Amid the wider market changes being seen across the retail landscape, there are several critical shifts that demand notice.
Maximizing Brick-and-Mortar Presence
One of the more important shifts taking place in the brick-and-mortar retail space is the growing propensity to leverage stores for their marketing and advertising value. While the concept has long been a staple of the digital world, the idea is currently being pushed into stores by a variety of companies including Albertsons and Walmart.
The idea is simple. Physical retail visits come with an extremely high level of built-in intent and capturing mindshare during the visit itself can help product companies create excitement far closer to the point of purchase. The ability to influence consumer sentiment at this stage of the buyer journey is significant in and of itself but, there are other reasons for retailers to lean heavily on the potential here.
For one, many of these brands are stronger offline than they are online. While retailers like Walmart, Target, Kroger, and others have invested heavily in upgrading their digital capabilities, and successfully so, they still drive more engagement in physical stores than they do online. So if these brands can leverage their physical presence to upgrade an advertising revenue channel, the opportunity is to create more than a nice-to-have but a foundational advantage.
It also takes advantage of a major element of physical retail - reach. Billboards, TV ads and more are all about expanding reach for a brand, and the conduit that retailers can provide via stores is hugely significant.
Does this mean digital ad channels will decline in value? No. But it does mean that omnichannel retailers will place an even greater emphasis on building out their store presence not just to help drive in-store and online sales, but also to maximize this growing advertising channel, and potentially better link online and offline efforts.
Influencing Retail: The Latest Example
And the power of omnichannel goes beyond just bringing digital concepts to physical stores, it also focuses on leveraging the power of digital reach for offline buzz. Take MrBeast, an online mega-influencer that recently launched the first physical location at the American Dream Mall in New Jersey for his burger concept. The YouTube star drove a significant digital buzz to the launch with the aim of maximizing the launch.
Visits on the day of the launch rose 325.6% above the baseline for daily average visits from September 1st, 2021 to September 8th, 2022. This amounted to visits that were 31.8% higher than the previous daily high set at the American Dream.
The launch shows the unique power of well-executed, omnichannel-oriented strategies that fuel the powerful reach of digital marketing channels with offline payoffs. Even more, they push landlords to think differently about the tenants and concepts they look to build around as ‘events’ like these can move the needle for co-tenants as well, potentially even changing the way we think about who anchor tenants are.
Ultimately, retail and retail real estate is changing. But many of these changes offer the ability to create more successful locations if retailers and landlords can identify ways to think differently and more expansively about what can be achieved in brick and mortar.
What will move the needle next? Visit Placer.ai to find out.
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