CHICAGO -- "Gasoline day is errand day." That's what Matthew Stoudt said studies are showing. In context to the in-pump TV network his company is building, that means the 28 million consumers it tracks spend $16 billion in the first four hours after filling up.
"They buy gas then head to the drug store, maybe the grocery and then the QSR [quick-service restaurant]," said Stoudt, CEO of Outcast Media, a Santa Monica, Calif.
It's a pivotal revelation coming from joint studies with MasterCard, Purchase, N.Y., Stoudt said. An opportunity exists to influence not just what people buy at the gas station, but what they buy at subsequent retailers after filling up the tank.
Along with a half-dozen other speakers, Stoudt addressed about 40 attendees at a digital media conference hosted last week by Greensboro, N.C.-based Gilbarco.
Stoudt moderated a panel featuring retailer Jim Joy, information technology and district manager of Petro Serve USA, Moorhead, Minn. He told attendees that the relevant advertising at the pump can affect sales. He has 21 sites in North Dakota and Minnesota where a two-week promotion advertised on his in-pump TV screens moved 600 cases of a sports drink.
One of his more powerful promotions involved a contest where customers printed out a coupon with a Scrabble puzzle on it. They solved the puzzle, filled out the coupon with personal information and submitted it in a drawing to win a gift card. In place for nine days at five sites, he had 421 coupons printed. The exercise leads to a larger database of identifiable customers.
Consultant Jim Carroll discussed the future of retailing by talking about how innovation in the market is critical.
He noted several items:
- Today's teenagers spend 53 hours per week in front of a screen (a 2010 statistic). Unless retailers think differently about how this market is consuming goods, they won't succeed.
- Shopper marketing spend is already at $50 billion in the United States.
- Future trends include things like intelligent packaging, electronic displays on drink machines that will identify the person's demographic and offer the right drink to that consumer.
- World-class innovators challenge "organizational sclerosis." Don't let excuses and phrases get in your way, for example, "You can't do that because we've always done it this way."
- The secret to innovation: Think big. Start small. Scale fast.
He also suggested things to do after leaving the conference: Observe, think, change, dare, banish (innovation-killing phrases), try (new things), question, grow and do.
The two-day conference was focused on digital media and its applications to forecourt marketing. Gilbarco Veeder-Root is a manufacturer of fueling dispensers and convenience store point-of-sale (POS) devices.
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