the ad zone

Shopper Marketing: Why Traditional Advertising Is Still Important

Today, it seems like all marketers ever want to talk about is digital advertising. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say that programmatic buying, social media marketing, or influencer marketing is “the future”, I’d probably be able to quit my job.

But in our eagerness to optimize for digital, we often forget that effective traditional methods still exist. Shopper marketing, also known as point-of-sale marketing, is as relevant as ever – even as our lives become more digital, 71% of American consumers still prefer to shop at brick-and-mortar stores. We like to see and touch products before we buy them, giving advertisers the opportunity to remind us of their brand right before we make a purchase decision.

Shopper marketing is made even more important by the fact that most purchase decisions happen in-store – yes, as much as we want to believe that we have self-control, most of us are impulsive shoppers.  68% of buying decisions are unplanned, and only 5% of shoppers are loyal to the brand of one product group. As someone who will only buy Brawny paper towels and Cottonelle toilet paper until the day I die, I find that second number a little harder to believe.

Of course, that’s not to say that shopper marketing and digital marketing have to be mutually exclusive. Retailers are experimenting with the integration of VR technology, AI, robot sales associates, and even smart dressing rooms where the mirror doubles as a touchscreen where shoppers can create their own outfits and instantly request a different size or color.

Does AR Technology Have a Future in Marketing? 

Last week, I listened to a guest lecture by Brandon Schuster from Ketchum Digital about some of the new tech available to advertisers - virtual reality, augmented reality, and smart home systems were the biggest players. But while these topics are fascinating, and each new piece of tech sounds like a great marketing tool in theory, are they really practical? VR is still expensive and inaccessible, and the only place you really see AR being used is on Snapchat filters and in Pokemon Go. Is there a future for these new technologies, or will they fall by the wayside?  

AR’s Greatest Potential: The Construction Industry

In my digital media class semester, our client is a local marine contracting supply company called Decks & Docks. It’s in a challenging niche market to say the least – finding homeowners interested in building their own deck or winning over contractors from their current suppliers is no easy task. To help our client stand out, we have to go beyond traditional advertising methods. 

Like I said, most of us see AR as a novelty. It’s cute and fun, but for the most part, it just isn’t useful. But in the construction industry, AR is shaping up to be more than just gimmick - it’s being used to significantly improve the efficiency of construction projects. 

For a client like Decks & Docks, this is exciting news - they can use AR technology not only to advertise but to provide a valuable service to their consumers. DIY-ers and contractors alike can estimate material costs based on a floorplan generated using AR technology before they buy those materials from Decks & Docks. As the technology develops, they’ll be able to use AR to track the progress of their marine building project and avoid making costly mistakes along the way.

Being a Team Player and an Introvert at the Same Time

When you sit down for a job interview, no matter what you’re being interviewed for, there are some things you can always count on – being nervous, and being asked a question about being a “team player”.

It’s usually something like “tell me about a time when you worked on a team…” or “tell me about a time you had a conflict at work…” – they want to know how you communicate and solve problems in a group. But while you’ll hear these questions at any job interview, there’s no field where teamwork is more relevant than advertising.

You probably already have a pre-packaged answer ready to go for questions about teamwork, but when you go into advertising or marketing, you actually have to mean what you say. That’s because every campaign you run is a group effort - the creative team and the media teams have to work together to give the client something cohesive.

How I Find Balance as Introvert in a Heavily Extroverted Field 

When you lean more toward being an introvert, group work can be draining. But an agency probably doesn’t want to hear that you work better alone - so what’s an introverted person supposed to say during an interview? 

Here’s how I see it - teamwork isn’t about constant collaboration. There will be tasks that are best completed in a group and tasks that are best completed individually, which is why it’s necessary to have a complex team dynamic. 

You don’t have to be to be super peppy and charismatic to be a good team player - introverts have their own unique strengths in the workplace.

So if an employer asked me how I’d describe myself as a team player, I think I’d answer honestly - on a team, my greatest strength is patience. I like to take the time to understand each person’s perspective so that we can come up with the best solution. I’d consider myself more of a team moderator than a leader.

Don’t Be Like Snapchat: How to Change Your UX Without Ruffling Feathers 

Unless you’re over the age of 30 or live under a rock, you know that Snapchat recently changed its user interface. This change to the app’s UX upset a lot of users (myself included - watching people’s stories is a nightmare now), and that’s because this update wasn’t designed for them - it was designed for advertisers. What does this mean for the future of Snapchat, and what can other businesses learn from this? 

Snapchat’s Uncertain Future

Snapchat hasn’t been doing great, so it’s really no surprise that they’re prioritizing their main source of revenue - ads. But at the same time, they’ve sacrificed the quality of their UX - was it worth it?

