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Wishful Thinking

The In-Store Marketing Institute last week began promoting a "major industry announcement" that will take place at the In-Store Marketing Expo in Chicago.

At 2 p.m. on Sept. 27 at the McCormick Place Lakeside Center, a consortium of manufacturers and retailers will be on hand to unveil findings from a research project that "has cracked the code, confirming that in-store marketing can be measured with great reliability," according to Peter Hoyt, the Institute's executive director. "Our findings will change the way manufacturers, retailers and agencies view the in-store environment."

To learn more, you'll have to attend the event. But with Wal-Mart's Stephen Quinn and Procter & Gamble's Jim Stengel among the planned speakers, you already were planning to go, weren't you?

While we can't share additional details now (instoremarketer.org will have more information as soon as the event concludes), we can speculate about some of the significant changes that may take place after Sept. 27. Among the possibilities:

  • The concept of the store as a medium for strategic, brand-building marketing communications will finally take root (which will only enhance retail's traditional strength as a tactical sales-driving tool).
  • Marketing directors and brand managers will take a greater interest in retail than they have had historically. (In-store activity will become an integrated part of their plan, not just "somebody else's job.")
  • Retailers will get access to an unprecedented amount of information about what shoppers are doing in their stores (which should help their efforts to improve the shopping experience immensely).
  • Retailers and product manufacturers will have a better understanding of what marketing opportunities are available in the store (which could lead to greater levels of effective collaboration).
  • Advertising agencies will be able to accurately evaluate the potential value of marketing within the store (adding another weapon to the media plan).
  • The issue of compliance -- long the plague of the P-O-P industry -- will be addressed constructively and effectively (and, eventually, won't be an issue anymore).
  • Global warming will end immediately.

OK, I've obviously gone a little too far here -- and maybe even before the "global warming" comment. That will be an issue for the industry to decide.

See you on the 27th.

Peter Breen
Managing Director, Content
In-Store Marketing Institute



Published: September 2006

Source: In-Store Marketing Institute

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