Shopper Culture

Kroger's Shop24 Vending Experiment

Recently in Columbus, OH the Kroger company installed a giant hybrid convenience store / vending machine next to its gas pumps.

Local TV station NBC-4 reported on it, saying:

When operational, the machines will provide everything from drinks to pain relievers. In all, more than 150 products will be available at the so-called automated convenience stores.

The machines will accept credit cards, coins and cash.

"Product falls into a soft basket. Basket goes into a delivery bin, drops it in and it comes out the front," said Tom Riske, an installer.

The concept is from a company called Shop24 which is based in Belgium and has installed similar machines throughout Europe. 

For a while now there has been tension between the grocery and c-store channels, with each creeping toward the other.  In this move Kroger is dipping its toe in more automation territory.  First, along with other grocery chains, they have given shoppers the self-checkout option.  Now they are looking at a store-without-a-store.  It will be interesting to see how this catches on.  I couldn't find any pictures of the one in Columbus but here's a picture from a similar Shop24 unit attached to a Shell station in Portugal.
One of the interesting things about this concept is how people use it.  It appears to follow a purchase pattern similar to that of a standard convenience store.  On their website Shop24 outlines the highest selling Europesn items and typical dayparts for each, along with shopper needs.  It shows the breadth of occastions for this type of retail channel.  It all raises a small but significant question:  What is this channel called?  Un-manned C-Store or SuperVending?  I imagine it will live under the Vending banner.  And although it can't compare to the vending jungle that is at play in Japan, it's a pretty interesting development for us stateside.

The basket tells all

An oldie but goodie from The Onion: Shopper Insecurities Laid Bare in Wal-Mart Shopping Cart.  Thanks to Todd for forwarding.

Bottled Water Awash in a Sea of Controversy

There has been a lot of media attention lately about bottled water with countless articles written about the issue in recent months.

It seems as though every water-type brand is coming out with a quick save, and now it's water filtration's turn.

Brita's FilterForGood.com is taking a stand against the bottle by asking consumers to pledge against using disposable water bottles. Instead, Brita is making a case for using their filtered water with a reusable water bottle.

 

Brita has partnered up with Nalgene for this project, who has basically just made a green Nalgene bottle and slapped Brita's messaging on it.

Will a promotion like this really have any impact? Using a water bottle is not a new idea and yet people are out there buying bottled water. To me this begs the question - Why do people really drink bottled water?

If it's really about health, Brita's solution seems to be a good solve. For the most part, home water filtration effectively gets rid of the bad stuff. In fact, filtering at home could be even healthier than some bottled waters. Not to mention the cheap plastic that leaches into your water.

But- what if it's purely convenience? Bottled water is so easy. Unscrew it, drink it, trash it. Water bottles are slightly less convenient. You don't want to lose them. You have to carry them around with you after they're empty. They have to be filled, cleaned, stored. When it comes down to it, are consumers ready to give up the convenience of bottled water?

Asking people to switch their behavior is a huge task. And who should be providing the solution? Water filtration brands like Brita? Local governments? Water bottle manufacturers?

As the media presents the information, we're left to make the final purchase decisions. And let's just say sales in bottled water are not suffering. It will be interesting to watch the issues and see how it plays out in-store.

A few (of many) interesting links to ponder:

USA Today: Bottled water awash in a sea of controversy

Fast Company: Message in a Bottle

MSN: A video from the Today Show

CNN: Aquafina labels to spell out source - tap water

Terrapass: Bottled Water - good for who exactly?

World Water Week: What's in your tap?

Bottled Water Costs the Planet Barrels of Oil

Bulletproof Baby

The new Clive Owen action movie Shoot 'Em Up takes product placement into imaginary territory with this eCommerce site, bulletproofbaby.net. 

I wonder if they ever considered pop-up retail for opening night hype.

Ebay: Shop Victoriously

Ebay has come out with a couple new TV spots that put the thrill of shopping front and center.  These are all about the outcome, the prize at the conclusion of an auction.  While another spot highlights the thrill of the hunt in all its competitiveness and passion, ultimately these folks plainly feel like, well, losers if they don't end of with the prized item.

It closely parallels something we looked into in our Shopper Study, namely the path of a shopper in a Master relationship with the retailer.

