POS. While only three letters, too many creatives still think it’s a four-letter word. Retail remains a world that truly creative agency talent snubs: a second-class venue where creatives squander time and talent on free-standing inserts, wobblers and shelf talkers. Controlled by sales people, and driven overwhelmingly by price, creative at retail has been less a “big idea” than an afterthought.
Even worse, creatives could look forward to neither prestige nor ego-boosting awards. This was below-the-line scut work, and the most talented creatives saved their best ideas for broadcast and print. Younger creatives paid their dues on this type of work, only to hope to get recognized and moved onto more challenging, “high-profile” work as the reward.
Those days are gone. Smart brands — truly creative brands — constantly look for better ways to engage their consumers. Above-the-line, below-the-line, truly through-the-line: whatever it takes to integrate a brand story and sell persuasively.
Not too long ago, marketers described the point-of-purchase as a “moment-of-truth.” Today, those moments-of-truth can be anywhere, because the ability to buy is everywhere. The web, your smartphone and your Facebook page are all points and places for purchase. The social space is now at least as influential as traditional broadcast media.
Innovative technologies grant us innovative opportunities to create innovative ideas that have relevant, personalized and timely one-on-one conversations with consumers at the most critical times in their decision-making processes. “Point-of-sale” is now points-of-sale. This demands a different creative approach.
Breakthrough, disruptive, awareness-building campaigns still matter. But consumers now want messages that are more engagement-oriented versus one-way, passive transmissions. They don’t want to show and tell; they want show and ask and talk. They want engagement that makes it easier, more meaningful and more enjoyable to be loyal. They respond to persuasive calls-to-action that motivate and move them to interact with brands. The talent that is in the best position to understand these differences are the creatives who’ve grown-up working on retail and promotions.
What the few creatives who took their “sentence” or rotation on the customer marketing, account-specific promotion work learned was a rigorous and challenging discipline. Retail success required a number of key objectives to come together in
perfect harmony.
Shopper insight (not just consumer knowledge), the retailer’s brand equity, as well as the equity of the manufacturer’s brand, all must blend and align in support of a “big idea.” More than one master rules this creative process. Unfortunately, it’s too easy to have creativity be the result of compromise and compliance rather than a platform that delivers win/wins. That’s an organizational and institutional challenge demanding special kinds of creative.
In the retail-defined and driven future, creative collaboration becomes an organizing principle and core competence for success. Egos must be left at the store door. Getting the right parties — all of them — in the room to build the biggest programs and ideas becomes essential. Integration begins at the development phase. No more over-the-wall hand-offs and pass-alongs.
Working together — across media, agencies and the aisles — demands a well-managed mix of agency partners (digital, media, shopper, agency-of-record), account people, clients and, especially, strategists. Successful creativity means integration and collaboration that adds value rather than suffers compromise.
Strategy and research teams generate insight-driven creativity, dedicated to assuring the cost-effective engagement that delivers measurable results. In the new world of retail, the relationship between the creative and the strategist is as dynamic and powerful as the classic relationship between the art director and the copywriter.
Shopper marketing offers creative environments that rival the big-three networks in their Mad Men heyday. Nostalgia for past creative glory is understandable, but the creative future belongs to advertisers, marketers and brands prepared to go beyond the past as precedent. Retail is a creative invitation to rethink the future. The center of gravity for a brand is now retail.
Every creative finds glory in having people see their work, especially in traditional media like print and television. But why treat the quantity and quality of retail traffic as less valuable or viable than a hit television show or placement in People magazine? A “good idea” executed at Walmart could be seen by almost 125 million shoppers a week for six straight weeks. The results — Walmart makes sure of it! — are measurable and speak for themselves. Target’s traffic or Kroger’s queues may not be as large but they represent a fantastic audience to engage creatively.
Isn’t that why we’re in this business? To engage consumers, sell products and empower brand equity? In this era, retail — in the best and broadest definition of that word — offers better opportunities for creative, innovative ideas than television.
The rise of shopper marketing, meanwhile, has proven that retail can have a dramatic impact on a brand’s business. Companies, from the Fortune 500 to start-ups, have taken notice and action. They recognize the importance (and today’s imperative) of understanding not just the consumer but also the shopper — especially when they are not always the same person. And, when they are the same person (consumer as shopper), the science of observing the shift in mindset, mood and modes when thinking in terms of shopping versus consuming.
The creative challenge of connecting a powerful idea with a strategic, well-planned activation has accelerated retail into the frontlines of marketing. In the ongoing war to win consumers’ hearts and minds, brands are searching for an edge above the competition — through proprietary research, technology and creativity.
Retail can be a new revolution for creativity if we embrace it. It shouldn’t be seen as a box to confine creativity but viewed as a vehicle to increase its effectiveness. To really embrace this opportunity, we need to abandon old thinking and habits and help reinvent this space.
It’s not about making stuff. We all know we could create incredible-looking materials. It has to be about good ideas filtered through conceptual and strategic lenses that are designed to engage, persuade and sell. A good idea is still king and in the retail environment (e-commerce and brick and mortar) it comes to life in measurable ways that build brands and drive sales.
Considering its ever-changing nature, retail has the opportunity to be one of the most influential mediums in advertising. The power is in our hands to continue to build and profit from it, but it will take a few brave artists to rise up and push it forward. The advertising and marketing communities need to seek out and create the creative heroes of this incredibly innovative medium for commercial creativity.
Who will be — who should be — the David Ogilvy of brand-to-retail? Does this space need its Lee Clow to be given the recognition, budgets and creative seriousness that it deserves? At the very least, we need our “Pied Piper” to lead the way for the best and brightest creative talent into this space.
We also need retail to embrace this new generation of talent at its doorstep. Why should the best retail ideas live solely in the temporary pop-up environment and the virtual world? The upside of retailers expanding their openness to creativity will most definitely create a virtuous cycle for years to come. 
