Over at Zip2Save, a recently launched local deal finding site, the early signs of a partnership between LocalPoint Media and Suburban Newspapers of America (Zip2Save’s two parent companies that jointly control it) and ShopLocal are now visible.
Currently the Target weekly ad that ShopLocal provides services for is being pulled into Zip2Save’s site via ShopLocal’s SmartDelivery API (SDAPI). Metroland (a Canadian firm that is wholly owned by Torstar) is the technology provider behind Zip2Save that did the Target weekly ad integration, which appears to have ported out their publishing platform that Metroland Media Group uses to power Flyerland.ca, a Canadian focused weekly ad, deals and coupon site.
The current Target circular presentation and user experience is very basic, with only page views. So no browse by brand, category or keywords. No hotspots, rollovers or item detail pages. Just circular page flipping / viewing at this time.
The ShopLocal team is hopeful that both Target will see success with this content integration and that Zip2Save will continue to iterate and improve the weekly ad browsing experience to make it more rich, robust and engaging.
As a side note, ShopLocal is also powering the Lowe’s circular that is shown within Zip2Save via an iFrame integration to a ShopLocal hosted Lowe’s SmartCircular site.
Kaboodle has launched a nice weekly giveaway to help promote the new weekly shopping list feature on it’s site. This makes sense as in the web – to – store shopping model, getting users to add things to their online shopping list is one of the most valuable behaviors to encourage, as it is a great proxy for offline shopper intent.
More publishers and retailers really need to think of cheap and fun ways of promoting their weekly ad content and this is a great example. Giveaways and sweepstakes are classic, time-tested tactics that do bring new and returning users back to your site.
Fun email promotion that Kaboodle is running to drive awareness and usage of it's new weekly shopping list feature by running weekly giveaways of $100 cash to users that choose to engage with the lists.
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.
You have to love free promotion, especially when it involves the #1 most visited web page on the planet. Yahoo! recently hand selected the Target Weekly Ad MyYahoo! homepage application to be featured as one of the apps available on user’s Yahoo! homepages. This placement can’t be purchased by an advertiser as an app must be chosen by the Yahoo! Homepage team to be featured within the Yahoo! homepage, and Target won the lottery on this one. It’s great to see this app up there with the likes of the Wall Street Journal, BBC, Mint.com, eBay, Wired.com and WebMD whom all also have Homepage enabled apps.
From the Yahoo.com homepage, if a user clicks on the "+ADD" within the left hand navigation area called "My Favorites", a user is presented a pre-screened list of allowable apps that can be added to one's Yahoo! homepage.
If a user chooses to add the Target Weekly Ad App, it will then appear within the "My Favorites" left hand nav section in an unexpanded state.
If a user chooses to interact with the Target Weekly Ad App, the entire app expands over the main body of content and the user can browse all of the weekly ad steals and deals right there within their personalized Yahoo! homepage.
Target is also helping to promote both the MyYahoo! (and now Yahoo! Homepage) and iGoogle widgets by including them within the header area of their dedicated Weekly Ad email alert. It's a nice integrated tie-in to cross-promote the various ways the Target Weekly Ad is available for viewing online.
Chalk another successful new partner product launch up! Its great to see the trade publications pick up the story that is contained within Kaboodle’s recent integration of the Target Weekly Ad within their social shopping community. The combination of social and local really is the future of retail advertising. This is a great early example of how this may look with forward looking feature like sharing, commenting and shopping list making.
The Target Weekly Ad just keeps popping up everywhere! This advertiser
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