Best practice for retail

Black Photo Corporation Case Study

Background

Photo retailing consists of both product and service marketing challenges. Photofinishing (service) and hardware sales (product) both have their own challenges and needs to successfully compete. Over the past 60 years, Black Photo Corporation has established itself as the leading photo specialty chain.

Competition from non-traditional retailers

With the advent of digital photography the photography hardware and photofinishing market has under-gone a quantum shift. Suddenly the primary competition shifted from other photo chains to big-box electronic stores and just about every other retailer.

The challenge for Black's was to position itself against the new competition both in terms of hardware sales and in developing the digital photofinishing business.

The positioning challenge

Using radio to drive retail promotions is a tried and true tradition. Offer-based creative has always pulled well for hardware sales around the important Christmas period in the past - but how could it be used to position Black's for the digital revolution?

This positioning had to appeal to everyone: from moms taking holiday snaps to photo enthusiasts looking for the perfect shot.

In 2002, Black's embarked on a new position with the launch of the "I know Black's knows" campaign. Simply put, we took the position that the best place for digital photography is with a photography expert - namely Black's.

Hit a customer nerve

"After airing the first wave of the radio, we found a remarkable thing happened," says Roy Bower, Director of Marketing of Black Photo Corporation. "We got reports from the store associates that customers were walking into the stores reciting back to the staff that 'I know Black's knows.' I've been in this business a long time and I've never seen that happen before."

Now entering the third year of the "I know Black's knows" campaign, the creative has now been given life in-store with POP and collateral that leverage the "Black's knows" creative. Black's positioning as the knowledgeable expert is also carried through in the flyers. Using the "Black's knows" tagline and full of useful consumer information about digital photography, the flyers set Black's apart from the competition.

Excite the store staff

"One of the unexpected benefits of such a strong campaign is the effect on the staff. 'I know Black's knows' has become the rallying cry for the store associates and we have been consistently getting better customer satisfaction scores and the morale has risen noticeably," says Bower. After all, a retailer's staff is the most important touch point with the consumer and having advertising that inspires the staff is as important as advertising that inspires the consumer.

Sell the brand - but more importantly - sell product

The great thing about the concept lies in its flexibility - in its ability to sell hardware and photofinishing in virtually any medium.

Results seen in market share

Combining this advertising approach with all the other marketing activity that Brazil produces for Black's has delivered exceptionally strong increases in market share of both hardware and photofinishing.