Retail Marketing Strategy – Sophistication in Tough Times

It’s official! The Retail Sector in the UK is being hit hard during the current recession. You can walk down any High St in any town or city and you’ll be presented with a common site…empty shops being forced to close down due to lack of sales. In fact, it is becoming so bad that schemes are being thought up to make use of these empty shop fronts to help remove the eyesores; things such as supporting local artists and displaying their work is one such commendable example.

However, smarter retailers have acted well in advance of being forced to close. Innovative and creative thinking from the strategists in the boardroom has seen the latest marketing approach hit the streets. The approach comes on two levels, both aimed at creating awareness and generating interest…i.e. get people in to the shops!

If you’re expecting to hear about a well researched and thought through integrated marketing approach; which takes advantage of the social web and the engagement potential this offers…then think again. This is so simple and much more subtle, you’ve most probably been exposed to it already without even realising it. It really is that clever. The two approaches, previously mentioned, are balloons and people dressed up in costumes! Absolute genius!

Next time you are in town, take a look and we guarantee you’ll spot them. Credit must be given to everyone from the think tanks at the most senior level all the way down to the employees in the store. The investment required for all these balloons and costume design must be significant; plus the fact they then have to be shipped out to every store, inflated, worn and put on show. A massive effort from everyone involved. Nice work! Who’d have thought in the days where a brand can so easily interact with the consumer in their own home, could something like balloons and costumes be so effective. A spokesperson for SCS, PC World and Carpet Right were unavailable for comment…because we didn’t ask them.

95% of your decision making is subconscious!

I heard somewhere that psychologists estimate 95% of our decision making or more accurately our behaviour is carried out subconsciously. Flip that on its head and it means we only act consciously for 5% of the time. That is pretty scary stuff and from a marketing perspective probably means many marketing activities, especially those resulting from traditional market research, focus groups, surveys could be set for failure. 

An example of this would be the launch of a new website or online marketing campaign. Many brands, prior to going live, will test the effectiveness of their web marketing by involving people who represent their target audience, asking them for conscious feedback on what they like and don’t like. On the surface this seems very logical and should minimise the risk of the campaign or website failing. However, such testing and because it is all carried out at the conscious level, could mean the results and conclusions may not be as accurate as originally thought. There is in fact an argument to say that such testing could increase the risk of failure and lessen the return from any investment. Dominant parties involved with the testing could steer certain conclusions, and the tester (who after all will also be a human being) could also place a bias in certain areas based upon their own interpretation.

So if 95% (which is a big number) of behaviour is subconscious, how can brands test and create effective campaigns and online content that subconsciously appeals? There is a way. People’s subconscious can be measured accurately and the testing can provide extremely valuable results. However, such testing can’t explain why certain elements may be preferred over others, and the reality is…these reasons aren’t important.

My Choice of Shoes

Example – when you’re out shopping for a pair of shoes can you explain why you preferred the ones you bought over and above the many other pairs you looked at? I would suspect you genuinely can’t. You may consciously put it down to colour, style, designer brand, price, association or something else, but ultimately you bought them because you “liked” them and a whole host of things at the subconscious level were working to make you part with your money.

So Electroencephalography, or EEG is worth looking at. Organisations can utilise this technology and backed by a tried and tested methodology and extremely complicated algorithms it is possible to test how individuals react and behave to certain stimuli. This includes every sense and can therefore be used to measure the effectiveness of any brand or marketing approach, whether it is online, in store, on the phone or wherever. It can also be used to correlate the various brand touch points to provide an overall brand engagement score. Imagine how powerful that could be to benchmark the major brands in each market sector?

Granted…it’s a bit of a leap of faith to scrap the surveys, the usability testing, focus groups etc.  But why invest time and money on scoring 5%, when you can invest similar amounts to achieve 95%?