Then it struck me: the tablet is the first device that can actually travel with the shopper through the complete path to purchase and if the prices come down enough, retailers might lease them for free to their frequent shoppers and club members to lock in their loyalty.  The lifetime value of a shopper would more than pay for this.  Imagine the incredible marketing value to a manufacturer who can deliver the exact right message to the right person, exactly at the right moment…the point of purchase.

Research I have amassed indicates that tablet owners already spend more time accessing the internet via their tablets than their computers. Tablets are becoming preferred devices among their owners for online shopping according to Forrester.  Today that is from the living room, but why should it be restricted so?  The tablet is inherently a mobile device.  Imagine a store completely wired for wifi so you can use your tablet as you shop. Imagine you have planned your trip at home, on your tablet by scanning what you are about to run out of and by searching on your tablet for coupons and interesting dinner ideas.  While you are doing this, smart marketers and retailers are advertising their products and offers using an interactive sight, sound, motion experience. Now, you have created a shopping list on your tablet, which also contains all of your frequent shopper information for the store you are about to visit.  When you enter the store with your tablet, it recognizes your presence and greets you with a video message from the store manager.  You place the tablet in your shopping cart so you can watch it as you go and your shopping list automatically gets reorganized so you can see which items that are on your list are in the aisle you are currently in.  This will encourage a shopper to completely navigate the store which any retailer would love. While you are walking down the aisle, windows awake on your tablet delivering messages that are relevant to you based on shopping history and interactively offering you deals.

Checkout is a breeze as you have all of the offers stored paperlessly, along with your frequent shopper data and mobile payment info.  As you leave, the tablet awakes to wish you a nice day and thank you for shopping at that retailer.  Of course, this shopping trip becomes part of the stored information so planning the next trip becomes easier.

When I discussed this topic with my friend Doug Stephens (@retailprophet), he advised me to think about the trend that consumers are using the best screen for the purpose at hand. While a number of apps are being developed for smart phones, I think the tablet might be the best screen for shopping.  A number of initiatives reflect this thinking as well, most recently in the US, mediacart.  Now there is a significant initiative in China that is similar.  While such efforts have yet to succeed, the big difference I am proposing is that rather than using a foreign device attached to a shopper cart, use the same tablet you use in your living room, on the train, in the bathroom, etc. that you then bring to the store and mount on the cart.

There is still much work to build the needed in-store and cloud-based technology infrastructure to support this vision.  However, as the Institute for the Future preaches, develop foresight about possible futures to provoke strategies that need to start in the here and now.

If you could, you would drop impressions selectively for each consumer closer to the next purchase than the last one. Now in the digital age, you can do exactly that.

The principle of recency implies that the sales response to ad spending (called ad elasticity in economics-speak) can be thought of as an average of no effect from the ad that is unfortunate enough to air right after a given consumer’s purchase, averaged in with twice the effect for an ad that is lucky enough to air right BEFORE the next purchase.

Why does this math matter?  Because if you could find advertising vehicles that were “recency-tilted” by their nature, that is, they are more likely to deliver impressions closer to the purchase, you will get greater ad response…practically guaranteed.

“The acceptance of Recency, (or closeness to purchase), as a key variable in advertising inspired sales makes the point.  The digital…messages reach the ‘readier’ to purchase consumer.” Erwin Ephron, 2011

So how do we reach the “readier” to purchase consumer? How do we recency-tilt? Digital activities that are self-directed, e.g. search or visiting a brand’s website or a site like coupons.com are mostly done with shopping purpose in mind.  In other words, such digital brand communications give you recency because the consumer is controlling the timing of the impression not the marketer.

Digital display advertising can also be recency tilted if marketers change their prevailing approaches to display.  Remarketing has been proven to provide greater lift and that is certainly recency tilted.  Advertising served by ShareThis has been shown to provide greater conversion and it is also recency tilted because advertising is selectively served to people who share content that is relevant to them at the time, implying for many that they are about to make a purchase decision. Digital media’s ability to deliver recency will get magnified as smart mobility becomes a constant part of the shopping process.

