broad as possible. With the case study of Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson decided to not go into the Tylenol business—they went into the pill business. Instead of focusing on the pain business, the business of relief, Johnson & Johnson focused on the pill business. Leveraging their brand equity and providing more for their customers.


What Your Organization Should Know
All functions of the organization must have focus on and commitment to consumers and shoppers Organizations must look through a category lends before putting on their brand hats
Organizational alignment begins with a common planning process that starts at the category level and considers consumer and shopper.

Updated

Shopper Insights in Action 2009 Speaker: Jon Troy

Jon Troy,
Global Shopper Marketing, Johnson & Johnson

Jon Troy is the Director of Global Shopper Marketing for Johnson & Johnson’s Sales & Logistics Company. He is responsible for creating the vision and strategy for Shopper Marketing enabling processes and tools for J&J’s Global Shopper Marketing capability. Jon has spent the last twenty years in the industry in various Sales, Research, Technology and Category Management roles. He most recently led Shopper Insights and Category Management for J&J’s US Center of Excellence, where he helped develop the Shopper Marketing capability for the US business.

Jon began his career in Sales at General Foods Corporation and soon made the transition to Category Management, in the very early stages, when the majority of the work completed was focused on Shelf Management. Through his career Jon has created the vision for and developed and deployed Category Management and Shopper Insights capabilities in three different organizations. First with a national food broker, then with The Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams) and most recently at Johnson & Johnson. Jon’s focus has always been on driving insights to action and tangible results. His presentation today will focus on the key components necessary to successfully develop a Shopper Marketing capability in an organization.

Shopper Insights in Action 2009 Speaker: Jim Lencinski

Jim Lencinski,
Head of Trade Promotions, Director, Trade Promotions Industry Development Google, Inc.

Utilizing almost 20 years of integrated marketing and online advertising experience, Mr. Lecinski leads the advertising business with Google's major Central Region clients and media agency partners. He has expertise in brand and creative strategy, marketing plan development, consumer lead generation, marketing analysis, optimization and consumer insights. Additionally, he has a strong background in retail and consumer packaged goods.

Mr. Lecinski has held leadership positions at DDB, marchFirst, Young & Rubicam, and EuroRSCG. In addition to his advertising and marketing experience, he is a vintage jazz music collector; he has an M.B.A. from the University of Illinois and a bachelor of arts from the University of Notre Dame.


Jim will be speaking on Wednesday, July 15 at the 11:30am presentation, "Finding the "Right Shopper at the Right Time".. Online." This presentation is part of The Online Channel Summit, in Continental Room C.



Biography courtesy of Mplanet.

Shopper Insights in Action 2009 Speaker: Herb Sorensen, Ph.D.

Herb Sorensen, Ph.D.,
Global Scientific Director,
Shopper Insights, TNS Sorensen

Herb Sorensen, Ph.D. is a pre-eminent authority on observing and measuring shopping behavior and attitudes. He is the Global Scientific Director, TNS Shopper Insights, serving Fortune 100 retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America for over 35 years.

Dr. Sorensen, Ph.D. biochemist, looks at consumer behavior from a scientific viewpoint but clearly explains the impact for the bottom line of merchants. Dr. Sorensen and Paco Underhill have been called the "Yin and Yang" of observational research. Dr. Sorensen's unique perspective, based on tracking millions of shopping trips throughout the world is the subject of Inside The Mind of the Shopper published by Wharton School Publishing, and released May 2009.

Dr. Sorensen will be speaking at the 5:30 Kick-Off Conference Keynote presentation "Retailing: The Return To Personal Selling."



Biography courtesy of www.herbsorensen.com

Shopper Insights in Action Conference taking place next week – 12 new speakers & 7 new sessions just announced.

Hi Everyone:

Hard to believe that July is already here and the 9th annual Shopper Insights in Action Conference is taking place next week, July 14-17, 2009 at the Hilton Chicago. We’re excited to announce that the show is going to be a hit, with hundreds of best-in-class brands, retailers and industry thought-leaders attending.

The event producers are busy adding new speakers and sessions as well as developing new onsite elements that add value to your experience. It is our goal to ensure everyone who attends leaves with a plethora of contacts, insights and ideas.

We’re excited to announce 12 new speakers and 7 new sessions have been added to the program totaling over 50 educational sessions with 75+ speakers.

NEW SPEAKER HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
• Candace Adams, former Senior Director, In-Store Experience, WalMart joined the retail panel on Thursday afternoon. She will join fellow panelists Chris Borek, Manager, In-Store Digital Marketing for Target, Mark Heckman, Vice President of Marketing for Marsh Supermarkets and Ryan Mathews, Consultant for FedEx Kinko’s. As seasoned retailers, they will discuss their perspectives on how the in-store shopping environment will evolve in the next 5, 10 and 20 years to meet shopper needs. Candace recently left WalMart and has joined shopper-centric research consultancy, SmartRevenue.

• Candace Adams will also participate in a breakout session on Thursday afternoon featuring brand executives from Unilever, Sara Lee and Kimberly Clark. This session will feature how WalMart worked with their brand partners using virtual reality technology to improve the shopping experience of their SuperCenter stores.

• Stephen Day, Global Consumer Insights for Electronic Arts along with Brand Cruz, VP of Retail and eCommerce Practice Leader for Chadwick Martin Bailey will discuss “The Evolution of the “Gamer” Market and How Segmentation Helped EA Develop a Groundbreaking Strategy”

For a complete list of new speakers and updates, click here http://bit.ly/SLYdV

To download the full event agenda, visit http://bit.ly/C9ZhC .

Plus, Shopper Insights producers have added 3 NEW RESOURCES AVAILABLE to Attendees Only
• Everyone who attends will have access to the POST-CONFERENCE REPORT, written by Socratic Technologies. This report will synthesize key findings from the event.

• Attendees will also get access to a USER-GENERATED POST-CONFERENCE REPORT, a collection of key takeaways by various participants at the event. This report will be made available to all attendees 2 weeks following the event.

• Everyone who walks in will be given an ROA, Return on Attendance Toolkit to ensure they get the valuable information needed to prove their return on attendance.

If you haven’t already registered, don’t worry, it’s not too late! And because of how important you are to us, our LinkedIn group members receive a 20% discount to attend. Use my personal code AMANDASHOP09 when you register. To register visithttp://bit.ly/epBbm.

I hope to see you there!

All the best,
Amanda

Amanda Powers
Shopper Insights in Action Conference Director