Article

Commentary: Bumblebee Tuna in-store digital advertising stinks

Negative customer reactions prove that retail digital signage must be done right, or not at all.

November 2, 2009

Last week I was sent an article from the Consumerist entitled "Bumblebee Tuna Tricks You Into Watching Commercials At The Grocery Store." The article, which was filed under the Consumerists' "Badvertising" section, is a commentary from a reader that encountered some in-store digital media from Bumblebee Tuna at his local Safeway store.

The display was a small shelf-edge screen with a silver button above, which upon pushing, caused the screen to play a 30-second Bumblebee Tuna TV commercial.

Its no wonder the writer was upset – this is a BAD in-store digital signage installation! If you read this site or any other industry portal, you will see that we spend countless hours try to send the message to deployers to create compelling content, don't repurpose 30-second TV ads and to give the shopper a reason to watch the screen.

The Consumerist digs this kind of stuff, but these kinds of articles don't reflect well on the digital signage industry, especially when it is trying to battle its way into media budgets.

This article does serve as a great focus group, however. At this time of writing this, there were 38 comments to the post, and not too many of them were positive. For example:

"[In-store screens] were slightly annoying at Wal-Mart, but I expected as much from them. When they started showing up in Kroger and Publix a few months later they became downright absurd. The problem with the second wave is that some of them are not button-activated, but start blazing away whenever you walk by."

"What a waste of store resources. And how annoying would it be to try to get past someone in the aisle watching that?"

"Hopefully these things test out to be a failed ad concept and in 6 months we'll forget all about them."

Here's the thing – it seems the writer would actually be open to the media if it were useful in some way. Take his quote above. He is looking for coupons, cooking ideas and direct engagement.

Here is another commenter's response: "The bizarre part, in my opinion, is that they could do something cool with this…For example, what if there was a short puzzle you had to solve to get a coupon code or something?"

Bingo – in order for in-store digital media to work, there has to be a compelling reason for the shopper to engage with it. Thirty-second commercials and cheap ad spots don't cut it with today's modern shopper. And for those directly involved with retail digital signage, take some time to go through the 38 comments. Chances are these are the opinions of some of your customers.

*Note: When I read this article, I immediately contacted Paul Flanigan and Laura Davis-Taylor, two retail experts I work with often, to get their commentary. Their opinions on this subject are published below:

Paul Flanigan, Preset Group:

"Being an industry insider, I consider this a wonderful little focus group. Reading the article and the comments shows that customers do care very much about how they are treated with digital signs in a retail environment, and shows the vitriol when it goes wrong.

Overall, this is about as bad an example of digital signage or customer engagement at retail as I have ever seen, and I agree with several of the comments. This does nothing good for the industry as a whole. Instead, it puts many of us on the defensive to explain or justify why this is in the store.

There are several negative issues with this experience, from the fact that the reader pushed the button out of curiosity (instead of a desire) to the end result of complete disengagement (and ultimately sharing online with others). I'm willing to bet the reader did not purchase any Bumblebee Tuna. Seeing the photo of the display and seeing not only his reaction to the sign but the comments, it's pretty easy to see that there was very little, if any, strategy or thought put into this. And that's bad.

The single biggest reason the shoppers find this annoying is because it doesn't offer anything to enhance the store experience, anything different from what the shoppers are already experiencing with other media. The reader and comments suggest exactly what it should be doing, providing something deeper than advertisement, something that would move a customer closer to a purchase decision in favor of the tuna. HogwartsAlum sums it up best: "If I were to watch a video of a recipe that looked kind of good and the product were right in front of me, I would probably reach out and take one."

Worst of all is the fact that the manager would consider removing it because it does nothing but anger his shoppers, meaning it most certainly does not move product.

But, this is a great way to start the conversation of how ad agencies, brands, and retailers must work together to understand the environment and craft messaging much more appropriate. This is a world that agencies of all kinds must embrace to be competitive and valued in the eyes of their client, the brand, and the retailer.

I imagine that this will be used by several industry educators to explain what not to do when putting signage in the store."

Laura Davis-Taylor, Retail Media Consulting, Inc.:

"My one key takeaway: "Just because you can, it doesn't mean that you should".

I will bet my bottom dollar that an ad agency that has no in-store experience came up with this utterly useless and contextually irrelevant promotion and it's projects like these that are a black eye to our industry.

The author hit the nail on the head when he said that he hopes that someone figures out a way to deliver useful, informative or somewhat interesting information with these types of emerging digital media tools. People are busy, they are overwhelmed and they are under served. The last thing that they want to encounter is more "visual spam" in a world in which they encounter 3 – 4,000 media messages a day—most of which are not helpful or useful in any way.

One of the commentaries aptly stated that "the bizarre part is that they could easily do something cool with this" and "they could easily use this tech to engage people instead of just piss them off."

It's truly that simple. No retailer should EVER let a CPG put something like this into their aisles unless they have dug deep to understand what might help or delight their shopper and put some real-world testing into play to ensure that it's readily accepted.

If shoppers love the experience, it becomes a fun or rewarding part of their shopping visit. If they hate it, they do things like write about how awful it was and spread the word to whomever will listen.

Let's hope articles like these make brands wake up before we jeopardize what can be a really wonderful shopper help tool. (And ad agencies, get out of the store!!!)