The more I learn about the retailer and the customer, the better experience I can help create. Perspective is indispensable. When James Bickers asked me to be a part of the Retail Customer Excellence Summit Advisory Board, I didn’t even think about it. Yep. I’m in.

The summit took place last week in Chicago, and was terrific. The collection of attendees and speakers was a solid mix of perspective and best practices. At one table I saw a toy retailer with a eyewear retailer. Another table saw a giant mobile retailer sitting with a day spa owner. The eclectic mix allowed for an intimate exchange of ideas.

So, in customary fashion with other conferences I have attended, here are some of the things I learned.

OMG. Can’t Bleev no stores uzn mob tech 2 ngage custs!
A group of us toured the the Woodfield Mall on Sunday afternoon, one of the largest malls in the country. I know that because a) they told me, and b) I sat down in my hotel room and passed out for an hour from walking the entire mall. Retailers continue to jump on the social media bandwagon, but we discovered very little in practice at the mall. I didn’t peek into every single store, but saw only one that was using Twitter prominently: Metropark. They had their Twitter feed on big 36” widescreen TVs hanging in the store and facing the mall. Very effective. James Bickers noticed that out of over 275 stores, only two (TWO!) were using FourSquare. OMG indeed.

My shoes before the store walk, and three hours later.

The Best Perspective Came From Outside Retail
PGA Player Chip Beck, Consultant Mark Levy, Jim Knight from Hard Rock International, and Ed Rensi, former CEO/President of McDonald’s Corporation, gave easily the most spirited talk of the day with plenty of perspective that can be implemented at retail. Mr. Beck provided some of the best insight, saying that it’s his goal to make the people feel more comfortable when playing with him in pro-am tournaments. When he’s with a group, he makes it a point to walk at least one hole with each participant so that he can get to know them better. From a retail perspective, building relationships with customers creates a better buying environment and experience. He ended by saying that he has built a reputation on the tour as a very approachable player, and it has allowed him to participate in pro-ams a lot. (Translation: Building better relationships with your customers means loyalty and return business.)

Knows more about retail than I do. Can golf WAAAAAY better than I do. Well played, sir.

Awareness Is Not Engagement
Just because people know about you doesn’t mean they’re buying. You have to do more than shout from the rooftops. Every message has to ‘leave them wanting more.’ Mike Wittenstein showed how good first impressions have four phases: Attraction, Engagement, Information, and Persuasion, with the goal to get the customer to the next phase of the buying process. He emphasized this by saying that customers don’t care about what you tell them, they care about what they can tell their friends. Can your impressions do that?

Your Culture Creates The Experience
Bill Cusick led a great panel of retailers to talk about how the brand culture is the driver for a great experience. By personifying the brand (think Apple vs. Mac), your brand can come to life at retail. For example, Kari Blankenship from Cabela’s talked about their brand promise – “To inspire others to participate and be passionate about the outdoors” – as their essence for the in-store experience. No one remembers the purchase transaction, but everyone remembers the experience.

But People Are There To Buy Stuff
Bob Phibbs told us why customers visit a store: To buy stuff. While we all talk about a great experience, the goal should be to sell a product. Bob noted that price doesn’t make a difference, people do, and that presentation is everything, but somewhere in there some people have forgotten that you need to engage the customer to get them to actually buy.

Brands That Exceed Expectations Grow
Walter Kurlin, Business Programs Facilitator from The Disney Institute, stressed how exceeding a customer’s expectation is the goal; those are the memories in the customer’s head.

He explained how little Johnny could have a great experience in an otherwise negative situation. If the Disney ride requires Johnny to be 40 inches but he’s just under that, he would be most unhappy. Disney provides a certificate to Johnny, saying that when he reaches 40 inches, he can come back to the park and will be moved up to the front of the line immediately if he presents the ticket. Johnny goes home and puts that on the refrigerator, and has his mom measure him every day. When he hits 40 inches, everyone knows where Johnny will be. We never forget that Disney is for profit, so they get the return visitors, but Disney created a good memory and a lasting impression.

But What Are Those Expectations?
That’s the billion-dollar question to many. What are the expectations of your brand? What are the expectations of your retail experience? Chip Beck mentioned in his talk how golfers learn to accept their limitations and play within their means. I think that’s great advice because it helps brands understand where to set the bar and hopefully always be able to follow the axiom of “under promise, over deliver.” Always make sure those expectations are authentic and achievable. If you set unrealistic expectations, you’ll suffer.

