A top mass merchandiser allocates significant resources developing and producing entertainment exclusive products with recording artists, motion picture studios, publishers and video game companies, marketing these products as exclusive to the retailer.
Research objectives centered on whether exclusivity was effective at driving awareness, buzz and sales in-store.
Questions included: What does the term "entertainment exclusive" mean to consumers? Is it important? How and where do they shop for entertainment exclusives? Does the entertainment exclusive affect their perception of the retailer's brand? What benefit does the retailer obtain from entertainment exclusives? What about the artists and product brands who create these exclusive content? Does the entertainment exclusive achieve the intended business objectives? Does the exclusive content drive sales, and incremental sales? And, ultimately, should exclusives have an exclusive section of the store?
Study methodology and design included a combination of qualitative and quantitative; the latter being designed from findings in the first phase of the research. Qualitative focused on the more subjective and emotional; quantitative tallied and verified shopping locations, demographics, and inquired based on what we learned in the qualitative.
In order to get a head start on discussion, the focus group participants, screened for their awareness and purchases of exclusive entertainment products, completed a homework assignment prior to the focus groups. This included purchase of an entertainment exclusive, photographs and/or video of how their entertainment media is displayed at home, and answering some questions about entertainment exclusives.
Beyond the consumer target, corporate stakeholders were factors in the research as well.
So we included them, by conducting one-on-one interviews with corporate team members, in order to further understand the current state of store entertainment exclusives, as well as their key business questions and success criteria for these products, their marketing, packaging, pricing, distribution (online and brick-and-mortar) and merchandising. The stakeholders' feedback was woven in to the project design, reporting and strategic recommendations.