Streaming in the Aisles

The following is republished with the permission of the Association of National Advertisers. Find this and similar articles on ANA Newsstand.

By David Ward

After a nerve-wracking year in which many brands sought to drive sales without the benefit of their brick-and-mortar outlets, a springtime decline in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. led shoppers to return to physical retail locations, however gradually. Indeed, a CivicScience “COVID comfort tracker” from early July showed that consumers were more comfortable shopping in stores when it comes to out-of-home activities post-pandemic, beating out returning to the office, traveling, and attending public events. While the ongoing surge in the Delta variant is hampering the return to brick-and-mortar outlets, people’s behavior earlier this year shows marketers have an opportunity to shake up the in-store experience and accelerate their omnichannel engagement strategy.

“During the pandemic, we saw shoppers choose brands that they trusted more than ever before,” says Tyler Turnbull, CEO of FCB North America, whose clients include Burger King and Walmart. “Coming out of COVID and lockdowns, shoppers are more open than ever to experimenting with new products and services.”

With consumers conditioned to e-commerce for the past 18 months, they will return to stores with changed expectations.

“Consumers heavily engaged with the brands online in the last year and a half, and as they come to physical stores, they need to feel that this is the same brand, and that it gets them,” says Tamara Gruzbarg, head of customer insights and strategy at ActionIQ, a customer data platform.

Gruzbarg stresses that even customers who displayed their loyalty to certain stores pre-pandemic may now need a different, more relevant in-store engagement that goes beyond simply greeting people following a long absence.

The “New” Normal

With the rise of e-commerce and direct-to-consumer (DTC) programs — including subscription-based services in which everything under the sun can be delivered on a monthly basis — some marketers may downplay the impact of the return of in-store shopping, but that would be a mistake.

J. Michael Prince, president and CEO of USPA Global Licensing, which oversees the nearly $2 billion U.S. Polo Assn. sport-inspired lifestyle brand, says it remains vital for brands to balance their online business with their brick-and-mortar outlets. “While it’s the digital age, consumers still want a personalized and emotional experience with the brands that they purchase,” he says.

U.S. Polo Assn., for example, has been testing a “High Goal” Energy Store concept internationally, with plans to soon introduce it in the U.S. The design features high-tech mirrors (so customers can see how they look in their new outfits and take a selfie), touchless checkout, and tools designed to shop online while being in a physical store simultaneously.

While consumers may be looking for a more digitally integrated in-store experience, Prince says shoppers also want reassurances that the brand they loved pre-pandemic hasn’t been altered. “I think it would be a mistake for big brands to make major changes to things like price points right now, while consumers are still trying to get their footing post-pandemic,” he says.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (61 percent) are “ready to go” in returning to normal, pre-pandemic behavior, according to a Nielsen study released in April and reported in Progressive Grocer.
A floor display of the U.S. Polo Assn.’s “High Goal” Energy Store concept, which the organization plans to introduce in the U.S. soon. The newfangled store features high-tech mirrors, touchless checkout, and other tools enabling consumers to shop online while being in a brick-and-mortar outlet. As people start to return to in-store shopping post-pandemic, brands are looking to blend their online and offline assets. Courtesy of U.S. Polo Assn.

According to Nielsen, 30 percent of consumers expected to do more in-store shopping in the months ahead, with many saying they expect to do less in-store pickup and home delivery from local stores within the next year.

“Consumers across the globe have responded to the crisis and its associated disruption to normal consumer behaviors by trying different shopping behaviors and expressing a high intent (65 percent or more) to incorporate these behaviors going forward,” says a McKinsey & Company report released last fall.

One result of the pandemic disruption is that shoppers have become more flexible in their brand preferences, says Vida Roozen, SVP of client accounts at BDS Connected Solutions, which helps brands connect with buyers. “Brand loyalties had to shift based on availability, and that’s given life to brands that were either new or had been overlooked pre-pandemic,” Roozen says.

Consumers are returning to stores with pent-up demand, of course, which is creating new opportunities for brands of every stripe. To facilitate the path to purchase, marketers need to provide a combination of social media/influencer programs to drive awareness and in-store strategies like displays, in-store promotions, and freebies, says Rita Overzat, CEO of the luxury brand development firm The RJM Group.

An educated sales staff is also not to be underestimated, as retailers strive to create a streamlined, frictionless in-store experience that better matches how consumers shop online. That means more signage to guide shoppers through the store, additional self-service checkouts, and, perhaps most important, increased space devoted to services such as buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) fulfillment, says Dean Forbes, CEO of Minnow Studio.

Beef Up Shopper Messaging

This new brick-and-mortar reality will force brands to do more with their in-store presence, including adopting new technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity built into actual products.

“Consumers now expect an integrated physical and digital experience,” says Niall Murphy, CEO and co-founder of EVRYTHNG Product Cloud, a platform that manages digital identities for consumer products. “Failure to combine purchasing online with pick-up, or purchase in-store with delivery, or return-to-store from online purchase into a smooth experience is going to push consumers to competitors.”

Murphy says post-purchase engagement through the product itself is emerging as a key — often neglected — consumer touchpoint. He cites brands such as EVRYTHNG client Puma, which is embedding IoT technology into its sneakers so that Puma shoes originally bought in-store lead to additional engagement and subsequent online sales.

Minnow Studio’s Forbes says marketers, after more than a year off from in-store shopping, may also need to relearn some of the critical lessons of retail marketing, including avoiding the use of upper funnel strategies in a lower purchase funnel location.

“Shopper messaging and brand messaging are two different things,” he says. “You’re not doing your brand building in-store; you’re helping that shopper to find your product.”Wedding Offline and Online

The Holy Grail for marketers has long been cross-channel brand consistency, so that consumers stay confident that the perceived value of the branded products they research and purchase online are identical to the impressions they get with those same products at brick-and-mortar outlets.

Forbes of Minnow Studio says packaging design is emerging as a tool to drive that goal. He adds that many CPG brands will increasingly offer packaging they can sell via e-commerce or as a kit for a DTC subscription service, yet still be merchandized — and equally valuable — to somebody shopping in-store.

FCB’s Turnbull says that as things get back to a sense a normal, retail brands will be presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reintroduce themselves to shoppers.

“Instead of trying to ‘get back to the way things were’, world-class brands are reimagining their experiences to surprise shoppers and show them how they’ve improved over the pandemic,” Turnbull says. “Best practice is to use this moment as if it was the first time a customer experienced your brand and deliver something great to keep them loyal for the long term.”