P2PIQ - Jan 2020

JANUARY 2020

Path Purchase

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Contents E N D -TO - E N D ST R AT E G I E S F O R D R I V I N G C O NS U M E R D E M A N D

# TRENDS 2020

NEWS

8

P2PX Keynote: Brendan Witcher The Forrester Research executive explains how brands must transform their traditional business strategies to succeed.

24

SPECIAL REPORTS

Trends 2020

Our annual state of the industry report examines major issues affecting consumer goods companies as we begin a new decade.

16

Women of Excellence

The Path to Purchase Institute celebrated our 2019 winners in November. Here, we showcase the Innovation and Collaboration honorees.

January 2020

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12

P2PX Keynote: Alyssa Raine

The Walgreens executive details how the retailer is addressing an unmet need among cancer patients with its “Battle Beautiful� program.

VO LU M E 33 | ISS U E 1

January 2020

DEPARTMENTS 6

Editor’s Note:

Fitting In with Consumers

14

P2PI Member Spotlight:

Mike’s Hard Lemonade

NEWS 33

Activation Gallery:

Beer/Wine/Spirits

36

P2P Toolkit

40

Store Spotlight:

Menards

42

Solutions Guide:

Digital Shopper Engagement

9

9 The Mondelez Way

From P2PX: The snack maker employs a team of agencies that work collaboratively to win at retail and online.

11

10 Hershey’s Back-to-

School Success

Even though its primary products are not generally found on back-to-school lists, the Hershey Co. makes a big impact during the season.

53

Solution Provider News

54

Personnel Appointments/ Editorial Index

55

Retail Intel:

Nestle’s Starbucks makes magic at Walmart

55

11 Future-Proofing Your Brands?

One way is to use in-store investments that help shoppers plan and execute, according to Procter & Gamble and News America Marketing presenters at P2PX.

Path to Purchase IQ (USPS 4568, ISSN 2688-4984 ) is published 12 times a year, by EnsembleIQ, 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Ste. 200, Chicago, IL 60631. Subscription rates: $125 for U.S. addresses; $190 for Canadian addresses; $275 for all other addresses. Single copies (pre- paid only): $20 in the U.S. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, IL 60631, and additional mailing addresses. Copyright 2020 by EnsembleIQ. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Reprints, permissions and licensing, please contact Wright’s Media at ensembleiq@wrightsmedia.com or (877) 652-5295.

POSTMASTER: send address changes to Path to Purchase IQ, PO Box 3200, Northbrook IL 60065-3200.

January 2020

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Editor’s Note

Editor-in-Chief Peter Breen, pbreen@ensembleiq.com

Fitting In with Consumers

Executive Editor Tim Binder, tbinder@ensembleiq.com Managing Editor Charlie Menchaca, cmenchaca@ensembleiq.com Associate Director/Content Patrycja Malinowska, pmalinowska@ensembleiq.com Associate Editor/Content Cyndi Loza, cloza@ensembleiq.com

PETER BREEN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

About 20 years ago, I was helping my mother with some decades-overdue spring cleaning and made an archeological discovery in the back corner of a bedroom closet: a nearly pristine pair of white hightop Chuck Taylors, circa 1970, I’d guess.

In the 1970s, my brothers and I basically lived in “Chucks,” which were officially branded as Converse All Stars but effectively endorsed by Mr. Taylor, a semi-professional basketball player more gainfully employed as a salesperson for the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in the first half of the 20th century. You might say they were one of the first “performance shoes” on the market, since they were marketed as ideal for basketball players.

In hindsight, they weren’t even close to ideal. We had to put on two pairs of socks when playing sports, because the thin-soled Chucks offered only slightly more foot support than a b-flute corrugate shoebox would have. They served their intended purpose, but only until other shoe manufacturers began offering consumers far superior products that actually met their performance needs.

I only wore my new discovery a few times over the next couple of years (always to the horror of my wife), more as a slipper with ankle support than as a legitimate “sneaker” (to use another archaic term). Meanwhile, Nike bought the struggling Converse brand in 2003 and initiated a revival of the original Chucks – not, mind you, as a performance shoe but as retro fashion. It worked for me, personally, as my pre-teen daughter, who herself lived in a pair of black Chuck hightops for about two years, proclaimed me “cool” for the first (and I think only) time when I next wore my vintage pair.