It’s really too early to say. In the short-term, it hasn’t been great for the company’s stock value, but the goals of most UX updates are long-term. By making more room for commercial content, the app could eventually see a boost in its bottom line. But did they really have to piss off hundreds of thousands of users to do it? 

Preventing Change Aversion and Finding Middle Ground

There are many lessons to be learned from Snapchat about changing the UX of an app or a website. While yes, almost all UI updates get some backlash from users, there are ways to minimize the aversion to change and help make the transition smoother - the Snapchat trainwreck was entirely avoidable.

If you want to optimize your platform for advertisers while still keeping user engagement up, remember the following when you change your UX: 

1. Be transparent. Warn users beforehand that change is coming so that they’re not caught off guard. You want them to hear about how great the update is from you, not about how bad it is from their friends on Twitter.

2. Test before launching. What might seem like a great idea to you might not be so great to anyone else, which is why it’s important to test UX updates before launch. “Partial launches” (giving a small percentage of users access to the update) let you see how actual users respond to the new UI without risking an avalanche of negative public feedback. If you can’t do a partial launch, conduct usability testing.

3. Be open to user feedback. Actively listen to your users and address user complaints in future updates. Give them a way to communicate with you, such as a survey where users can rate UX changes and type out their comments. Because if they can’t complain to you, they’re going to vent about it on social media.

How Digital Media Strategy is a lot like Hunting Monsters 

Why am I blathering about video games again on a digital media blog? Well, believe it or not, Monster Hunter (a game about, you guessed it, hunting monsters) is surprisingly relevant to this week’s topic - strategy. 

A wise man once told me that strategy is the absence of a clear-cut solution - when there’s no easy way to do it, we have to make a plan. If you rush into a monster’s nest without a plan, there’s a pretty good chance you’re gonna die.  It sounds straightforward enough, but in my experience strategy is an often neglected part of the advertising process. But without an effective digital strategy, your campaign is much more likely to fail.

So when it comes to hunting monsters and creating an effective digital media plan, there are a few things you should keep in mind: 

1. You can’t go it alone. 

The reason I chose Monster Hunter and not a classic strategy game like chess or checkers is that taking down a tough monster requires teamwork. Communication and a variety of skill sets are vital to success on the hunt, and just as vital to success in a digital marketing campaign. Teams are able to brainstorm ideas, collaborate on projects, and share information with one another. 

2. Look before you leap.

Before you set out on the hunt, you need to prepare. That means upgrading your weapons and crafting health potions for when you’re in a pinch. Before you start a digital marketing campaign, you need to research your client, size up the competition, and understand your target audiences before you can even begin to think about creative executions. 

Using the Communications Framework

Of course, planning a digital media plan is a bit more complex than taking down a virtual dinosaur. That’s why we have the communications framework - a handy little tool to guide our strategic planning process. It’s a series of questions advertisers should ask themselves before deciding on specific tactics. Before you ask how, ask:

Why are we doing this? What’s our objective?

Who are we targeting?

What is our proposition?

Where are we advertising?

When should we do it?

How Brands can use ZMOT to their Advantage (Ft. Bedazzled Coffee Makers)

To my great disappointment, ZMOT is not a cool new applesauce for teens (ZMott’s is where my head was, for some reason). It’s the Zero Moment of Truth, or the part of a customer’s journey where they conduct research on a product or service after an initial stimulus (seeing an ad) and before the purchase, also known as the FMOT (first moment of truth).

What does ZMOT mean for brands?

The ZMOT typically happens outside of a brand’s control. Before the age of the internet, consumers relied solely on advertisers and word of mouth for information about products and services. But now, we’re doing our own research, reading reviews, and comparing prices.

As of 2015, the average consumer utilizes 22 unique sources of information before the initial stimulus and the final purchase decision. And because 2015 is ancient history in the digital marketing world, we can only assume that number has gone up even higher. With less power to control how their products are perceived, what’s a brand supposed to do?

How brands can win at ZMOT

How do you make your brand the FMOT for someone still in the ZMOT phase? Easy – fish where the fish are swimming.

To explain how brands can use ZMOT, we’ll use a brand that’s pretty hot in the headlines right now – Keurig. Keurig sells coffee makers, but so do Newell and Nestle. To catch consumers at the ZMOT stage, Keurig has to think like a consumer. For example, some search queries used by people interested in Keurig products might be:

 “best coffee maker”

 “Keurig reviews”

 “Keurig vs Mr Coffee”

 “best single cup brewer”

After they’ve compiled a comprehensive list of queries, Keurig can use those keyword phrases to start building an effective digital marketing strategy using tactics like affiliate marketing, paid search results, and influencer marketing.  

