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.

Fashion houses have been especially quick to jump on board the Instagram bandwagon, such as the Art of the Trench project from Burberry. The brand encouraged fans to don their trench coats and submit photos via Instagram, which were featured at artofthetrench.com alongside professional “trench coat portraits” by The Sartorialist’s Scott Schuman. Those promiscuous folks at Sartorialist also teamed up with Tiffany & Co. to encourage fashionable couples in New York and Paris to document their True Love In Pictures via Instagram, as shown in the image to the right. But to really pull the whole thing together, the pair offered a special Instagram photo filter that users could apply to their lovely images.

Instagram’s aforementioned Seamlessness also makes it an ideal platform for promotions and sweepstakes, as entering can involve little more than a photo and a quick tag. Levi’s is using the service to find new faces for their 2012 brand campaign by asking folks to tag images of themselves with #iamlevis. The early results seem to be attracting quite the spectrum of participants, ranging from American Apparel-y hipsters to shirtless muscle-bound jocks. Oh, and this guy. We hope he wins.

GE is similarly tapping Instagrammers to find a “social media photographer,” a position that would require the winner to take behind-the-scenes photos at GE’s jet engine facility for sharing on sites like Instagram and Tumblr. Entrants are tasked with bringing one of GE’s four foci to life (Moving, Curing, Powering and Building) and tagging their images with #GEInspiredMe. (You can see some of the selections below). Regardless of who wins the contest, we find it particularly interesting that a brand as complicated and amorphous as GE could use this promotion to clearly and simply communicate their core areas of expertise. Moreover, like the Levi’s campaign mentioned earlier, the brand is leveraging the Collective Curation of their fans to compile a large collection of compelling images of their products and processes. These assets can subsequently be used in all kinds of smart ways in the future, even if the respective marketers don’t know exactly what that’ll be just yet. But along the way, these Instagramming brands have already developed (pun intended) a deeper engagement with their most expressive consumers.

The photo-sharing app Instagram is perhaps the most intriguing example of a platform built for Collective Curation. (Actually, it’s also a damn fine tool for establishing your brand as a Guru, but we’ll get to that later.) The app is popular among users because of its simple photo filters and incredibly easy sharing functions, but also because it implements a Twitter-like tagging system that lets the images do the talking in these conversations. For instance, The Washington Post has asked readers to document the local impacts of the recession via Instagram by tagging their photos with the #econdebate tag (a couple are shown above). The collected images spark a multifaceted and compelling debate far more effectively than a vitriolic comment section ever would. (We’ve used a similar strategy on Upshot’s own homepage to showcase what’s inspiring us – look for the filmstrip at the bottom of the window.)

But the app isn’t just simple for users. An ideal example of Seamless Tech, Instagram’s flexible platform makes it easy for marketers to compile (and curate) photo galleries into their websites, Facebook pages, or other digital properties. For instance, the band The Vaccines managed to crowdsource a music video by asking attendees at their shows to tag their Instagram pictures with #vaccinesvideo. The band selected their favorite shots and incorporated them into the video shown below. And if an indie rock outfit can pull this off, just imagine what big-time brands like GE, Starbucks, and Levi’s could do. We’ll show you in part two of this post, coming tomorrow.

1. Sympathize with shoppers
Reaching shoppers today requires an understanding of their world, life and shopping experience. Start by seeing the retail environment through their eyes—they have a reason for being at a specific retailer, a budget and a time limit; they know what they want and need to have; and they typically give themselves 20 minutes to get it, pay for it and pack it in the car.
Great shopper marketing creative requires a keen understanding of shopper needs, the retail environment, marketing vehicles and messaging.

2. Understand purchase barriers
Identifying barriers is a critical step in shopper marketing. Creative development should address both consideration and conversion barriers in a specific channel, category and on a specific brand. Messaging outside of the store often times must address a poor shopping experience or selection perceptions at a retailer to even be considered for a shopping trip. Enabling de-selection is a common solution to aid conversion of brands in cluttered categories and education helps when a product has usage uncertainty or poor value perception.
Great shopper marketing creative acknowledges and overcomes consideration and conversion barriers.

3. Match the message to the vehicle based on shopper expectations
Communications priorities should be based on the most relevant consumer communication for a particular marketing vehicle. But remember that shoppers have pre-determined expectations, so choose messages accordingly and let the vehicle dictate the lead. For example, shoppers expect circulars to feature items on sale this week, so lead messaging should focus on price to drive them to a specific retailer. They look at displays (endcaps or floor stands) for what’s new, what’s on sale and reminders to buy, so focus lead messaging on the product benefits to drive incremental (planned or unplanned) purchases.
Great shopper marketing creative leverages expectations to increase acceptance.