I was thinking about these experiences last November at the Path to Purchase Expo,

where I had the pleasure of conducting a fireside chat with Michelle Lam, co-founder and CEO of True&Co., an apparel company built on the “disruptive” premise that women should be able to find bras that actually fit them comfortably – a concept that, somehow, had escaped the consumer goods industry for a few centuries. Seven years and 7 million satisfied customers after launching (with apparel giant PVH Corp. now behind it), True&Co. is living proof that “innovation” sometimes only requires brands to stop selling and marketing for a few moments and take the time to learn from consumers what they actually need.

That’s a lesson for all brand marketers. In this era of unprecedented disruption and change, you don’t necessarily have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Consumers might still want that baby, although perhaps in cleaner, healthier water, and maybe in a more environmentally sustainable tub that can be delivered in two hours or less. The only trick (to grossly oversimplify the process needed to achieve this) is to understand exactly what they want.

Traditional brands haven’t been struggling because they’re falling behind their competitors but because “they’re running behind their customers’ expectations,” Forrester principal analyst Brendan Witcher said during his keynote at Expo. The solution for catching up?

Insights-driving data gained through two-way dialogue with those customers, according to Witcher (see page 8).

Understanding what today’s consumers really need will force some brands to completely transform their product offerings, for sure. But for many others, the change might not be so radical. It will just require them to spend time walking around in their consumers’ shoes – or maybe their bras.

January 2020

Associate Editor/Content Jacqueline Barba, jbarba@ensembleiq.com Editor Emeritus Bill Schober, bschober@ensembleiq.com Director – Production Ed Ward, eward@ensembleiq.com Creative Director Colette Magliaro, cmagliaro@ensembleiq.com Art Director Michael Escobedo, mescobedo@ensembleiq.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Erika Flynn, Ed Finkel, Michael Applebaum, Chris Gelbach, Dawn Klingensmith, Neal Lorenzi, April Miller

SALES & P2PI MEMBER DEVELOPMENT Managing Director Tanner Van Dusen, 312.518.5000, tvandusen@ensembleiq.com Vice President of Sales Karen Fenske, 773.992.4413, kfenske@ensembleiq.com Associate Brand Director Bill Little, 828.237.3350, blittle@ensembleiq.com Associate Brand Director Steven Fryman, 773.992.4483, sfryman@ensembleiq.com Associate Brand Director Arlene Schusteff, 773.992.4414, aschusteff@ensembleiq.com Senior Director/Member Development Patrick Hare, phare@ensembleiq.com Director/Member/New Business Development Todd Turner, tturner@ensembleiq.com Manager, New Member Development Katrina Lopez, klopez@ensembleiq.com

ENSEMBLEIQ LEADERSHIP TEAM

Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Litterick Chief Financial Officer Jane Volland Chief Innovation Officer Tanner Van Dusen Chief Human Resources Officer Ann Jadown Executive Vice President, Events & Conferences Ed Several Senior Vice President, Content Joe Territo

EDITORIAL AND EXECUTIVE OFFICES 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Suite 200 Chicago, IL 60631-3731 Phone: 773.992.4450 | Fax: 773.992.4455

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Path to Purchase Expo

How Brands Can Survive, Thrive in Digital Age

data. “More devices have created a data explosion, which has created categorydisrupting innovation, which has led to deeper customer relationships,” Witcher said. “Men don’t want the same thing every other man wants. … People are unique. If you don’t understand your customers, you can’t get to great customer relationships.”

To understand what individual customers want, brands need to have

BY E D F I N K E L

Since the digital age has transformed relationships between brands and customers, brands need to transform how they think about their businesses – including how, when and where to reach shoppers – if they are to succeed, Forrester Research’s Brendan Witcher said during a November Path to Purchase Expo keynote in Chicago.

“In the old days ... you had a number of companies who spent a ton of money to come up with a few great ideas,” he said.

“Today, a ton of people are spending very little money to come up with a slew of ideas. That’s what digital has done. The cost of entry is extremely low now.”

When it comes to digital experiences, brands need to realize that they’re competing with Uber, Facebook, Amazon and Google for shoppers’ hearts and minds, not just their traditional category competitors, said Witcher, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester.

“Every time a consumer is exposed to an improved digital experience, their expectations for all experiences are re-set to a higher level. If you’re Crest, and you think your competitor is Colgate, it’s not.”

Brands also need to understand how consumers view them, such as whether they represent frequent or infrequent purchases, and whether they are thought of as a commodity or a “cult” item. “I have been on social media, and I have never seen anybody post a picture of a toaster,” Witcher said. “Think about what you are, accept what you are, and find strategies for engaging customers because of what you are.”

