Target

Can Retail Make Room For Showrooming?

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

Retail stores have had to deal with an increasing threat to their sales as smartphone ownership has crossed 50% and more consumers are using stores as a “showroom” before buying goods online. This especially became a problem for retailer Target when Amazon offered a 5% discount to anyone who used their Price Check app to scan a bar code of an item in a store and then bought it from the website. As a result, Target dropped Kindle from shelves saying, “What we aren’t willing to do is let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices.” Not too long after Walmart followed suit by dropping Kindles from their stores.

How big is this problem? A recent survey says 50% of respondents with smartphones research prices while in store, 1 in 3 who research prices leave and buy from a competitor, and 96% plan to “showroom” in the future.

So what can retailers do? An article in Forbes suggests three strategies:
1. Begin a strategic conversation between brands and retailers. Through dual distribution or multichannel marketing they often end up competing against each other. Big retailers such as Best Buy need to develop exclusives to keep customers coming and buying. Tom Van Riper from Forbes said this is how Barnes & Noble kept Amazon from closing their business by developing the Nook.
2. Embrace customization as a key area of strategic growth. Large shoe brands such as Reebok and Nike are seeing revenue numbers in the $100 million range with their custom shoe programs.
3. Focus on the customer experience. Forrester research says 35% of shoppers want to purchase custom products to stand out from their peers. But also consider custom buying experiences for long term loyalty and engagement.

Mashable suggests innovation as another way to battle showrooming and talks about a store in Australia which started charging consumers $5 just to walk into the store. Before you start a retail cover charge also consider new digital marketing services that engage shoppers to entice them to stores. For example, Target has announced plans to price-match online competitors, such as Amazon. And Brian Gillespie, principal at a service design firm, suggests encouraging “webrooming” (the opposite of showrooming) where shoppers search for products they want online, and then head into the store to make a purchase.

Gillespie makes a good point. It comes down to retailers creating an in-store experience exceptional enough to keep consumers purchasing in-store. The kind of customer service Nordstrom offers and enhanced with digital environments. But will that kind of service draw a crowd for toilet paper at Target the same way it does for Eau de toilette at Nordstrom?

Visual Continuity: Is It Always A Good Strategy?

~ K. Quesenberry ~ 1 Comment

Awhile ago I wrote a blog post about the importance of visual continuity. In “Visual Continuity in Print & Digital” I said “When designing creative executions, visual continuity is key – especially in today’s media cluttered world.” I still believe that is true, but sometimes change is good for a company as well.

In the post I talked about the Pepsi Refresh Project. Another example is Target. They have been very successful and they have kept the same red logo and target symbol on white backdrops for a long time. This is an equation for success and a great example of visual continuity. But this made me think of a question. Can a brand be successful without visual continuity?

The one brand that immediately came to mind is Burton Snowboards. The only consistency about Burton’s visual design has been its inconsistency. Since 1977 the company has had a lot of different logos. How many? They basically have totally redesigned their logos – yes multiple logos – every year. See the picture for a retrospective. In the early 1990s Burton Snowboard rarely used the same logo twice in their print ads.

Is this a smart move? A SAP case study on Burton describes the company’s success coming from how they are able to remain as nimble as their riders. The business is unique because they have professional athletes who drive the product development process and have a tremendous amount of input into the look, feel, and functionality of the product lines. They also take rider feedback to heart — whether the comments come from a pro rider, a customer email, or a random snowboarder the company president runs into on the mountain. Being a rider-driven company, the business has to be dynamic and adaptable.

Burton is playing in an ever changing snowboarding, surfing and skate culture that thrives on fads and trends. So I would say it is okay for their visually identity to change rapidly with the times. The other example is Jones Soda.

For years Jones Soda has had fans upload their photos to be voted on and possibly featured on the company’s ever changing soda labels. I uploaded a photo once, but never made it to the label. Have you ever send in a photo to a brand to be featured in their marketing? Can you think of another example of a successful brand that has thrived by consistently changing their visual identity?