Measure advertising impact
Take advertising. With traffic-counting
technology, “we’ve been able to measure the
impact of different types of advertising … and
we can look at opportunities to more
appropriately allocate our investments toward
markets that … need additional drivers,”
Gladstone says.
CountWise technology is based on shape
recognition, which means the equipment can be
adjusted to factor out children, take into
account family units — whatever works best for a
particular retailer (other clients include
adidas, H&M, Havertys, Gucci and Lord & Taylor).
In addition to entrances, some retailers choose
to install CountWise in locations that allow
them to track traffic in individual checkout
lines or within specific departments.
“They want to see, ‘How long did they stay
there?’ And did they just pass by or did they
browse?” Chitayat says.
Gladstone feels fortunate that he had dinner
just over a year ago with a well-known retail
executive who had just unveiled a new concept.
His dining companion mentioned that
traffic-counters were being installed in the new
concept, beginning with store No. 1.
“He very adamantly made his point that you can’t
ignore this metric,” says Gladstone, who refers
to it as “the metric that measures potential.
And it’s up to you as a management team to train
and educate your people to capture that
potential.”
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