Shopper Marketing 2.0

Retailers continue to find ways of leveraging technology -- particularly online and mobile technology -- in the realm of shopper marketing. In this newsletter you'll see several innovations in this area:

Martin's Supermarkets, for example, is working with Incentive Targeting to deliver a Web-based application to enable real-time segmentation of shoppers based on their buying preferences while protecting shopper privacy. The systems's campaign management allows marketing managers to create promotions in minutes, instead of weeks or months, and the ROI of campaigns can be measured daily.

Family Dollar, however, is taking a slightly different tack to track its shopper marketing efforts, by following how shoppers physically react to its in-store marketing.

The extreme value retailer launched its first large format ShopperGauge Retail Learning Lab across a set of 20 stores where the retailer and its suppliers can test designs, displays, and promotions with customers in a real live setting with the goal of ultimately improving the in-store shopper experience.

Additionally, ShopText and AOL Shortcuts have taken loyalty programs to a new level by alowing retailers and brands to better track the effectiveness of print advertisements by enabling shoppers to turn them into electronic coupons via their cell phones.

In doing so, the two companies created the first national mobile-to-loyalty card coupon network linking traditional media advertising and digital coupon distribution that greatly optimizes promotion distribution and tracking for retailers and brands.
 

Self-checkout RIP
Unfortunately, self-checkout has lost a third retailer within the past several weeks, in this case, Big Y Foods Inc., which has decided to eliminate all self-checkout lanes by the end of the year at its 58 supermarkets that offer the technology. That is not to say self-checkout is dead. Despite the well-publicized decisions of supermarket operators such as Big Y, Kroger and Albertsons to remove self-checkout units from their stores, other grocers are finding success with the service. U.K. grocery retailer Tesco PLC is rolling out NCR SelfServ Checkout at its stores across Central and Eastern Europe. Which begs the question, is self-checkout success a cultural or regional phenomenon? We'll explore this in our November issue of PG TECH.