It's In the Way That You Use It

While building the curriculum for our new Path to Purchase Leadership University over the last six months, we here at the Institute have spent a lot of time considering the concept of “shopper marketing,” in both the pragmatic and philosophical senses.That’s led us to a number of observations about the current state of the industry’s shared knowledge and understanding. One is that we’re still lacking a unifying definition for “shopper marketing.” Yes, each organization should have a modified version that fits its own business model and corporate objectives. But the industry as a whole needs clearer common ground, a declarative rallying point that can immediately silence those marketing philistines who’d dismiss shopper marketing as nothing more than “better” trade promotion or, at best, next-generation customer marketing.Here’s the definition we propose in our courses …A cross-functional discipline designed to improve business performance by using actionable insights to connect with shoppers and influence behavior along the path to purchase.… with the boldface type identifying what we believe to be the most vital pieces. For the time being, we’re presenting this as a “working” definition and ask our course attendees to provide feedback – which I’ll also do here for anyone who’d like to send us their thoughts.A unifying definition would go a long way toward addressing what I think is the most critical issue we’ve encountered: that not enough organizations consider shopper marketing to be a bona fide go-to-market strategy.Longtime “students” of shopper marketing might remember this graphical framework (see chart) as part of the work produced in 2010 by the Retail Commission on Shopper Marketing and published in “Shopper Marketing Best Practices: A Collaborative Model for Retailers and Manufacturers.” (See related article at right.)It was used originally to illustrate how deeply strategic collaboration could be for both retailers and manufacturers. But it also works as an internal model for manufacturers, in which the “strategic alignment” reflects previously siloed marketing functions aligning around shopper insights to develop more effective, integrated plans rather than working independently or, at best, in separate stages along the path to purchase.The problem is that, even within some of the organizations that do view shopper marketing as an effective method of engagement, the practice is considered little more than a way to drive better results for retail programs. In terms of the framework, shopper marketing is relegated to “Program Development” in the lower right corner and never moves up to become a strategic catalyst for the organization, as the Institute’s Patrick Fitzmaurice explains when presenting our courses.Kris Abrahamson of The Mars Agency (one of the University’s collaboration partners) refers to this reality as “playing catcher,” with the shopper marketing group treated as an afterthought that’s forced to adapt brand strategy long after it’s been determined further up the organizational stream. We’ve also heard it described as shopper marketing being the “Band-Aid,” the 11th-hour method of driving volume when the brand team’s original plan isn’t quite working.But using shopper marketing capabilities simply to drive short-term lifts as needed is kind of like using Eric Clapton to play rhythm guitar. The results might be pretty awesome, but you’re wasting a whole lot of potential greatness.To be sure, there are true believers out there. The more progressive organizations are making clear distinctions between shopper marketing and all those other tactical activities with which it gets confused. Participation in a retailer’s seasonal promotion is not shopper marketing, for instance. Neither is a price-focused feature-and-display program for a brand.However, when that brand works with the retailer to develop a strategic seasonal program designed to influence shopping behavior, and maybe uses feature and display as part of an integrated tactical plan, well now you’ve got shopper marketing.Speaking from the keynote stage at the Shopper Marketing Summit in March, the Institute’s Peter Hoyt relayed a comment he’d recently heard from Robert Kennedy of Retail Strategy Partners: “If shopper marketing isn’t working for your organization, it’s not the shopper marketing that’s failing. It’s the organization.”Shopper marketing shouldn’t be pigeonholed as a tactical method of improving short-term sales lifts at retail. It needs to be understood as a holistic go-to-market strategy that influences all areas of marketing and can deliver long-term, brand-building results. That’s where the real potential lies.But shopper marketing can’t do that when it’s stuck in a corner. Through the University, we’re trying to get it out of there. We hope you’ll help.Peter Breen is managing director – special content for the Path to Purchase Institute. He can be reached at (773) 992-4431 or pbreen@p2pi.org.

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