Strategic marketing communication in retail: channels & media investment

What is “the right” messaging? And how can retailers ensure their creative ideas deliver it? In the first two articles in this series, we explored some of the key topics retailers must interrogate to better understand what motivates consumers to purchase, and what drives them to their retailer of choice. This uncovered two focus areas:  

• Consumer needs and values, and their category entry points — these serve as a great anchor for retailers’ creative. 
• Retail choice drivers, especially when comparing a retailer’s performance against their competitors — uncover opportunities to close gaps in performance and focus messaging on what matters to consumers, clearly identifying what consumers need to hear to favor one retailer above another. 

Ultimately, retailers want their brand to be top-of-mind, and sharing a compelling message will help make their retail brand memorable and inspire consumers to action. The best ads focus on the aspects that matter to reach campaign goals — be it creating a lasting positive impression or a direct trigger to purchase. 

Of course, the definition of ‘success’ depends on the objective of the campaign and the consumer. For most campaigns, success depends on a retail brand’s ability to fascinate and imprint on its target audience, as most consumers are not in the market to buy immediately. Here, an effective campaign ensures the brand is top-of-mind when they are ready to purchase. But tactical ads that want to trigger immediate action must imprint — ensuring the consumer that’s moved to purchase buys from the correct brand. 

While ads heavy with technical details may speak to niche groups — ads that inspire an emotional connection tend to succeed across all demographic profiles. They also drive non-customer consideration more effectively. 

GfK AdFit Optimizer framework shows that effective advertising that captures interest and fosters engagement shares common themes across 3 key pillars: 

• Fascinates: The degree to which an ad will actively grab attention and stand out from the crowd.  
• Imprints: How much of a lasting impression an ad leaves with the consumer. 
• Triggers: How much of a direct or indirect response the ad is likely to generate.  

It’s clear that there are further insights to be gained by looking holistically at the role of various elements in driving interest and engagement. However, while this is an important component in delivering a successful message and striking creative, they’re rendered ineffective if not communicated through the right channels. On the wrong mix of channels, even award-winning creative simply will not reach the audiences that matter.  

Let's explore how retailers can ensure their paid media mix strategy maximizes reach across the consumer groups most likely to drive performance. The main finding? Targeting still matters, but measurement is key to perfecting your media investment.  

Targeting truly shines in supporting tactical efforts: for example, when retailers use loyalty cards in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) to activate their own customer base. It’s also a fantastic way for new retailers to kickstart their sales by activating the consumers who are ready to buy NOW, for example with a focus on hyper-local consumers. Further, because it’s not always affordable to target the whole market, mass marketing often needs an element of targeting.  

The defining factor to ensure efficient investment is advertising effectiveness measurement. 

To get their media investment right, retailers must find ways to measure both (passive) exposure and the (more subjective) human reactions to advertising. At GfK, we uncover the full picture of ad performance across channels by scientifically linking ad exposure data to mental states and true purchasing behavior insights.  

Marketers are provided with a single source of truth that reveals the impact of the campaign and identifies the course of action required to amplify this effect, by sophisticated modeling​​. 

Retailers gain a full understanding of the effect their campaigns have regarding exposure in the target group, effects on sales (sales lift), and brand perception (brand lift). 

GfK Campaign Amplifier enables you to accurately measure ​the full impact of your brand campaigns to defend your budget, amplify reach and frequency to out-market your competition, and multiply ​value with impactful creative that captures attention and drives positive brand associations.​ The value of having clarity on the reach, frequency, and visibility of a campaign, and whether it grabs attention and builds positive brand connections, is a valuable tool for retailers.  

Designed to empower marketing teams to adjust and optimize their campaign’s cross-media spend, GfK Campaign Amplifier analyzes: 

• Full reach, measured cumulatively across digital & non-digital channels. 
• Visibility through optimal frequency and repetition, ensuring the retailer is mentally available to consumers. 
• How effectively the campaign drives retailer recognition and inspires an emotional response that grabs attention and builds positive brand connections.