To do that successfully, brands need strong, current data rather than just historical assumptions. And they need to understand that consumers are channel

agnostic among brick-and-mortar, digital and mobile. “Who is the online shopper?

They’re not a creature, like dragons,” Witcher said. “We treat online shoppers like that’s all they are.” The shopper challenge to brands is: “You have to create the right customer journey for me, or I will find someone else to do it for me,” he said. “If you get it wrong, I can go elsewhere.”

Brands need to think about their customers’ needs and the journey they wish to take, literally or figuratively, Witcher said.

“Is buying an airline ticket, in and of itself, of any value? No. I need to go somewhere. I need to eat something. … You need to think about the customer’s journey – the journey of going on a trip, the journey of going on a Tinder date, the journey of feeding my kids and keeping them healthy over time.”

To achieve digital mastery and create great customer experiences, brands need to do “the un-sexy stuff” of working with

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dialogues, not monologues; fortunately, people typically love talking about themselves. “We need to know what triggers we need to use,” Witcher said. “Should we show certain functionality on our website, or not? Customer and content intelligence, put together, allows you to create more individualized experiences.”

Going beyond segmentation in broad customer experiences into individualized breakdowns might sound daunting from a data-mining time management perspective, Witcher acknowledged. “That’s where AI is going to kick in, and have a lot of value,” he predicted. “To become a data-led, customerobsessed organization, leaders must digitally transform four areas of their business: culture, organization, technology and metrics. You can’t think it’s just technology.”

Without changing the other three areas, he added, “You will be the same company next year as you were last year.” IQ

Path to Purchase Expo

Agency Teamwork Key to Shopper Marketing Success

BY E D F I N K E L

Mondelez International’s Steve McGowan leads a panel discussion with four agency representatives.

The roles of shopper marketing agencies are evolving as the landscape of new technologies and consumer desires and expectations continue to dramatically shift.

Mondelez International, maker of such well-known brands as Oreos, Ritz and Swedish Fish, employs a team of agencies that need to work collaboratively to win at retail and e-commerce; these include Geometry Global, HMT Associates, MOjO Marketing and Phoenix Creative, all of which participated in a Path to Purchase Expo panel discussion in November. The panel was moderated by Steve McGowan, regional vice president, shopper marketing & strategic partnerships at Mondelez.

“There are a lot of benefits to working with other agencies,” said Lisa Norat, SVP, business leadership at HMT. “Everybody brings different expertise to the table.

‘Collaborating’ is the operative word here.

If you come in with your guard up, it’s not going to work as well. Each agency does provide best-in-class complementary offerings.” These include different data and other resources, she said.

Working with multiple agencies at once can be challenging for clients, acknowledged Abbey Ash, partner and director of shopper marketing at Phoenix

Creative. “There is overlap of roles, and who focuses on parts of the business,” she said. “Each agency has a different process, structure and culture. … I’ve had clients where it can be very territorial between the agencies. Mondelez has done a great job making sure everyone knows the channels they focus on, and the [retailers] they focus on.”

The constantly evolving world of retail and e-commerce requires agencies and clients to continuously adapt, said Amy Stockwell, account director at Geometry Global. “As soon as you get comfortable, something changes. Keeping up with that evolution and creating moments that matter and disrupt shoppers, wherever they are, is what we’re in business to do.”

Shopper marketers need to push toward personalized experiences to gain shoppers’ attention, Norat said. “We are in a place where shoppers have power. They can buy anything they want, anytime they want, and practically anywhere they want.

Our job is to figure out how to keep these folks engaged and drive their attention.

The way to do that is to create customized and personalized experiences.”

To ensure they’re helping clients drive return-on-investment, agencies need to

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understand what those clients are trying to achieve with different initiatives, and what their sales goals are, said Nicole Trudo, president of MOjO Marketing.

“They need to understand what their real capabilities are, what innovation is coming, and where they thrive. It’s about being able to decide to execute things differently and having them work well together.”

At the outset, agencies need to develop a 360-degree view of a campaign that starts with insights, Norat said. For example, while working on a condiment program, HMT talked to young consumers and asked how they would react if a favorite branded condiment was not available at a friend’s house where they were invited for dinner. “You would think that’s a small issue, but the reaction was super interesting,” Norat said. “It ranged from mild irritation to frustration. Understanding how these attachments are formed does inform your strategic approach.”

