Where is the line between digital and in-store?

Nick Minnick is the Director of Retailer Development here at Chicory, the contextual commerce advertising platform.

In today’s omnichannel world, consumers shop using a variety of different channels and their paths to purchase often wind through digital and in-store. It’s no longer a linear path and as such, CPG team structures need to adjust and become less siloed, to mirror how interconnected digital and in-store have become.

Traditional shopper marketing was once a very distinct discipline that focused on objectives like getting products on eye-level shelves and activating end caps to align with relevant occasions. One and done in-store tactics aren’t as effective as they once were, however, as holistic shopper marketing plans that incorporate and connect both in-store and digital tactics deliver increased shopper engagement. 

Shopper marketers’ main objective is to drive sales at their target or partner retailers by influencing consumers as close to the point of purchase as possible. But a consumer’s path to purchase may have many indicators that they’re ready to make a purchase. Some actions include browsing a digital recipe and adding ingredients to a grocery shopping list, heading to retailer.com for their latest weekly circular or even stepping inside the supermarket. And these actions aren’t isolated anymore. Consumers can take all or a few of these steps to get ready for their shop.

That’s why it’s imperative to be in the multitude of spaces where shoppers are in the moment of purchase intent. For instance, activating a chips brand with a retailer through online sponsored search and in-store end caps during the Super Bowl ensures that shoppers who move through both the retailer’s online platform and/or in-store are exposed to the campaign in as many retail environments as possible.

There is a multitude of tech companies that are leveraging AI, machine learning and other advanced technology to ensure that digital and in-store are more connected than ever before.

Chicory, for instance, brings an omnichannel commerce experience to recipes. We offer CPGs and grocers the ability to reach high-intent shoppers when they’re browsing recipes, proven to be influential in 36% of grocery shoppers’ paths to purchase and for product discovery. As a result, shoppers receive helpful and relevant product suggestions and recommendations with the option to add items to the digital cart and checkout online for delivery, pickup or to save the list for in-store shopping.

In one instance, Chicory strategically crafted an omnichannel shopper marketing campaign for True Aussie to inspire shoppers to begin cooking with lamb. Digital ads within relevant recipes drove products directly into the carts of high-intent shoppers or directed shoppers to ecommerce-enabled product description pages on retailer sites. A post-campaign foot traffic study indicated that this contextual commerce strategy was effective at driving non-regular visitors to each of the promoted retailers, outperforming the foot traffic benchmark by 65%. 

Another company, Cooler Screens, brings the online product discovery experience in-store. They offer shoppers the ability to use their refrigerator unit touchscreens to view product information, range of offerings and available promotions. As a result, shoppers are able to find products that are more relevant to them and their needs, as well as find more convenience in the in-store product discovery experience.

For a shopper team managing a Cooler Screens or Chicory activation, however, there can be nearly no distinction between traditional versus digital throughout various aspects of a campaign. The activation and promotion may technically be housed in in-store or digital environments, but the effect reverberates throughout both. And activations may involve both digital and physical elements (like both in-store product units and updated product page information for Cooler Screens and off-platform digital recipe ecommerce and lift in foot traffic for Chicory) making it more complicated to discern which campaigns sit in which marketing discipline. 

Shopper, brand, ecommerce and consumer promotions teams often have overlapping ground-level tactics and activations. In order to ensure a successful team structure, manufacturers must consider the alignment of broad-level campaign objectives, because that’s where marketing teams often differ. 

As the technology in retail media progresses, the industry will inevitably see a closer merge of the in-store and digital experience, forcing both retailers and manufacturers to figure out how to break out various marketing functions and even merge teams. As responsibilities become more interdisciplinary than before, the path to purchase is becoming less linear and winds through more channels and throughout both in-store and digital environments. As such, marketing teams, which have historically been distinguished by those separate channels, need to figure out how their strategies and tactics overlap and how to execute effective campaigns while working across various teams.