But digital isn’t the only way to tilt the odds in your favor. Obviously, all shopper marketing is recency tilted. Another option for recency is special interest magazines in print or digital form.   Especially for magazines like Car and Driver, many are buying the magazine almost as much for the ads to help a purchasing process along.

Finally, let’s think about how media and marketers calculate reach.  Now, that should be adjusted also. If impressions unfortunate enough to be delivered right after the last purchase aren’t worth much, then their contribution to reach isn’t worth much either. Marketers should measure reach from those impressions delivered closer to the NEXT purchase than those closer to the LAST purchase. I want to know “recency reach”.  Once you start calculating recency reach, you will find that the touchpoints that deliver this are different and it will help to guide marketers’ strategic media investment decisions in ways that will improve sales response.

With some straightforward experimentation, I believe the logical conclusions here will be confirmed. And then, the way we plan media will be profoundly affected.

Now, since 2010, Google has started a campaign around  ZMOT, the zero moment of truth.  This recognizes that many shoppers actually start their shopping online via a search.  Again, true.

However, let me introduce “minus one” in path to purchase, because there is something that comes before search.

Most of search that refers traffic to a given site is based on typing in a trademark name, not a generic phrase like, “get the smell out of my carpet”.  So, how did someone get to know about that trademark that they thought to search for?  I think there are 3 main sources:

1. Push advertising on TV and digital display that creates desire and curiosity
2. Word of mouth and conspicuous consumption (those white earbuds on the iPhone had tremendous impact on creating societal acceptance)
3. Visibility at retail.    Yes, the first moment of truth can come BEFORE the zero moment of truth. In a way, packaging was the zero moment as it was the searchable content before mobile devices brought the internet into the store. Well, you knew linear marketing was dead, right?

So, I’d say that the moment of curiosity and desire that creates interest in learning more is the minus one moment of truth.  Minus one can be triggered anywhere; in the living room while watching TV, on the train, in the store, or in Facebook and Twitter (and now Google plus) conversation.

The mating dance between minus one and zero has always existed.  What I think happens is that unless you can quickly act on your desire, it dissipates.  Before internet search, when minus one occurred you needed to go to the store, or call a friend, or buy a magazine.  I have to believe that 90% or more of desire was squandered in the pre-digital age.  Now, consumers can instantly search for something they are curious about…from their computers at home or work, or mobile devices right in the store, or from 35,000 feet.  So what search does is it lets us act on our curiosity before it dissipates which is powerful for marketers.   Some marketers are ahead of the curve at turning minus one into zero anywhere and anytime but this is a big part of digital strategy…turning curiosity at minus one into a zero moment activity before it dissipates.  This should be a priority for a marketer.  How would you do this at shelf, online, in a TV commercial, outdoors?

So for moments of truth marketing, we need to keep a few pieces of advice in mind:

1. There is something before the zero moment of truth; minus one is the point at which desire and curiosity lead to the desire for search and seeking activity.  What is your minus one strategy?  Is it TV-based, social-based, store-based or something else?
2. A progressive marketer will find ways to enable people to instantly pass into the zero moment by fully leveraging digital, social, mobile wherever that person might be when minus one hits.
3. The second moment of truth is not just based on product use; it is based on experience with the brand which includes continuing to search and talk about it in social media.  The McKinsey consumer decision journey work proves this.  Hence, second moment and zero moment loop around and reconnect.

There are powerful concepts in moments of truth marketing, but don’t get too literal. The moments are not in a fixed sequence mapped to time and place even though they are numbered.  Mobile in particular, will bust up any thoughts of sequence.

Consider the following comment from the head of digital at Pepsico beverages, Shiv Singh as part of a roundtable discussion:

“Another challenge facing brands is the pace of marketing. We’re living increasingly in a world of real-time marketing where reputations are built and broken in seconds. Marketing programs succeed and fail in that time span too. Unfortunately, most marketing organizations are structured for annual or semi-annual planning, budgeting, and executing. That tension is only going to grow…business models, staffing structures, and processes are aligned for a much slower world.”

So what does a commitment to real time sensing look like?  Here is an example from Gatorade of a mission control center.  Note how they bring together multiple streams of insights for instant feedback.

