Contestants and viewers of NBC's The
Apprentice learned a very valuable lesson on
Nov. 10: it's all about the sale.
For those who've never watched this series,
contestants vying for a chance to work for Donald
Trump are presented each week with a business
challenge. This season, most of those challenges
have involved marketing, such as creating a
traffic-driving store event for Dick's
Sporting Goods.
On the Nov. 10 episode, contestants were tasked
with creating an interactive display for Best Buy
that would cross-merchandise the Star
Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith DVD
and the Star Wars Battlefront II videogame.
The winning team was praised for the primary
message its display carried: "Watch It. Play It. Own
Them Both!" The losing team was criticized for
positioning the video's shipper near a TV screen
playing the trailer, which would have left the
product obscured by lingering viewers (a gaffe that
the apparently merchandising-savvy Mr. Trump found
inexcusable).
Thus, eight million-odd consumers get a few quick
lessons in display marketing: provide an experience,
but close the sale; make it interactive, but make
sure it's easily shoppable.
As far as providing a watershed moment for
in-store marketing, this doesn't exactly rank up
there with the
Sept. 21 article in The Wall Street
Journal, in which Procter & Gamble was
identified as "helping to power a shift in the
advertising business: the growth and increasing
sophistication of in-store marketing." (That article
is now being mentioned in industry presentations
more often than the Apple store -- a truly
remarkable feat -- and is adorning more office walls
than Ansel Adams' trees.)
But there are plenty of other signs that suggest
2006 will indeed be a big year for in-store
marketing: new
conferences, companies, technologies, and
initiatives to track and measure programs; greater
attention from the business press and, at least in
the case of The Apprentice, from consumer
media as well.
The momentum, it seems, has shifted in this
direction. We'll do our best to make sure it stays
here.
Peter Breen
Managing Director, Content
In-Store Marketing Institute
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