Staples expanding in-store marketing

Staples has signed a deal with News America Marketing to put a greater focus on in-store marketing:

Through the partnership, announced this month, News America will design coupon machines, shelf messaging, floor ads and sampling programs in more than 1,500 Staples stores nationwide. The in-store media will launch next month.

The deal is an expansion into a new market for News America, which has been concentrated almost entirely on the food and drug channels. News America notes, though, that they have working relationships with many of Staples' suppliers.

This is another example of the growing intrusion of CPG marketing practices into other channels. In early 2007, I posted an item titled HP goes CPG that involved, by coincidence, Staples:

Hewlett-Packard is employing tactics from the world of consumer packaged goods, demonstrating once again something I (and others) have been noting for a while – the growing convergence of the two wings of trade promotion in consumer products, CPG and consumer durables.

BusinessWeek reported recently that HP is making payments to retailers to get them to stop selling private label cartridges for HP printers:

Those executives say the company has approached chain stores that sell store-brand cartridges compatible with its printers and offered them incentives if they end the practice.

Staples is offered as an example. The article goes on to raise questions about the legality of the practice, which is of interest, of course. But I was more struck by how HP, an iconic company in the high-tech arena, is using a marketing tactic more identified with the selling of canned peas.

This is not necessarily because CPG has the better set of tactics (a strong case could be made for the contrary), but because the nature of trade promo has always been driven by the nature of the channel, and the durables channels today are becoming more similar to the mass, grocery and drug channels. As retail concentration increases, therefore, we will likely see more coupon dispensers and floor ads in unexpected places.

On a somewhat related note, Brandweek had an article entitled "OgilvyAction's Roth Explains Shopper Marketing", which I read eagerly in the hopes of having Shopper Marketing explained to me (heck, I'd settle for having it clearly defined). I was, alas, disappointed, although some good examples were cited. Interesting, though, how much interest ad agencies are showing now in in-store marketing. Do you think it might be related to declining revenues from traditional media?