Retailwire.com prompted a discussion on what, if anything, should grocers and other stores be doing to accommodate the growth in stay-at-home dads?According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the recession is putting more men out of work than women, which has led to an increase of stay-at-home dads who are increasingly taking on the traditional women’s roles of childcare, housework, school life, and shopping.

Here’s my contribution to the Dad wishlist: salespeople who don’t look down their noses when asked a (“stupid”) question Mom would never have dreamt of asking. (Also, considering this is the gender that apparently never stops to ask for directions, please treat the question as close to a life-or-death emergency.)

Advertising Age recently carried an article titled “The Death of Customer Segmentation”, by Michael Fassnacht.

He questions the traditional marketing hypothesis that the better we segment consumers, the better we know what is relevant and the better we can market to them.

Fassnacht argument is that:

1. Segments are becoming more volatile [totally agree!]
2. Consumers are never part of just one segment [fashion companies discovered that a few years ago, and began marketing to “purchase occasion segments” rather than plain-old consumer segments defined by demographic and static psychographic profiling], and
3. Consumers are preferring to choose what information would be relevant and of interest.

This last point is of particular importance, since electronic media – especially websites that customize themselves based on analysis of the users behaviour and history – are becoming more prevalent communication platforms. In fact, for the last few years “mass customization” and “a consumer segment of one” have been fashionable phrases thrown about in marketing circles.

Fassnacht quotes Amazon, Apple and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to support his well-structured argument.

However, it may be a challenge for traditional retailers and brands to apply the learnings from these brands in their physical stores.

Going further and on a lighter note  – or perhaps not 🙂 – if we are to believe the philosophy of the Vedas, the Universe has a head start on “self-segmentation” and “customization of consumer experience” technology. According to it, the world and our experience of it is “Maya,” an illusion product of our mind, and we are free to create and mold it, and experience it as long as we hold the illusion.

If that’s the case, our modern techies and marketers have a long time to go before they climb that technology curve.

The original article is available here: The Death of Consumer Segmentation?

We’re all for new business ideas and guerilla marketing tactics. However, it is a fact that some work, and many don’t.

Here’s one idea that  raises some question marks.

It’s a business called freepapercups.com that provides free paper cups to offices carrying the ads of other companies who pay for the cups. The company’s proposition is that everyone wins – the recepient office saves on paper cup expenditure, coffee service providers get a new tool to save their customers money (and for themselves to possibly gain some share or the revenues?), and the advertiser gets to penetrate a previously untouched white-space. Who knows – this may work, just like the ads and logos painted on the roofs of white delivery vans.

However, the thing is this: paper cups – with ads or without – will get thrown away like yesterday’s newspaper and last month’s magazine. So, this would be another form of broadcast advertising whose effectiveness needs to be measured and proven, and it’s guilty (of waste) unless proven innocent. 

Also, it is invasive to a great degree in a space that should be uncluttered with any messages other than what are relevant to the organization’s own business. 

So, will it really contribute anything significant to the offices who won’t be spending on the paper cups, or to the brands that do spend to advertise on them? Or will it just detract from both?

What might be next – co-branded letterheads perhaps?

Lest I sound too much of a cynic, let me offer up a thought: maybe governments should put a new line item in their  budgets – “Grant on expenditure on ceramic coffee cups for offices to carry environmental and fiscal-consciousness messages”. 

A caffeine-laced economic stimulus – now that should get the economy going again!

RetailWire’s Al McLain has asked, “What changes in consumer spending habits do you see as providing retailers and manufacturers with the most opportunity? Which habits do you think will stick around once the economy improves, and which won’t?”

Well, “the only thing certain (and permanent) in life is death…”

Economic changes – including recessions – are not permanent (unless the society itself collapses), so the market mood will shift towards spending again.

Consumer sentiment may not lead the recovery but is likely to follow it. Given that, value-consciousness will stick, even after the market turns upwards. So my reading is that private label will continue to grow, people will continue to think harder about spending on big-ticket items, deals & coupons will continue to work.

Carol Spieckerman, a RetailWire panelist, made a comment about consumer spending not returning to where it was. To that I would add this thought and question: even in these recessionary days, the average American and European household consumes more (and is more wasteful) than even the wealthier households in the so-called developing or less developed economies. What if the average American consumer begins to find out that s/he can cut back even more than s/he already has? What would that do to the traditional business and economic model?

And once that consumer role model is demolished, what would that mean for the world at large and the developing economies that have been following the “consumption-led growth model”?

Obviously, this is not a foregone conclusion, but it’s a scenario worth pondering and preparing for. And some might say, perhaps a scenario even worth encouraging.

(Here are more thoughts and commentary from the RetailWire Braintrust and others readers on Lessons from the IRI Retail-CPG Summit.)

George Anderson asks: what medium, what message will it take to break through the clutter and influence consumers to buy whatever it is that is being pitched? Rocky Gunderson, co-founder and vice president of marketing and network development for SeeSaw Networks, believes that digital signage networks are the solution.

The dynamism of digital video display has the potential to make ads more impactful but, from my experience, most of the advertisers and the agencies have little clue about how to really make it work.

So many companies are using digital displays as animated billboards, with the same messages in a different format. John Wanamaker’s lament still applies and, possibly, it is more than 50% of the advertising that is getting wasted now. Either the Digital OOH industry will wake up some day and spruce up their act, or digital signage will become like fluorescent safety jackets – everywhere and unnoticed.

[George Anderson’s RetailWire query: Media Follows Consumers Outside the Home.]