4 Predictions for Retail Media and with Supply Chain Impacts, Understaffed Stores Create Customer Loyalty Challenges so, how can brands engage in the real world to create deeper loyalty in turbulent markets?

Today on the OOH Insider Daily Tear Sheet for the very first day of July, two thousand and twenty-two.

Wow, can’t believe it, we’re into the second half of the year. I was out with Ali Ruppe and Megan Verholy from the team at OneScreen the other day for lunch, which was a ton of fun, by the way. Ali and I used to share an office when we worked at Adams and Megan was Ali’s client at both the casino in the Lehigh Valley and the regional airport, where Megan was Marketing Director and the last time we had lunch together was probably three years ago, so super fun to get together with the team and enjoy a great meal.

Funny enough too, is that David Kang, also on the team at OneScreen was on the casino account that Megan worked at and Ali repped for Adams so it’s all quite a story of kismet we’ve got going on.

All that to say, good luck to everyone as you close in on the end of the year. Here’s to a big finish!

Now, diving in…

We’ve talked a lot about retail media networks recently and how more retail Goliath’s are recognizing the value of their audiences while they’re in their retail locations. So in keeping with the theme around being long on place-based, these predictions coming by way of streetfight mag

Prediction One:

Retailers will try to become destinations, not just transactional platforms

But retailers are going to provide entertainment, whether in the form of actual recreational programming or engaging videos, to transform their sites and mobile apps into destinations where consumers linger. This will increase media exposure and the probability of incremental purchases. By transforming themselves into destinations, retailers will drive added value for advertisers and boost their own bottom lines. 

Bob Johns and I had this exact conversation on episode ninety six of OOH Insider. Destination Media is distinct in and of itself from other types of retail media and should be valued as such. Plus, the opportunities are just so cool.

137 synchronized screens at American Dream Mall, the largest destination retail media venue east of the mississippi and top 20 in the world. It draws tastemakers from the tri-state area and beyond and yet brands have really yet to take advantage in the way the opportunity can perform.

Prediction Two:

Video will be a big part of retail media’s future

video offers a powerful storytelling medium that can help retailers entertain audiences and engage them beyond a transactional context. This will be key to transforming retail media into a full-funnel strategy — not just ads at the point of purchase but top-of-funnel awareness campaigns, too.

This is an area where InMobi is focusing as it aims to help retailers delight customers on desktop and mobile.

I mean, I get it, you’ve gotta position yourself favorably but the laughability of “retailers will want to delight customers by showing them video…on their desktop and mobile devices”. I mean, yeah, sure, I guess. But if you give them something to look at in the real world, I bet you’ll make a little bit more of a lasting impression and since that’s what you’re buying…wouldn’t you like to get what you paid for?

Prediction Three:

Brands will keep coming to retailers for their data

One of the major tailwinds behind retail media has been the surge in e-commerce during and following the peak days of Covid. Shoppers are spending more time online, and digital advertisers want to be there to greet them.

But the other major factor is privacy changes, and those are only picking up steam. Brands need first-party targeting options as third-party trackers such as the cookie and mobile identifiers fade away. Enter retailers, the new fixtures of the sell-side. 

And yet again, this is where the superpower of out of home goes undefeated. Everything we do is based on real-world behavior. It’s not guessing. It’s not “probabilistic”, it is absolutely, undeniably, deterministic. You can stand there and watch the people go in and out and pay for things and put them in their cars and drive away. It’s real. 

So while brands scurry for data, the mavericks will double-down on creating memorable experiences for long-term brand equity and history will remember the victor.

Yes, that was absolutely a Top Gun reference. It is the fourth of july weekend afterall. 

Prediction Four::

Retailers will need to avoid spoiling the shopper experience

Retail media is the darling of digital advertising, but it’s all fun and games until advertisements ruin the shopper experience, which is still the core of retailers’ revenue. As retail media grows, retailers will increasingly have to contend with shopper concerns that their stores are turning into sponsored product hubs.

Similarly, advertisers will question why they need to pay for top product placement. Isn’t producing a great product enough, or is retail media now a tax for the opportunity to stand out on the digital shelf?

