News
Reading, Writing and — Pricer School Supplies — CBS News
Aug. 22, 2011
Our very own, Bill Melnick, director of strategic planning here at SAI Marketing, was a featured commentator on CBS News to speak about consumer and brand behavior in peak periods such as Back to School. Check out the clip for more insights.
Back-To-School Trend: Higher Prices
Aug. 19, 2011
Stores are trying everything they can think of to disguise the fact that you're going to pay more for clothes this fall.
Bill Melnick, director of strategic planning at SAI Marketing, which studies consumer behavior at major consumer brands, said most shoppers may not notice retailers' tactics to disguise prices. But he says shoppers won't buy if they can't afford it.
"Shoppers are being pragmatic," he says, nothing that they think "'If it fits into my budget, then it's a sale.'"
Read the full article.
Media Industry Not Letting Economy Worries Slow It Down
Revenue, advertising sales stay strong amid fading growth forecasts
July 25, 2011
At the same time, the economy has consumer packaged goods changing marketing tactics, according to Bill Melnick, director of strategic planning at SAI Marketing. The recession has created a “culture of thrift,” he said. That means impulse purchases are down, while the importance of getting on a consumer’s shopping list is up. Melnick said in many cases media planning is shifting from a brand awareness perspective to a shopper perspective, and while television remains an important way to reach consumers, digital, social media and increasingly mobile are also being used to turn consumers into shoppers.
Read the full article.
Grocery Stores Use Big Quantities to Entice Shoppers
At Stores, Making 5 for $5 a Bigger Draw Than 1 for $1
July 17, 2011
Unemployment, rising gas prices and more expensive food have “put a tremendous amount of pressure on consumers, who have become extremely value driven, budget minded, list minded, less impulsive and very deal oriented,” said Bill Melnick, director for strategic planning at SAI Marketing, which studies consumer behavior for brands like Dole.
“In order to get someone to buy something that wasn’t on the list,” Mr. Melnick said, “or to get them to buy more of what’s already on the list, there has to be some incentive to get them to move outside their typical behavior.”
Read the full article.
Recession Challenges: Mass Marketing to Fragmented Consumers
SAI Marketing Tracks Four Different Shopper Types and Their Reactions to Economic Stress
April 14, 2011
The new economic reality presents a special challenge to consumer packaged goods brands that were built on the concept of mass marketing, but that now need a nuanced approach to closing the sale with shoppers. For three years, SAI Marketing has tracked changes in the consumer economy, using a tool it calls the Consumption Context Index, which aggregates econometric indicators from three broad categories: economic, social/cultural and political.
Read the full article.
Retail: Ad spending rebounds as the competition for customers stiffens
March 16, 2011
Apple wasn't the only company smiling last week after the iPad 2 debuted to gigantic sales.
Retailers across the country have been looking for evidence that the recent upturn in spending is not just a fluke, and the run on the new iPad seemed to prove it is not.
Retail sales have increased year to year each of the past eight months, according to the Commerce Department. In February overall sales were up 1 percent to $387.1 billion, a rise of 15.3 percent since hitting a three-year low in December 2008 during the depths of the recession.
The greater consumer confidence has spurred a major uptick in ad spending by the retail category. It was up 9 percent during the first half of 2010, according to Kantar Media.
That uptick has come across a variety of subcategories, including department stores, clothing stores, supermarkets and more, and it reflects in part the greater competition for customers during the recent recession.
"The trend in retail is up, and the reason for that is because competition is up," says Bill Melnick, director of strategic planning at SAI Marketing, an agency outside of Philadelphia.
"There is a lot of competitive overlap in terms of who's selling what. The days of the verticals for the mass of consumers is not as prevalent as it was. I can go into a CVS and buy dinner and get my prescription and find a bucket to clean my house. Same for Target, grocery stores, etc."
Melnick says retail ad spending is generally concentrated in three main media: TV, digital and print.
Couponing drives a lot of the print and digital spending, and it's become especially popular during the recession. Buyers say that it's almost not worth advertising if you don't have some type of special to promote because shoppers have become so dependent on finding good deals.
"I would say we're in the middle of a coupon craze," Melnick says. "Any medium that can get a coupon in someone's hand, whether it's printed or rich media, people are incredibly price-driven nowadays."
But even deal-conscious consumers were eager to spend money last month, when consumer confidence hit its highest level since February 2008, according to the Conference Board. That should encourage even higher ad expenditures, because consumers are clearly ready to buy after so many months of scrimping.
Sales were up at virtually every type of retail store last month, even those that had been lagging. Electronics and appliances stores, which fell 0.2 percent in January, were up 0.9 percent in February.
Department stores were up 1 percent following a 0.4 percent drop in January. And hardware stores, which dipped 1.3 percent in January, grew 0.6 percent in February.
Some of the January declines were blamed on the weather, with snowstorms blanketing the country and keeping shoppers cooped up at home. Indeed, online shopping declined in February, with people heading out to the stores, after rising in January.
But there are some categories that have been slow to come back.
"I wouldn’t say that luxury has returned entirely, but they're doing much better," Melnick says.