Michelle Cheung2

Companies buy expensive TV spots to promote its products, services and brands. However, Macy just broke the tradition and start “selling” its mobile app on TV commercials. The mobile app features online shopping, store locator, gift registry creation, special offers, and the scanning function (bar code and QR code scanning) for detailed product descriptions and user reviews. To enhance the in-store shopping experience at Macy, its app and Herald Square store in New York City have a new location-specific technology that provides easy in-store navigation to help find shoppers’ favorite brands & departments faster within the store. Below is the screenshot of the app from iPhone.

It is very interesting to see how a company uses paid media to promote owned media. By converting broad TV audience into potential in-store and/or online customers who use the mobile app, it’s a lot easier for Macy to do market segmentation and micro-marketing. According to the VP-digital marketing at Macy, the TV commercial (See below for the commercial) is “intended to remind consumers of Macy’s omnichannel capabilities in advance of the holiday season.” I think this is a smart move because the growth of physical stores is limited due to the change in consumers’ shopping behaviour. Also, as oppose to some mobile apps which only help shoppers to shop online, the location specific technology of Macy’s app aims at improving the in-store shopping experience. As a shopper, I am encouraged to download the app and go to a physical store to try out the function, instead of getting the sense that shopping online is always more convenient. Currently, there is only one store in New York that has the technology to support such app function. Macy should keep an eye on how this function is adding value to the sales of that store, and decided whether or not it is worthwhile to implement this technology to the rest of its stores.

Source: http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/macy-s-media-muscle-promote-omnichannel-capabilities/244221/