Agencies need to use those analytics to address retailers’ needs in a unique way that’s not interchangeable from one brand to the next, Stockwell said. In creating a campaign for Ritz at Lowes Foods grocery stores in North Carolina, Geometry Global used insights to come up with recipe toppers for in-store sampling tables. “That cracked the nut of using it in the retailer,” she said. “We brought [the campaign] in-store and made it very experiential. It’s those insights that make it fun, that make it customizable.”

McGowan asked each panelist what she thought her agency brought to Mondelez and the overall team. For Ash, it was being nimble, focusing on process and due dates, and bringing creativity to life. Trudo cited customer knowledge, continuity, problem solving and a history with Walmart given her agency’s roots in northwest Arkansas.

Norat said her agency is flexible and responsive, with little if any hierarchy and a deep understanding of the landscape.

Stockwell mentioned an understanding of what’s important to the retailer, the “expertise to build first-class creative, and end-to-end commerce capabilities.”

But ultimately, all agreed that they needed to be – and strive to be – more than the sum of their parts. IQ

Path to Purchase Expo

Hershey Forges Friendships Using Chocolate, Emojis

BY E D F I N K E L

TPN’s Elaine Bragg, right, presents alongside Hershey marketing director Cynthia Liu.

Shopping can be highly emotional, creating connections among people and providing a sense of control in one’s life.

However, those qualities might not seem to jibe with the transactional bustle of back-to-school season, when parents and kids are quickly scanning down a list of pencils and erasers and loose-leaf notebooks to make sure they’ve checked everything off.

Working with TPN, The Hershey Co. found otherwise, even though its primary products, being confections, are not generally found on back-to-school lists, according to Elaine Bragg, VP, executive creative director, TPN; and Cynthia Liu, marketing director, partnerships & occasion marketing, Hershey. They presented together in November at the Path to Purchase Expo.

Back-to-school season is incredibly busy, noisy and competitive, yet Hershey wanted to explore how it could drive incremental growth in candy-bar sales from so many trips to the store – if it were able to act on shopper insights and deliver on emotional and functional

needs, Bragg said. “Consumers are heart; shoppers are wallets,” she said. “Consumers are love, lust, laughter. … When you shift to shopper, it’s about the wallet, the Benjamins, the price calculation, the discounts. But shopping is also highly emotional.”

Psychological research backs up that idea, Bragg said. “Shopping restores a sense of control. [Shoppers] visualize their new life with that product as a solution. Retail is therapy. That’s why we think it’s so incredibly important to consciously build emotion. …

We’re thinking about the whole shopper, and not just their behavior.”

But TPN and Hershey knew that during back-to-school it would be difficult to get the attention of retailers, much less that of parents hunting for an average of 18 products that translate to $700 per child. “We found that 90% of social conversations with parents focused on how can I afford all of these things, and secondly, where am I going to find all of these things,” Liu said. “One of the really big ‘ahas’ was [that] they were stressed out about going back to school.”

And while being physically prepared by having everything on the shopping list was

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one stressor, ensuring that their children were socially and emotionally prepared for the school year was also on mom’s mind, Liu said. “She wanted them to have A’s, but just as important, she wanted them to have friends.” And kids were even more focused on the latter, with three main questions in mind as the school year approached: “Are my friends in my class? Who will I sit with in the cafeteria? And who will I sit with on the bus?”

That insight about feeling socially and emotionally prepared sent TPN and Hershey on their journey to create an icebreaker that led to conversations and friendships, Liu said. The end result: the first change to the Hershey’s bar in 125 years, with one of 25 raised emojis placed inside each square of the chocolate candy.

“We used the physical product to be an icebreaker,” she said. “The exciting thing is, it’s a treasure chest. Each bar is slightly different. That leads to conversations. But there are thousands of emojis. We did consumer research to figure out which would be those real conversation starters.”

That narrowed the emoji list to 25, one of which raised eyebrows – the “poop” emoji. “Our CEO said, ‘Are you going to put excrement on a brown bar?’” Liu said.

“We did social listening, and we found that elementary school students use poop to say, ‘You’re the s---.’ It’s a compliment.”

Research showed that both parents and their children quickly understood the social value of the emoji bars, with 87% of kids immediately understanding how they would share them to help make friends.

The resulting “Share a Smile” campaign, for which TPN helped make the in-store POS materials, interrupted shoppers so reliably that Hershey exceeded sales expectations by 170%, delivering retail sales of $36 million, with a 14% increase in the sales of standard chocolate bars.

