Matt Lee Fact Sheet: Name: Matt Lee Title: Director & Co-Founder at Capture Favourite Food: Biscuits Sunday activity preference:…
In a world where consumers find themselves increasingly surrounded by marketing messages, the struggle to cut through the noise and engage with them is real.
Nowhere is that struggle more relevant than it is in-store. Brands and retailers have known this to be true for decades. Shopper marketing is a way to gain visibility for brands and communicate with shoppers, but only if planned and executed well.
Both brands and retailers have come to the stark realisation that looking deep into the data is the only way to truly optimise shopper marketing campaigns in the modern retail landscape.
Getting the right message to the right consumer at the right time, in the right place and in the right way has become the order of the day, and Capture co-founder and director Matt Lee believes that he has found a way to do just that.
1) First off, for those who might not know, what is Capture?
Capture is a specialist shopper media agency. We’re on a mission to change the shopper media category in the UK for the better.
2) Can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what your role is at Capture and how you got involved in this company?
I started out my career at the insight and media company, dunnhumby – the driving force behind the Tesco Clubcard proposition. I spent an amazing and inspiring 9 years there. Whilst working there, I met Capture’s other co-founder Joel Hopwood and together we decided to launch our own agency. We’d realised after we met the big media agencies (who were working with household name clients) that they didn’t know much about shoppers and retail. They were missing a huge opportunity for their clients to grow their brands by connecting with shoppers. We wanted to set up an agency that would specialise in this space and offer something that simply didn’t exist at the time.
3) What is the problem that Capture can solve for brands?
The marketing landscape is changing, and at a faster pace than ever before. But we recognise at Capture that there really is on undeniable reality in marketing – if someone is going to buy something, they have to go through a store (whether it’s an online store or a physical shop) in order to purchase.
Too often, however, we see brands making unwise decisions about how to invest marketing budget in this space. There are hundreds of media opportunities to choose from and it’s important to get the right message to the right customer at the right time. Capture are the experts in planning, buying, implementing and evaluating shopper media campaigns for FMCG brands.
4) What does it take to engage modern shoppers?
We’ve run over 2,000 shopper campaigns in our history and we’ve spent a lot of time analysing this exact question! For us, simple and single-minded communication is critical to capturing someone’s attention. We’re bombarded with thousands of messages every time we go shopping. In an average superstore, you’ve got upwards of 40,000 products to choose from and less than 50 go into the basket. Unless you’re clear and focused in your message, you won’t engage the shopper – simple as that.
5) What is shopper media?
Shopper media is any marketing medium design to reach a customer along the path to purchase. This could be channels situated in the aisle (a barker in-store or a department zone banner online), at the front of the store (security shrouds or ‘my favourites’ placements) or even something in proximity to the store (for example 6 sheet posters).
6) What has been the biggest change in retail marketing in the past year?
For us, we continue to see an increasing focus from brands on understanding the performance of their campaigns and measuring the return of their shopper marketing investment. We began working with IRI in 2016 to offer a better, and most importantly consistent, measurement solution for these campaigns. In-store, we can now measure activity by using a control vs exposed methodology (essentially an AB test for media), understanding the performance of stores with media compared to those without.
7) What changes are you most looking forward to in the year to come?
As brands demand to understand the effectiveness of their shopper media choices, we are looking to retailers to become even more transparent in order to attract and grow investment. Capture are spearheading this change which empowers brands not only to justify their choices but also to grow their investment in retailers and channels that work for them. Solutions like those offered by Adimo help bring this level of measurability to the online space, but there’s more the retailers need to be doing in terms of sharing data in grocery eCommerce. We’re hopeful that we’ll see a shift in this level of collaboration this year.
One thing is for sure: The world’s retail landscape is indeed shifting very quickly.
As this shift continues to take place, brands will find themselves in a position where they need all the help they can get to cut through the noise and connect with consumers. Fortunately for them, people like Matt Lee and agencies like Capture are ready and willing to help them understand the full shopper marketing mix and balance traditional with modern media and techniques to win with shoppers.
The only question is: what are they waiting for?