Point of Sale has moved - from the store to the consumers’ home.

Traditionally FMCG brands have focused their marketing efforts on ensuring high brand visibility at the stores & while that is critical – there is an aspect that might be getting overlooked.

Home Delivery!!

The new point of sale is the consumers' home.

Home Deliveries are the backbone of the general trade in India. Our research has revealed that some of our AaramShops have as high as 55% of their business from home deliveries, while the average home delivery business across urban stores is a high 32%.

The prevalence of such a high level of home delivery across urban centers of India warrants a strategic rethink by brands.  The challenge with home delivery is that the consumers are just not walking-in to the store, as the orders are getting placed on the phone or online. Obviously the last mile visibility & communications strategy is not working for these consumers.

The solution lies in reaching the consumers in their homes, and influencing the buying decision right where it is made.   

At AaramShop, we have custom created unique solutions to tap this huge opportunity – we have the network, the coverage & reach, the technology and fine-tuned processes to ensure that brands can influence consumers to get a place within the home delivered orders. 

Talk to us if you need help in reaching your brand communication, offers and promotions directly to consumers and have them serviced via AaramShops.

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Consumer activation in the traditional last mile.

As against at modern trade outlets, undertaking brand activations at traditional trade outlets is tough to undertake and even more difficult to measure for impact and ROI.

AaramShop can not just help your strategize with creation of last mile campaigns, but also undertake the comprehensive program, including reaching-out to partner retailers, rolling-out consumer engagement and measuring the impact of your marketing initiative. 

We have fine-tuned our solutions to specifically engage with independently owned, A category, neighborhood outlets. It is with these outlets that we help drive tertiary sales for your brands. Our on-ground activations are backed up with digital initiatives to ensure that your product gets into the shopping list of consumers.

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Reviews Ensure Buzz which can be tapped.

Online Consumers Reviews are a powerful but under-utilized opportunity, especially within the FMCG brands. All researches indicates that consumers listen to and believe other consumers; real people with real brand stories. 

AaramShop presents a great opportunity to generate reviews, share and help consumers acquire brands that they love. It is the last mile connect enabled by AaramShop with its unique web to doorstep model which ensures that the online consumer reviews have a higher RoI, wherein brand advocacy can be put to effective use.

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Seamless Marketing Support from AaramShop.

AaramShop helps ensure brands can meet the marketing and sales challenges, throughout the products' life cycle, ranging from sampling to specific consumers, to selling to the same consumers and then help the upgrade them as and when the opportunity arises.

AaramShop ensures consumers can engage with brand both online and offline across thousands of neighborhood retailers. To know more talk to us.

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"Call to action" on FMCG print ads.

A number of daily essential brands (FMCG & CPG) have started experimenting with integrating the benefits of the AaramShop platform into their digital assets and also in creating viable "call to action" on their traditional advertising initiatives like print adverts and product packs. However, some confusion persists and hence this post. 

Brands have traditionally been used to creating advertising & communication campaigns which are predominantly focused on increasing awareness & recall. 

While consumer durable print ads normally have a dealer panel where customers / readers can visit and buy or a website where the purchase could be done, FMCG / CPG ads are completely devoid of any "call to action". 

The assumption is that the consumer would be able to recall the advert in his / her next visit to a store and then will proceed to buy - leading to a gap between interest and action, and thereby inaction.

AaramShop now enables consumers to add brands that they love directly to their shopping lists - which can be used both online and offline. Once the brand is within the consumers' shopping list, re-purchase becomes effortless. 

Try the above mentioned example and write to us for more details on how we can help you modify your next advert into a shop and convert your reachability into shoppability.    

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A good digital campaign by Fanta.

Visit the campaign site here. Good to see the brand staying away from TVCs to focus on the core experience. The campaign encourages co-creation and conversations about the brand.

The missing bit - is the next logical step to encourage the last mile discovery of the brand. Maybe the scale of the campaign makes it too tough.  

AaramShop Grocery Festival - the power of many.

