What is Retail Marketing? Part 2

What is Retail Marketing? Part 2

Retail Marketing is, at its most fundamental, the push of sensory stimuli in the retail environment to engage a decision to buy. The sensory stimuli are events that reach through noise and clutter to engage the consumer. Knowing this, is it any surprise that sign design professionals have become far more expert in this craft than even brand marketers themselves? Reach Part 1 of this series to understand the reasons why.

Part 2 describes the reasons why Retail Marketing has overarching importance in an advertising mix.  

First,  at issue is not just the power of the retailer; it’s also the dynamic of the consumer. We now have two-wage earners in the family, creating a fundamental lack of time and therefore a focus on convenience and simplicity. We also have an increasingly educated consumer who is constantly challenging the notion of the price-value relationship. And finally, the options to “tune out” traditional (above-the-line) advertising are robust. Here are some examples of this technology impact:

• Personal video recorders and commercial-free satellite radio
• Print readership is at an all-time low
• Commercial-free television is common with new recording tools
• The average consumer is bombarded with 3000+ ads per day

Is it any wonder that the last three feet of marketing is hot retail marketing real estate? The brand marketer must completely re-think and re-engineer the brand plan development process, which historically has treated the retail trade as second-class citizens. Retail marketing environments must now carry the message formerly residing in traditional media. It must create better ad recall, and use the science of signs to engage.

More to come! In our next post, we reposition the sign professional and place them in the mix where they rightfully belong – as Retail Marketers extraordinaire!