4. Create an intuitive retail experience
Stopping power is necessary to get noticed in-store, but shoppers often dismiss messaging and visual stimuli that are not relevant to them. Creating an intuitive environment 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 to compelling. When done correctly, intuitive retail instantly connects the dots of the messaging hierarchy in a split second.
Great shopper marketing creative should act as retail shorthand.

5. Collaborate with retailers
The retailer owns the environment and has final approval, so establish expectations for the balance between a brand’s equity and the retailer’s from the get go. Include the retailer in your planning and shopper research (e.g., focus groups, shopalongs, competitive store audits, etc.). Create multifunctional teams (from the beginning) to ensure seamless execution that is transparent to the shopper. When appropriate, present a couple of creative options (for larger scale events vs. smaller programs).
Great shopper marketing creative aligns mutual business goals through execution.

6. Inspire Shoppers to Act
Finally, shopper marketing needs to inspire shoppers to act. The creative product should fan the flames of inspiration. It’s too simplistic to think that people will only find something valuable if it is presented in a rational and tangible way. Intangibles are part of life and should be embraced. People don’t walk through life calculating its benefits. They experience life. To deliver real value to people, shopper marketing needs to connect with them emotionally. And give them a reason to act—using value PLUS emotion, education, entertainment and engagement.
Great shopper marketing creative engages shoppers emotionally.

Welcome to Upshot’s 2012 Trends Report! We’re so glad you could make it.

After you’ve clicked the link above and given your brain a totally unfair advantage, please be excessively generous about passing around this trend report. Click right here and we’ll automatically tweet on your behalf, or just pass the following link around to friends, family, followers, foes, and former flings: j.mp/upshot2012.

Here’s a quick peek at our 10 course menu for 2012:

• Guruism (SourceRank 83): Will your brand be the go-to guide on a given topic?
• Collective Curation (SourceRank 91): Credible brands can become hubs for Collective Curation, bringing a focused theme to life through the voices of others.
• Anarchy in the Aisle (SourceRank 82): The Path to Purchase is dead. Long live the Path to Purchase.
• Mindfulness over Matter (SourceRank 65): Situated between a tumultuous past and an uncertain future, consumers are increasingly finding solace in the present moment.
• Seamless Tech (SourceRank 60): Technology-enhanced marketing will increasingly provide seamless, simple experiences.
• Gender Bender (SourceRank 68): Between better-educated women, drastic household changes, and shifting collar colors in the workplace, traditional gender roles are fast becoming relics.
• Cause with Effect (SourceRank 82): With the lingering threat of a “cause bubble,” cause marketing must increasingly focus on making relevant, visible, and inspiring impacts.
• World of Wellness (SourceRank 80): Brands must reevaluate their roles in the diverse wellness ecosystem, ensuring that they’re contributing to a better quality of life for consumers.
• Recession Rejection (SourceRank 86): Shoppers are on a quest for control. And when they set their sights on smaller, more personal spheres, they’re optimistic about their prospects.
• Hack My Brand (SourceRank 53): Marketers are embracing benevolent hacking for innovative, entertaining, and practical solutions.

Keep checking back in with The Awesome Blog to see how these trends grow and evolve throughout 2012. For now, enjoy!

According to their website, Benetton’s Unhate Foundation “Seeks to contribute to the creation of a new culture of tolerance, to combat hatred, building on Benetton’s underpinning values”.  The foundation’s website boasts future plans of a Global Unhate Day, and a giant “Unhate Dove” fabricated entirely out of recycled war bullets.

While taking on all of the hatred in the world could certainly do us all a little good and the campaign is sparking conversation around the globe, Benetton’s commitment to making a legitimate impact is a steep goal. Sure, they’re doing an excellent job of creating (both positive and negative) buzz about their brand and potentially even enticing consumers to purchase their exceedingly pricey clothing, but it is safe to say that a bunch of unorthodox ads will likely fall short of creating world peace. Consumers are looking for causes where their contributions may have a real effect on a final outcome. Knowing the amount of press and simple word of mouth viral activity the ads have created in a matter of weeks, it will be interesting to see how Benetton’s campaign to change the world plays out over the next several months.

