In a deeply fragmented media market and with consumers so easily distracted by myriad advertising and marketing channels, one practice – shopper marketing – is gaining advocates. Marketing to individuals at the time they become buyers seems tailor-made for the retail heaven in the Arabian Gulf.
“It’s getting harder and harder to reach your audience,” says Marcus Evans, chairman of Integer TBWA/Raad’s shopper marketing division. “We know that when a human being is in shopping mode, their currency is of action. When we talk about consumers we’re dealing with possibilities; with shoppers we’re dealing with absolutes. It makes sense for businesses to put significant investment in to maximizing their share at this point of definitiveness. We’re seeing brand owners and retailers alike investing more and more in understanding the point of change between consumers and shoppers,” says Evans.
Some may say the economic crisis may have helped the rise of shopper marketing, a discipline that may be considered tactical by skeptics. But Claus Adams, regional director of Ogilvy Action in the Middle East and North Africa, says shopper marketing is a highly strategic discipline. “Shopper marketing uses insights garnered from shoppers to develop campaigns that aim to influence behavior at the time of shopping,” he says.
“As a discipline, it comprises all the tools required to target consumers in an in-store environment: Research, insight development, shopper segmentation analysis, advertising, messaging, environmental design, category management, customer marketing, trade marketing and, of course, point of purchase merchandising – all should work seamlessly in concert,” says Adams. “And while the tools utilized may vary in their application, they all share the same goal: To identify with shoppers, communicate benefits, and ultimately lead to purchase and as a result, increase a brand’s sales conversion rate.”
According to Richard Nicoll, founding director of Saatchi & Saatchi X in London, and currently managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi X in Dubai, the increasing exposure and acceptance of digital media is supporting the move in to shopper marketing, with 35 percent of his agency’s work in the US being digital. In this region, the use of digital is on the rise as a result of many benefits, but its use is still not at these levels.
“I’ve asked the marketing managers of client organizations: “Do you see your agencies incorporating digital specifically in activities, or are you expecting them to come back with digital solutions, and would you buy digital solutions if they were presented to you? I can’t answer these questions; but [often] neither can they. All I know is there are not a lot of digital specific briefs coming through my door. But the truth is, as we move forward, nothing is digital and everything is digital.”
One of the main challenges Adams finds with shopper marketing in this region is a roadblock with information needed to create a targeted shopper marketing strategy. “The challenge in MENA from the agency/manufacturer/brand perspectives is convincing big retailers to co-operate by sharing insights and relevant data from their systems that will allow us to genuinely understand the effect the activity has on a brand and, most importantly, the impact on the category as a whole,” says Adams.
But Evans says that if the practice is understood and practiced correctly, brands, retailers, and consumers can all benefit from shopper marketing.
“The Middle East has some distance to go to catch up to global best practice,” he says. “But I think if you look at what really good, effective shopper marketing provides, it is genuinely a win-win situation for all three components in the loop: brands, retailers, and shoppers. If managed correctly, everybody wins. If we understand the needs, wants and motivations of shoppers, then smart brands and retailers can work together to ensure they all get what they want.”
