Opportunity to See is Not Shopper Engagement Yet

October 26th, 2007 Nurlan Urazbaev

The traditional “impression”, or “opportunity to see” an ad is no longer enough to prove the efficiency of advertising at retail, says Dick Blatt, President & CEO of POPAI, a point-of-purchase advertising trade organisation. Mr. Blatt told a POPAI digital signage conference in Montreal on Thursday that big advertislng dollars have started to pour into shopper marketing. He cautioned, however, that the problem the industry was facing now was how to keep these budgets in the absense of reliable metrics.

POPAI, among other trade bodies, has been working on establishing metrics to equip advertisers with insights into the real effect of their in-store initiatives.

A recent POPAI MARI Proof of Concept research was the first attempt to measure the level of engagement shoppers have with the marketing-at-retail (MAR) displays.

The research revealed that only 20 percent of the MAR material was passed by shoppers on their journey.  Only 4 percent of the material was both passed and seen, meaning that marketing waste in the measured stores was a shocking 96 percent.

POPAI used the findings to establish a new metric: impact ratio, that will be expressed in percentage points and will reflect shopper engagement as opposed to just an “opportunity to see”. The details of the research can be found HERE.

According to Dr. Hugh Phillips, a professor of McGill University who spoke at the same conference, many marketers and retailers are aware of the acute oversupply of advertising messages in stores. There are 4,624 display items in an average-sized supermarket in the UK and 4825 displays in average US stores, with up to 12,000 items in a megastore (POPAI studies). Some chains started cleaning up the store environments by reducing the amount of advertising materials.

Dr. Phillips, an expert on the cognitive psychology of shopping,  said shoppers have developed mechanisms of coping with the clutter by engaging a ‘deselection’ process, shielding themselves from the overload and reacting only to signs of potential relevant information. He found that shoppers may start reading the message only after they have singled it out on a subconscious level, by using indicators like color, shape and size.

The practical conclusion for digital signage networks? Digital signage enters an already busy environment in retail, and, to be successful, entrepreneurs should take the in-store clutter into account. Although digital signs has the unique potential of helping to clear the static display mess and stand out with its full-color and full-motion messages, they will still have to compete with over 35 other types of advertising, and will be perceived according to the same laws of shopper psychology.

In the long run, as Dick Blatt put it, those who understand that digital signage should be treated as ‘just another medium’, and measured as such, will prevail in making it a key part of a marketing mix.

Entry Filed under: Digital Signage ROI, How to: Digital Signage Tips, The Big Picture, Uncategorized