Shopper Culture

The Diaper Dilemma

As a woman just over a month away from having her first child I am continually awed by the strategies marketers use to target new moms; continually taking advantage of their emotional highs and lows, their raging hormones, and their fear that they won’t have everything they need to care for their new arrival – it is no wonder that this is a booming industry. I receive non-stop ads in the mail for the myriad of things that new parents (allegedly) need. How did our parents ever do it without all of this stuff?

Having just completed a trip to Wal*Mart and Babies R’ Us, I was overwhelmed by the back wall of diaper options. From Huggies, to Pampers, to generic brands. Although I did not see any eco-friendly options the choice is amazing. Where does one begin?  All of my “green” friends keep asking me if I am going to use cloth diapers, or find an eco-friendly route? As an overwhelmed pregnant women, the thought of cloth diapers is not very appealing at the moment. (Ironically none of my "green" friends have children). But in a time when sustainability and environmentally friendly are becoming everyday terms, what are my eco-friendly options and why am I not seeing them?

There is no doubt that we live in an era and a culture where convenience and time are extremely important. Cloth diapers might not be an option for me, but there have to be some choices out there for biodegradable, or green products that are still convenient and easily available to me. I started searching and found a couple options. My goal was to find things that were easily accessible and didn’t cause me a trip out of my way.  Seventh Generation was the most readily available and is a disposable option. They market chlorine free / toxic free diapers. Obviously I have not tried them yet, but if they are anything like Seventh Generation toilet paper or paper towels, then I won’t want them touching my newborns sensitive skin! The price is slightly higher, and there are still conflicting reports on whether they are actually that much better for the environment than regular diapers. The other interesting option available is G-Diapers. The idea around this is that you purchase cloth velcro pants and then insert flushable refills into the pants  - making the diaper.  The flushables are plastic free and have no toxins. They are marketed around the convenience of flushing them down a normal toilet. The cost is approximately 35 – 40% more than regular Pampers or Huggies, and I can only purchase them online. It is here that the Diaper Dilemma begins!

In the baby category, filled with toys, clothing, swings and all the “must haves” for a newborn, the environmentally friendly diaper options are limited and the marketing for these products appears to be sparse (or, maybe it is just getting lost in the clutter of everything else).  New moms are easily overwhelmed and are looking for convenience, cost savings and ease of use.  It appears to me that there is a huge opportunity here, one that will make the Diaper Dilemma a little easier to solve. 

Images courtesy of DailyClipArt.net
   
- Contributed by Tera Gill

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?