Can Santa Compete With Digital?

Posted December 9, 2011

Picture this: Jane Smith, wife and mother of three, heads to her local Best Buy one Saturday morning, a couple weeks before Christmas (please insert other festive holiday if appropriate). She's looking for a digital camera for Grandpa.

On a Mission

Prior to starting her shopping trip, Mom did her research on her iPad, and listed all of the potential cameras she'd like to buy under her 'Notes' app on her iPhone, model numbers and all, for a quick find once in store. She also saw a post on her friend's Facebook Wall, recommending a particular camera, which she added to her list.

Being a savvy shopper, she's downloaded a new app called Sale Saver onto her iPhone, which totals the price of each item on her list, discounts, tax, and all, at lightning speed. She's on a mission, after all.

As she nears the store, she hears from IZEA's WeReward with an offer that coincides with her planned purchase. Once in the store, Jane heads to the camera section, passing the colossal holiday lines on the way. She pulls up her list, views the in store POS in the section, identifies the cameras she's thinking about, chooses one, and apprehensively makes her way to check-out, as we all do. 

Will She or Won't She

After being in line for 10 minutes, Mom decides, "why not, let's just double-check this is the best price I can find for this camera." She loads up her Sale Saver app to confirm the total price of the camera, then heads over to Google to run some quick research.

While searching, she sees a Personalized Message from Dotomi, featuring a super low price for the same camera at Target, clicks on it, pulling up the listing of her local Target store. She clicks the number to automatically dial it, gets an associate on the phone, confirms the price and how long the lines are. Offering a much lower price and the capacity to pop in and out, Target now becomes her best option. She races out of Best Buy, with a gleaming smile on her face.

What Just Happened?

Marketers sometimes get bogged down in activating their campaigns, and forget about painting the "real" picture of how consumers interact with media, in this case, mobile.

Sure, Jane could've done that research earlier. But, this scenario that's so common, represents the fact that with mobile, marketers can engage consumers with their brand up until right before the moment of purchase. As long as, of course, they have an engaging enough mobile campaign.

And Moms and Dads aren't the only ones jumping on the mobile train this holiday season; so are their kids. A recent study from Nielsen shows us among children ages 6-12, the iPad is the most desired consumer electronic device. And numbers 2 and 3? The iPod Touch and iPhone. Kids are iScreaming for Santa to deliver them Apple mobile devices.

Take a Step Back

To broaden the discussion a bit, let's move to Digital's overall role in the holidays this year. Strata Systems fired out a "flash survey" to its agency clients regarding their marketing and media buying trends for the holidays.

More than 30% of the agencies said that 50% or more of their clients are now launching digital programs in their holiday marketing campaigns. And it's all about integration. They're not going 100% digital, but rather mixing digital into their analogue efforts to reach consumers both online and offline.

The study also announced a pretty stunning discovery: while cable TV is still the #1 medium for holiday advertising, digital has replaced radio in the #2 ranking. This truly represents the power of this media, and the tangible movement of marketing to online.