Wind of Change: How to Use Weather-Based Marketing in Offline Sales
Weather dictates consumer behavior
Weather is the second most important factor that influences consumer behavior after the state of the economy. Weather forecasts affect many daily decisions, including buying a sweater on a cold day, ordering a light meal in the heat, or taking a cab when it’s cloudy.
Analyzing the impact of the weather on customer behavior enables tailoring marketing to their specific needs and desires in a particular location and time. This creates forced loyalty — the customer has an immediate need that can be fulfilled nearby.
For instance, a young man is heading to a job interview in a new office. Suddenly, it starts raining on the way. The office is located at a 10-minute walking distance from the subway station. There’s a store advertising discounted umbrellas nearby the station. Here, the young man is faced with a choice:
1. Take a taxi = get stuck in traffic and be late for the interview.
2. Walk in the rain without an umbrella = get wet and worry about how he looks.
3. Buying an umbrella at the store and walking to the office = arrive on time for the interview and maintain a neat appearance.
After considering the possible consequences of his decision, the young man will go to the store to buy an umbrella.
If a pair of sunglasses were shown on the screen, he would not look at them. The same is true for umbrellas advertised in clear weather.
Meteo marketing across industries
People’s buying habits change with the weather, even in industries where the connection is not obvious. Weather affects sales of about 30% of all products and services in the restaurant, hospitality, energy, and insurance. We’re seeing businesses in a variety of industries take advantage of weather-based marketing.
For meteo marketing, you can choose either the most relevant product or the cheapest one:
- Relevant product or service. Although the product may be expensive, it is vital to the customer.
Consider regions where flights are frequently canceled due to bad weather. When the flights are canceled, passengers have to look for a place to stay until the next flight.
A hotel company can advertise available rooms near airports based on the weather forecast. Red Roofs has increased its growth in these regions by 10% due to this campaign.
- The cheapest product. The offer that encourages people to visit the point of sale.
In the Chinese market, FMCG chains promote their cheapest products to boost sales of other products.
When it rains, stores display an ad for a 3 yuan (40 cents) umbrella on their screens. People passing by enter the store because of the promotion and leave with multiple bags of groceries, without necessarily purchasing the advertised umbrella.
The visitor comes to the store through forced loyalty, and inside, other promotional materials persuade them to buy more items.
The Profit of One Degree
Seasonal goods are characterized by the Profit of One Degree. This can be exploited, for example, by consumer electronics chains:
- In summer, a 1 degree increase in air temperature raises demand for fans by 24%.
- In the fall, a 1 degree drop in temperature increases demand for heaters by 15%.
For example, automatically switching to advertising fans at 27°С will increase consumer interest in the store by up to 400%. It is important to analyze your sales and their dependence on the weather and choose the right products.
Setting up weather marketing with Phygital Signage
After gathering feedback from offline businesses, we developed a product that makes it easier and faster for a marketer to change advertising content based on weather conditions. A playlist is videos, photos, images, animations displayed on screens on a common schedule.
You just customize your playlists:
- Select screens;
- Upload creatives;
- Set display rules for each one.
After customization, the system does not require any manual control. Advertising materials are automatically switched in the playlist when conditions meet the specified rules (trigger scenarios).
In the editor, you can set unique display conditions for each slide with a creative — air temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, date and day of the week.
Advertising display rules can be quickly customized, even for offline store chains and services that operate in multiple regions with varying weather conditions.
This is what it looks like on city streets: Grand Visual and Leo Burnett created a weather-based ad for McDonald’s in the UK for different cities.
When the air temperature rose above 22°C, a frappe or lemonade ad appeared on the screen. When the temperature rose above 25°C, the creative was supplemented with the temperature and the name of the city. In the evening, when it got cooler, the products consumed during the heat disappeared from the promo.
Tying the promotion to the weather increases sales by up to 100% because your offer to customers is not only useful, but also timely. Passers-by interested in the offer will go to the point of sale where they can purchase related products in addition to the promotional item.
Besides, the customer sees your commitment to offering them the most relevant product here and now. This increases their loyalty to your company.
Customer desires dictated by weather conditions are often intuitive. However, marketing research reveals patterns that can be used to build effective advertising campaigns.
If you are interested in learning more about weather marketing and our platform, email us at hello@phygitalsignage.io.
