Very excited that I have been added to the Board of Directors for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA). I've spoken at RAMA events for many years and was actively involved in the Kaleidoscope experiences at 2 recent events.
During the 1st session with retail CMO's, they identified four key areas to explore,
It's all about me, retailers need to tailor the shopping experiences to me and all of my information needs to be available where ever I am.
We need to create "oneline" retail experiences.
It's still important to have a highly relevant, brand story.
You need to create a community, shopping experience. With this idea, they also envisioned a concept where convenience shopping was on the parameter and the further in the store you moved, the more experiential it was.
We then took the work of the CMO's and took it to the RAMA Creative Summit last month, where they added to the initial ideas.
As a new board member, I will continue to work with RAMA to develop the Kaleidoscope experience and I hope to do additional presentations on the future of retail with RAMA in 2011.
More about RAMA:
The Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA) is a trade association of retail marketing and advertising professionals, plus their counterparts on the agency, media and service-provider sides of the business. RAMA is a division of the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association.
RAMA is the producer of the annual Racie Awards Competition, the industry’s most prestigious creative contest for retail broadcast, web and print advertising. In addition, RAMA produces several events each year that provide education and networking opportunities to its members.
Some conflicting data coming out of this year's Black Friday sales reports. We'll have to wait until the end of the week to get final sales figures, but my experience was that the stores were packed and people were shopping.
ShopperTrak released an initial report that shows that sales for Black Friday 2010 increased only slightly over 2009 sales. 2010 Black Friday sales rose 0.3% over last year, while the number of customers in stores increased 2.2%.
While the NRF was reporting:
A total of about 212 million shoppers hit stores between Thanksgiving Day on Thursday and Sunday, an increase of 8.7 percent compared with the same period in 2009, according to a survey from the National Retail Federation.
Interesting stat from NPD Group (see full article below) showed that 33% of shoppers were buying for themselves, up from 26% during a normal holiday season.
I went out about 3:15 AM on Black Friday and I've included my quick video reports here. Some quick highlights about what I saw:
Stores were packed. People were waiting in long lines to get the good deals.
Stores with signs advertising 20% - 30% off were mostly empty. The threshold seemed to have been 40% off to get people in the doors. My big question is what will these deep discounts do to profit margins. I also wonder if people will continue shopping now that Black Friday is over or if they'll wait a few weeks to see what deals retailers offer next.
As was reported by NPD, my anecdotal experience also showed that people were buying for themselves as well. At Target, people were leaving with multiple TV sets and I saw lots of people waiting to get deals on shoes, which I'm guessing they weren't buying as gifts!
Although I did get there a little late (about 4 AM), the Toys R Us store by me was busy, but not nearly as crowded as the other stores I visited. I wonder if people were shopping at places like Target and Walmart to get deals on more then one category.
Kudos to the retailers I visited for being well-prepared for Black Friday. I saw lots of staff on store floors and all the registers manned. Even with that, there were long lines everywhere I went.
I'll continue posting my experiences from the field during the entire holiday season and please comment on your experiences shopping this year as well. Let's see if the hype matches the reality this year.
Some people did shop until they dropped! One of the few stores using alternatives methods for getting good deals.
My first stop, Kohl's
Kohl's wrap
My arrival at Best Buy
Best Buy wrap up
Toys R Us
Arriving at Target
Inside Target
Target Wrap
Willowbrook Mall
The line to pay at Kohl's, it went all the way through the store. The electronics department at Target was their busiest area Even with every register open, the lines at Target were ridiculous!
Had a chance to quickly look at the new AMC Theater concept called Dine-In Theater and hope to be back to do a more in-depth review sometime over the next week or so. I've wondered for quite a long time why movie theaters didn't do more with their food, after all, it's almost always dinner & a movie. When I lived in Orlando in the early 80's, there was a cinema chain there that was more like a bar with movies being shown, but they were never first run movies.
So now AMC is opening up this new concept and I have to say, at first blush, it looks pretty good. There are two pricing tiers, $20 or $25 per ticket. Of that, ten dollars goes to the movie ticket and the rest goes to a food credit. I've included a sample menu below (the menu and the pictures come from the AMC web site), so you can see the prices aren't too bad, there's nothing on the menu over $11.99. Don't know anything about how good the food is yet, but given what the prices were for food before this change, that's really no too bad.
In addition to the physical change of the space, the biggest change is that the fact the people under 18 aren't allowed in to the theater at all unless they're accompanied by an adult. And they're not allowed into the Cinema Suite at all, with or without an adult. That alone will make this a very different movie going experience.
