Advertisers asking (aka forcing by waving their dollars) publishers to think outside of the banner ad box is nothing new. Sure its a trend that has continued to pick up steam in the last 18 months where is seems like any large ad buy from a publisher includes something custom and unique. Everyone does after all want to be special. And large advertsiers feel that differentation pressure more than anyone.
So when you great friends over at About.com contacted the team here at ShopLocal a few months ago to help create an embeddable iFrame widget that would display T-Mobile phones, it seemed like a great opportunity to leverage
What we came up with was this T-Mobile storefront, specifically the phone finder module that is in the middle of the page. It’s a clever little Adobe Flex/Flash powered widget that allows users to browse all of various phones that T-Mobile currently sells. It was then seamlessly inserted into an overall page within About.com that has a bunch of other T-Mobile content on it. About.com did a great job of helping create a rich branded environment that has some utility and promotes the actual products that the advertiser (T-Mobile) is trying to sell to consumers.
Within the T-Mobile storefront, the phone finder / selector area in the middle left of the page is a ShopLocal powered iFrame app that pushes dynamic real time data into this embeddable widget.
The Home Depot recently joined the ranks of other top retailers to launch their own branded iPhone app. It’s a version 1 type release, but from what I know there is a lot planned in the future to really rev up this app. However within this initial version, the THD localized weekly ad content is included (and powered via the ShopLocal SmartDelivery API). The notable feature here is how the weekly ad content is connected to a “list” concept. This creates a useful digital – to – real world shopping tool that users can take advantage of to help capture and plan upcoming in-store shopping visits.
This is the app's start up splash screen
This is the main default landing screen
Once a user selects the "Shop" tab, this is what the user sees next
If a user selects "Weekly Ad", this is the next screen that appears with a list of current categories
Once a specific weekly ad category is selected, a results set is returned of on sale products
Once a specific product is selected, an item detail screen appears with two calls action - add to a wish list OR add to a shopping list
The wait is over. The Kohl’s Weekly Ad & Store Finder iPhone / iPod Touch application is now live within the Apple iTunes App Store. The ShopLocal team has been working on this for months and it’s great to finally get this live for the general public (thanks Apple for working the weekend and pushing this live last Saturday 10/31).
The team is also excited to see that a good chunk of people have already downloaded the app, given that no promotion has occurred yet, including a few outside of the U.S. (not sure why though?). It will be fun to see this app’s download footprint grow in the coming days, especial within the crowded Lifestyles iTunes app category. It’s one of those things that you really don’t exactly know how your baby (um, I mean app) will be received by the world.
It’s a free download so please download and check it out. Tell us what you think by leaving feedback within iTunes or rating the app there as well.
Available now, the free Kohl's Weekly Ad & Store Finder application
Within this iPhone app, there are four main features and content views which are browse by:
- Weekly Ad Page: Users can browse through all the active weekly ads for their current store location and then can select a specific promotion to view all of the circular pages one at a time
- Brands: App users can filter all of the current on sale deals by a specific brand such as Nike or Dockers
- Categories (called Offers in the app): Allows consumers to select a specific category of interest such as Girl’s Shoes and to only view those applicable deals that are live right now for their current store location
- Nearby Kohl’s Store Locations: Shoppers can use their current location to pull up a list of Kohl’s stores that are close by, as well as directly call the local store or view the store’s location within a Google map
Here is a collage of many of the different views and slices of weekly ad content that is exposed by this native iPhone app that is built around the best local deals that are available at local Kohl's stores across the U.S.
Masha Sajdeh of Arc Worldwide presented a great piece of brand new multichannel research at the In-Store Marketing Expo that took place here in Chicago last week. This studies methodology and sample was a solid:
- 3 countries
- 5,609 respondents
- 60 minute online survey
- 20 categories of products examined
- 10 unique channels probed
The entire Arc multichannel study is worth a careful read, but due to it’s length (57 pages) we’ll only examine a few portions that pertain to better understand which channel different types of multichannel shoppers are using and why.
For those not familuar with the concept of what multichannel shopping is all about, this is a great visual explanation.
So first let’s examine a few of the insights uncovered around how much time different multichannel shoppers spend per channel on a monthly basis. Surprisingly, the circular is the channel that showed the highest usage across all of the different types of mutlichannel shoppers (excluding a retailer’s own web site and store).
Note how the circular across all types of multichannel shoppers plays a critical role in adding the shopping process.
If we take a closer look at just the medium and heavy mutlichannel shoppers, the picture becomes even more stark. A retailer’s own web site and physical store are used heavily and fairly equally by both types. However the usage pattern around circulars is very different with heavy multichannel shoppers (arguable the most desirable and profitable type of shopper) using the circulars 95% of the time, which is higher than the retailer’s own web site. Even the more moderate mutlichannel shoppers are using the circulars at pretty hefty rates of 61%, which when again compared to a retailer’s own web site usage of 69% clearly demonstrates the continued importance of the circular to multichannel shoppers.
Wow, circulars are nearly as used by heavy multichannel shoppers as a retailers own physical stores!
Finally let’s try to get to the bottom of the ‘why’ – in this case, the ‘why’ is what causes these multichannel shoppers to use which channel when. Not surprising, circulars are all about saving money. Catalogs on the other hand are all about providing shoppers with inspiration.
Every single channel has a unique use and value proposition to a multichannel shopper.
Target in it’s latest version (3.0) of their free iPhone app, has continued to make great progress in using new digital mediums to drive shoppers back in store. So instead of getting all caught up in all of the mCommerce hype, Target is staying true to their customers (they call them ‘guests’) and focusing in on the local store which means helping shoppers pre-shop by exposing what is on sale, via the ShopLocal powered weekly ad content (and underlying SmartDelivery API that powers this part of the app).
Right off the bat, the Weekly Ad content is one of two featured types of content within the iPhone app
So if a user choose to view the weekly ad content within the Target iPhone app, here is what they would see (skipping the user’s location entry screen as it is not that interesting):
Here is the main weekly ad categories that a user of the app can choose from.
Selecting the "Electronics" category, this browse results view is generated containing all of the relevant items and offers.
By selecting a specific product from the category browse results, a dedicated item detail appears with the local pricing for the user's current location.
It’s great to continue to see Target integrate the “best of what is on sale at your local store” (e.g., the content contained within the weekly ad) in all the various shopper touch points. This iPhone app has come a long way from being all about eCommerce / buying products online to being much more multi-channel and supportive of the local Target stores.
(4.00 out of 5)
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