Shopper marketing technology

'Shopper marketing' means communicating with consumers when and where they're in a store. The North American Effie Awards for Shopper Marketing recently honored retailers and manufacturers for using effective shopper marketing. According to the jury chair for 2015, the most effective shopper marketing will: 

• be insight driven.
• be category focused.
• be strategic and systemic.
• strive to drive an action/behavior.
• focus on overcoming purchase barriers around moments of truth when behavior can be influenced.
• have emotion.

In addition to traditional shopper marketing techniques such as displays, shoppers with smartphones are a key audience for in-store marketing via technology that either tracks or connects with phones. Many top retailers are already using beacon technology to improve shoppers' in-store experience by guiding consumers directly to a particular product, offering extra information and offering special discounts or other financial incentives. Not surprisingly, London's Regent Street has many beacon experiments ongoing at retail stores.

In late 2014, Asda installed beacon Bluetooth technology to test reaction in a limited number of stores. One idea being tested is sending competitive price comparisons to shoppers' phones while they're standing near a certain product or category. 

Now Philips has developed LED lights (see photo) that work through shoppers' smartphones to pinpoint shoppers' in-store location (relative to each LED light fixture) and communicate promotional details. The Philips lights are being tested in a Carrefour supermarket.

This is an alternative to beacon technology but, like beacons, it depends on shoppers accepting communications via app.

However, a small number of shoppers concerned about privacy may prefer not to allow access, which will limit the effectiveness of all these shopper-marketing technologies.