In January, 2011, Starbucks launched its Mobile Card payment program available on most smartphones. SMART. No doubt you’re already on your phone at 8:30 in the morning while ordering a Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte, so it’s easy to flash your “Touch to Pay” barcode and be on your way. The app replaces your reloadable Starbucks card (while keeping your rewards intact), and you can preload it from your bank account within the same screen.

With the release of Google Wallet, users can now pay with a simple tap at Mastercard paypass terminals. For now, this is advancement only for those with Google phones…and a Citi Mastercard. But, with this technological groundbreaking device, users are also able to receive offers and store loyalty points via the app.  We’re attached to our phones, so what better way to reach us directly when we’re making a transaction.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shopkick offers rewards for simply stepping inside a store and scoping out merchandise. It displays deals and discounts close in proximity to your location. The more you peruse, the more points are earned for redemptions ranging from clothes to electronics.

While cashless-ness becomes the norm, we can only assume that consumers will rely less on the benjamins, but let’s not forget about Future Fear. A lot of emphasis is placed on convenience and practicality when we look at technological enhancements. It’s our job to find the perfect balance between convenience and trust.

What we can gather from our own shopping habits is that we rely heavily on the convenience factor, no doubt about it. We’ve become increasingly comfortable with everything being accessible through our phones. We can purchase a Groupon, find our way to Alaska and back, and even count the steps we take around the office with our smartphones.

“What? I can’t just show you the e-mail, I have to print it out?!”

As marketers, we should reach our consumers as soon as they walk into the store, making it harder not to refuse a great deal on the very same phone used to swipe and pay. It has been reported that 20% of smartphone users have compared prices while shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Additionally, 15% of smartphone users have redeemed a mobile coupon (ladies more so than gentlemen). Let’s take advantage of these time-saving, less paper-wasting social platforms that deliver instantaneous results without hassle. Smartphones aren’t going anywhere, so creating more convenient methods of in-store redemption and offers will put us ahead of the game—and the checkout line.

What will it take for YOU to go CASH-LESS?

With many brands taking a back seat to creative product launching, Nike went full-force with innovation to—quite literally—launch the Jordan Melo M8, the latest in the collection designed exclusively with New York Knicks forward Camelo Anthony. Using special effects and an 85-foot 3D projector, 2,500 spectators were treated to a lights and water showcase over Pier 54 at Hudson River Park with a three story tall Carmelo Anthony sporting his new shoes and dunking on the water. For the rest of us not at the event, Nike also provided a live feed through a microsite dedicated specifically to the Melo shoe.

Nike has long been a brand patronage pro teaming up with athletes to develop products with an automatic fan base for decades. With more than half a dozen shoe designs already in the Jordan Melo line, the collaboration with Anthony has been an undeniable way for both to make a splash.

It’s Potty Posting time! Need a refresher on the purpose of the Po

These monthly articles take a humorous, yet informative, approach to emerging cultural trends, new technologies, and innovative marketing tactics. And yes, they’re posted in the Upshot bathrooms, where we know we’ve got a captive audience. Click the image to the right for a PDF of the post and share with your network to build your Klout, duh.

You Know You Make Me Wanna Klout

To over 3500 brands, the world of online social networking is beginning to look a lot like a high school. Cliques are forming, popularity is becoming a tool, Lindsay Lohan is giving high-calorie nutrition bars to the Plastic Queen to sabotage her weight and status…

OK, maybe not that last part. But, when it comes to social media, brands are paying attention to the widening gap between those who matter online and those who don’t. By targeting the people who are most likely to influence others – the ones who inspire the most buzz with their tweets and posts – brands can maximize their reach while putting in minimal cost and effort. In essence, this online popularity contest could be the key to doing word-of-mouth marketing right, and Klout, a social metrics service, was made to do just that.

The aforementioned Plastic Queen, Regina George, owns a silver Lexus and allegedly does car commercials in Japan. She’s also teen royalty. So not only is she pretty popular, she’s also pretty influential. Now, if only there were quantifiable data to tell Mercedes how influential Regina George really is, especially on the topic of cars, so they can give her a free SL550 Roadster in the hopes that she ditches that Lexus and tweets about her new Mercedes.

“My Klout Score is so fetch, I haven’t paid for anything in months!”

Bingo. Klout is a website run by a team of digital engineers, marketers and analysts who have made it possible to quantify a person’s online influence, or ability to drive action on the internet. Taking data from a person’s social networking accounts, Klout measures True Reach (how many people someone influences), Amplification (how much that person influences them), and Network Impact (the influence of the people being influenced), with a single number between 1 and 100 as the result.