“When we grow as a brand, we bring our retailers along,” Liu said. “What was so great about this program was [that] we got incremental merchandising at key retailers. We had multiple points of interruption at store.” And what was conceived as a one-year program for 2019 will continue on to become a multiyear platform, she said. IQ

Path to Purchase Expo

Future-Proofing Your Brand at Retail

based on the notion that, “What got us here, won’t get us there. What is the new thing that’s going to take our business to new heights?” she said.

These innovations included augmented reality, about which the partners shared a skepticism that it was just another “bright, shiny object.” But they found it didn’t disrupt the ability to deliver messages through a shelf talker and could serve as

BY E D F I N K E L

A few decades ago, a brand could make a big media buy on a popular television show and reach millions of shoppers. But cable television, the internet and finally streaming has changed all of that and will continue to change how best to reach shoppers, according to a “Future Proofing Your Brand in the Retail Environment” discussion in November at the Path to Purchase Expo.

Brands are “working on their own custom-curated content, designed to filter out noise. Many brand marketing messages are presenting themselves as noise,” said Stefanie Detwiler, senior vice president, sales, News America Marketing.

“We need to be thinking about how you break through all that noise. Instead of interrupting my regularly scheduled programming, how do you find an audience seeking brand content and open to purchase messages?”

Manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, with which News America works, focus on the massive amount of reach you can get in-store, said Detwiler, who shared the stage with P&G’s Stacey Andrade, senior brand manager, NA Fabric Care, and News America’s Tracey Koller, RVP, chief retail and merchandising officer.

“Our friends at Kroger talk about 1 million people going into their store.

That’s a lot of reach,” Detwiler said.

“And it’s quality reach. ... And in-store is measurable; you’re able to tie it directly to sales KPI.” Brands should use their in-store investments to help shoppers plan and execute. “I want you to help me put together beauty solutions – help me get it now, help me get it home. This is what the shopper is saying,” Detwiler said.

“Over 100 million shoppers are using

Stefanie Detwiler discusses how News America Marketing has worked with Procter & Gamble.

their mobile phone. They’re seeking discounts; they’re loading their cards; they’re seeking recipes.”

To connect to shoppers and convert sales, retailers and brands need to understand them by using data to customize and optimize campaigns, Detwiler said. “All of that is coming together when retail and CPG are being disrupted in a big way,” she said.

Andrade picked up that theme but noted that disruption needs to be constructive. “It doesn’t help if my shopper can’t identify where my products are in the store,” she said. “We want to fuel and grow the category, bring in new consumers, and grow the basket.”

Brands need to continuously learn and be flexible and agile to challenge and disrupt the status quo, Andrade said. To that end, in 2018, P&G partnered with News America to test 10 innovations

January 2020

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“icing on the cake, if we could get consumers to engage longer with us,” Andrade said.

They also examined the use of video in-store and found that it’s most effective if delivered on mobile devices. “This was our opportunity to leverage attention on the screens you are carrying around in your pocket all day,” Andrade said. “How can you deliver the benefits of video without necessarily incurring the costs?”

P&G and News America also partnered with Storyful to mine social media and see if there was a more effective way to communicate with consumers. They learned that people love Tide Pods, for example, because they make laundry easy; this resulted in shelf- and floor-talkers around the theme that, “Dads can do the wash, too.

Teenagers can do the wash, too,” Andrade said. “All of our innovation doesn’t have to come in the form of flashy new technology.”

As Amazon celebrates its 25th anniversary,

Future-Proofing Your Brand at Retail retailers and brands need to examine and speak to shoppers in all contexts, but that’s challenging in an age of little loyalty, Koller said. “Even the largest retailer today only sees a fraction of what shoppers are doing, and what’s influencing them to make shopping decisions and change habits,” she said. “Shoppers are screaming at us, please send me relevant messaging!”

A decade ago, broad segmentation might have worked, but going into the 2020s brands and retailers need to personalize their content, Koller said. “We need to be able to

We want to grow the category, bring in new consumers, and grow the basket.

Stacey Andrade, Procter & Gamble

say the day has arrived where we know enough about shoppers and customers that we are able to weed through the noise and give them the right content, at the right length, in the right place, to influence their decisions,” she said.

For that to happen, the store needs to be connected, personalized and dynamic, providing relevant purchasing content, with screens placed in store that serve a distinct purpose, Koller said. “The store cannot turn into Times Square,” she said.