I've reached out to get a more official tour and I'll try to go to the theater to have the experience and I'll report back on what happens. The big question is whether or not people will pay $20 for a movie ticket and dinner at the theater.
UPDATE: As I was writing my post, Fast Company came out with their piece, The Future of Advertising, which has generated a great deal of conversation the challenges facing the advertising industry. What's interesting is that the same challenges facing the biz were probably said when we moved to from print to radio; from radio to TV and every time something new arrived. I recently wrote:
Of course, there's no mention of creating better commercials that people actually want to watch. And that's the challenge with any ad that's delivered without consumer control. As long as they don't have any choice, we don't really worry much about the content.
I wonder what would happen if agencies got paid based on the Nielsen ratings for their commercials. If most people skip your commercial, you don't get paid. If it draws big numbers, you get paid a lot. Betcha' that would change the industry a lot.
Yes, technology is changing things. But have you seen any movies set in the future, say Blade Runner or Minority Report? What do you notice about those films as it relates to the future of advertising? Yep, that all of that time in the future and advertising is still pretty pervasive. In fact, it's even more pervasive then it is today. Think of those giant billboards from Blade Runner or the famous (or infamous, depending on your POV) scene where retinal scanners welcome Tom Cruise to the Gap. The only future world I can think of without pervasive advertising is the one from Brave New World and there, they train you in-vitro to be a consumer. That's pretty pervasive.
While we talk a lot about the measurement of advertising, one thing we don't do is connect advertising to sales. Yea, it's not always a direct connection, I get that. But at the end of the day, business is about selling things. What we do in advertising has to have a positive impact, doesn't it? Many of the recent hits in advertising seem to have created better opportunities for the agencies that created them then they did for the brand.
So it's time to challenge some of the conventional thinking about SM and the ad biz in general. Too often we just accept things as truth without really questioning them. In the end, we may find out that they in fact are true, but let's do some questioning for a few minutes, shall we?
Really, You Do Control The Message. I think this where I disagree most with conventional thinking. Sure, you may not control the distribution of the message, but you start the message. You have all of the control based on the experience you deliver. People amplify the message you start. You want people to pass along a good message, give them a good experience.
SM in business isn't really about friendship, it's about business. We wrap SM up in the language of friendship, but more often then not, it's about generating business. If you're following more then a few hundred people, do you really have a relationship with them? Or are these new tools just another distribution channel to get our information out? Look at how many companies still use Twitter or FB as a one-way communication tool, not And BTW, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's OK to conduct business, that's what businesses do.
There is no such thing as word of mouth marketing. WOM is not a marketing strategy; it’s the outcome of a great product telling a great story. And let's not forget that many WOM programs start with the brand telling something to someone. WOM doesn't occur in a vacuum where the product just mysteriously appears and people start talking about it. If you're paying people to talk about your product, that's called advertising.
Do we really want to be part of a tribe? I think that there are really just a small number of brands that inspire people to join their tribes. They can be big companies (like Apple or Urban Outfitters) or smaller companies (like Moosejaw or maybe a local bookstore). But I'm not sure the vast majority of companies will ever inspire people to join their tribe. We usually just want the products we use to do what they're supposed to do. By pretending all brands can create tribes, we're creating a set of expectations that the vast majority of companies just can't deliver.
More then most industries, the advertising biz thrives on the shiny bauble syndrome. We can't wait to play with the latest tools and too often, we declare them the future of advertising. We jump from tactic to tactic all the while pretending that they are really strategies, not tactics. Just in the past few years, ad agencies have transformed themselves from ad agencies to Second Life agencies; branded entertainment companies; WOM marketing agencies and now social media agencies.
Too many companies are using SM only at a surface level. Yep, companies like to talk about the consumer being in control, transparency and all that stuff. But are they making changes that matter throughout the organization? Whole industries -- like banking or airlines -- continue to operate in complete disregard for what's in the best interest of their customers. Their policies and procedures still show how they really feel about the people who buy their products. Hiring some folks to Tweet or handle your FB page doesn't change your business. Putting your employees and your customers above everything else, that changes your business.
It's easy to get people to talk about you, it's much harder to get them to engage with you. When I'm speaking at events, I always joke that if I were doing my presentation naked, I could get everyone in the room to talk about me, but probably not as many people who would save a place for me at lunch. Too often we confuse talking about with engaging. Talking about can lead to engagement, but only if there's real connection behind it. Are you really delivering on your message or do you say things simply to get people talking.
