Category: Uncategorized

 

There is no doubt that consumer are becoming more empowered on the shopping front.  With the smartphone, shoppers are able to access a range of informational tools while in the store, in a specific category aisle, and when directly facing a brand or product on the store shelf.

Social media has led to community sourcing through product reviews, customer service reviews, and recommendations.  Online retailing has given shoppers the ability to price compare.  As a marketer, I understand that many decisions are still made when in the store.  No matter how many commercials or online advertisements she is exposed to or how many websites visited, the “moment of truth” lies in that shopping aisle when the shopper reaches out her hands to remove the branded product off of the store shelf and place into her shopping cart. This is not to exclude the other actions that are occurring: reviewing product labels, checking on pricing, reviewing past experiences and influencing by formed perceptions.

The retailer Target understands that shopping and in-store decision-making has changed as access to information is easily accessible in-store on the shopper’s own terms and peer influence is able to invade the in-store stage itself (before it was prominent in the pre-store and post-store experience).  Target has responded with a strong shopper iPhone application.  Recently, it added a new feature that hits to the heart of the decision at the aisle…that moment when a shopper is reviewing a product label, has the product in hand, and is a second away from putting it into her cart or back onto the shelf.  That feature is Target’s barcode scanning.  A shopper can use her iPhone (with the Target app) to scan any item.  This allows her to gain access to product reviews, information and ability of it within the store.

·         Have unanswered questions?  This iPhone app may have the additional product information that she needs to feel satisfied that this product will perform the function she needs fulfilled.

·         Will I have buyer’s remorse?  The product reviews exposing opinions from shoppers like her may soothe her hesitations; thus, nudge her towards placing it in her shopping cart.

·         How many are left within the store?  For big purchases, knowing there are 2 versus 20 can either speed up or slow down her decision-making process.

The biggest factor I believe the barcode feature addition provides is the ability to shop Target when at a different retailer.  UPC codes are universal; thus she is able to scan the code to gain Target’s price and stock information, as well as any current special deals.  She is able to garner value-added information providing a goodwill and helpful gesture by Target.  The app is able to affect the “moment of truth” at another retailer’s store shelf; it may influence her to return her cart, leave the store and shop at Target.

(Post by Anne Gibson)

Via @misentropy

The top 5 newspapers in the world are all in Japan. Why ?

I’m always misplacing my card reader which Natwest make a requirement now to use when you’re making payments and such via online banking so this would be magic if it gets rolled out across all the banks.

And here’s a video demo. 

Click through for the rest of the graphics.

The venerable office adhesive reminders (and medium for popular YouTube videos) turn 30 this year, and Post-It Notes are celebrating the anniversary with a unique Facebook application called Don’t Forget Your Friends. The trivia app rewards users for recalling facts about people in their Facebook networks, with Post-It Brand products available as prizes in the early rounds a grand prize of a “holiday of a lifetime” for the winner and a few of the winner’s friends.

The Facebook application is being supplemented with a real-world advertising campaign, including Post-It-shaped posters and billboards placed around busy business centers in the UK. Each ad will feature the Don’t Forget Your Friends branding, along with the URL for the Facebook app. The most prominent advertisement will be going up in London’s Broadgate Circus — a huge replica of a Post-It pad with the game and brand information.

As for the trivia game, Don’t Forget Your Friends is meant to help remind us that while it’s easy to accumulate digital friends, we should not forget why we have chosen to bring them into our circles. The application pulls info and photos from your personal profiles and actually tailors the questions based on your friend networks. Each question is multiple choice, with images puled from your own photo albums appearing along with the questions.

Answering the first round of questions, and there are a few Post-It products as prizes, however  only residents of the UK and Ireland are eligible to receive them. Go deeper into the trivia app, and after a couple of more rounds of increasingly difficult questions, you will be in the running for the grand prize if you can score above 80%.

After each attempt at Don’t Forget Your Friends, you can post your score in your newsfeed and challenge others to try to top your score and nab some prizes of their own.

This is a rather comprehensive campaign, combining a number of elements from past applications, advertising and gaming that have worked well individually (trivia, give-aways, challenges, cross-promotion and more). It’s a well designed and executed application, and brings a lot of brand awareness to a product that really has no place in the digital world. Yes, everyone knows one or two people who have ringed their computer monitors with the little notes, but there aren’t too many opportunities for their use on Facebook. Don’t Forget Your Friends reminds Facebook users through a fun, rewarding trivia game that there still needs to be some connection, and remembering the details is important.

This is actually pretty smart.