The consumer goods industry spends a lot of money on instore activity. But how much of it is effective? Well, that rather depends on what we mean by effective! Often the measure of effectiveness will be ‘did it grow my sales?’ Why is that? Because, in most cases, the core objective of the activity was… to grow sales! Objectives drive our definition of effectiveness. Objectives drive our choice of strategy and tactics. Objectives are (in my experience) the most powerful part of any planning process. They are also often given the least attention! So if we want to create more effective instore activities we should start by setting better objectives.
The power of objectives
Before we dive into the details of setting better objectives for instore activity, indulge me a little. Because the value of better objectives isn’t limited to getting more effective instore activities. Higher quality objectives will deliver better brand plans, category plans, channel plans and customer plans. It will deliver better creative, better media buys. Better everything!
Why objectives are so important in creating effective instore activities
Objectives give you something to measure. Without objectives, what do we measure? And with poor objectives, we will end up making the wrong measures, wasting time and money, and potentially drawing the wrong conclusions about our activity. After all, our objectives tell us whether our activity was a success or not! If we get our objectives wrong, or don’t optimize them – how can we hope to optimize our activity?
The biggest mistake when setting objectives for instore activities
Too often however objectives are one dimensional, and not specific. “Grow brand sales” (seen on a brief from a blue-chip client very recently) fails on both of these counts. SMART as an acronym has been around the management training classrooms for what seems like forever (although apparently it’s less than forty years). But it appears that sometimes it isn’t carried through into practice. But enough has been written about SMART for me not to need to take that on; so let’s focus on the dimensions of the objective and how this can help to create effective instore activities.
Set three types of objectives for truly effective instore activity
There are many possible dimensions of success for an instore activity, and therefore there are likewise many possible objectives. However, we typically find that these fall into three broad areas: commercial, retail customer and shopper. Further, we find that a complete set of objectives should have at least one objective from each.
Set commercial objectives
Where objectives are set, they typically focus on the commercial objectives of the organization (‘grow brand sales’ as per the example above). That is great: organizations exist to make profits, and therefore there should always be a commercial objective. We should challenge ourselves and our team as to whether growing sales alone is sufficient as a measure of commercial success, and whether there should also be a profit or ROI related objective too.
Set retail customer-centric objectives
If this instore activity will be placed in a retailer’s store (whether online or offline) it will require their support. Activities should therefore be challenged by objectives to ensure that the retailer ‘wins’ too. An activity which does not support the retailer’s objectives is unlikely to be repeated many times, no matter how well it hits the brand’s objectives. Objectives which relate to category sales or profitability must therefore be included. Objectives relating to a retailer’s strategic goals may be considered too.
Set shopper-related objectives to ensure effective instore activities
The one area that is nearly always missing is any objective relating to changing shopping behavior: which is strange given that this objective cuts to the heart of shopper marketing. As shopper marketers our goal is to change shopping behavior such that it drives profitable growth of our brands. Without creating clarity on the shopper behavior, we are trying to create, how are we going to ensure that behavior is created? In other words, how are we going to measure the effectiveness of our activity?
Why is ‘better sales’ not enough as an objective?
Perhaps the more commercially-minded of you may ask ‘but if the commercial objective is met, then what is the problem?’ So let us consider an activity – a display which achieves a five times uplift in sales, and therefore drives profit through the roof. Is that successful? Based on purely commercial measures, yes; but let’s dig a little further by considering two scenarios.
In the first, the uplift is driven by existing, planned shoppers of the brand buying five times as much product. In the second, existing shoppers buy exactly the same as they planned, but the uplift is driven by loads of new shoppers tried the product for the first time. Which one is most valuable? It depends on the objective. If the objective was to drive penetration, then the first activity was expensive. And, depending on whether existing consumers used more product or not, potentially a disaster (if those shoppers bought five times as much but didn’t change their consumption behavior, it will be a long time before they buy again). The second drove significant penetration, and therefore would be deemed a success against that objective.
Setting shopper objectives helps create more effective instore activities
By setting three types of objectives shopper marketing managers improve the chances of creating truly great instore activity – activity which changes shoppers’ behavior in a positive way, makes commercial sense to the organization, and is more likely to receive support from retailers. Mechanics and creative can be chosen based on its likelihood of achieving all of these objectives. By then measuring the impact of the instore activity against each of these objective sets, it is possible to identify activity which delivers best against all three objectives. Sometimes this might require a bit of trial and error, but without objectives marketers have no idea where their ‘errors’ are.
Better objectives can help make all your plans and activities more effective
Whatever you are planning, spend more time on setting objectives. I used to think that setting objectives was a quick, low-value step. I’ve learned, by working with thousands of marketers, shopper marketers and customer managers, that spending more time on setting objectives is the best way to get consistently better results. Setting better objectives is the first step in creating more effective instore activities. If you’d like to understand more about the entire process and our online and offline training programs please get in touch now.
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