In the old days, brands appealed direct to consumers (children), and hoped that consumers would pester the actual shopper (mum), to buy what they wanted.
However the power of media has waned and the power of ‘intermedia’ (retailers and infobrokers) has grown. That rather extended pull just isn’t reliable any more. Data now suggests that as much as 70% of purchase decisions are now made in-store. The battle is on to dominate the attention of the shopper directly. For brand owners this means developing persistent experiences which appeal at point of purchase but also linger on to engage the end consumer. They need fester power and this means becoming more like media themselves. Brand owners think of this as shopper marketing. i think of it as developing ‘intramedia’ – building a relationship channel which is remotely constructed, but then has persistence beyond the immediate shopper into the consumer community that shopper responds to.
Just as retailers (from Tesco to McDonalds) have thrived, or survived by becoming ‘intermedia’ (sharing data, selling real-estate, encouraging subscriptions, offering broader and broader range of propositions, choice and value options). In the intermediary retailer, category-wide search, rather than shopping lists or brand search will be the default approach. In this environment, brand owners will increasing see their product categories, and eventually individual brands as intramedia channels.
To a very significant degree cereal manufacturers are already there as intermedia (their brands carry endlessly flexible messages and promotions which appeal more to the shopper than to the end-consumer – the inversion of pester power into ‘fester power’.
What they presently lack is the ability to change the product formulation at point of purchase and to connect that decision-making to end consumers.
However the idea of a Kelloggs on-demand, in-store self-service cereal stations doesn’t seem to me beyond the realm of possibility…technology permitting. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable that end consumers could pre-order their cereal blend through some sort of shopping decision aid. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable that Kellogs would then expand is lifeshare into other breakfast services…as it would then own the breakfast choice intramedium…