No longer is the internet democratic. No longer does everyone’s voice hold equal weight online. And far from being ashamed about being the harbinger of online social inequality, Klout is actually partnering up with thousands of brands to take advantage of it!

Brands have started using Klout to give away free stuff, “Klout Perks,” to the most popular influencers (or social networking users) in their fields and provide them with a good experience or a good product so they can tweet about it to their friends. For example, HP offered high-scoring film influencers an HP laptop pre-loaded with films from Cinequest film festival, and Audi invited top design, technology and luxury influencers to test drive their new 2011 Audi A8 at exclusive events.

Yeah, but does it work? Influencers who receive Perks aren’t required to post positive things about the brand. They’re not even required to post anything at all.

To ensure that giving away Perks will be worth a company’s expense, Klout has begun to up the demand and cool factor of a high Score and the Perks that come with it. When Spotify, a wildly popular music-streaming service, first came out in 2008, Klout gave free account access to only some of its high-scorers before Spotify was even released in the United States. In addition, some special events, like the annual after-hours shopping extravaganza, Fashion’s Night Out, require a Klout Score of over 40 points in order to attend. This not only ensures the exclusivity and coolness of the Perk, but the honor of having a high Score as well.

And it has definitely been working for a ton of brands. Like Virgin America, who offered only 120 free flights to top travel influencers, which generated over 4,600 tweets and, subsequently, led to over 7.4 million impressions and coverage in top blogs and news outlets. And, for a very small price, that’s good business.

But it hasn’t just been working for brands. While Klout’s expertise in generating buzz has been great for building brands’ reputations, it’s also been building their own. People have been putting their Score on their resume and many competitors and copycats have begun to emerge, like PeerIndex , Twitter Grader and, most recently, PeopleBrowsr’s Kred, which will up your Kred based on real-life achievements like degrees and awards.

“People have even started attaching it to their wardrobes. Ladies love it.”

And while there certainly are downsides for the people being judged on their Score, there are also downsides for brands. How does a brand do damage control when a top influencer receives a product, hates it, and blasts the company on Twitter? The best response is to turn it positive – using Klout, brands can decide which reviews they can ignore and which they need to address. 70% of companies ignore their customer complaints on Twitter, yet nearly half of Twitter complainants expect the company to read them. Plus, 83% of complainants on Twitter who have received a reply either liked or loved the fact that the company responded.  So, when a brand comes across a bad review from a top influencer, they should see it as a great PR opportunity.

While the concept of Klout is certainly proving to be integral to brand marketing, its underlying foundation is nothing new. They’ve recognized social group behaviors and separated the popular from the ordinary, but by mathematically proving the amount of a person’s popularity, Klout is able to help brands single out the people who will, hopefully, inspire action and do a good chunk of their marketing for them. And therein lies the innovation:  realizing the marketing potential of good ol’ fashioned cliquishness brought into the modern, digital age.

Want another good Klout read? Take a gander at OMG! Your Klout is Showing! posted earlier this year by Jaclyn Gordyan.

Many hotels are already offering experience-based rewards in their loyalty programs and enhanced concierge services to assist guests with discovering the world outside of the hotel. Instead of stockpiling points for a free night’s stay, members of these programs can earn cultural activities, like going backstage before a performance at the Peking Opera or spending the day with a professional bullfighter. Some loyalty programs even offer express experiences specifically designed for business travelers who may only have an hour or two to spare but who still want to go home with at least one memorable insight into the destination they visited.

Additionally, several startups have recently emerged to meet the wanderlusty needs of travelers by offering trip curation tools, local knowledge and a much-needed dose of personalization to the online trip planning process.

Launched in April, Vayable connects travelers with tour guides offering unique and intimate local experiences, like scouting Montmartre street art in Paris or visiting sample sales in NYC with a fashion insider. By allowing these independent guides to sell their local knowledge, Vayable is redefining the tour and activity segment of the travel market.

And then there’s Fortnighter, also launched this year, which provides (for a fee) made-to-order itineraries from professional travel writers based on the user’s dates of travel, interests and budget. Fortnighter brings currency, personalization and expert knowledge to the travel planning table and allows users to steer clear of the unreliability of algorithms and user reviews.

A slew of other services have also cropped up recently. All of this suggests that the travel experience marketplace is heating up, and there appears to be room for more. When looking across the dreaming, researching, booking, experiencing and sharing travel cycle, what kind of product or service can you offer that will assist travelers with collecting those sought-after experiences? How do you evoke the moments that inspire us when we travel? How do you help deliver more authentic travel experiences?