Media Clutter

My curiosity has been piqued by a new, or at least unusual, method of in-store advertising: floor stickers, particularly in grocery stores. If you've not seen one (as I hadn't until recently), it's a sticker that's about the size of a welcome mat that contains a promotional message for a product, with an accompanying train of footprint-shaped stickers (in the same color as the promotion) leading from the sticker at the end of the aisle to the shelf where the product is located.

What makes this unusual is that the floor of a retail store - the physical surface beneath the shoppers' feet - is presently a blank canvas. Some marketing enthusiast recognized it as a space he could leverage to grab attention and pimp his wares. Granted, there's some consumer resistance to the increase of promotional messaging, every available inch of space seems to be plastered with a clutter of ads - but the novelty makes this technique particularly effective.

I paused to watch a few customers, who noticed the sticker, followed the footprints to the shelf, and inspected the item being promoted. None of them actually bought it. I expect that my study of half a dozen people in one location isn't sufficient to draw firm conclusions, but it did seem highly effective: everyone seemed to notice the ad, and about a third went to the shelf to inspect the item. That's not statistically sound, but it does seem to indicate merit.

A floor sticker is also a tricky problem for functional design: it has to stand out against whatever floor it is affixed to. It must stand up to wear and stains that occur from people walking on it (and being mopped each night), but yet not be so slippery that it constitutes a hazard. The adhesive has to be strong enough to hold it to the floor, but not leave a residue when it comes time to remove it, etc. But this is likely a digression into minor tactical concerns.

What makes this mode of promotion so (presumably) effective is that it is unique. It is the only advertisement on the floor - one message in an uncluttered expanse automatically gets attention. Will it be as effective when there are two? Will it be as effective when there are six of them on each end of the aisle, with a patchwork of interweaving footprint trails from one end of the aisle to another?  I expect not.

And this is true of advertising in all media: it is effective when it is new precisely because nobody else is doing it. If there were but one billboard on a stretch of road, chances are people would notice and pay attention. It's likely a matter of imitative evolution: the first billboard got attention and effectively increased revenue. Someone else saw the idea and copied it, and then there were two. Years later, the roadside is so cluttered with billboards that drivers no longer pay attention, and even complain about it being a distraction and an eyesore, and pundits declare roadside advertising is ineffective.

And this is where I take issue with blanket statements that a given kind of advertising "does not work."   It works, and it works very well, until so many companies attempt to do the same thing that it becomes clutter. People would not like music concerts if there were six bands playing at the same time, each one trying to play louder than the rest - it would be a cacophony of noise, an incomprehensible nuisance. But it would be wrong to conclude that people don't like music and find it annoying - they would like it, and give it their attention, but for the clutter.

But to drag myself back to the specific topic at hand (floor advertising), it will be interesting to see, in ten years, what has become of it. Will the idea catch on at all? Will it become so ubiquitous that customers ignore it? For most forms of advertising, few can remember when it was just getting started and the field was uncluttered - and I look to this as an idea that can be watched from the early stages of its evolution.