With so much activity in the retail space this year, it will be easy for brands and retailers to feel the need to quickly react vs. being intentional with strategy and tactics.  In this second podcast of a multi-part holiday retail series designed to analyze the changing holiday retail environment and support intentional thinking, Kristin Demel, Retail Strategy Director at Callahan talk with Mark Tribble, VP of Brand Management on why the phrase omni-channel is outdated as part of a discussion on the top five holiday retail tactics that are likely to see drastic changes this year including:

• Door busters and In-Store Only offers will be replaced


• Free shipping is no longer the ultimate convenience offering


• Biggest Sale of the Year might not be the largest driver of urgency


• Will In-store Santa be on vacation this year?


• Omni-channel is no longer optional

Listen here:

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Other podcasts in our Retail Wrap-up 2020 series include:

• Retail Wrap-Up 2020: Why this is a one-of-a-kind holiday season


• Retail Wrap-Up 2020: Shopper modes are the new purchase channels 


• Retail Wrap-Up 2020: Will Black Friday ethics leads to retail innovation?


• Retail Wrap-Up 2020: The current state of customer loyalty


• Retail Wrap-Up 2020: Setting goals for 2021

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Welcome to Callahan’s Uncovering Aha! podcast. We talk about a range of topics for marketing decision-makers, with a special focus on how to uncover insights in data to drive brand strategy and inspire creativity. Featuring Kristin Demel and Mark Tribble.

Kristin:

Hi, good morning. I’m Kristin Demel, the Director of Retail Strategy for Callahan, and you’re listening to Uncovering Aha, a Callahan podcast. A couple of weeks ago Joe Cox, our Director of Communication Strategy and I started a conversation around holiday 2020. This holiday season is sure to be unlike any other, and we talked about things like consumer uncertainty and the fact that consumers lives are just playing different this year, and all of the change and impact and stimulus that’s happening out there in the environment that retailers and brands are reacting to.

Kristin:

We shared that we’re going to be with you this holiday season, discussing what we see, strategies that are out there, tactics that we see happening. And man, is there a lot going on. It seems like every day, if not every hour, depending upon the day that we’re in, there are new announcements for retailers about sales, about plans they’re putting into place and things that they want consumers to start engaging with.

Kristin:

So with so much activity, it can be really easy for brands and retailers to feel the need to quickly react this holiday season versus intentionally planning their activities or staying the course of their strategy. So with me today to continue this conversation around holiday 2020 is Mark Tribble. Mark is our VP of Brand Management. Hi, Mark.

Mark:

Good morning. How you doing?

Kristin:

I’m doing great.

Mark:

Well, hey. It’s great to join the podcast series. This is my first time, so please be kind to me when this is all said and done. But we love to talk retail. Just, Kristen, you and I both grew up in the retail world. I was a store manager way before I became an ad guy. So this time of the year just really gets my juices going. It’s just fun to watch what’s happening out there in the world. And you know, in this crazy world we’re living in with COVID and everything else out there. I think this is going to be a holiday season unlike any you and I have been around in our lives, and I just think it’s going to be fascinating to watch.

Mark:

So, as you and I were talking, we already started coming up with our five things we already think are going to be changing this year, and stuff that you and I just saw that was just such a tradition, when we think about the store environments we grew up in and the retailers we’ve been around. So I’d love to kick it off if you’re okay with starting with the first one, I think you and I have talked a lot about, which is just this idea of doorbusters, the old stack it high, let it fly idea.

Mark:

I just read yesterday that Target has already came out and said, Black Friday, we’re going to open at 7:00 AM just like normal. We’re not going to do it early. You can even come in and you can register your spot online. Right? Forget the old ideas of tickets. Remember when we used to be at stores and people were wrapped around the store at midnight, waiting to get in? That just isn’t going to happen this year, or if it does, that’s going to be six miles long, because you’re six feet away from each other trying to get in line when it’s all over.

Mark:

So it’s amazing when you really think about what doorbusters are going to, I think change this year in that space when you come to it. So I’m really fascinated to see how that space works and really what we use to drive business this year. Because that was always … in the days of Black Friday, when I grew up doing it for Walmart, it was all about what you could sell really cheap, really fast, and that you knew people wanted it, and I just think this year that’s going to be really, really different.

Kristin:

I think earlier, as you were starting to talk about this, you said tradition and Black Friday had become over time this almost kickoff to the holiday season and this tradition that families were looking forward to. I can remember as a kid with my mom waiting outside stores at 4:00 AM, and there was one year that we went to the mall, back when we all went to the mall, and we shopped all night. I just thought that was the coolest experience, that I was always going to celebrate that way. So I think REI was the first retailer this year that came out and said, “Hey, you know what, we’re not going to be open at all on Thanksgiving day.

Kristin:

And you know, when you take that stimulus that was put into the market and then everything going on with the pandemic, I think that’s really the trigger for all these other retailers to kind of step back and say, “Well, when do I want to start my sale?” And I think your Target example is so perfect. Hey, you know what, let’s keep Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. Let’s try to control the flow of folks into our store by having a somewhat normal set of hours. And so to your point, I think it’s really interesting to see, okay, well now how are retailers going to make up that volume that they normally would have done late Thursday afternoon, wee hours of the morning Friday morning? And I know you have some predictions on how that volume is going to be comped. You want to share some of that with us?

Mark:

Well, yeah, I think as marketers, I mean, look what Amazon just did with Prime Day, right? I mean, they put it into the middle of October because it’s traditionally summertime, but they had to push it back because of COVID. I would argue that they were the official kickoff this year of the holidays. I think there’s a lot of people that started their holiday shopping on the 13th and 14th of October ahead of Halloween. So I think as a marketer this year, you really have to think about, “Okay, if I don’t have those door Buster deals to drive traffic to that little teaser I need to get you in, I’m going to have to really think about that differently this year in the marketing funnel. I’m going to have to think about how to tease you all along the way over what is ultimately now the next ten weeks of Christmas shopping, forget four or five.”

Mark:

Now you push that all the wa