Whatever happened to test markets? Once upon a time, you could test your new product in a whole self-contained city. Based on consumer reactions in Dallas and Houston, at Lever Brothers, we knew that Surf laundry detergent was going to be hit with its revolutionary odor-inhibiting perfume. P&G even fired its Texas sales team because our test market blew them away.
Following the need for more privacy, we soon began using BehaviorScan test markets in even smaller cities (Indianapolis) where you could partition different ad messages to different consumers, know the different dollar rings at different chains and tailor your promotions.
But city-wide test markets became too expensive. Confidentiality and Speed became ever more important to both you and your competitors – who can knock you off faster than a regional rollout from Kansas City to St. Louis. P&G thought they had a huge winner with soft chew cookies (and they did) but the competition copied them quickly and knocked them off at the knees before they crossed the Mississippi. In this instant message age, you can forget about keeping anything a secret.
Then everyone went black box with Nielsen (and still do). No one knew what you were testing or thinking (including most consumers) and millions of dollars were spent on complex algorithms that were as clear as the Eurythmics singing Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This).
Now, in this time of nano-testing, we have “pop-up stores.” What could be more brilliant: flash testing new products in flash stores. Faster than a jump drive. Both Product and Retail Format are here and gone in the blink of an eye.
When Malcolm Gladwell and everyone who ever took an instant dislike to someone they just met or a bit of food they just tasted formulated their own arbitration of taste, we get the ultimate marketing boost.
In Chicago, Kraft is testing its DiGiorno Ultimate pizza in a pop-up story on Michigan Avenue, which was, in its immediate previous incarnation, a pop-up store for Lexus. Now that's a Universal Serial Bus everyone can jump on. Or, in the case of Kraft, Universal Cereal Bus.
In the town of deep-pan pizza, the Augie March chutzpah of Kraft to go head-to-head with Pizza Uno in the Loop is great. What a wonderful in-your-face exercise in test-marketing the pizza and gaining notable publicity – all at a relatively modest cost.
I just hope that the Kraft urban ethnographers are in the store, extra napkins in hand for the patrons, recording the reactions for future innovations and modifications for line extensions (e.g. freeze-dried pineapple).
One of the first pop-up stores was Target’s boat off Chelsea Piers in 2002. If Target was using a destroyer, I bet Wal-Mart was planning a battleship for plowing its way into New York. Now the Behemoth of Bentonville is set for the New York B&T (Bridge and Tunnel) crowd. New York City will give Target the space they wouldn’t grant Wal-Mart. Hubert Humphrey Minnesota values vs. Arkansas Land-Grant imperialism – okay, you choose.
Meanwhile, Target launched its Isaac Mizrahi women's clothing collection with a pop-up store at Rockefeller Center in New York. If imitation is the sincerest form of mid-market taste, we saw J.C. Penney do it at Rockefeller Center when it introduced its Chris Madden home collection in 2004. Meanwhile Fila introduced a new sportswear line on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles in 2005, and Nike popped up in New York's SoHo neighborhood when it launched a special edition basketball shoe named after LeBron James.
With more and more companies exploring nano-stores, think of the promotional possibilities inside super-centers and club stores. Costco and Wal-Mart could carve out a whole free-standing section of real estate and rent it out to major CPG manufacturers for big-time nano/pop-up promotions.
Come visit the Kraft Store in Wal-Mart and assemble your own meal and buy the week’s groceries. Try Kroger’s Unilever Laundromat where you can do your wash with Wisk and fill your cleaning bucket. Chill at Costco in the Sony Concept Store where you can buy LCDs, music, stereos and DVDs.
The question is whether or not this transient marketing approach builds brands. It’s great for excitement and publicity but that’s strictly short-term.
Like all promotions, pop-up stores are good for a spike. However, they cannot be as good as building imagery and value over time.
I would still want to be sure that I had the right position, the right communication of benefits and an excellent integrated marketing plan that covered the basics of brand building. And that the pop-up stores was only one facet of my marketing efforts.
That way I could cover myself in this nano-test, knowing I was not only securing my present but also planning for my future. Oh, and pass the napkin because the pizza wasn’t half-bad.
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