So what can we learn from these leaders about real time marketing?  Here are eight guidelines for what will it take.

1.       You are creating culture change so this must be immersive.  Screens everywhere and big hoopla with the launch.  The whole organization must be aligned to putting the human at the center of the marketing action.

2.       There are no boundaries or borders.  Everyone (all employees, partner organizations) should have access to insights instantly and simultaneously

3.       It is integrative. There is no one source that gives all the answers.  You must integrate the signals and find the common thread

4.       Real time insights must connect to real time action.  In digital marketing, ad serving rules and search keywords can be changed daily or even hourly.  Create real time sensing systems about what is working that lead to real time optimization of brand communication efforts and bidding.

5.       Real time marketing is becoming as much about place as it is about time.  As smart phone penetration increases, the opportunity for location-aware offers, messaging, and consumer metrics will go to a completely different level.

6.       Marketing should become hyper-granular.  As we learn about the preferences and need state changes of people in real time, we must act in ways that are as relevant as possible before the moment passes.  For example. as I begin digitally signaling that I am considering buying a new car, say by sharing content with friends in Facebook or Twitter, you want to address relevant car messages to me at that point and feature relevant content.  The week before, those messages and content would have been much less relevant. Real time feedback on brand communication will become infinitely granular to fulfill the promise of digital advertising with real-time networks and ad serving.

7.       Marketing will move from integrated to vertically integrated. Think about the ability for Starbuck’s to build a community and via smart phone apps and location-aware social tools, activate those relationships when someone is in the vicinity of a Starbucks or a supermarket and even right at the point of purchase.

8.       All research and insights programs should be either designed to be real-time or not; “fast” is not good enough.  If you are building a sensing program to replace a traditional research method that used to take 8 weeks, 2 week turnaround sounds good but is still way too late.  To be clear, there is a role for non-real time research; for example, strategic learning research, concept testing, and product testing certainly do not need to be real time

Get ready for real time marketing now.  If you blink, you might find yourself permanently trying to catch up.

Then I started to think, if it’s about relevance it can’t be about reach and frequency.  One of the most basic concepts in media planning and buying is past its “sell by” date in digital media.

The basic concept behind reach and frequency planning is that you have finite media resources and it takes a certain number of impressions to have an impact (1or 2 if you are focused on recency thinking; maybe 3-5 if you think you are teaching someone a new message) where more than that leads to waste.  Hence, beyond that “optimal frequency” where diminishing returns would set in, you ensure your dollars are buying reach.  The problem with this thinking is that in digital media and in stores, messages are pullable by people on their terms based on what is relevant to them.  Also, consumers can generate brand messages via sharing which cost you nothing. Certainly an experiment can be designed to prove that  in a digital and social media world, consumers define optimal frequency not you the marketer.

If I am getting serious about buying a car, I might search 15 times for something that is auto related.  Doesn’t the auto marketer want to be prominent in those results each time?  If I go to websites to compare autos and to configure a car, don’t you want to deliver a message each time?  As I do other stuff online, wouldn’t it make sense to serve up advertising that is relevant to what I also happen to be shopping for?  If I retweet an article via ShareThis on environmentally friendly cars, doesn’t that tell you a lot about me especially if you are in the “green car” business?

Think about fans to a Facebook page for a given brand.  This is the ultimate in “frequency capping doesn’t matter” thinking.  14 million or so like the Coca-Cola Facebook page which is probably a small percentage of those who drink Coke among those on Facebook.  Yet in a given day, fans post hundreds of comments on the wall.  Low reach, huge frequency but no one is capping how many messages are allowed in a day.  In this context, we don’t think about frequency we think about engagement…building a fan base that represents a brand runway that Coke has created.

When you have a pullable medium, meaning I can seek out the brand messages, rather than them seeking me out, like the fabric of digital touchpoints represents, relevance and availability become more important concepts than frequency.  Serve as many digital messages that are relevant as you can that either you or fans create.  That is what the digital opportunity is about for marketers…consumer requested and consumer-generated content in relevant ways.