The Branded Pantry

Plan, Do, Measure….That is the mantra of the In Store Implementation Share-group, and has been in one, shape or form the tactical basis of every effective management technique for many years. 

 Easy to say…hard to do.   Not so much the planning.  We have scores of effective shelf, category, shopper insight, pricing and promotion planning tools which are made more sophisticated each year.    Not even so much the doing, as we have built any number of both organizational structures (3rd party merchandisers, distributors, wall-to-wall resources, etc.) in both our retail and our manufacturer organizations.  We have also built more effective task management systems (Reflexis, Red Prairie, others) that have the ability to prioritize and manage the crushing amounts of instructions headquarters wants to have implemented in their shelf, pricing, promotion and “fixit” efforts at store level. 

 The measurement….not so easy.    Oh, we have our syndicated data that gives us a smattering of causal (display, ad and special price information) generally from a sample of stores.  Not enough detail, nor timely enough, nor complete enough to give an accurate, actionable picture of shelf/store conditions.  Certainly enough wiggle room to allow the trading partners to disagree about the readings provided….and therefore about the conclusions about the effectiveness of the planning or the doing.   

POS data was also viewed as a potential measuring stick, particularly as it moved from weekly to daily and had marvelous models applied to it to determine out of stocks and the like.  Over time we have come to understand that while POS is a measure of results….with no view of the store conditions that in the main caused the results we are in no better position to change our plans or our execution if we do not know what the prior plans nor execution actually executed!

Other tools were supposed to measure (self reporting systems tied out to task management), or eliminate the need for measurement (Shelf Strip Systems).   These of course are fraught with issues that either cause some element of trust barriers to acceptance (self reporting?) or are systematically insupportable (Shelf Strip Systems start with data from the Product Information Masterfile… the accuracy issues have been discussed in this blog, GXS, Agentrics, GS1 and many other areas at length.)

There are a couple of emerging technologies that have the potential  of  effective measurement in an irrefutable, collaborative and efficient manner.  RFID was thought to be the front runner in this arena, but technical, business practise and cost hurdles continue to plague this dream, although VCs still invest millions into companies such as Altierre and Goliath.  The new group of solutions appear more pragmatic.  One of these is ShelfSnap , another is Store Eyes and the third is ShelfMeter by Ferveo Technologies.  (more…)

    Wow!  At the May 28th Chicago,  DisplaySearch conference, DIGITAL SIGNAGE, THE FUTURE IS OUT-OF-HOME, the buzz  was on just how big this vehicle would become and how soon.

“The Fourth Screen” is the use of video displays for Out-Of-Home advertising (with the first three being; TV, your PC and your mobile device).   It was clearly viewed as an opportunity worthy of huge investments.  Speakers from Panasonic, LGE, NEC, Sharp, Samsung and others debated size of screen  (big is good), technologies, distribution channels, connection streams and content complexity, but they were in absolute lock-step about the billions of dollars  they were each spending on new expanding plants and R&D. 

Stats were fast and furious but if I got it right the domestic screen count across the 8 markets targeted total 2.5 million today.  ONE vendor talked about a new plant which would be producing 7 million per YEAR when in comes on stream in a year or two.  AND the units this plant provides are bigger than ANYTHING available today!   Bigger is certainly viewed as better, and after doing serious research in Wrigley Field last Friday I have to admit those little TV’s with the United Airlines sponsorship look pretty unimpressive by modern standards.  New plants cost $5 billion each and there are $50 billion committed, over the next four years.   

Now Out-of-Home advertising is neither new nor restricted to Digital Signage.    Paper signage, lite-box diarama’s and other media have been around for years.  2/3rds of the efforts today are NOT in retail, but in office buildings, airports, elevators, schools and lots of other places where people are captive.  That is what we USED to be at home.  We HAD to watch the commercial between innings!  Now we do not have to watch any advertising (other than in-show product placements) on our home screens so……naturally advertisers are going to watch for opportunities to either force feed ads to captive audiences OR put the ad in a contextual environment (ie: in a store,….where you can DO something about it!)    So, again the appeal to Out-of-Home advertising is the audience cannot TIVO you and they might see you on a screen not too far from a shelf and a check out.  (more…)

In addition to the consumer grocery spending shift to Wal*Mart, commented upon below, both BJ’s and Costco reported strong year over year fourth quarter gains.  Same store sales were up 5.4% in BJ’s and 7% (excluding gas) at Costco!  These gains were driven by perishable and other food items!!

The move must be in part price driven (duh) as the University of Michigan’s Customer Satisfaction Index measured Wal*Mart’s performance in the fourth quarter at its lowest rating ever (68) down 6% from third Quarter.