The On-Demand Brand: 10 Rules for Digital Marketing Success in an Anytime, Everywhere World

Rule

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9

THE BRAND

experience doesn’t stop at the storefront door—or at

least it shouldn’t.

Yet for all the advertising and marketing that brands engage

in to entice shoppers to open their wallets, more often than

not, actually buying the product is lackluster at best—often

disconnected from the brand experiences that got shoppers

into the store in the first place.

In the digital age, brand marketers—both physical world

retailers and their product marketer partners—are beginning

to understand that personal connectivity is now pervasive. Just

as consumers want to be able to buy from you on demand,

wherever they may be, they also want access to their digital

lives when they actually do make it into your physical store.

And they want experiences that bridge the gap from the vir-

tual to the physical, from clicks to bricks, that can make all the

difference in whether—and how much—they spend there.

Always Keep

Surprises In-Store

Already, advertising networks that display brand messages on seem-

ingly every available wall, kiosk, and monitor account for 10 percent

of the revenues U.S. malls generate for themselves. In the Middle East

and Latin America, malls can derive over 30 percent of their income

from ads from product marketers, according to Cincinnati-based

research firm Marketing Developments.

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In other words, the interruption advertising so loathed and ignored

elsewhere is now invading the actual shopping experience to an

unprecedented degree.

But there’s a better way.

IN-STORE,OUT OF SITE

Today, a growing number of store brands and their product-marketing

partners are recognizing, acknowledging, and acting on trends ignited

by the on-demand revolution.

Look no further than Nike. Remember the Nike PhotoiD digital

experience we discussed in the last chapter—the one in which you can

take a photograph with your mobile phone, send it to a short code, and

receive an image of a customized sneaker that uses the two most promi-

nent colors from your photograph?

Nike has long run an expanded online version of this experience at

NikeiD.com, where consumers can select the materials, choose the

colors, and customize the fit of Nike shoes and sportswear—and then

place a purchase.

In a twist, Nike has taken this idea and put it into reverse—enabling

in-store customers to design and customize shoes and products at

Niketown stores in New York and London.

Interactive kiosks and displays immerse shoppers in the brand,

providing a high-resolution visual of their custom shoe design, and

then deliver the shoes to the shopper’s home or to the store. What’s

key here is that the in-store experience offers exclusive design and

material options not available in the online version.

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THE ON-DEMAND BRAND

At Polo Ralph Lauren’s Madison Avenue store in Manhattan,

passersby attracted to new fashions shown in window displays can tap

on the window, which is outfitted with a thin touch foil material

mounted on the glass that turns it into a touchscreen interface.

Window shoppers can then live up to their name—calling up a pro-

jected image of different clothes, displayed on the actual window. If

they really like what they see, they can use a conveniently located

credit card swiper mounted on the outside of the window.

“I really wanted to find a way to make that amazing technology a

retail reality,” says company senior vice president David Lauren.

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Even individual product brands are getting into the act.

Procter & Gamble’s CoverGirl brand, for instance, created a

mobile application, ColorMatch, that recommends shades of makeup

based on complexion, clothing, and accessories colors. The idea is to

provide a tool when women are at the makeup counter, where they

wouldn’t have access to a computer.

Look for several brands to begin leveraging the mobile-to-store

channel to influence purchase decisions. In recent tests, Visa created

mobile apps that enable shoppers at nineteen Safeway and eight

Mollie Stones stores to text short codes to Visa for advice on wine and

food pairings (see Figure 9–1).

In another initiative, diners at local restaurants can text Visa to

receive voice messages from the establishment’s chef about that

evening’s menu.

One could easily imagine such offerings as branded services from

Zagat’s and other guide brands.

Spectator Mobile, on the other hand, is a mobile-optimized version

of winespectator.com, tailored specifically for wine-buying informa-

tion on the go, especially when at a restaurant or in a store.

With Spectator Mobile, members of WineSpectator.com can

search for scores and tasting notes in Wine Spectator’s database of more

than 200,000 wine ratings, view vintage charts of all the major wine

ALWAYS KEEP SURPRISES IN-STORE

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