More here.

Tesco - arriving in a US neighborhood near you soon

From Craig Elston:

Tesco.  The paragon of British retailing has been getting much press in the US as they prepare to launch their Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores in the American West. 

That they generate so much coverage is of no surprise.  Tesco has talked about entering the largest grocery market on the planet for some time.  And I am in no doubt that they will be a success.  Having been a customer of Tesco for as long as I can remember in the UK, their continual development of store formats and own label products will be welcome again in our house (when they get to Colorado).

The last five years or so of grocery shopping by our house in the UK was undertaken online. The fact that when you register on Tesco.com your eons worth of Clubcard data (i.e. things you have bought in the past) automatically make up your shopping list, meant there really was little need to actually go into a store for our family shop other than for something to do on a wet Saturday afternoon. 

So it was a shock (and surprise) to come to the US, have to go shopping for groceries and find ourselves faced with such choice.  Far too much choice in fact - it is completely overwhelming.  There are these huge sheds of food products, often quite devoid of any people, in which you have to choose from so many options in every category. 

And here-in lies what will probably be the key to success for Tesco; they are superb at editing.  They have made it clear that each store will have a limited, edited set of SKUs.  And no doubt each store will vary based on local demographic so that the SKU set is relevant. 

Back in the UK, when I used to visit the Tesco Metro near my office in Soho at lunch time, its product range was very different to the product SKUs available in the Tesco Express by the tube station close to my home.  But both were undeniably Tesco - high quality good value products.  They just understand the neighborhood and the differences in the mindset of the shopper there. They then meet their needs through a highly edited set of products. Interestingly, it never felt like you weren't getting a choice. 

There is nothing to suggest that the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market concept won't be the same. Nor that local residents won't be flocking there in their droves.

More to come.

Managing the Myriad Forces Impacting Retail

The more we read and hear about the retail space, the less clear it sometimes is about where things are headed. PRISM hopes to simplify the media aspects of it, while retailers are becoming more interested in custom customer specific programs as well as now customer/shopper specific efforts.

There was an interesting article in the Hub about shopper marketing which raised questions for us about the myriad forces at work in retail marketing. The article written by Chris Hoyt and Gail Peterson of Hoyt and Associates basically outlines the shift by retailers to better shopper segmentation and what it means to anyone selling goods at retail. Check it out here.

The net net is that retailers are aiming to better serve their shoppers by customizing stores (product selection, layout, etc...). The hope of the more "shopper relevant" store is, as always increased sales, but also increased loyalty. "This store understands me" seems to be the general response that retailers are looking for.

This is smart and makes complete sense, but will change what agencies are going to be tasked with in the future. The challenge will no longer be to create customer specific programming across a client's top 5 or 10 retailers (for example) but is going to grow geometrically as each customer specific program will have 4 - 8 "shopper segment" twists. This, however, is a challenge worth stepping up to as it this will inevitably lead to more targeted programming which means more effective and successful work.

 

So as planning looks to become more targeted and customized, in working with the PRISM consortium, we see the science side of in-store looking to generalize and simplify. This then raises the question, as stores differentiate further, what does this mean for attempts to create uniform measurement and planning?

One could argue the measurement factor can remain less affected as "eyeballs are eyeballs" in the world of media measurement. An impression in prime time TV is added on top of an impression in Time Magazine and then added again to a Yahoo impression is terms of overall plan delivery. Yes, the levels of engagement are different, but that's a separate consideration as a part of the planning process. As far as Nielsen is concerned, they are measuring "opportunity to see"; again eyeballs are eyeballs. (It’s the same song for TV, Print and everything else measured.)

So, this leads us to the part which is affected by all these shifts in retailer/shopper specific planning. While thanks to PRISM we will know how many people will see our in-store pieces, how to interrupt and engage will become a more important art. Encouragement on the part of retailers for more specific programs around shopper segments in particular store formats provide an opportunity to create more relevant creative.

This opportunity raises some very interesting questions from a creative insight standpoint. How do we drive relevance across different store- and shopper-types? What are the vehicles that allow the flexibility to creative these types of campaigns? What kind of creative measurement do we establish to test what works where and for whom?  How can PRISM’s science help in development and measurement of the more artistic side of planning?