Beginning in the mid-90s, retail analysts began talking about a shift in focus in in-store merchandising from simple product presentation to a more holistic store experience. New store concepts from Nike, Cabela’s and REI began to position retail stores as entertainment destinations where shoppers could interact with multimedia content centered around brand assets like new products, athletes and how-to information.
More than a decade later, many retailers have incorporated entertainment concepts into their stores. As you would expect, the strategy is also applicable online. Most brands with online direct sales platforms have merged the brand and product information approach of their pre-ecommerce websites with the nuts and bolts of presenting products and processing transactions online.
This non-product-content takes many forms, from travelogue look books at J. Crew to expedition videos at The North Face. Some brands, like Patagonia have created separate channels for their brand-related entertainment. In most cases, the content is keyed to specific products or serves a more general brand-building function.
Few retailers, however, take the pure entertainment approach, creating marketing content, like Super Bowl commercials, primarily to entertain. That’s why Backcountry.com’s Steep and Cheap email newsletter caught my eye.
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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 »
Patagonia is a brand that’s not afraid to stick with what’s working. Its very first product, the Stand Up Short is still in the line after 37 years of service. The brand’s marketing collateral too, uses elements that have been in the creative mix for 20-odd years. The consumer catalog is no exception.
In terms of product styling, page layout, and the way product and non-product content is woven together, the books employ many of the same tropes they used in the early 80s. (Some would say the design look and feel is stuck there too but that’s a topic for another post.)
What struck me about the Heart of Winter 2010 catalog that came in the mail today was the sheer length of the editorial content. In comparison to most consumer catalogs, that statement is a double whammy. Few apparel catalogs have any editorial content at all. Except for a paragraph or two of brand fluff to position the brand or romance a collection, few books offer anything but vaguely emotive lifestyle photography and product images with corresponding product descriptions. Read the rest of this entry »
Just got another marketing email from Nau and they seem to have swung back to the old brand identity. Path correction or the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?
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 »
Every week, my inbox fills up with marketing emails from outdoor retailers and the brands they carry. They are, for the most part, straightforward promotional messages, focusing on a specific promotion or promotional items. Nau’s emails tend to be different—not surprising for a brand trying to stake out new ground. They are text-heavy, low on the promotion and heavy on the brand story and issues complementary to their brand message of sustainable manufacturing and environmental activism. I seldom read them.
But this week’s Nau email was different. Read the rest of this entry »
Every client we’ve ever done workbooks for (and we’ve done a lot of workbooks) has replied something like this when asked how many books they’d like to print:
“We’ll, I’m not sure. We printed x-thousand last year and we had a lot of boxes sitting around the warehouse. But the year before that we ran out. Uh, I’m not sure, let me ask Sales.”
As you can imagine, Sales will want to err on the side of surplus for safety and the topic is put on hold until the next season. What’s funny is that the number never seems to bear any relation to the number of reps, the number of accounts or the number of doors.
Given the state of everyone’s marketing budget, I imagine we’ll start to see some pushback from our friends in marketing departments.
“How many workbooks do you really need?” could be the mantra of S10.
Backpacker Magazine posted this to Twitter yesterday afternoon:
Newbie campers are coming—get ready for a crowded summer: http://tinyurl.com/d2o6gp
The link is to a blog post that in turn references this CNN piece on a potential boom in car camping this summer. Never mind the issue of newbies crowding out state-park regulars. A growth in car camping participation is welcome news for outdoor specialty retailers and suppliers. And Walmart. Uh, especially Walmart.
Chances are that the bulk of the newbies will be inclined to buy the sort of down-market camping goods available in the big box sporting goods and general merchandise stores. But there’s also a good chance the camping spike will manifest among more affluent consumers. It may even surface some ex-campers looking to get their game back. Both of these latter groups are likely to frequent a specialty retailer. The bottom line is that anybody who sells camping gear is likely to encounter more newbie campers than they would in a “normal” spring. So how do you make the most of this new traffic. Tips for retailers follow. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s an interesting press release out this week from Solstice:
PORTLAND, OR – Solstice Outdoor, Inc. will preview their hybrid brand strategy to selected major retail partners at the Outdoor Retailer Show.
Their design and development team in the USA working in tandem with their Asia manufacturers will fill an unmet need between store private label and established brands. The resulting opportunity for retailers is increased profits on full-featured technical garments using the 25-year-old Solstice brand.
Hard to tell exactly what this is, but it looks like they’re offering private label outerwear to retailers who don’t have the resources to roll their own.
If this is indeed the case, Solstice is sending a sorry message to its dealers:
Since our brand has no equity, you might as well sell our stuff without our logo on it.
It’s possible that this is old news. I’ll confess that I haven’t read the Title Nine catalog in a while. There’s not much new to report except that they are showing some product using the dreaded Territory Ahead styling gimmick: clothing merchandised on hangers in unnatural places.
And, as best I can tell, they may have a new semi-logo. A number of Title Nine branded items are emblazoned with the Sherpani-esqe flower shown above.
While a careful parsing of the shapes will reveal a Title Nine “9,” what I see first is a Nike swoosh.