“Given the cost equation – digital screens’ cost has come down, but they’re still more expensive – you need to blend hybrid solutions. You need interactive displays in hightouch, complicated areas. We believe that the connected store will deliver a personalized experience for the shopper.” IQ

Path to Purchase Expo

Walgreens Gets More Personal About Healthcare

BY PAT H T O P U R C H A S E I N S T I T U T E S TA F F

Alyssa Raine says Walgreens is leveraging technology to bring healthcare close to consumers when and where they need it.

During a Path to Purchase Expo keynote address in Chicago, Raine detailed how Walgreens discovered an unmet need among cancer patients and subsequently created a “Battle Beautiful” program that required the retailer to unify dozens of internal functions around a single customer focus.

Raine, Walgreens divisional vice president, brand marketing and creative, said the retailer has leveraged its digital platform to help cancer patients across their entire journey, from the first visit to the doctor, to when they’re browsing for content on the web, to how they shop Walgreens and use the pharmacy, to how the store follows up with how the patient is doing.

She shared specific strategies on how Walgreens is getting more personal in the ways it talks to shoppers – through the lens of digital and using technology to empathize with them.

Raine emphasized the need for empathy from retailers. She said the healthcare system is becoming more transactional and impersonal, noting that 41% of consumers believe healthcare is more concerned with money than a person’s well-being and 35% feel doctors provide impersonal service. She also cited a statistic that 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company that offers a personalized experience.

Raine shared an example of how the retailer created 400 different digital videos for flu shot season, each tailored around a different shopper motivation and seasonal context. Videos considered who the shopper was (personalizing messaging to a caregiver versus a shopper just looking to save money), the season (early in the season or perhaps if there was a local outbreak) and factored in different motivations and calls

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to action. Raine also cited improvements in the Walgreens mobile app, which with 90 million members is the largest loyalty program in the U.S. The app leverages gamification such as loyalty points earned based on meeting healthy goals like how many steps taken in a day.

She also stressed that, from Walgreens’ view, consumers are beaten down about healthcare and how it is imperative for the company to empathize and “meet them with kindness.”

At its core, Raine said Walgreens’ efforts to be more personal aren’t about sales.

“We’ve proven that it improves the health of our customers,” she said. “The platform brings care closer to consumers when they need it.” IQ

Member Spotlight

Tell us about a program for your products.

Mike’s Hard Lemonade Co. Mike’s Hard Lemonade Co. is a flavor forward, innovation leader in the beer industry. Its portfolio of brands leads flavored malt beverage in nearly every category and channel. Mike’s Hard Lemonade is the top flavored malt beverage in the grocery channel, sister brand White Claw is the top hard seltzer and Mike’s Harder Lemonade is the top high alcohol by volume brand.

The organization puts consumers first, bringing them premium yet simple and delicious flavors for every celebration occasion. Institute staff recently asked Sarah Dabold, senior manager, shopper marketing, a few questions about the business.

DABOLD: Mike’s Hard Lemonade partnered with The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). We built a program engaging consumers through unique displays at retail, custom packaging and branded pet supplies. For each qualifying purchase made, Mike’s made a 25-cent donation to ASPCA. We also donated to each of our seven sales regions to sponsor an ASPCAaffiliated charity. The donations were distributed nationally and to local shelters to support the community.

How does your company plan to use its P2PI membership resources?

DABOLD: We plan to leverage our membership for programming best practices, state-of-the-art POS materials and staying up-to-date on the latest industry shopper marketing trends. The Path to Purchase Institute will also allow us to drive awareness to our portfolio of brands and the turnkey activations we execute in-market.

What are your predictions for the future of marketing, and how will your company navigate that future?

MIKE’S AT WALMART See more Mike’s Hard Lemonade activity with the ASPCA in the Beer/Wine/Sprits Activation Gallery (page 35).

January 2020

DABOLD: The retail environment is changing at a rapid pace so as to keep up with evolving consumer tastes, new technology and emerging channels. These variables force marketers to be innovative in the way they think about reaching the consumer throughout their path to purchase and beyond brick-and-mortar retail. At Mike’s Hard Lemonade, we plan to stay ahead of the curve through disruptive retail programming and shopper media to reach the high-value consumer efficiently and effectively. IQ

NOT A PATH TO PURCHASE INSTITUTE MEMBER? Join the 400+ companies who rely on the Path to Purchase Institute every day for strategies and best practices on succeeding in today’s chaotic consumer goods environment. For more information, contact Katrina Lopez at klopez@ensembleiq.com.