What does any of this have to do with bedazzled coffee makers?

I wanted to use a picture of a Keurig coffee maker but instead, I discovered that bedazzled coffee makers are a thing. If I have to look at this, so do you.

My ZMOT

In an odd way, I play a part in some people’s ZMOT – my job involves writing product reviews, and sometimes I wonder if people actually read them or if they’re just good for bumping my client’s site SE ranking. Either way, it’s interesting to think about how a single person can sway your opinion of a product so much.

I’m a 20-something-year-old, so of course I research products online. That being said, I’ll definitely put more time into researching a big-ticket item versus a $6 phone charger on Amazon. I can’t say I really find myself on affiliate sites, and AdBlocker has saved me from paid search results for years, but I definitely lean heavily on star ratings and reviews. I’m a little bit ashamed at how fast I’ll dismiss something with two stars or less, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.

Influencer Marketing, or How Reggie Fils-Aimé Makes Me Spend More Money on Video Games Than I Really Should 

If you’re anything like me, you hate the word “influencer”. It brings to mind some talentless hack with an Instagram account who gets paid to take pictures of their Daniel Wellington watch. But as I’ve discovered this week, influencer marketing can be so much more than that.

What is an influencer?

According to an article from the Huffington Post, the definition influencer marketing is simply “the action of promoting and selling products or services through people (influencers) who have the capacity to have an effect on the character of a brand”.

That last part is what jumps out at me the most – the character of a brand. A single person can have a huge impact on the way we feel about a brand and its products. For example, Steve Jobs, in his black turtleneck and round glasses, helped position Apple as a smart and sophisticated brand every time he spoke on stage.

Who is Reggie Fils-Aimé , and why is he taking all of my money?

It’s no secret that I’m a big Nintendo fan – I’ve been hooked since the first time I played Pokemon Silver on the GameBoy Color in 1999. That’s why I want to talk about Reggie Fils-Aimé as an example of influencer marketing done right. 

Since 2006, Reggie Fils-Aimé has been the President and COO of Nintendo of America. Typically, company executives aren’t all that well known – do you know who runs Sony, Target, or P&G? Even if you do know their names, you have to admit that they don’t have much of an effect on the overall character of the brand they represent. But every Nintendo fan knows and loves “The Regginator”, and there are countless memes out there to prove it.  

It all started in 2004, when Fils-Aimé was still VP of Nintendo of America. Before that year’s E3 press conference, Nintendo’s brand image was very conservative and family-friendly. And then Fils-Aimé got on stage and opened with this:

Suddenly, Nintendo’s “E for everyone” reputation was thrown off balance - Reggie brought a dash of chaos to a very neutral brand, and the fans loved it. 

How do advertisers use influencer marketing?

Ok, so what do one man’s silly antics have to do with Nintendo’s marketing strategy?

When a brand has a superstar, the best thing they can do is embrace it – and that’s exactly what Nintendo did. In the past decade, Nintendo has taken advantage of Fils-Aimé ’s odd but lovable personality by making him the star of almost every E3 in the past decade, and it’s a strategy that’s paid off. Promotional skits and interviews that Fils-Aimé appears in often go viral on gaming news sites, Twitter, and Tumblr. More people tune into Nintendo’s livestreams when they know that the Regginator is going to be making an appearance.

How Digital Media Has Changed the Advertising Game

Sometimes I wish that I was working in the ad industry back in the 80s and 90s. Love for the aesthetics of that era aside, I miss when copy was king. I miss hokey, text-heavy ads like this one for the Gameboy.

But I have to face the reality of the digital age – no one wants to read long copy anymore. We want images, videos, and the sound of our favorite podcaster trying to find a new way to talk about Blue Apron after they’ve talked about it one hundred times before. We scroll through our phones so quickly that we don’t have the time to stop and read a block of text, no matter how clever or well-written it is.

I use the word “want” very loosely. We don’t necessarily “want” to see online ads, we’re just more likely to stop and look at a video than we are a paragraph. But unfortunately for advertisers, one of the biggest problems with digital media is that it’s becoming increasingly easier to make these ads disappear altogether.

It almost feels like a crime to use an adblocker while I’m studying advertising, but I think I’d go insane without it. When my old adblocker suddenly stopped working on Youtube videos, the 10-minute video I was trying to watch was interrupted by unskippable ads three times – how anyone could put up with that is beyond me.

But we can’t – and we shouldn’t – stop people from using adblockers, even if it does cost the industry tens of billions of dollars per year. The solution instead, I think, is to make more ads that don’t look like ads. Facebook is loaded with this type of branded content, from cooking videos that just so happen to use a heaping spoonful of Cool Whip or a cute puppy that just so happens to be eating Pedigree kibble.