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11.03.2010

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The Great Demise of In-Store TV

In most areas of life, it is considered unseemly or insecure to loudly champion one’s successes. It’s sort of like being “cool.” If you have to tell someone about it then you’ve already lost the game.

So please consider the following remarks in the spirit of a continued constructive dialogue on the issue of technology in retail. This is less of a “We told you so” than a “Let’s please put this issue to rest so we can better serve our customers.”

In this case, we’re speaking about the retailers' and marketers' compulsive desire to want to fill grocery stores and other retail spaces with television monitors broadcasting an endless variety of content.

We called for an end to the madness in March of 2006, and again in February of 2008. And we are here yet again for what we hope to be our final commentary on the subject; to draw this dialogue to its much-deserved close.

In a recent piece in Advertising Age, Jack Neff charts several of the missteps and misfires of this yet-to-succeed strategy, even speculating as to whether the approach may ever prove to be viable.

To wit:

Bob Wolinsky calls it "the taint."
He means the residue of doubt spawned by decades of in-store TV ventures that never delivered as planned, despite the seemingly unbeatable premise of putting TV ads in front of shoppers just as they're deciding whether to buy.
He believes he's solved problems that dogged prior in-store TV ventures. His solutions include a yet-to-be-revealed content approach he likens to "short attention-span theater," cheaper technology for wiring stores and systems that ensure ads actually get delivered to screens and monitor shopper flow through the store.

We hear this same sentiment echoed every time a new version of the “Let’s put TV’s in the stores” is dragged out of the dustbin. Rather than question the premise, the new answer is always about some mysterious combination of revised content and technology that will magically transform…

What?

That’s right. What will putting TV’s in grocery stores—be it generation 1, 2, 3, etc.—ever accomplish?

We’ve never been exactly sure on this one.

In Neff’s article we read quotes from spokespeople who say things like “encouraged by increasing advertiser interest,” or “customizing messages by store and section, measuring responses and messages based on sales.” But we remain perplexed as to what any of this has to do with creating a compelling, engaging retail experience.

As we argued in 2006, why would anybody go to a grocery store to watch TV? We’ve been studying consumers for nearly twenty years and we have yet to encounter this behavior. Most right thinking people traditionally watch TV in their homes, perhaps in their living rooms or family rooms. To be fair, this behavior is changing slightly with the advent of smartphone technology. Still, we rarely find hipster teenagers hanging out near the meat counter watching their Frankie Avalon or Bobbie Darin videos.

Quoting from our 2006 Hartbeat:

If you happen to be reading this, chances are you’re a pretty busy person. Or, more appropriately, in today’s world of dual wage-earning households and over-programmed children we are all very busy people. So when we drop in to our local grocery—as we are wont to do several (or more) times a week, often after a long day at the office—why would we ever, ever, ever waste our time by standing around the produce aisle watching television?
In truth, the only time we watch television anywhere other than at home is when we are both captive and bored. To this end, it probably makes some sense to offer this kind of televised programming at a car repair facility, a hospital, an airport or any similar situation in which we are held hostage with nothing much else to do.
But a grocery store?
With all due respect, we would suggest that if your customers are truly so bored as to consider watching a television monitor in the produce department instead of engaging in your retail experience, you’ve got many more serious problems to address before wasting time and money on television programming.

One common response we’ve received to our position argues that such devices might somehow contribute to the experience or help their customers shop more efficiently.

And as we’ve suggested in further discussions on this issue, this time in 2008:

While the impulse to problem solve surely must come from a good place, the reality is that the technological solutions proposed by many retailers and consultants will fail because the "problem" has been fundamentally misunderstood and misstated.
It simply boggles the mind that so many retailers, analysts and consultants spend time devising ways to distract their customers from passionate food experiences with unnecessary, whiz-bang technology or, worse yet, try get their customers out of their store more quickly.

And for those who still disagree?

Well, how about the following observation drawn from Mr. Neff’s article:

“Could it just be that TV in stores, good as it always sounded, is a bad idea? Mr. Hoyt (exec director of the In-Store Marketing Institute) finds it "very telling" that News Corp. Chairman-CEO Rupert Murdoch, who knows plenty about TV and owns the largest U.S. in-store media network -- NewsAmerica Marketing -- has never pushed in-store TV.”

And we all know what happens if you argue with Mr. Murdoch, right?

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More Retail Gadgetry

Just last week, Tesco added a barcode reader to its Groceries iPhone app, enabling shoppers to scan any grocery item and add it to a home delivery order instantly.

Here, Tesco is relying on consumers in a brick and mortar setting to arrange for purchases on the Internet, which are later delivered to their home.

We can't help but wonder, wasn't the whole point of the Internet economy supposed to be about avoiding the inconvenience of brick and mortar?