Adventures in Advertising: The Lost Art Of Store-Checking

On my post about the need for strategic account people, I received a comment about store-checking.  I realized that store-checks have become a lost art.  But, once upon a time, visiting stores, counting facings, checking competitive products and talking to consumers as they bought yours or competitive products was part of every account manager’s job (clients, too and I don’t think they do it anymore, either).   

I can think of two stories I would like to share which illustrate the benefits from visiting stores and understanding distribution.

The first is the true story of the success of Pampers.  

I am not sure when P&G introduced Pampers, but sometime in the 1950’s.  The standard until that time was cloth diapers.  If families had the money, they had a diaper service which would pick up soiled diapers and deliver new ones each week. If not, diapers would be washed at home. Yuck.  But despite their obvious benefit, Pampers, the first paper diaper brand, did not do well.  As I understand it, Proctor actually considered dropping the product.  

Then, an account person from the Pampers’ agency, Benton & Bowles (subsequently D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles – DMB&B – now Publicis) was determined to figure out why they were doing so poorly.  He took a week to do a store-check across the country.  He observed that while Pampers had good distribution, its location within supermarkets was unfocused – it could be found everywhere and anywhere in the store without consistency - paper goods, convenience goods, drug products.  Sales were sluggish, probably because it was in a different location in every store, even within the same chain. The account person observed that every supermarket carried four or five brands of baby foods; most of these brands had identical product selections (strained peas, beans, carrots, etc.).  He made this observation and recommended to his brand manager that Proctor should try to get the stores to put Pampers in the baby food section, even if it meant removing one brand to make room.

Guess what?  When put next to baby food, sales soared.  That was in the early to mid-1960’s. The rest is history.

The second true story involved Eno Antacid in Canada.  

Eno brand antacid was number two behind Alka-Seltzer (they were/are similar products).  I forget what their share was, but it was significant. Suddenly, Eno share of market started growing in French Canada.  With each subsequent Nielsen report, sales and share kept increasing; this was highly unusual behavior for any well established and significant brand.  Warehouse withdrawals skyrocketed, but with no explanation. Neither the sales nor marketing people had any idea why this might be happening. The manufacturer couldn’t understand it and needed to find out why and what could or should be done about it  

The agency account manager and the client marketing director went to Montreal and Quebec City to figure out what was happening.  Three days of store checking in Montreal revealed nothing.  Store managers and clerks had no idea why sales were increasing, but store shelves showed considerable product movement. 

Then, in Quebec, on the fourth day, they got their answer.  

In a small independent drugstore, a grandmotherly looking lady was carrying about six packages of Eno.  They immediately asked her why so many.  Her response was incredible: “Why monsieur, it is a wonderful aperitif.” Eno had become a fad drink among people of a certain age.  The client and agency got their answer.  After some discussion, it was decided to let the fad run its course, rather than to try to advertise it (It would have been way off strategy).  And sure enough, after about eight or ten months, the fad was over and sales started to decline.

I was the account guy. And we got our answer through store-checking.

I am sure there are hundreds of stories about positive things that happened as a result of a store check.  Understanding sales and distribution was part of the strategic underpinning of the client/agency relationship.  It helped agencies to have a complete understanding of their brands and it helped build credibility for the agencies to sell good creative work.  But most important, it contributed to making agencies and their clients partners.

Agencies need to start doing this again.