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A Web of Truths

May 31, 2022July 27, 2011 by James Tenser

WATCH OUT, Shopper Marketers! You may find yourselves entangled in a web of truths of your own making.

It all began innocently enough; in 2005 when brand marketing behemoth Procter & Gamble advanced a provocative set of ideas around what it called the first and second moments of truth. Thanks to some savvy and persistent promotion, the terminology caught on fast:

FMOT, the first moment, refers to the brief period when a shopper selects a desired product in the store.
SMOT, the second moment, refers to the at-home consumption experience associated with that product.

Within the then-nascent Shopper Marketing community, this framework was a minor revelation. For brand marketers, FMOT gave credence to the argument that real marketing persuasion needed to be extended from measured media into the shopping environment. The store, it was discovered, shelters a separate marketing reality, where pre-purchase leanings are transformed into final choices.

Shopper Marketing defined a path to purchase that commences with media-induced product awareness and proceeds to interest, formation of intent, and ends with product selection at the shelf, FMOT. Once home, SMOT, or the actual product experience, takes place influencing subsequent decisions.

FMOT/SMOT was a pretty handy framework at first. But the concurrent rise of digital out of home and mobile media conspired to make things a lot more complicated, fast. The path to purchase, it turns out, is littered with hundreds of moments – text messages, in-store video ads, Web search, service encounters, Facebook apps, twitter feeds, QR codes and downloadable coupons, to name a few.

Stuck in the Moments

A few weeks ago the gleefully disruptive folks at Google seized the opportunity to coin a new Moment of Truth and promote it hard. They call it Zero Moment of Truth or ZMOT. Its premise is that interactions with search, Web, social and mobile price and product research media create a third type of online decision-making moment. The concept is a bit self-serving coming from the world’s largest seller of online advertising, but it has attracted much commentary and attention.

Almost immediately, new Moments starting appearing like so many pop-up windows on an e-commerce Web site.

In his post, “What is missing from moments of truth marketing”, blogger Joel Rubinson argues for the existence of “minus one” moments of truth that include such influences as word of mouth, in-store product visibility, and various types of advertising. Most interestingly, he proposes that these -1MOTs may occur in any sequence relative to FMOT and SMOT.

Joel’s point about the non-linear nature of the Moments of Truth is worthy of frequent repetition. Product experience is certainly a web of moments, not a fixed linear sequence. Call it WOT (Web of Truths)?

On the very same day and from an independent thought process, blogger David Berkowitz proposed adding “The Infinite Moment of Truth” to the model, which reflects his excellent observation that consumers may well describe their product and service experiences to others, relaying and amplifying the message beyond the scope and control of the marketer.

Bon MOTs

I applaud David for extending this Shopper Marketing discussion from the path-to-purchase toward the path-to-loyalty. A good thing, really, since the linkages are powerful and real. It made me think about Fred Reicheld’s 2006 book, The Ultimate Question, which proposed that genuine loyalty was best judged by an individual’s likelihood to recommend a product or service to others. Social media can super-charge this potential.

Both bloggers are smart, experienced people I know for some years and their ideas are intelligent and worthy of respect. But I must confess to an impish reaction that led me to ponder: Just how many bon MOTs can one industry handle? ZMOT; FMOT; SMOT; Rubinson’s -1MOT; Berkowitz’s IMOT…

At risk of attracting ridicule, my imp compels me to toss another acronym into the mix: XMOT, the eXtended Moment of Truth. It’s my way of stretching the Web of Truths a bit wider – not quite to infinity, but toward its potential to help us understand the multifaceted tangle of influences each person receives, reflects and responds to in their roles as shoppers, consumers, and friends.

Tenser to Lead “In-Store Marketing ROI” Workshops In Jakarta and Singapore

May 31, 2022June 12, 2010 by James Tenser

THANKS TO MY new friends at Strategic Vision Group, Singapore, I’m proud to report a commitment by by my firm VSN Strategies to present two professional workshops in August on the topic of “In-Store Marketing ROI”.

Intended for experienced retailing and brand marketing practitioners, the workshops will include subject matter covering practical performance and success metrics for: Shopper Marketing; In-Store Promotion; Merchandising Performance; Frequent Shopper Programs; Shopper Media; and In-Store Implementation. Attendance is open to professionals from throughout the region and the sessions will be conducted in English.

This workshop delivers practical tools for isolating the effects of in-store marketing programs and measuring their impact on brand, category and store performance.The curriculum will include case study presentations, in-class collaborative exercises and group discussion, in a highly interactive format.

Presented for the first time anywhere, the workshops will guide participants through the development of Storecards™ for merchandising performance – an application of the “balanced scorecard” technique to in-store implementation and compliance activities.

