Intuitive retail is rooted in human behavior. For it to be effective, it must fundamentally meet the expectations a person has created through life experience to deliver relevance, clarity and occasionally disruption in a split second. Manufacturers have spent millions on understanding how consumers use particular products and retailers have spent millions on how people shop their stores. However, associations developed in everyday life drive intuitive responses and expectations. Intuitive retail environments consider a person’s expectations based on their whole journey to purchase, not just what they experience in the store.
The Journey
It is paramount to understand a shopper’s life context, how they relate to a particular category and the ways they connect with that category and specific brands in order to deliver intuitive shopper marketing along the path to purchase. Out-of-store marketing should fit naturally into the way shoppers search, research and connect—delivering emotional resonance, simplifying the path and offering relevant information and content that is ultimately paid off in the store.
The Retail Experience
An intuitive retail environment meets the expectations a person has created in their everyday life, not just what they experience in the store. The environment builds on positive associations when a category or brand has them, and borrows from more high-involvement or high-emotion categories when it doesn’t. Stopping power is necessary to get noticed in-store, but shoppers often dismiss messaging and visual stimuli that are not relevant to them. Success in intuitive environments means delivering both recognizable relevance and unexpected difference to create disruption. Balancing these opposing forces requires making strategic and orchestrated choices. Clarity in in-store communications means going beyond simple. Ultimately, intuitive retail effectively distills a brand and brand message into a split-second communication so shoppers can instantly connect the dots of the messaging hierarchy.
Breaking Through the In-Store Clutter
Engaging shoppers through retail orchestration that communicates different elements of the brand proposition (on point-of-sale and displays) allows your brand to stand out in-store—from ten feet away to standing right in front of messaging.
Stop & Pull (Within Ten Feet). Capture the shopper’s attention, create split-second interest and initiate movement towards the shelf.
Enroll (Within Three Feet). Communicate a reason for shoppers to care and visualize the benefit.
Interact & Close (At Display). Encourage shopper/product interaction and aid in selection and purchase.