The Most Valuable Guest
Target’s Chris Borek gave tremendous insight into the multi-channel customer. He explained that the most valuable customer (or as Target call them, “Guest”) is one that engages Target through more than one channel, meaning she does research online, then goes into the store, and may even use her mobile Target app while there. Those customers yield higher revenue than single channel customers. Judging by what I saw, most of Woodfield Mall would have benefitted from Chris’s talk alone.

I Won Sumthin!
There was a contest for retweeting (no…not a drinking game…darn) and I was the top retweeter of the day. My prize was the Stores and Retail Spaces 11 book, chock full of imagery of outstanding retail design. My review:

I like it. A lot. Chocolates, plz.

The 2011 Summit will be held on August 8-9, 2011 in Minneapolis, and should be on your calendar to attend. If you can make it, bring your notebook and your walking shoes. I’m sure a trip to Mall of America will be in order.

Me. 37 seconds after walking the MOA.

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Top: All the TVs in the electronics department at Target; Middle left, Whirlpool interactive at Lowe's; Middle right: Sony Altus display at Best Buy; Bottom, Phillips TV endcap at Target.

What is worse, paying a retailer to have static printed signage delivered to a store that never makes it to the sales floor, or hang a screen that is not turned on?

The brand paid an enormous amount of money to the retailer to have these displays as part of the retail experience. I’m guessing the retailer is the owner of the maintenance of these as part of the agreement (they usually are, but MDF agreements can get funky depending on who is holding the pen signing it). And, chances are that the brand representatives that frequent these stores are not happy to see how their displays are managed. In many cases, the retailer has direct influence over the content itself. With the home theater department, the content is run by the retailer. In Target (or Best Buy, or Costco, or Walmart), both the retailer and the brand lose.

If you want to see what the Whirlpool interactive looks like, visit my friend Mike Cearley’s blog here.

The Sony Altus display above shows the startup screen, not even the attract loop video. This display was at the Best Buy in Richfield, Minnesota, less than one mile from Best Buy’s corporate headquarters. I showed this picture to Sony corporate personnel during a presentation.

This was their response.

This is not how brands want to see their merchandise is a store. And this is yet another reason the adoption rate for digital signage continues to struggle. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who is to blame – the store manager, the brand representative, the technology. It is a bad experience for the customer, the one and only reason it’s there.

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Part of my enjoyment with this industry is the opportunity to get up on a stage and talk about it. I love the speaker circuit. I really do. I also love watching really good speakers. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs is a really good speaker.

I’m fascinated with Jobs’s presentation capabilities. On occasion, I have emulated Jobs’s presentation style, like using a photo instead of copy to tell a story. When the iPad was released last week, I thought I would watch his latest presentation introducing the iPad to the world. He’s a master storyteller and takes you on a journey each time he gets on stage.

At the beginning of the presentation, he gives the audience updates on other Apple products. Apple just sold its 250 millionth iPod since 2001. Nice. The App Store has over 140,000 applications available for download to the iPhone and the iTouch, and it just recorded its three billionth download (that’s nine zeroes, folks). Very nice.

Jobs talked about Apple’s 284 retail sores, with the most recent store opening in New York City, on the upper west side.

Commenting on the newest store, he said, “It is so wonderful to be putting these stores, with their phenomenal buying experience, right in the neighborhoods  of our customers. It feels great.”

Wait. Hold up. Let’s hear that again.

“It is so wonderful to be putting these stores, with their phenomenal buying experience, right in the neighborhoods  of our customers. It feels great.”

Pregnant pause…

I wrote it down because I just had to break this sentence apart. It struck me how a CEO and regular mountain-mover like Steve Jobs can say this about an update. You would think he would save his best material for the iPad. Not for me. To me that sentence was a smack in the face, a kick in the shin, a wow moment. (Actually, that was me falling out of my chair after trying to readjust while starting to write this post. Darn you, rolling chair on hardwood floor!)

The customer experience inside a retail environment is one of the reasons for my existence This little comment was music to my ears. I wasn’t using iTunes. Shame on me. Look at the words he used in the sentence:

“It is so wonderful to be putting these stores, with their phenomenal buying experience right in the neighborhoods of our customers. It feels great.”

