“I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.”
—Chinese philosopher Confucius
Why is this bit of ancient Chinese wisdom the key to reaching today’s home-center shopper in-store? We’ll come back to that in a minute.
First we must get to know the home-center shopper’s mindset and understand how it differs from that of the grocery and mass-merchandise shopper. Grocery shopping is very habitual in nature. Every week, and sometimes more often than that, you are stocking up on those items you and your family need on a regular basis – milk, bread, orange juice, paper towels… But do you ever find yourself running into your local home center to stock up on tile, paint, or wallpaper? Of course not. And herein lies the most important dynamic of home-center shopping – it is nearly always “project driven.”
According to a study conducted by Perception Research Services, home center shoppers walk into the store looking for personal relevance (“something that will work in my house”), but what they encounter instead is an often bewildering array of packages and displays highlighting features and benefits. The primary disconnect in home-center shopping is that shoppers think in terms of their projects, whereas manufacturers think in terms of features and benefits.
So how do marketers of DIY (do-it-yourself) products bridge the gap between features and personal relevance? This brings us back to the ancient Chinese wisdom: “I do and I understand.” Behold the power of in-store product demonstrations. Experience leads to understanding, and understanding is the real bridge to personal relevance.
Further underscoring the impact and value of product demonstrations are the results of the sixth Trial and Conversion study sponsored by the PMA Product Sampling and Demonstration Council. When consumers responded to a question about how seeing a product in use affected their emotional conclusion about it, about 83% agreed or strongly agreed with the assertion that seeing a product in use made them more comfortable with their purchase; more than 84% of respondents indicated that, in general, seeing how a product physically works was what they most wanted to know or experience.
This year DIY retailers are taking a page out of the mass-merchandiser playbook. They are carefully selecting and authorizing a very small number of event-marketing companies to conduct product demonstrations in their stores. Controlling who is allowed to execute demos enables the retailer to set standards and maintain consistency within the retail environment. It also provides opportunities to work more closely with the marketing companies to plan an annual calendar of seasonal themed events based on the retailer’s historical sales data.
Do-it-yourself consumers want solutions – and they need “what will work for me” answers. Shoppers don’t want to pore over the fine print on product packaging to compare features and benefits. Only product demonstration programs accomplish what pricing, packaging, and merchandising cannot – in-store events make a product relevant and help shoppers quickly make the connection without confusion.
CHIEF MARKETER columnist Laurie Carlson McGrath is director of marketing with Schaumburg, IL-based marketing services firm PromoWorks.