SM is a new way to engage. The tools we're using today are new, but SM is as old as people. The first cave drawings were SM. Pamphleteers were SM. It's faster and broader today, but the underlying concepts are the same as they've been for thousands of years.
Advertising is the cost of being boring. Nope, advertising is the cost of doing business. Zappos does advertising. So does Apple (I've seen at least six Apple commercials while I've written this article). They're not boring brands, are they? Yes, some companies, like Urban Outfitters, don't do traditional advertising, but again, they're pretty few and far between. And is it advertising that's really bad or is it how we do it?
People don't mind advertising, they mind how we deliver it. I talk a great deal about just in time marketing in my presentations. People want information about brands and products, but more and more, they want it on their own terms. What we don't want is the constant interruption of advertising. It's everywhere and it never stops. Companies that spend their time looking at how to captivate, instead of capturing their audience, will be the companies that people want to hear from.
Social Networks + Advertising = Amway. When I was a kid, everyone knew at least one AMWAY salesperson who never stopped looking for a sale. They were constantly trying to sell you or convince you to become an AMWAY salesperson like them. We didn't like it in person and we don't like it in SM.
If you think that listening is new, then you're already in trouble. All too often, I hear people saying that the really cool thing about SM is that it lets you listen to your customers. Some companies have even added Chief Listening Officers. But thinking that listening to your customers is a new way to engage just shows how out of touch most companies are.
You can't force listening. Have you ever been in a conversation and you really didn't want to listen? You nod politely, you occasionally say something, but mainly, you're planning what you're going to say next. You're not really listening and having a conversation. You're simply exchanging sentences. You can't force someone to listen. And if you look at how many companies still operate today, they're not listening.
Legacy vs. history. This will someday get it's own post, but there's a huge difference between history & legacy. Legacy holds you back. It's what keeps those policies & procedures in place, even when you know they're not right. It's the walls that you put around creating a better experience. History guides you to the future. It's knowing where you came from.
Few like to co-create. Many like to complain. Yes, there are brands that have created tribes that want to help co-create your brand. But more often then not, people like to complain when you've done something wrong. And complain they will. When you've wronged them, they will make sure that anyone who listens will hear about what happened. Remember United Breaks Guitars?
No man can serve two masters. In the battle between doing what's right for customers or doing what's right for the investors, the investors usually win. Again, there are a few companies who buck this trend, but mostly, companies do what's best for investors or shareholders. Banks continue to add fees to boost profits. Airlines nickel & dime customers every way they can to add to the bottom line. It's OK for companies to make money and to make even lots of money. But when they do it at the expense of customers and employees, that's when things are wrong.
For over 10 years, I've been talking about the need to create authentic, relevant and compelling brand experiences and it's even more important today. And yes, I think SM and all of the new tools available to advertisers today can have a very positive impact on business. But let's put them in the right place. Let's question what we're hearing today and really see how these tools can make our businesses better. And if you want to think that this is a new way of business, then really change your business. Lip service doesn't really do service to anyone.
I'm trying to get a firsthand look at the state of retail this holiday season and I thought that the best way to do that is by using Twitter to get quick reports from people actually out shopping. No analysts telling us what's going to happen at Xmas,
So I've set up the #retail10 hashtag and I would love it if while you're out and about, you could talk about what you're seeing. Just Tweet or if you write larger posts, put links to them on Twitter as well. I'll be compiling them over the next couple of weeks and sharing them both here and through paper.li.
I've already started, so you can see some ideas of what I'm doing. Quick observations, customer counts, great deals, what people are buying. You're probably tweeting about your shopping experience anyway, why not make it part of a larger, retail picture.
Sydney & I had a chance to play with Kinect yesterday at the Augmented Reality New York Meetup last night and we really had fun. Understand that it's been selling well and have to say, as a first round of the product, it's pretty darn good! Biggest technical challenge might actually be space requirements, but in our playing last night, it tracked us very well. Here's some video of Chas Mastin & Sydney playing Kinect during the meeting.
And it's been fun to watch all of the coverage of Kinect has been getting these days and now that I've played it, I would love to have one (hint, hint) for Christmas.
If you knew me back in my days at the Brand Experience Lab, you know that I'm a big fan of the use of motion capture games. In fact, one of the first technologies that I brought into the Lab from the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU was this game:
Sure, people were occasionally offended by the content of that game, but people always enjoyed playing it. And even people who didn't play, enjoyed watching other people play the game.
