ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9608300073
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOYCE M. ROSENBERG ASSOCIATED PRESS
In an Incredible Universe electronics store, customers applaud as two top-hatted employees sing along with a karaoke video. In a Disney store, children watch ``The Lion King'' on an oversized screen.
And in a Barnes & Noble store, book browsers plop onto couches to read.
All of these shoppers are in these stores with the expectation of buying something. But they're also there because these stores are entertaining.
The marriage of merchandise and entertainment is one of the biggest strategies in retailing today. It is how retailers - small stores and national chains - set themselves apart from the competition.
Entertainment doesn't have to be music, videos, fashion shows or guest appearances by soap opera stars. Entertainment is anything that makes shoppers have a good time, that stimulates their senses or emotions - and that gets them into a store, keeps them there and encourages them to buy.
Incredible Universe brings bright colors, flashing lights, videos, music and performing sales people to electronics retailing. Customers notice the difference between these stores operated by Tandy Corp. and their more sedate competitors.
``Everybody has the same stuff, but you come in here, and hear the music you don't mind spending money here,'' said Mike Mullady, visiting a just-opened Incredible Universe in Elizabeth, N.J., near New York City.
Another shopper, Marie Lefran, watched as her 3-year-old son, Jose, played with a video game. ``My husband loves it,'' she said of the store. ``We've been here for an hour and 20 minutes and I haven't seen him.''
Equally entertaining to other shoppers are the quiet, comfortable couches and cafes of bookstores and combination book and music retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Borders and Media Play. Or the Gershwin tunes emanating from the piano in a Nordstrom's atrium.
But it is flash and glitz that catches the attention of many consumers, particularly younger ones. They're drawn to the walls of video screens in clothing stores, and theme restaurants like Hard Rock Cafe, Harley Davidson Cafe and Rainforest Cafe that turn eating a hamburger and fries into an experience.
Disney and Warner Bros. Studio stores are inherently tied to entertainment by selling merchandise based on cartoon and movie characters. But these retailers leave nothing to chance, using videos, music and decor that looks like it could have served as a backdrop for an animated film like ``Beauty and the Beast'' or ``Snow White.''
``People flock to these stores because they enjoy them,'' said Walter Loeb, a longtime retailing analyst and consultant.
The increased focus on entertainment in retailing is due in part to the influence of MTV and the growth of the entertainment in general as a part of our lives. Equally important is that retailers have to find a way to be different. They have to give consumers a compelling reason for coming into their stores.
``If they're happy, they may browse more, they may buy more, they won't go to the competition,'' said Aradhna Krishna, associate professor of marketing at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.
Keeping customers entertained doesn't necessarily mean higher prices. Incredible Universe, for example, promotes itself on the basis of low prices rather than entertainment.
Janine Misdom, a partner in the market research firm Sputnik, said the big innovators in entertainment have been specialty stores that carve out their own niche. ``They know they need to create a reason for people to return,'' she said.
Retailers of the most mundane merchandise can find ways to bring entertainment in.
The Daily Planet, a restaurant in LaGrangeville, N.Y., about midway between New York City and the state capital, Albany, could have been just another roadside diner. But instead of going for the standard formica tables and rubber plants, the owners gave the restaurant a nostalgia theme with movie and cartoon posters, clips from old films on TV screens and a juke box.
The three brothers who own The Daily Planet ``knew they have to do something other than just have food,'' said Elizabeth Vanikiotis, wife of one of the brothers, Dino Vanikiotis.
The restaurant draws families, Little League teams and adults. And like big-city theme restaurants, it sells Daily Planet merchandise such as T-shirts and water bottles.
Larry's Shoes, a small chain of stores in Colorado and Texas, has installed cappuccino bars and gives free foot massages.
Playing rock music has long been a staple in stores catering to teens and young adults. The video wall followed. But as this innovation becomes more commonplace, it will be replaced by the next generation of entertainment - competition and the consumer's appetite for something new keeps upping the ante.
``There's no turning back now that we are producing consumers from the MTV generation and sensual stimulation is throughout our everyday lives more than it's ever been before,'' said Cynthia Cohen Turk, president of Marketplace 2000, a Miami-based consulting firm. ``Retailers have to keep up with a standard that keeps being raised.''
But that doesn't mean the decibel level in a store has to go up. What young consumers are looking for a place they can call their own, Misdom said.
She pointed to stores that sell skating or surfing equipment and that turn into meeting places for their customers. ``All these stores have couches because the kids come and sit there all day long. It's like a club,'' she said.
Retailers don't worry that their customers drop in without buying anything. ``When those kids want a T-shirt or a new board, they'll buy them in that store,'' she said.
Cybercafes, giving customers a chance to connect to the Internet while getting coffee and something to eat, are another new form of entertainment retailing, she said.
The people who design stores find ways to add what's known as entertainment value even to stores without high-tech gimmicks. They just take a more subtle approach.
At Crate & Barrel, the home furnishings store, the performers are the creative merchandise displays, said Tony Camilletti, vice president of visual communications with Jon Greenberg & Associates Inc., a firm that designs stores.
``How they hang their price signs or how they stack things, or how they fold things - all the little visual things they apply is just as entertaining. It sucks you in; it adds appeal to an inanimate object that doesn't have a video screen.''
Department stores, meanwhile, keep succeeding with events including fashion shows, bridal fairs and cooking demonstrations. Some are mammoth events, like the two-week flower show in Macy's big Manhattan store.
At Sears stores, Bob Vila, famed for his appearances on the PBS series ``This Old House'' and now a pitchman for Craftsman tools, draws a crowd when he shows up, Sears spokesman Ron Culp said. So do soap opera stars.
Dayton Hudson Corp.'s department stores brought in golf experts and installed putting greens to help customers with their game, and to help sell golf clothes. The company's Target discount stores also have events such as Toyriffic, which allows children and their parents to try out toys before they buy them.
Sometimes the special events border on the bizarre, but if they work, who cares? One of Sears' big recent successes was a promotion in which women were able to speak first with a consultant about their pantyhose size, and then with an astrologer. The connection? Both involve reading charts, but Culp admitted that ``your pantyhose size is not related to your sign.''
LENGTH: Long : 136 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Shoppers mill about the second floor of the brightlyby CNBdecorated Disney store on New York's Fifth Avenue. The marriage of
merchandise and entertainment is one of the biggest strategies in
retailing today. color AP