Question 1:As part of the ‘Offer Communication’ initiative, you have worked with numerous retail companies to develop the ‘Atlas of Channel Relevance’, which is designed to provide guidance in an increasingly complex media and channel landscape. What challenges are retailers currently facing most when selecting and prioritising their marketing channels?
Marlene: The biggest challenge lies in the increasing fragmentation of the channel landscape: attention is now spread across a multitude of analogue and digital touchpoints – and no single channel covers all relevant target groups any more. At the same time, managing channels is becoming more complex, as automation and consistent communication across all channels are difficult to reconcile. Retailers are faced with the question: which channels are actually effective – and for whom? Added to this is the pressure to manage communication investments efficiently, even though measuring the impact of individual channels is becoming more difficult. Prioritisation, complexity management and automation are not separate issues, but are closely interlinked.
Question 2: Numerous companies have contributed to the Atlas. What challenges arise when different perspectives and experiences are brought together in the study design?
Tobias: Collaborating with many different retail companies is a major strength of the project. It ensures the results are practical and widely validated. At the same time, it requires a careful methodological framework. Companies are at very different stages of maturity: some are already well advanced in automation, whilst others are still in the early stages of digitising their product communication. Taking this heterogeneity into account in the study design without losing comparability was a key challenge. The iterative mixed-methods approach – a combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative workshops – helped to bring together different experiences and classify them collaboratively in a practical context.
Question 3:What key insight has emerged from the analyses to date, and to what extent does it confirm or contradict previous assumptions in retail marketing?
Tobias: The key finding is that channel relevance is not a universal factor. It varies significantly depending on the target group, usage context and stage of the customer journey. Digital leaflets achieve the highest overall relevance of all channels examined at 60.3 per cent, followed by print leaflets at 55.4 per cent. This confirms the enduring importance of leaflet-based promotional communication, even in digital form.
More surprising is the finding regarding YouTube: with an overall relevance of 52.5% and a particularly strong role in the active orientation phase, YouTube has established itself as the most powerful digital video format in the retail sector, thereby overtaking traditional broadcast channels such as TV or radio. This contradicts the assumption that video in the retail sector primarily generates awareness: YouTube has been shown to drive active interest and purchase preparation as well.
Question 4:What implications do these findings have for the strategic planning of marketing and communication measures in the retail sector?
Marlene: The results call for a rethink of the strategic logic behind product communication. Channels should no longer be assessed primarily in isolation based on reach or contact performance. What matters is the role a channel fulfils within the customer journey. Streaming and TV generate attention, but are hardly suitable for active orientation. Leaflets and YouTube, on the other hand, drive interest and consideration.
It follows that an effective channel strategy requires the targeted combination of attention-grabbing reach channels with orientation-focused formats, tailored to specific audiences. For example, those wishing to reach ‘smart shoppers’ – who show a 66.1% interest in YouTube – will find them following a distinctly different usage path to ‘bargain hunters’, who react much more strongly to traditional price triggers. Standardised communication approaches are therefore becoming less effective.
Question 5:Looking ahead, what role will the issue of channel relevance play for retail companies in the coming years?
Marlene: Channel relevance is becoming a key strategic focus for the retail sector. Fragmentation is not set to decrease; on the contrary, new formats such as streaming advertising are gaining importance for brand awareness and for better targeting than linear TV, whilst channels such as TikTok are becoming increasingly relevant among Gen Z. At the same time, the app is becoming increasingly important as a personal home channel – a digital hub for leaflets, loyalty communications and personalised offers.
Tobias: The key competence of the future lies not in choosing the ‘right’ individual channel, but in the ability to design channel combinations tailored to specific target groups and to consistently use data as a basis for decision-making. The Atlas of Channel Relevance provides a data-driven framework for this.
Marlene Lohmann is Head of the Marketing Research Division at the EHI Retail Institute and is responsible for the Offer Communication initiative. Together with retail companies and industry experts, she develops practical research projects and studies on current issues in retail communication and marketing. Her projects include, amongst others, the ‘Atlas of Channel Relevance’, which offers retail companies data-driven guidance in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.
Dr Tobias Röding supports research and study projects in the retail sector at the EHI Retail Institute. As part of the ‘Atlas of Channel Relevance’, he was involved in the analysis, classification and presentation of the study results. His focus is on deriving practical insights for retail companies and marketing managers based on data.