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The unintended lessons of GlobalShop

Two non-kiosk seminars at the massive retail trade show and conference yield some interesting observations.

April 22, 2002

CHICAGO - Go to a small, industry-centric trade show, and you know what you are getting into. Go to a gigantic, all-encompassing trade show, and it is a crapshoot.

It turns out that 15 years as a horse racing journalist did not prepare me for the changes I would have to make upon entering the kiosk industry. In racing, all the trade shows are just about the same, even though the focus may be different -- the business of racing, simulcast wagering, etc. At the end of the day, you are still talking to the same people.

But the kiosk world is different because it is part of so many other larger worlds. Kiosks are about entertainment. They are about health care. They are about job placement. They are about public access to the Internet.

And they are also about retail, which is why NetWorld Alliance general editor Rick Redding and I hopped on a Southwest flight to Chicago on April 18 for two glorious days in the Windy City, soaking in everything that is GlobalShop.

KIOSKmarketplace.com editor John Harrell

The reality of a show like GlobalShop hit me during our planning sessions. Looking at the enormous exhibitor map, covering several thousand booths and two halls, it was evident that there was a lot to the show that was irrelevant to us. The visual merchandising and store fixturing sections held no allure at all, and the point of purchase section featured only scattered gems in a stack of cubic zirconia. There were kiosk companies and companies with kiosks at the show, but they constituted a small percentage of the exhibitors there.

The seminars were not exactly kiosk friendly either. While some of the topics sounded promising ("Emerging Technologies for Retail"), others appeared puzzling ("Closeout Shopping: Retailing's Next Evolution"), and still others were inscrutable ("Bobos in Paradise," "That's a Lot of Lipstick.")

So what happens when you have to spend two days at a large show and there appears to be little to cover? You take risks. You approach people who seem interesting and hope for the best. You go to seminars and hope something interesting is said before you doze off. You hope.

As it turns out, several seminar topics that were not directly related to kiosks produced some things to ponder.

"I'm Popeye the Sailor Man Â… maybe"

Dick Blatt is president of Point-of-Purchase Advertising International (POPAI). The acronym is pronounced Popeye, as in the sailor man, and while Blatt does not have spinach-induced biceps of steel, he does prowl a room with the energy of a man hopped up on leafy vegetables. He removes his jacket, loosens his red tie, runs his thumbs up under his suspenders, and peppers the floor with questions like he was a graduate seminar instructor.

He also heads an industry that has an image problem.

"POPAI has been the Rodney Dangerfield medium," Blatt said early in the seminar "In-store Advertising Becomes a Measure Medium" on April 18. Blatt and POPAI consultant Doug Adams were releasing the results of a two-year survey into consumer buying practices at 250 stores in 22 markets nationally. But Blatt had another message to deliver: It was about time for POPAI and its members to stand up for themselves.

"Why do I say that?," Blatt asked, referring to the Dangerfield reference. "Simple, we've never been incorporated into the strategic thinking of the media mix."

Then Blatt revealed the sponsors of the study: Anheuser-Busch Inc., Frito-Lay, Pepsico Inc., Pfizer Inc., and Ralston Purina Co.

This is an organization with an image problem?!?

Immediately, I started pondering how the kiosk industry would react if a group of heavy-duty brands such as that sponsored any kind of kiosk research. It was hard to weed that thought from my mind as Adams launched into a numbing parade of figures that showcased the effectiveness of POP advertising in a grocery store setting.

Turns out that POPAI has the kind of clout that the kiosk industry may one day have. But that has done little for its confidence. POPAI can get such A-list types as Anheuser-Busch and Pepsico into the mix for a study, and yet the organization uses a major trade show to exhibit its self-esteem issues.

The kiosk industry, as anyone who is involved in it and/or reads this site knows, is a maturing industry that is still trying to define itself. Blatt's knock-off comment lumping POPAI together with a famous comedian battling confidence problems turned the seminar from an informative session into a cautionary tale. As the kiosk industry gains ubiquity, I thought, it needs to display an air of confidence, arrogance even. For all of Blatt's bluster and evangelizing, I came away thinking about Rodney Dangerfield.

Then one day later, a small Frenchmen with grand ideas taught me that ubiquity is not even enough.

The next level

Physically, Marc Gobe lacks the in-your-face American presence of Blatt, who looks and acts farm-raised and success-driven. Instead, Gobe is a diminutive man with salt-and-pepper hair and a French accent so outrageous he sounds like he walked off the set of Monty Python and the Holy Grail("Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!").

Gobe knows that too, and he plays it for good effect. During his April 19 seminar "Emotional Branding," the president and chief executive officer of New York-based marketing and advertising firm d/g* worldwide played up his accent but also used anecdotes about his family's initial experience in the United States to bridge the gap between French and American culture.

For Gobe, the most successful way of creating brand awareness is through developing a strong emotional attachment and identifying a product as part of a customer's cultural well being. Starbucks Coffee has achieved emotional branding, according to Gobe. Folgers has not.

During the seminar, he offered ten commandments for emotional branding. It was number eight that caught me off guard: From Ubiquity to Presence. Ubiquity is a term I've grown to use frequently in my short time in the kiosk industry. To achieve ubiquity, as I saw it, was to push the kiosk industry closer to its final destination of success.

But to Gobe, ubiquity is just part of the journey. The final step is presence. To him, ubiquity is simply impact, but presence is contact. Presence is the point where Folgers becomes Starbucks, Kmart becomes Target.

"A brand as life is a lot more richer than the restricted elements of just the logo," Gobe said.

Point taken. Ubiquity is still a worthwhile goal for the kiosk industry. It is something the industry should achieve some day. But once there, the industry will still have some work to do.