We have all seen "festivals and discount sales" being advertised by leading retailers on a month on month basis - and therefore it is quite obvious for folks to turn around and question the uniqueness associated with the AaramShop Grocery Festival which has been announced today for the next 8 days. 

The similarities end it being called a festival - the format is unique as it is probably the very 1st of it kind of multi-retailer, multi-brand format focused on FMCG / CPG brands.

The festival would run for 8 days at over a 1300 independently operating neighborhood grocers across New Delhi and 5 satellite towns catering to a population of over 22 million. 

AaramShop Grocery Festival is the largest unified consumer promotion created for small, independently operating retailers operating out of our neighborhoods.

The ASF is not designed as a "discount sale", but rather about creating pleasant surprises for shoppers when they buy any brand of groceries and daily essentials at their trusted neighborhood store. It is all about getting a little more than what the shopper had expected. The shopper gets to be part of the festival either by walking into the store or by ordering on the phone or by ordering groceries online from his neighborhood retailer using AaramShop.

The festival has been cleverly created to adopt to the varying business practices of the independent retailers and thus does not need modifications in the "business as normal", while at the same time helping the retailer grow his business.

The festival also helps brands connect with their consumers and retailers in a meaningful manner and therefore the festival has been partnered by some of the leading brands. The lead sponsor of the festival is Catch Salts & Spices (DS Group) & it is co-sponsored by Kohinoor Rice (Mc Cormick), Colgate Total (Colgate Pamolive), Saffola Oats (Marico), Red Label Natural Care (Hindustan Unilever), Sofit (Godrej Hershey) & Vanish (RB). 

 

The Delhi & NCR edition of the festival is the 1st of the series of festivals which would be held across the country and with the hope that the festival would have a positive impact on the businesses of the retailers over time and during the initiative. Contact us to know more about this initiative.  

A New Era For Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing has been around since the days of the traveling salesman. But with a strong assist from technology, it now it is re-emerging as the backbone of many branding plans.

Came across this wonderful article on CMO and felt it was worth sharing. 

The article captures the key changes and the fact that the empowered consumer has made experiential marketing a necessity in some areas, such as retail and electronics, where showrooming is turning products into commodities. 

And with the rise of online and mobile shopping empowering consumers to commoditize products, a tactile experience becomes a good way to set one product aside from another.

Read the full article here on CMO

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Measure the results of your digital initiatives with BS detector.

Buzz words are everywhere and often over-shadow the need for a well defined marketing analytics framework, which generate and track meaningful results. Adobe has got it bang on in the above video. :-)

We are going beyond the buzz words. We are Simplifying Einstein

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Superb Marketing Campaign for Nature Valley Granola Bars.

This is a fantastic marketing initiative by General Mills Nature Valley Granola Bars.

Awesome objective, great strategy, superb brand fitment and creation of not just a great campaign, but something that will be used for years on end by a thankful target audience. 

I rate this as one of the best marketing initiatives that I have come across. 

The video link below captures the process and the impact and I would suggest that you experience it here on the website

Forget Engagement, Consumers Want Simplicity

Loved the recent article by Patrick Spenner in Forbes where he writes that brands are trying too hard to engage with consumers via social media and that marketers are generally pushing out too much information, causing people to over-think purchase decisions and making them more likely to change their minds about a product, be less confident in their choice and less likely remain loyal to the brand.

He commends that brands need to simplify the decision-making process, so much so that consumers actually think less about the decision. Marketers can do that in three easy ways by helping consumers: 

• Trust the information they receive – providing recommendations by consumer advisors, ratings and reviews.
• Learn effectively without distraction – simplifying the research process by offering clear and streamlined brand-specific product information targeted to each decision stage.
• Weigh options confidently – making transparent buying guides and brand differentiated information easily available.

When used together, this approach is known as Decision Simplicity.

Not only is Decision Simplicity the number one driver of likelihood to buy, but the impact of simplifying purchase decisions for consumers is four times stronger than the favored marketing strategy of engagement.

Read the article here

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