Which segues nicely into the next piece, from retail touch points dot com

Supply Chain Impacts, Understaffed Stores Create Customer Loyalty Challenges

The 2022 Retail TouchPoints Customer Loyalty and Personalization Benchmark Report identifies the biggest challenges retailers are currently facing in both customer acquisition and customer retention, as well as the tools and solutions retailers are using to sharpen their increasingly vital personalization initiatives.

Key takeaways from the 2022 Report, based on a survey of 115 retail executives, include:

• For the second year in a row, out-of-stocks due to supply chain challenges topped the list of retailers’ toughest customer loyalty challenges, at 44%;
• Sell what you have to sell. If that means just staying top of mind with your best customers, then do that. If it means getting super intentional, defining the 20t% of your customers who account for 80% of your revenue and double-down on taking care of them. Have a product that’s never been popular but it’s the only thing you’ve got to sell? TikTok creators are super affordable right now and you could be in front of hundreds of thousands of new potential customers instantly with a fresh, new product positioning on the thing you do have to sell. Whatever it is, be specific and intentional about how you communicate it. Leveraging your retail environment, or the ones important to your customers, to create memorable experiences can be a super sticky way to create long-term brand equity.
• The “Great Resignation” is having an impact on customer loyalty efforts: 41% of retailers cited insufficient staffing’s negative impact on in-store CX as a challenge;
• Another thing to consider is how can you use place-based media to enhance the customer experience?
  • The new challenge of business is how to do more with less so how can you use place-based media to offset staffing shortages? Well, by using it to increase basket size, educating customers about ways to engage your business or information that is important to them, all sorts of ways.
  • Special in-store-only promotions
  • Day of the week promotions
  • If promotions are the motivator in challenging economic times then how can you incentivize customers to come back to your retail location more often? How can you create buzz around special in-store promotions? 
  • People want to know things, which give them inspiration for new ideas. New ways to spend money at your store. Let’s say you’re my local farm stand. I shop there every week and buy 85% of our groceries there.  Meats, produce ice cream, all of it. Ask anyone that knows me and they’ll tell you how much I talk about this farm. Imagine they put a digital hand sanitizer station next to the baskets and ran promotions on it. Bundles, package deals, buy one of these gets one of those. Try this recipe, with a yummy picture and a QR code to Grandma’s secret meatloaf. It’s the first rule of show business and should be the first rule of business too - keep them coming back.
  • We talked yesterday about the importance of optimizing your customer experience so consider how you can use practical media to do that. Whether it’s to drive more in-store sales or to add a revenue stream by selling space to other businesses, it can scale like crazy and is one of the most practical ways to be as close to the point of purchase at all times.
• The use of traditional media (TV, radio, direct mail and outdoor advertising) as a customer acquisition tool rose from 29% in 2021 to 51% in 2022, second only to email outreach;
  • And if you didn’t know, I absolutely love direct mail and want to be on the record that outdoor plus direct mail is potentially the most under-valued marketing combo right now. With the level of zip code and household targeting data available, as well as the relatively wildly inexpensive cost of Out of Home and direct mail, it’s the 1-2 punch of a challenger brand looking to shake things up. Identify the top zip codes, run a badass, 8-week doing some really cool Out of Home, maybe a few high-impact bulletins don’t even have to be anything crazy, something with big reach in a few target zip codes. Drop your direct mail in weeks 4 and 6. Test with different types of mail. Postcards vs handwritten letters, all sorts of combinations but I’m telling you, if I had to bet on a combination as a consumer goods brand or service, it would be that. I heard a study the other day that polled a neighborhood about who the #1 realtor in the area was. On the initial pass of the neighborhood, there was no real clear favorite. They then sent direct mail every month for like 6 months proclaiming this fictitious character as the #1 realtor in the market. When they went back and asked again, the overwhelming response was the fictitious realtor on the postcards. So imagine that kind of impact coupled with a few well-placed ads in the real world.

That’s it for today, I hope you have a very happy fourth of july, be safe and remember that share of voice equals share of mind and share of mind equals share of market, so if you’re going to say something - make it count.

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