Great promotions use all of these methods to reinforce the message your customer carries into store. So it’s vital that your above-the-line activity has the right backing in-store to succeed! Strategic use of barkers, floor stickers, FSDUs, in-store radio, retail events etc. will guarantee your launch or promotion generates maximum sales.

Issues with timing between your campaign going live and your product’s availability can see customers trying to buy a product they can’t find. Or worse still, your product hits stores but nobody knows due to a lag in your above-the-line campaign.

Timing is everything, and at Golley Slater we have the expertise to deliver outstanding results every time by coordinating in-store and above-the-line activity.

Our specialist retail team works together with brand owners, helping them connect with shoppers.  To see one of our campaigns for Lenor click here.

Emma Sutcliffe
Golley Slater Retail
Leeds

The most important factor about this trend is not the product – it is the occasion and its validity in our modern lifestyle. Despite this, retailers annually promote the ’spring clean’ event when very few of us will go anywhere near a feather duster.

Some of the best loved occasions have been engineered — from ‘Jif lemon day,’ to the more contrived ‘Doritos and a movie.’ But then there’s the inevitable jump onto the world cup bandwagon which often lacks a little imagination (Read about it in Marketing). Yes, the snacks and drinks market will see the undoubted benefits as it fits with the occasion of watching football, but how much more petrol will Esso sell offering free cardboard ‘medals’ with every £15 spend.

The occasion and product have to fit and create an emotional connection. By identifying the mood and matching it to both a suitable product and event, we have recipe for success. Retailers are constantly looking to create occasions, so what better way to support them, sell some products and raise your game.

Emma Sutcliffe
Golley Slater Retail
Leeds

Chris Lovell, Group CEO

The main crux of the article was that retailers should think twice about investing more advertisiing in search in the run up to Christmas as other channels like Display had a better chance of affecting consumer intent and driving revenues.

Whilst we see our online display channel continuing to grow across GS clients, we still see search out-performing all other communication channels in all sectors, including retail. As we saw with the latest Bellwether report, the survey has shown that search continues to drive greater returns for advertisers in the UK as budgets are continually being increased across paid search.

Nielsen’s quite rightly point out the top 50 search terms generally are brand terms but I fear they are only looking at one side of the story. A lot search practitioners will point out the typical consumer journey ends when the user clicks through and converts via a brand term but there are other areas that need careful consideration. The branding impact of search, the impact that generic and product terms have on a campaign and how revenues are being attributed. In the article there was no inferred connection between users who were exposed to a search ad, who then came back directly to the site, which in fact could have been the case but I didn’t see any data to argue that point.

The most accurate way to analyse this, and as the majority of the comments on AdAge pointed out, is to move away from the ‘last-click’ model which distorts the view of how a campaign is performing.

As part of our campaign innovations we have been working on attribution testing with our clients over the last 6 months and the results have been very interesting. With the information to hand we are now able to test and apply various weightings in spend to our client campaigns. We are now looking at the online mix from a more holistic point of view, and by optimising campaigns based around this model, ROI is continuing to grow even in a deflated marketplace.

The point is I think retailers should take the Nielsen’s data with a pinch of salt as the article is one-sided. Our view at Golley Slater is that all media complement each other if used in the right way . Retailers know that search works, as does display but there is a danger in under-weighting or over-weighting the contribution of each medium to the sale without understanding how they work together.

Mark Fagan
Digital Media Director

But it’s just been nominated for 7 Cream Awards too. Naturally, we’re really chuffed with that – but so is the client. Because despite what anyone says, or whatever our more cautious instincts might tell us, clients are delighted by great creative work as much as we are.

Too often, we accept the belief that only obvious, unsophisticated, uncomplicated advertising gets results. We shouldn’t. Because as Twycross Zoo proves, creative work that’s bold and different can make a bold difference to the client’s bottom line.