Wonderful. “Wonderful” evokes feelings of whole, positive joy, that it feels good from his head to his toes to talk about this, that he’s intimate with the new store. It’s not what Apple does, it’s what Apple is. This is not a CEO of business, this is a CEO of passion.

Phenomenal. A powerful word with more impact in this sentence than an adjective like outstanding, fantastic, or terrific. The word makes the subject feel bigger, more magical. “Phenomenal” is a word used by a CEO who believes that brand engagement with a customer or consumer is yin to the yang of high-quality products that make customers unabashedly loyal.

Experience. He knows that purchasing a product doesn’t end at the register (or the hand-held checkout). It starts when the customer walks through the doors, and ends when the product has completely served its purpose in the lifestyle of the customer many years down the road.

Neighborhoods. He didn’t say “city.” He said “neighborhoods.” That evokes a feeling of community, of local flavor, that several of your neighbors work there, and you shop there, and at any time you may find yourself sitting out front in the hot afternoon sun while recalling the old days of the Apple IIc. Brilliant.

Our. With ‘neighborhoods,’ this little word completes the sense of community, as if you may see Jobs jump behind the counter and actually start ringing up items. Using that word, instead of “the,” sells the brand strategy that you (Mr. or Mrs. Apple Product Consumer) are part of a family, not just on the other end of a transaction.

Great. He ends with a simple sentence that means two things: It feels great to drop another license to print money in New York City, and the store’s presences itself makes the entire physical and mental experience of the brand great.

And listen to the inflection and emphasis of those words. He wants to make sure you get this.

The best part of this quote is that it’s not scripted. It’s a point he wanted to make, and there’s no doubt that he has mastered the use of language as part of the presentation, but this is an update, and therefore not as scripted as the rest of the show. This was a comment. Yet it comes across with such insane passion that you can’t help but believe that this guy wanted to drop each pane of glass into place by himself. He’s really excited.

To me, this is why the cult of Apple continues to grow as a brand. Apple is a viral brand that emanates from the pores of its CEO down to the guy at the Genius Bar who can fix your MacBook Pro by just staring at it.

I have yet to watch the rest of the presentation.

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There are two reasons people do digital signage: One is to get their message (or someone else’s) out there. The other is to make money doing it. And not not necessarily in that order.

It’s at this very moment where the philosophy and impact of branding comes into play. How do you make your message look and feel like…well…you? What are the proper principles of branding and how can you apply them to your company, or your message, or your existence in a given environment so that you have that crucial impact on the customer or client?

Digital Signage continues to grow, embracing principles and practices from several other areas of customer and consumer engagement. The philosophy of branding for many network operators may be a new thing because in the past there was never a real need to brand the message. A static sign in a store was just wall covering, for the most part. But, with a dynamic medium the need is greater than ever, especially for merchandisers who want to differentiate themselves and use their network as a factor of differentiation.

What is Brand Strategy Insider?
Brand Strategy Insider is the branding blog of The Blake Project, a brain trust of branding experts that “…design, manage and build brands that drive revenue through differentiated customer experiences.” Pretty much the purpose of a digital sign for many network owners and operators.

Who writes it?
The blog has several contributors: Derrick Daye (Managing Partner of The Blake Project), Martin Lindstrom, Steve Rivkin, Al Ries, and Brad VanAuken. All of them write on various topics within the brand strategy universe, and all of them write very well. Occasionally, they will disagree openly on the blog, and it makes for some fascinating reading among branding experts.

The blog also has several contributors from various disciplines that dip into the psychology of branding, advertising, and marketing, even going so far as to understand the neuroscience of marketing.

What do they write?
In VanAuken’s book, Brand Aid, he cites The American Marketing Association’s description of a brand as a ‘‘name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition.” In a nutshell, they try to cover the universe of branding, taking real-life examples of brands and breaking down the reasons behind their successes or failures. The blog has over 50 categories of branding topics.

The length of each post ranges from a few hundred words to over a thousand, sometimes, and they post just about every day. It can be a challenge to keep up with all the entries. But each entry is a deep dive into the topic at hand. At the end of every article, you should feel like you learned something.

