A great example of content as marketing. This news and sundries stall in the San Francisco Ferry Building marketplace doesn’t have a lot to offer: magazines, maps and some kitchy souveneirs. What they do have is a great location: the main intersection in a major food, tourist and transit destination. And they know how to work with what they’ve got.
Look at where they sank their visual merchandising dollars. Not on fixtures, displays or signage but on an oversize clock and three large flat screen displays. The displays show transit schedules. Never mind that this is a small retailer in no way connected with any Bay Area transit agency. They have access, as we all do, to published transit schedules. And they’re repurposing that information as marketing content.
Thousands of people walk by their stall. Many, especially the tourists who no doubt make up the core of their customer base, will pause, interpreting the clock and schedule data as signifiers of transit information. Many will stop. Some will ask questions. A few will make use of the information on the monitors. But everyone who pauses, momentarily tricked into thinking the stall a source of travel information, will end up casting an eye across the display. And some of those passers by, now converted to traffic, will be converted to sales. All because the retailer understood what kind of content was relavant to its target customers and how to deliver it.
Bicycling magazine does a pretty good job of catching my attention. Daily (or nearly daily) email newsletters tease content on the website and in newsstand editions. For the most part, they are well targeted and well presented, leaning heavily on reviews and training tips to generate click-throughs to their site—exactly what one would hope for from a magazine publisher. (Brand marketers take note: real content generates real interest. Promotional messages, P.R. drivel and the umpteenth athlete profile generate yawns.)
But what really caught my attention this week was the header that ran above a review of 2010 bikes. In the banner above the reviews, a navigational area lists the bike categories under which the various reviews are classified. There are twenty-six of them. Twenty-six categories of bicycle, eleven flavors of mountain bikes alone. Read the rest of this entry »
If you didn’t catch the brouhaha over bra colors this weekend, you can read about it on this Wall Street Journal blog. In the lightning-fast, news-and-analysis lifecycle, the status-posting campaign had hardly begun before it began to get deconstructed, analyzed, blogged and parodied.
The “fors” claimed that it helps raise awareness of breast cancer. The “againsts” call it worthless titillation. Whatever it was, it took off, probably exposing millions to the idea and building membership for anti-breast-cancer Facebook pages. To a marketer, those numbers sound like proof of a successful campaign. Great reach! Great frequency! Great work! Message delivered. Uh, what message? Read the rest of this entry »
Fresh in my inbox this AM is a marketing email from Nau—or is it from Horny Toad. The lines are beginning to blur. I’ve been waiting to see signs of brand bleed as Horny Toad marketers begin to influence the Nau messaging. The new promotional email is the first hint that this is beginning to happen. Read the rest of this entry »
During political campaigns, media handicappers talk about “positive” and “negative” opinion numbers. Successful candidates need the right mix of both. High positives and high negatives indicate great name recognition—voters know who you are, they’re just very divided in their opinion of you, often an indication that a candidate will do well with a core constituency but poorly with moderate voters.
Brands are subject to the same opinion polarization and big brands are often the most polarizing of all. So how do you deal with the negatives if you’re a Walmart or a Starbucks looking to appeal to the big fat middle? Starbucks is about to try an innovative approach: wearing a disguise. Read the rest of this entry »
A recent article on the Sporting Goods Business website covered the changing role of the independent rep in the sporting goods and apparel industry. The magazine’s “SGB Question” addresses the same topic this week. From the article and the responses to the question from reps, retailers and suppliers, it’s clear that the job of the rep is changing fast and that one of the catalysts for this change is technology.
At first blush, that would lead you to believe that most reps are early adopters, taking advantage of the newest tools for communication, marketing and business management. While it’s always hard to gauge the tech savvy of large and disparate groups, I just stumbled across something that may shed a little light on how technically enabled reps really are. Read the rest of this entry »
Conventional wisdom and lots of news pieces like this one hold that second hand store sales pick up in a recession. One used-gear retailer’s numbers, though, seem to push the other way.
Sports One Source reported last week that Play it Again Sports, the 364-door used sporting goods retailer saw 2008 sales slide 6%. It’s hard to tell whether this is a reflection on Play it Again Sports or on consumer shopping habits. Research data on used sporting goods sales is hard to come by.
It may be that Play It Again’s ship is yet to come in. After all, retail sporting goods sales didn’t turn lousy until late last year. The U.S. Census Bureau Monthly Retail Trade Survey showed sporting goods retail sales up every month in 2008 until sales slid sharply in October. And, despite a lousy November, sales ticked back up over 2007 levels in December.
The National Retail Federation has data out showing a dip in sporting goods sales in January of this year and then a modest rise in February. It may be, that despite reduced consumer spending overall, sporting goods consumers have yet to reign in spending enough to really benefit the used-gear dealers.
AdAge has a piece this morning on the growing DIY trend, something one of article’s sources calls a “cross-category … trend that could linger well into the next decade.” As evidence, AdAge cites comp store sales from AutoZone, sales of home hair coloring kits and enrollment in cooking courses.
Like most things mainstream, the DIY trend is a combination of idea-seeding by a small core culture and an opportunity provided by larger economic conditions. Over the past 10 years, a small, hip core of DIY-promoters has launched successful websites (instructables.com, makezine.com), magazines (ReadyMade, Make), and even online marketplaces for DIY goods (esty.com, threadless.com). As consumers look to stretch their dollars in the crumbsville economy, there’s a convergence between necessity and lifestyle.
There’s an opportunity here for specialty retailers and outdoor brands and not just for repair and parts stores like Berkeley’s Narain’s or the stuck-in-the-70s DIY retailers like Quest Outfitters. Read the rest of this entry »
Consumer confidence is coming in like a lion this March. And few retail pundits think it will go out like a lamb. My inbox this morning was full of takes on the current mood at retail from publications as diverse as the NRF newsletter and Time Magazine. While none of these focus on specialty outdoor, they provide a good overview of the macro consumer trends that trickle down to specialty retailers. Here’s a round-up of what’s up. Read the rest of this entry »
EMS had a policy in the mid-90s that required everyone in the corporate office to work for a week in one of the company’s retail stores. It’s a pretty common practice among retailers and a good idea any way you slice it. What’s too bad is that the employees of the brands sold in those chains don’t have the opportunity to spend a few days face to face with the outdoor specialty consumer in its natural habitat.
In my first stint (the Columbus Circle EMS store), I learned from the rest of the staff that if puffy jackets weren’t merchandised away from the front door, they would disappear and that a significant percentage of the shell-buying public thought that Gore-Tex® keeps you warm.
Manufacturer employees who lack the access or the inclination to spend a few days on the retail floor can compensate for in-store experience by being chatty. As unnatural as it is for some of us, acting like your elderly uncle Larry and striking up a conversation with everyone from the bank teller to the guy with the do-rag scalping Giants tickets has its advantages. Read the rest of this entry »