Seats are limited due to the interactive format, so interested candidates are encouraged to contact the organizers soon to obtain the workshop brochure and reserve a place. I look forward to meeting you there!

RFID’s Widening Gyre

May 31, 2022March 7, 2009 by James Tenser

TWO RECENT NEWS ITEMS about retail giants, radio-frequency ID tags and promotional displays have pundits punning and some market vultures vultching:

When Procter & Gamble declared it would no longer apply EPC/RFID tags to promotional displays built for Walmart stores, it triggered critiques of the technology and its underlying economics. Observers circling above the decaying carcass of the program sniffed that just maybe, Walmart wasn’t delivering a measurable benefit from the solution.

Within days Walgreen Drug Stores delivered a more positive spin, stating that the very same sort of radio-frequency tags had helped it improve its in‐store execution in the past year “to nearly double the industry average.”

Never mind that the industry average stinks like carrion.

David Van Howe, vice president of purchasing for Walgreens, called the information captured from the tagged displays a “game changer” for the chain, and at least one partner, Revlon, said the program delivered “unprecedented insight into what works and what doesn’t with consumers.”

So what are we to take away from all this? The vultures in our midst keep trying to declare retail RFID dead on arrival. The tech pundits claim they have seen a glorious future in those tiny transponders. I say the misdirected focus on RFID technology threatens to derail an important initiative.

It’s not the tech, it’s the practice! RFID has been ascribed with magical status by some, but I’m here to tell you – it’s no tri-corder, not even a silver bullet.

When it comes to at-retail compliance – potentially the largest business improvement opportunity presently facing the retail consumer products industry – point solutions are pointless. The system of practices is everything.

P&G’s decision exemplifies the frustration held by many manufacturers with In-Store Implementation of promotions. There is no routine, repeatable, measured and collaborative practice to execute planned promotions in stores. Data on compliance, if available at all, arrives weeks or months after the fact and it reveals that roughly half the spending is ineffective.

Even the mighty Walmart, it seems, has so far been unable to master this challenge on behalf of its trading partners. It means that billions of dollars in trade and promotional funds are badly spent while we debate which brand of ID code to attach to the display headers.

When it comes to optimizing In-Store Implementation, grease pencils and clipboards may be plenty of tech if the process is right. The retailer that formulates a compliance plan, enables it with appropriate solutions, and measures its outcome relentlessly will always achieve better performance on in-store programs. This is equally true for off-shelf display compliance, resets, planogram maintenance, new-product cut-ins, sampling programs, or floor polishing.

Of course large chains like the two Wals require some tools to help manage scale and stabilize best practices. For fixtures and displays, RFID may in fact be a useful input to the process. But it works at Walgreens because it has also instituted the in-store practices to make it work.

For the past two years, the In-Store Implementation Network has advocated establishment of a fully collaborative “plan-do-measure” retail compliance discipline that would ensure real-time visibility and accountability. We cannot improve what we do not measure. Retailers – and that includes even the likes of Walmart and Walgreens – must step forward on this issue if we are to see real progress on retail effectiveness and shopper experience.

It’s NOT TV!

May 31, 2022October 14, 2008 by James Tenser

SHOPPER MEDIA – digital and not – are one class of tools for shopper marketing. Almost any in-store message, measured in isolation in a controlled test, can deliver a sales lift. In this mode, the message does its magic by “activating” shoppers’ pre-existing propensity to select an item or a brand. Or to put it in crude terms–it helps them to notice the product, then buy it.

Not rocket science. Retailers today can use very simple and low-cost digital display systems to promote their higher-margin store brands this way. They can measure the success of this activity at the POS and prove ROI. It’s a very valid and easily attainable use for digital shopper media.

Walmart’s network provides a channel for brands. With 140 million shoppers per week, it claims network-sized audience numbers. No doubt it sells some incremental product, but it is profitable up front because what it really sells is audience access to advertisers. It’s got impressions by the megaton, which may seem attractive and familiar to advertisers, but not so much to promoters.

For 2009 I foresee a rise in awareness of shopper media for promotional purposes – with applications that will slash technology and content production costs and deliver a higher, clearer return on investment: Small screens, not large. Locations at the point of decision, not in lobbies or power aisles. Store brand focus on par with national brands. And tailored to shopper experience – not an assault on the senses.

The new in-store audience measurement methods are designed to help agency media buyers feel better about spending their client’s ad dollars on a media environment they really don’t understand. “Customization” in this context seems to mean playing different messages in different areas of the store or during different dayparts. I suppose breaking a large store up into virtual “channels” this way holds some validity, but it feels forced to me.

Despite the glowing screens, this is not TV. It’s a mistake to carry the metaphor too far in the retail environment. And there are marvelous opportunities ahead for retailers to deploy shopper media as integral elements of their selling machinery and shopper experience.