Last fall, Clorox tested a mobile-first end-to-end shopper-marketing program for its Hidden Valley and Soy Vay brands that leveraged ads, push notifications and beacons to drive consideration of its products with shoppers while they are shopping. With survey results showing both purchase intent and brand awareness rose, Clorox sees precision targeting a key mobile marketing strategy this year. 

?In 2016, it is going to be all about precision targeting so the consumer is getting a contextually relevant message,? said Sarah Ortman, strategic development of mobile campaigns at Clorox. ?We are building a lot of first party data, point-of-sale data and partnering with others doing the same. 

?This will enable our messages to reach the right person,? she said. ?We are not all the way to one-to-one personalized messaging through beacons, but we are getting a little bit closer. 

?The other piece is a convergence of the physical and digital worlds, the collapse of the funnel. We are investing heavily in ecommerce, shopperizing a lot of our content, we have an Amazon Dash button for our Clorox wipes.?

Mobile and beacons are helping brands are reaching the customer in aisle in ways they have not been able to do before. Some of this is happening independent of retailers, which is very different how shopper marketing worked previously. 

In general, there are fewer opportunities for brands to engage shoppers in stores than there were 10 years ago as retailers have moved toward a cleaner physical layout with fewer end caps. 

?How do you reach the customer,? said Joe Scartz, vice president of emerging media and commerce at TPN. ?More and more, that solution revolves around mobile and digital.?

?Today, using Wi-Fi, GPS and beacons, we can get in front of the consumer at the moment of truth with a message that is relevant and timely to get them to put that item into the cart.?

Beacons are the best way to reach shoppers in stores, per Mr. Scartz. However, it is still early days for beacon deployments, with three million shipped in 2015 while 400 million are expected to be shipped by 2020. 

?More and more, we see the retailers themselves will probably be the folks that own the beacon placements and will possibly resell the real estate like they would with any other shopper marketing,? Mr. Scartz said. 

The challenge for brands sending messages to consumers in the aisle is making sure the content is relevant. If brands can pinpoint meaningful content that would work in aisle, the benefit is marketing efficiency, as a smaller group of consumers who are already in market are being targeted. 

For Clorox, it built a program based on some key insights, such as that 79 percent of shopper moms use mobile devices in the store and 84 percent are interested in receiving recipe content from a brand. A goal was to create a program that did not require retailer approval. 

The brand settled on a strategy of providing quick recipe tips using its Hidden Valley seasoning packets and Soy Valley Asian marinades that would provide shopper moms with an easy way to get dinner on the table that night by just buying a few items. 

Challenges in getting this information in front of moms include that they see grocery shopping as a chore, are unlikely to remember a 15-second television ad when they are in the store and want to get in and out of the store as quickly as possibly. Another challenge was that retailers typically control the messaging in stores. 

?In spite of these hurdles, we wanted to up the ante and test out a way to drive that shopper when she is nearby a store,? Ms. Ortman said. ?We wanted to do it smartly, when she is in shopper mode and when she is in the aisle.?

The brand settled on back-to-school as the best time for the campaign, as busy moms are often looking for new meal solutions once the summer is over. 

Since Hidden Valley and Soy Vay do not have their own apps, Clorox and TPN partnered with inMarket to leverage its network of in-store beacons and food or shopping related apps such as Epicurious, List Ease and CheckPoints. 

The campaign reached users of these apps from the pre-shop stage all the way to when they are in the aisle, leveraging beacons, proximity marketing and targeted media for the shopper. 

Messaging encouraged shoppers to visit the appropriate aisle and then offered an incentive for them to scan a product. 

Users were also able to click through for recipe content, with the campaign delivering a click-through rate of 1.5 percent to 5 percent, depending on the retailer. 

Walmart and Target accounted for at least half of the product scans, followed by Kroger. 

The campaign was Clorox?s first test in proximity marketing and beacons. 

?This was super positive for us,? Ms. Ortman said. ?We learned a ton - we moved the needle.?