October 6th and 7th, WAG exhibited at the Shopper Marketing Expo in Chicago. The Shopper Marketing Expo is a tradeshow designed to bring all segments of the shopper marketing world together in one room. From there, it is a great place to network and find out what is up-and-coming in the field in which we work. The Expo is put on by the In-Store Marketing Institute; a world-wide network that brings together retailers, brands, agencies, P-O-P firms, research organizations and other solution providers along the path to purchase.

First of all, Chicago was a great city to have the chance to explore while attending the expo. The architecture is amazing from the skyscrapers to the brownstones that were the foundation of the city. Lake Michigan and the Magnificent Mile are definite must-sees. It’s impossible to miss all the great bars and restaurants; the deep-dish pizza of course is a staple of the city.

The show took place in the enormous Festival Hall at the landmark Navy Pier and we had our WAG’s booth set up among fellow exhibitors. QR Codes were definitely the ‘in’ thing at the expo, and WAG was proud to be ahead of the curve in shopper marketing technology. The expo itself featured a scavenger hunt of sorts, where codes were hidden at various booths, and attendees were challenged to find and scan all of them to win a prize. WAG’s booth featured a Saintsbury wine raffle entry, and we also were handing out giant QR Codes. Most booths had items related to their business to give away, WAG instead gave away information about the future of marketing and how it could have an impact on just about anyone in attendance. It was great how many curious attendees, as well as other exhibitors, approached us to ask about QR codes, how we were using them and how we predicted their use in the future. It was something we could give away to spread information about ourselves, and the codes also served as a great icebreaker that often led into other shopper marketing related conversations.

The expo, and the city, stimulated our creative thinking. Both offered a mix of new people and ideas, deep dish and design, strategy and audience that we have taken back to California with us, inspiring an enriched view of marketing and ways to reach the shopper. The multitudes of people we met gave us new ideas, got us thinking in new directions, and are connections that will mutually beneficial in the future as we move down the new road that marketing is heading.

What Americans do online: Nielsen reveals some surprising facts

I was recently doing some research for a project that I am working on and I came across an article posted on the Nielsen blog that delivered some very interesting information.

To see the article, click here!

"Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (43 percent increase) according to new research released today from The Nielsen Company. The research revealed that Americans spend a third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging."

Now, there are millions of things to do online that take up plenty of time. Checking email, playing games, visiting websites, watching movies and checking out pictures of adorable cats with funny caption (icanhascheezburger.com) are just a few, but 22.7 percent of US internet time is spent on Social Networks.

Other interesting tidbits:

"Online games overtook personal email to become the second most heavily used activity behind social networks – accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. Internet time. Email dropped from 11.5 percent of time to 8.3 percent."

"Despite some predictions otherwise, the rise of social networking hasn’t pushed email and instant messaging into obscurity just yet. Although both saw double-digit declines in share of time, email remains as the third heaviest activity online (8.3 percent share of time) while instant messaging is fifth, accounting for four percent of Americans online time."

So what does this all mean?

1. Spending High $$ Amounts on a Website = Bad Idea
2. Spending $$ Developing Your Social Media Program = Good Idea

Justin Noland
Email: justin@wag.com