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5/7/19 11:10 AM

EXCELLENCE HONORED At the Path to Purchase Expo in November, we celebrated the 12 winners of the 2019 Women of Excellence awards (including the nine pictured above).

In this month’s issue, we profile honorees in the Innovation and Collaboration honorees. (Leadership and Rising Star winners were profiled in December.)

Profiles by Erika Flynn

LEADERSHIP

RISING STAR

INNOVATION

COLLABORATION

Tammy Teague

Dorothy Daniel

Christie Ciccolone

Laura Dickey

Sheila Lukaszewski

Jessica Koop

Yolanda Angulo

Sheila Bonner

Sarah Cunningham

Christine Piston

Susan O’Neal

Courtney Becker

Chief Information Officer Key Food Stores Co-Operative, Inc. Senior Director, Shopper Engagement Kimberly-Clark Chief Growth Officer TPN

Associate Marketing Manager, E-Commerce Nestle Waters North America Influencer Marketing Manager VizSense Digital & E-Commerce Content Lead Bimbo Bakeries USA’s Acelerada

Director, Shopper Innovation & Experience Nestle Coffee Partners Director, Shopper Marketing Mondelez International CEO Dabbl

Sponsored by:

Senior Shopper Marketing Manager LALA, U.S. VP, Shopper Marketing, Insights & Merchandising Keurig Dr Pepper Senior Director Strategic Procurement & Partnerships Insignia Systems Inc.

In partnership with:

January 2020

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Women of Excellence: Innovation

Christie Ciccolone Director, Shopper Innovation & Experience, Nestle Coffee Partners What are your current responsibilities?

Ciccolone: I lead an amazing team of partners that has a relentless focus on commercializing solutions grounded in shopper problems to solve. This starts with partnering with our market analytics team to understand shopper insights and includes everything from concept ideation and design to sell in, production and all the way through execution in retail. We don’t stop until we’ve brought an elevated coffee shopping experience to life in store.

What has your role been in the ongoing aisle reinvention?

Christie Ciccolone studied engineering in college but has always had a flair for analytics, so she wasn’t surprised that she ended up at IRI for her first job – quickly delving into the world of syndicated data and consumer panel data. After nearly 12 years working with a variety of CPG clients, she moved to Boston Beer Co. in a business analytics role. In 2013, she was ready for a new challenge and landed at Starbucks, which she says has been a great fit because of the company’s strong emphasis on understanding shoppers.

Starting in market analytics, she moved onto the category development team and then shopper innovation and experience.

She moved under the Nestle Coffee Partners umbrella when Nestle purchased the rights to market and distribute Starbucks packaged coffee, and now she serves as the team’s director of shopper innovation and experience. She is one of three Women of Excellence honorees in the “Innovation” category.

Ciccolone: Aisle reinvention has to start with the shopper problems to solve.

We know that coffee drinking is a very emotional and sensorial experience, but most grocery shopping is done on autopilot. While many retailers have brought higher levels of engagement to the perimeter, the center store continues to lag in delivering experience. We know that the worst thing a shopper can feel about something is nothing. Through the power of the Starbucks brand equities, we can evoke the coffee drinking moment and bring emotional connection into the shopping trip. My role is to continue to drive the evolution of our initiative as shopper needs and retail landscapes are constantly changing. We’re creating more solutions that unlock more opportunities, but we need to continue to understand where shoppers are going and meet them there.

What qualities do you believe constitute a true innovator?

Ciccolone: Curiosity, because you have to want to understand what drives peoples’ behaviors and learn how you can develop solutions that will resonate; collaboration, because you have to surround yourself with people who come with various points of

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view and can see the same thing through different lenses to create rich dialogue; and being relentless. We say that we relentlessly challenge the status quo. The easiest thing for retailers to do in their stores is nothing, so we have to be the voice that’s driving change in a way that benefits them, the shopper and our business.

What’s an example of your work that you’re most proud of?

Ciccolone: It’s less about being proud of a specific innovation and more about being proud of the breadth of solutions we’ve built and continue to evolve. This can never be a one-size-fits-all solution. We have to engage different shoppers in different ways and also be able to adapt for different retail environments. We have solutions that will resonate with shoppers who need help navigating the coffee aisle and we have out-of-aisle solutions for the growing base of shoppers who no longer venture into center-store aisles. I’m proud of how all of these solutions elevate the shopping trip and that our initiative has created more opportunities with our customers and strengthened our overall partnerships.