Why should I read this blog?
Because one of the most important things we can do in our industry is understand the impact that digital signage can have on an audience. With a screen’s capability for dynamic engagement, the opportunity to connect a viewer with a product or service and, particularly, with the provider of either the product or the service, the need to understand how branding functions is paramount.

Another important reason is that all of us in this industry lead or work for companies trying to be leaders in a category, whether you’re a hardware provider, creative agency, or consultant. This blog is loaded with insight on how the big companies succeed and fail with takeaways you can apply to your own organization, regardless of size.

Three To Read
Because they write every day, don’t try too hard to read everything. Instead, dig through their posts and find the articles most relevant to your discipline in the industry. They do write some about digital media, including social media, but I have found their overall marketing and branding insight to be truly valuable to me and my work.

There are literally hundreds of articles on their site, all of them great reading. Here are three posts that can give you an idea of the depth of their knowledge and experience:

The Principles of Marketing – January 14, 2010
In one post, Al Ries puts forth a great acronym to sum up the principles he practices and educated in marketing: FOCVS, “…a word using the original alphabet of the Roman Empire…” It’s a great piece of education on marketing, and I highly recommend reading this one first.

GM’s Appointment Shows No Respect for Marketing – August 19, 2009
I had put this post in an earlier Clicks post of mine. I think this is one of the best lessons in marketing you can read. It clearly shows that marketing is a discipline you acquire thorough years of marketing experience, not years of loyalty to a company.

Brand Focus Leads To Power and Profits – December 21, 2009
“…line extension inhibits the branding process. When a company makes and markets a broad range of products under one name, it is extremely difficult to build that name into a powerful brand. ” For a long time, Japanese companies like Sony have survived on a brand that connotes power and profitability. Al gives us a little reality check and helps us understand that focus can drive profits much higher.

And One More
Forgiveness and the Tiger Woods Brand – December 16, 2009
Part of the allure of the Tiger Woods debacle is the impact his personal brand has on the companies he endorses, how much money companies would lose by continuing to associate with him, and how fast some of those sponsors were to jump ship. This post is from contributor Dr. Robert Passikoff, and I found this very interesting. Two weeks after Tiger’s “transgressions” hit the airwaves, my partner, Pat Hellberg, formerly of Nike, said, “Remember Kobe’s mistake in Colorado? Nike stuck by him then. Today, Kobe’s Nike shoe is the number two best selling shoe in the world. There’s no way Nike abandons Tiger.” Sure enough, a week later Phil Knight issued a statement saying Nike would remain with Tiger.

You can follow The Blake Project on Twitter as well.

Past BUs:
Bill Gerba: Digital Signage Insider
Ken Goldberg: Broad Thinking. Narrowcasting.

Do you read a blog I should be following that is worth showcasing here? Send me a link. If I like it, I’ll write about it.

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Don't be like that guy.

So here we are in 2010, the economy is starting to show signs of life after a flatlined ’09. Retailers everywhere are continuing to modify their sales and value propositions to the customer. The competition continues to shrink while the customer continues to tighten the wallet and be more selective about where the money goes.

In an effort to attract customers, retailers are becoming more category and product agnostic. Walmart’s consumer electronics department is beginning to look a lot like Best Buy’s layout. Best Buy adopted a red theme for their new Musical Instruments department. It looks a lot like Guitar Center. Amazon just takes on everyone with unrivaled inventory. The customer has two choices to make: Click-and-order, or brick-and-mortar. And if the customer can get the same product from any number of retailers, the brand experience becomes the deciding factor for the customer.

The most valuable thing a retailer can own is its position in a customer’s mind. At the retail level, digital signage augments that perception by bringing the brand to life.

A digital signage network is an investment in your brand, not a line item on your P&L sheet. You build it to create a differentiated experience, not to show an ad a customer can see on her TV at home, online, or in another retailer’s space. Running ads for the sake of revenue denigrates the brand equity you have built for the customer experience. The network has a higher purpose at the intersection between the brand and the customer.

Your digital signage network allows you to consistently deliver your brand proposition, withstanding the ebb of market forces, product sales, and incremental revenue. This reflects in a customer’s choice between you and another retailer. Relying on revenue to drive the programming or the experience will force you to rethink your strategy every time the market fluctuates.

With a customer’s ability to deselect messaging as she moves through the retail environment, it is critical that your brand engages her instead of becoming a casualty.

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