Walking around town its easy to see how some businesses could use a little love.  Not from their customers either, but from the brands they stock.

Day in and day out I am floored by how hard small business owners are working.  I know this because sometimes I drop in and need to share some Patch news with them, and often it seems like they are in the middle of something.

Which is why a recent case study from Google Mobile really caught my attention:

http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2010/12/adidas-boosts-in-store-sales-with.html?spref=tw

"Google Mobile Ads team has released two case studies: First is, Adidas, a major sports apparel manufacturer and retailer....

Adidas was already testing mobile search ads to drive traffic to their mobile site and when Google offered them Offer Ads beta, they took the opportunity -- the beta allowed them to experiment with using mobile to drive foot traffic to their stores.

"Mobile Offer Ads enable advertisers to place coupon offers right into their sponsored search listings on Google.com."

"In their ad, the company offered customers 15% off purchases made in an Adidas store of $75 or more. Interested users could store the offer either via email or SMS. In addition to the coupon, the ad also provided a phone number and map of a local Adidas store, giving consumers all they would need to go in-store, redeem the offer and make a purchase. With a click-through rate 28% higher than their past mobile advertising, the mobile Offers Ads campaign doubled in-store coupon redemption and increased the average in-store order value."

Online to offline.  No matter what the size of the ad spend from the national brand at a national level on national digital media, if they are not doing something to drive in-store sales they are facing a lack of loyalty from retailers who work with digital savvy brands that back them up. 

Forget about co-op too.  Tons of retailers I visit with claim to have co-op, but the process itself is too cumbersome to work through the red tape or, as I'm told, their brand rep stalled the last time they brought it up. 

WIth this case study, here is a concrete example of how a national brand can invest in digital media and encourage the offline sale.  Higher CTR rates means more store volume and more importantly, maybe a chance for some of these retailers to take a little break.