Max Kleen Show Time: launching a 2-in-1 detergent across around 50 selling locations

Questions we ask afterwards

What was the single problem this event was hired to solve?

The objective line puts both halves in one sentence: launch the Max Kleen 2-in-1 detergent-softener and stimulate demand for it, at points of sale. A 2-in-1 asks a shopper to replace two habitual purchases with one, so the problem was a change of routine rather than a change of brand. The place to argue that is the aisle where both original products are still on the shelf.

What could a room do here that a video, a mailer or a showroom could not?

There was no room in this campaign, and that is the point of the format. The equivalent unit is the shelf and the metre of floor in front of it, and what it does that a mailer cannot is meet the decision at the moment it is being made, with the two products being replaced visible a metre away. A film asks a shopper to remember a claim until the next shopping trip; a display and a demonstration remove the interval.

What changed between the first concept and the version that was actually built?

No concept-stage record survives, so nothing specific can be reported. The recorded deliverable is concept and display design including 3D display shelves, plus the Show Time roadshow run at the points of sale. On a campaign that has to appear in around 50 selling locations, the change a first concept usually absorbs is a reduction in the number of parts, because anything that cannot be packed, carried and rebuilt identically by a different team is redesigned or removed before rollout.

Which element took the longest to get right, and what made it difficult?

There is no time record, so this is a judgement about the work. On this campaign the 3D display shelf is the element with the longest tail, because it is the only piece that has to be right around fifty times without us present. A one-off build is finished when it looks correct in the workshop; a repeated build is finished when the tenth store team can assemble it from the same parts without a drawing.

What was the hardest constraint on site — venue, load-in window, power, weather, permits or something else?

No site reports are held, and this campaign has no single site to report on. The binding constraint in supermarket and grocery activation is the host store, since floor space, permitted footprint, trading hours and the position given to the display are all set by the retailer rather than by the campaign, and they differ from one location to the next. A design that only fits the most generous store is the practical failure mode.

How were guests moved through the space, and what happened at the tightest point in the flow?

The flow question does not map onto this format, because shoppers were not moved through anything and were already walking a route the store had set. The equivalent decision is where the Show Time roadshow stands relative to the shelf, and the tight point is the same in every store, since a demonstration that blocks the aisle it is selling into loses the shoppers who will not push past it. Our records contain no observation from any individual store.

What was measured afterwards, and what did the numbers say?

Two figures are recorded and both are approximate: around 50 selling locations and reach of around 10,000 people. No trial rate, no redemption count and no sales figure appears in our sources, and none is claimed. Reach counts exposure rather than purchase, so against the stated objective of stimulating demand the recorded number does not answer the question the campaign was set.

If the same brief arrived tomorrow, what would be done differently?

We would build the measurement into the store list rather than into the total. A list of around 50 locations is a sample large enough to compare against itself, so running the same display in stores with and without the roadshow present would separate what the shelf does from what the demonstration does, and neither can be read out of one combined reach figure. On a 2-in-1 launch we would also record trial counts at the demonstration, since the claim being made is one a shopper has to test before repeating.