Who owns marketing to the consumer: the brand or the retailer? Does the brand running the digital campaign own the retail transaction data? How does mobile / digital marketing differ between large and challenger brands?
These are just a few of the questions addressed on the “Mobile at the Shelf” panel at the first Mobile Ventures Summit held in Los Angeles on January 27. Eric Moujaes, Phunware’s VP – Platform Evangelist, moderated a panel exploring mobile trends in retail. Panelists included: Mark Pontrelli, Director, Digital Education P&G; Molly Garris, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing, Neutrogena; Pamela Naumes, Senior Director, Brand Engagement, Bolthouse Farms; and Jonathan Weiner, SVP of Marketing Strategy, Insight & Activation, Big Heart Pet Brands.
Although each brand had different approaches to mobile, the panelists honed in on some key themes:
- Real-time attribution by channel
- The evolving relationship between brands and retailers
- The need for deeper and faster data and analytics
- The role mobile plays in consumer engagement
Every participating brand acknowledged that while there’s no single way consumers use and engage with mobile technology, they are accustomed to mobile accessibility from the brands they care about. That means mobile has to be part of each brand’s marketing mix, but the size of that part differed from panelist to panelist.
What Success Are You Seeing with Mobile Campaigns?
Pamela Naumes of Bolthouse Farms, a mission-based brand, doesn’t follow the traditional path to purchase. The company operates more like a technology start-up than an established brand and makes its employees accountable for keeping up with the latest digital trends. The Bolthouse focus on a “fresh revolution” is reflected in its content, and especially on its homepage. Without a big-brand media budget, Bolthouse gets creative with Coupons.com and Instagram.
Pamela described a trial campaign utilizing product recognition technology and hashtags, where Bolthouse was able to determine when pictures of its products were posted to Instagram. Through its API, Bolthouse then sent real-time coupons to consumers featuring the campaign hashtag. By encouraging mobile sharing and rewarding efforts with a coupon, the campaign drove trials and engagement.
Challenger brands like Bolthouse stay on top of new technologies; and unlike more established consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs), Bolthouse doesn’t plan its marketing campaigns too far in advance. Shorter planning cycles allow the company to be (and stay) nimble.
Jonathan Weiner, SVP of Marketing Strategy, Big Heart Pet Brands (Milkbone, etc.) utilizes mobile to build awareness and to drive conversions—wherever or whenever the company’s target consumer engages with the brand via mobile. “We want to build relationships from mobile moments—when consumers are on some part of the path to purchase. There isn’t a trusted content source for consumers to make pet food purchase decisions—so in the aisle, consumers use their mobile devices to research/understand the products.”
Mobile also plays a critical role for brands that have more of a B2B focus. Mark Pontrelli, Director of Digital Education at P&G, has created an internal culture around developing tools for the company’s professional users. P&G has seen tremendous results via Instagram—in fact, Pontrelli stated that his Instagram campaigns “outpace Facebook 2 to 1.”
Molly Garris, the Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Neutrogena, clarified that while she was fairly new to her role, she fully recognized that she was trying to understand if and how consumers use mobile devices in-store to make a CPG purchase decision. “We activated against a new sunscreen. Mom is busy and forgets to buy it—so the media agency used geo-targeting near stores where the sun was out, and our firm reported a lift in purchase intent.”
Garris acknowledged the challenges Neutrogena faces in reacting to the ever-changing digital and mobile landscape. “Our TV is planned during the upfronts and digital is planned for the year, so no big projects are going to get launched. You have to sneak in pilots to get test-and-learns.”
How is the Role Between Brands and Retailers Evolving?
When asked about how retail technology is evolving, Naumes stated that the lack of a unified mobile payments system has forced customers to print coupons at home, stating, “Mobile scanners at every location must be enabled to scan coupons.” Naumes also noted that Bolthouse’s attribution model needs more development. “We know the ROI on a 30-second [TV] spot. But [calculating] the ROI on digital, specifically mobile, is hard. We challenge our agency partners to come up with something creative—no paid media plans in mobile.”
Naumes says that Bolthouse is focused mainly on driving engaging mobile experiences and opportunities, and that data and analytics are the critical missing piece. “We own the customer, but retailers bridge the data. Research firm Dunnhumby kind of gets us there, but not completely. This is a key focus for us.”
Although Big Heart Pet Brands plans media about ten months in advance, Weiner says that the company is “getting out of the upfronts.” He commented, “I’d rather put money into mobile or Shopkick or even a PlaceIQ test. We want Milk-Bone to be the brand in front of the consumer; we don’t want a payment or beacon provider to be the consumer-facing brand promotion.” Unlike Weiner, Pontrelli stated that P&G is “excited to build content for beacon technology” and bridge the gap between consumer and mobile user engagement.
Neutrogena relies heavily on its retailers to build technology infrastructure. According to Garris, “We’ll promote and educate on programs and product, but retailers must figure this out. We know that consumers want mobile offers, but for us, attribution models are key…We are fighting retailers for shelf space, as in many cases they are competing with us by developing their own brands of store-brand products. They want us to bring foot traffic. If we can do that, we are more strategic to them. And we want to know how this effort drives sales for us.”
Closing Thoughts
For consumers to have a seamless, value-driven purchase experience, retailers must invest in technology that measures the effectiveness of and return on brands’ campaigns. Mobile and digital technologies can enhance the symbiotic relationship between brands and retailers, but there are few real-time, cross-platform attribution platforms on the market today. These platforms must be able to support multichannel (digital / social / mobile) promotions and provide real-time, first-party analytics to the brands. Only through effective digital platforms can retailers and brands truly partner in the digital era.
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