Sharp Quattron TV’s Add Yellow But Their Marketing Makes Me Blue

You might think that the big players have seemingly unlimited funds that allow them to execute plans that cover the marketing spectrum, but that doesn’t mean their spend makes sense.

What would you do if you were Sharp? Do you think you can win by driving customers to the stores alone? Or do you win by converting customers that are already in the store by locking down the aisle? How did Sharp get to their strategy?

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You Can Be Skeptical of MagicJack – But Not How They Got Retail Leverage

THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.

SUMMARY:

MAGICJACK: RETAIL AND DIRECT IN PERFECT HARMONY:

So you might ask yourself wasn’t MagicJack giving up something by tagging retailers, effectively pointing potential customers to stores?

Well they can start dialing back their Direct Response spend, or at least keep it flat. Plus after 2-3 years of hitting the airwaves hard with the same product, there are diminishing margins of return on the number of people who will buy your product direct. Chances are they saw the ad – if they were going to buy it direct they would have done so already.

Retail represents an untapped market. There are people who won’t buy direct, or maybe never even saw it on TV. And there is a good chance the retail margin they’ll pay is probably close to the cost per order to sell direct (media costs + fulfillment.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1A) Infomercials are a great vehicle for telling a story and building demand at retail.

1B) Marketers with a holier than thou attitude towards Direct Response TV (DRTV) are ignoring a viable tactic.

2) Take risk away from the retail buyer. This makes it easier for them to list / support your product. MagicJack wouldn’t be at retail if they didn’t have a success story from their direct experience, as well as ongoing aircover in the form of their DRTV spots they continue to run that in effect are ads for their retail placements.

3) There is less risk in balancing a direct and retail strategy than ever before. The battle lines have been blurred by retail consolidation, and the growth of private label. I don’t think the retail buyer spends much time worrying about where you are selling your product, as long as it is selling well in their stores. We spend way too much time worrying about who we compete against, versus just selling.

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Will Your Brand Be Up To The Challenge At Best Buy?

We here at Retail Leverage are big fans of Best Buy, so we were delighted when BusinessWeek took a look at Best Buy in the post-apocalyptic environment after the demise of Circuit City. While Walmart and Amazon are worthy foes, Best Buy is the only large national consumer electronics player left standing. However important Best Buy was before as part of the buying process – regardless of the final point of purchase – Best Buy is now ready to take advantage of its position.

If you are a challenger brand marketer (or an agency working with one) there are lots of takeaways.

To read the full article, click on the Title.

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Can Airport Kiosks Help You Gain Retail Leverage? They Did For NEAT!

NEAT! organized its retail leverage strategy around airport kiosks. They built a base of success in airports. Their first retailer was their own channel. They believe this gave them their best chance to succeed. Today, Neat’s products are found on the shelves of the largest Office Superstore chains – Staples, Office Depot and Office Max, many regional retailers and on the websites of such behemoths as Amazon.com.

To read the full article, click on the title.

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