The provision of TV screens that play news, sport and music is the latest ploy by Sainsbury’s to drive traffic into stores. This type of ‘retailtainment’ has the potential to ‘turn off’ as many consumers as it ‘turns on’. Either way, manufacturers need to focus on providing simplicity in their marketing propositions.
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UK retailer Sainsbury’s is looking to boost the retailtainment it offers to consumers through the use of in-store TV plasma screens. The postcard-sized screens will be placed at eye-level along shopping aisles. The screens will provide shoppers with news, sport and weather updates as well as information on products and promotions. A trial is being undertaken in four stores prior to a national rollout should it prove successful.
The screens are most likely to appeal to housekeepers whose full-time occupation is running a household. The screens should help liven up their regular shop. They may also prove popular with men who are “dragged along” to do the shopping with their partners. However, retailers must also question whether shoppers really need this type of retailtainment.
The screens could create added complexity to the shopping experience or annoy consumers. For example, shoppers with young children could find the screens irritating since their children may get regularly distracted by them, hence slowing them down.
In addition, people are receiving more marketing messages than ever before – in the UK it is estimated that people are exposed to 1,600 commercial messages a day. With this level of clutter in the marketplace there is increasing debate as to whether marketing needs to become ‘louder’ to rise above the ‘noise’, more permission-based, more controversial, or all of these. However, there is increased scope for marketing to become simpler and focused on delivering straightforward, functional messages to people.
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By GlobalDataWhatever the eventual outcome of the trial is, the fact remains that manufacturers will have to increasingly work on delivering simplicity in their packaging and communication to target time-pressed shoppers who are overloaded with marketing information. Should TV plasma screens become standard across UK supermarkets, manufacturers will have to work even harder to stand out on the shelf amid the additional noise of these TVs.
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