SPRING (March 17th, 200)
March brings warmer weather, Daylight Savings Time and the first shoots of spring in the yard here in Ohio. At retail, it also brings out March Madness (NCAA basketball), St Patrick’s Day and Easter/Passover promotions. For brand marketers and retailers alike, the calendar is less about months and more about the promotions they use to encourage consumption in various ways throughout the year.
This time of the year, the Easter Bunny rules at the mall. Home and garden shows also draw millions of Americans to stores. Green brew can be found in most watering holes in honor of St Patrick. And candy, candy, candy! Though consumption has declined somewhat, Easter remains one of the Big Four – along with Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day – of annual candy-buying (and consuming) occasions.
These seasonal celebrations come and go. Summer follows spring just as Labor Day sales follow Back to School sales in August. One constant in all of these promotions is the store. As the Wooster professor mentions in the Easter Bunny article linked above, malls have become a place where people come together to share a common experience. Since 94% of all retail purchases by Americans are still made in stores, making just the right impression is the difference between a product making it into the shopper’s basket – plastic grass optional – or not.
TIMES A-CHANGING (March 1st, 2010)
Bob Dylan famously wrote, "The Times They Are A-Changing" back in the 1960’s but no one then predicted how change would accelerate over the intervening decades. Change went into overdrive in 2009 as many industries faced cataclysmic challenges. The advertising industry is no different. According to BrandWeek, US advertising declined by 9% in 2009 from an only-dismal 2008.
Change came to Tusco in 2009 too as we rationalized some processes, upgraded capabilities and focused on core competencies. We disposed of older equipment and changed our work flow to reduce muda ( Japanese for "waste") in a Lean environment. Of course, change is nothing new for a successful producer of custom store fixtures and permanent POP displays: we rapidly evolve to meet the changing needs of our clients. Brand marketers bring new products to market and, with them, come new merchandising needs. New clothing line = new fixtures. New jewelry products = new displays. New retail environment = new in-store equipment. We’re in the change business.
The only people who like change are panhandlers and babies with wet diapers. But change is as essential to a business as clients and suppliers. At Tusco, we will always embrace change and the challenges it entails because our future arises from change.
MOST VALUABLE (February 5th, 2010)
Recent analysis of 2,000,000+ grocery shoppers by Concept Shopping shows that the top ten percent of a store's customers visit the store more than twice a week, spend over $39 per visit, and represent nearly 40 percent of the store's total sales. The study also found that these most valuable shoppers tend to remain very loyal to the store, with 95 percent continuing to shop there throughout the year.
Serving those most loyal shoppers pays dividends. Stores are striving to understand their shoppers better than ever so they can fashion the shopping experience to serve those most valuable customers. One recent learning has been the emotional response that women typically feel toward conventional, rectangular, steel endcaps. According to Dr Michelle Adams, Frito-Lay’s director of consumer strategy and insights, it’s equivalent to the response one feels toward a hot stove. “Hands off!” is not what anyone wants. Knowing this, marketers are turning to friendlier designs to round corners and lessen the negative emotional response of prospective buyers.
We help our clients generate positive emotional responses from their shoppers. In doing so, we shape our products and services to meet the needs of our most loyal clients. We apply engineering, psychology, design, manufacturing and distribution knowhow to help our clients connect with their shoppers. That’s how Tusco creates value.
TAKING A BATH (February 1st, 2010)
One of our clients – a bath enclosure manufacturer – recently sent us an unsolicited compliment that read, in part, "everything went as smoothly as possible and we were very pleased with the Tusco team performance. We appreciated the level of communication and commitment to details. Very, very happy." Such feedback is gratifying on several levels.
First, we satisfied our client. When we do this, chances are good that we’ll get the chance to do it again.
Second, it tells us that we’re doing something right. This doesn’t mean that we do it flawlessly for we must always seek opportunities to continuously improve what we do. But it tells us that the client feels good about the value we provided.
Third, it encourages us to find other potential clients who have similar challenges to creatively overcome. In this case, our client retrofitted about 250 stores, spending a fraction – perhaps 25% – of what it would have cost to completely replace their fixtures for their newest product offerings. Especially in tough times, helping our clients spend their dollars wisely makes us heroes.
This leaves us scratching our heads and scouring our prospect lists as we ask, "Who else wants to save a lot of money by spending a little with us?"
SHOPPER MARKETING (January 15th 2010)
You cannot spit in marketing circles anywhere in the world these days without someone using the term. Wikipedia defines shopper marketing as “brand marketing in the retail environment” and includes display, packaging, category management, coupons, and marketing research.
I eat Campbell’s soup for lunch several times a week. On my most recent shopping trip to Buehler’s, I found it on sale and stocked up. The gravity-fed display worked well in presenting, rotating and promoting the products. As I went through the checkout line, the cashier handed me coupons for my next Campbell’s soup purchases, too. The display, packaging, price promotion, coupons – that’s all shopper marketing.
At Tusco, we spend a great deal of time thinking about how shoppers shop, how buyers buy and how retailers merchandise. We quiz our clients to learn about their precise goals for the display, what products go on it, where it will be used, how it will get to the store, who is likely to install it, and who will maintain/stock it.
A great-looking display is worthless – if it never gets successfully installed because a part was damaged or the clerk couldn’t figure out how to do it. That’s why we welcome calls from the field but it’s also why we insure that every unit leaves our facility with every part necessary, sufficient packaging to protect it, clear assembly instructions (as needed) and our toll-free number in case a problem arises.
Shopper marketing will continue to be a very big deal because 70% of all retail purchase decisions are made in the store and, according to Nielsen, 68% of those decisions are unplanned. If you don’t get it right there, nothing else you do will matter.
Tusco helps our clients get it right in-store.
THE AUGHTS (January 1th, 2010)
Have you seen, heard or thought about what to call 2010? Is it "twenty-ten" or "2000 and ten" or something else? The discussion reminds me that we never established a cultural norm for what to call the decade now ending.
We had the „50‟s, „60‟s, „70‟s, „80‟s, „90‟s and then…nothing. The "Zeroes?" No. The "Aughts?" I think not. Regardless of what they were, we ought to learn from them.
As a nation, we ought to have saved more and lived less on credit. (Need to remind Congress on that last point.) We ought to have purchased lower-priced homes and cars, less fast food and grown more of our own food, and fretted less. We ought to have tightened airport security and taken more seriously the threat of militant Islam. We ought to have bought Google and Apple stock and sold AIG and Citi. We ought to have taken better care of ourselves and our neighbors.
What‟s past is past. How ought we live and work and act in 2010 and the Teens to follow?
I believe that we‟ll see a solid business rebound but a more conservative, once-bitten-twice-shy approach to many things in our lives. I believe that inflation will become a problem within a year, that we‟ll see gas over $4 a gallon by 2011 and Democrats will retain smaller majorities in both houses.
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