In 2007, I led the BEL team that created NewsBreaker Live, the first in-cinema, motion capture game and we got a great response. Sam Mazur, creative lead on the SS+K team that worked on the msnbc.com game, coined the expression human joysticks, when he described the game. And the audience really had being human joysticks. For example, here are the results from the audience surveys we did after the games for msnbc.com & Volvo.
msnbc.com (USA) VOLVO (UK)
* 78% played the game * 84% played the game
* 93% want more games in cinemas * 68% want more games in cinemas
* 86% prefer a game to an ad * 74% prefer a game to an ad
* 71% unaided MSNBC brand recall * 21% better image of Volvo
* 75% more likely to use MSNBC * 37% more likely to purchase a Volvo
The results really show what happens when you involve the audience in the experience. We had a 71% unaided recall rate of msnbc.com as the sponsor of the game. To put that in some kind of context, according to the Arbitron study of in-cinema advertising released at the time, 59% of all movie goers recall seeing commercials at theaters.
While Kinect is the biggest launch of motion capture, it's not the only one out there. Myron Krueger was doing interactive gesture work back in the early 70's. If you have younger children, you might be interested in what the DoCrew is doing. They've created an online game environment where the kids use their own body movements to play and complete the tasks in the game. It's a great way to engage younger children and, since it runs on the web, you can access it anywhere without needing anything special. Gesturetek has been doing motion capture for pushing 20 years. Tangibal has installed screens in the UK & Norway and Screenvision has a number of screens with motion capture systems here in the US.
As I traveled around the world with our in-cinema installations, I got to see firsthand how people reacted to these kind of experiences. It created a different group dynamic in the cinema, allowing strangers to interact in a different way. I used to joke that the usual social interaction was the "elbow waltz" to see who controlled the right position of the arm rest. These in-cinema games changed that dynamic. People talked to one another after the game and there was some indication, that people enjoyed the movie a little more after they played the game.
The challenge is that there doesn't seem to have been a big interest in repeat plays of motion capture games. It's a great one-off experience, for special movies, trade shows, theme parks, etc., but whether or not people want to play a game like this every time they come into a place like a movie theater remains to be seen.
Perhaps Kinect will change all of that. It has certainly created a new conversation about motion capture and what you can do with it. The content was fun and I'm sure it will only get better once developers start really start playing with what's possible. I hear there's already been an open source hack, so we see lots of interesting ways to use gesture tracking in the future. And once people start playing it at home, they may be much more open to playing motion capture games at other places, like movie theaters.
Sydney gave it the thumbs up and she'd be happy to have one at home. And when I see Chas playing with it, I know that he & his partners will do some pretty cool things with it too. I'm still exploring group games and we'll see where that leads in the future. But with $50 million in advertising behind it, you can be sure that people will know what motion captures looks like in the future.
msnbc.com NewsBreaker Live
An Interview I did on the future of cinema advertising
I'm behind in posting about this as I've been traveling, but Erik Hauser, over at the Experiential Marketing Forum is undertaking one of the largest, if not the largest, research projects looking at experiential marketing and where it's heading. So, click on the link below and start the survey. The more people who get involved, the better the results will be. And please share the survey with everyone you know. We'd really like to get a global view on where experiential marketing is heading. Thanks!
This is the first step in what will be the best, constant global source for Experiential Marketing research. We (EMF/IMI) want to invite you to participate in this historic survey. We’re asking you to be involved in the largest study we’ve ever conducted. This is your chance to be part of something EPIC.
I know that the research findings will benefit everyone tremendously. The online survey will only take approx 12-18 minutes to complete. As an EMF community member, you will receive a complimentary research report, to be finalized in early 2011. There will be other reports to come on a TND frequency. Some of those reports will be complimentary while other will have a fee. This is because I’ve received numerous requests to sort the data a specific way for people. We are more than happy to do that, but in those situations it will have a fee attached. BUT, since you are a community member of the strongest community in the world – the first, most robust report is 100% complimentary!
The findings will provide a pulse on the issues facing marketers and agencies in today’s environment. The research will allow you to get a better understanding of opportunities to drive your success. We have people from every country in the world involved. Certain people that I’ve been in contact with will be taking on a slightly larger role.
Word cannot express how happy I am to begin this series of research. I know, without question, that it will help your businesses in many ways. I’m honored that you all have chosen to be part of something that I created over 6.5 years ago. Again, there are no words to explain something this magnificent.