What excites you most about this space?

Ciccolone: I’m excited about the rate of change with which new innovations are becoming available through technology.

Overloading on technology might not be the answer, but we need to understand and choose the elements that create that better shopping experience in a personalized way for each individual shopper, whether at the shelf or before they get there. The Starbucks Siren is a beacon in the store and helps bring consumers down the aisle, but can we build on that and make the engagement even more personal and authentic? Every coffee drinker’s connection to coffee is personal, whether that person is looking for foundational coffee learning, new ways of brewing, understanding our social responsibility initiatives, or entertaining friends and family. Technology can help us create the individual experience that resonates most with each shopper and deliver on a great shopping experience.

Women of Excellence: Innovation

Yolanda Angulo Customer Director, Shopper Marketing, Mondelez International strategies and customer business team goals. It’s a process that demands great collaboration and partnerships with the end goal of delivering incremental sales and driving shopper connectivity.

Tell us about your company’s strategic projects. How are you involved?

Yolanda Angulo has spent more than 25 years working at large CPG companies, first with Nabisco/Kraft Foods Group until it became Kraft Heinz, and since October 2017 in her current post as customer director, shopper marketing, at Mondelez International. Having also been on the agency side, she says the opportunities she’s had to work with small companies and larger/global companies has exposed her to countless different people, brands, retailers and projects. Her journey has fueled her knowledge, relationships and accomplishments – both wins and failures – and these experiences, along with her Latino background, have also ignited a passion for the pursuit of cultural infusion and activation, she says. Angulo is one of three Women of Excellence honorees in the “Innovation” category.

What does your role entail?

Angulo: I support our East customer teams, responsible for the development of their annual marketing plans. I’m responsible for bridging our headquarter/ brand priorities with our retailer

Angulo: The unique role we [play] requires a good amount of innovation and creativity, from how we explore and interpret insights to how we develop and deliver shopper value through offers and communication.

During the past year, I had the opportunity to work on new ways to engage and connect with shoppers in-store through technology.

I initiated three in-store digital projects with two of those still in-store and evolving. While all three projects were with one customer (but various owner groups), it included working with different agencies for each solution.

What were the projects’ main objectives?

Angulo: To test the benefit of putting messaging at the point of purchase and assess sales impact; to explore new technology to elevate the in-store experience; and, in partnership with the retailer, to test digital price tags. All three tests have provided valuable insights from the operational side to the content and communication piece. Both the qualitative and quantitative insights have informed short-term decisions and changes as well as longer-term opportunities, and they have also helped to provide insights to other retailers and team members exploring this new in-store technology.

What have you learned from these tests/pilots?

Angulo: We’ve gained a better understanding of the layers and levels of retailer involvement from HQ to in-store; the operational complexity behind launching

January 2020

these tests because no two stores are the same; the need to have the appropriate connectivity; the need to learn and understand more about all of the potential issues; and, importantly, the ability to learn what the shopper wants and needs.

Finally, because we are a [direct-store delivery] organization, there are other layers of complexities (both advantages and disadvantages) that have surfaced.

What makes a true innovator?

Angulo: Someone who is fearless, openminded, creative, forward-thinking and collaborative. An innovator needs to employ all of these, some more than others, in our daily work, depending on the projects we’re working on.

What makes you most proud of the company’s in-store digital endcaps?

Angulo: We’ve evolved the content and communication over time based on the insights and results, which led to an improvement of some of the initial results.

The complexity of these LCD and LED endcaps is that pricing and items change by week, so we have to coordinate weekly with our sales organization. We’re working closely with the retailer to coordinate the next round of pricing and price tags, and we’ve collaborated with the agencies to upgrade the technology and equipment for increased visibility and communication.

What motivates you most in terms of the shopping experience?

Angulo: The possibilities and new opportunities, along with our ability to learn more about what and how we can create better experiences for the shopper and the retailers, given their capabilities and ability to partner and test. We’d like to provide improved brand and shopping experiences that may leverage new technology – make it easy, make it engaging, ultimately make shoppers want to come back, not only because we have great brands and products but because we have connected with them.

In a world of so many brands, the goal is to keep our brands on the list and in the cart. And while the e-commerce space is absolutely growing, the in-store experience and sales still drives our business.

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12/12/19 12:40 PM

Women of Excellence: Innovation

Susan O’Neal CEO, Dabbl

Susan O’Neal started her career in brand strategy, working for Grey Advertising in New York and conducting research to understand what consumers believed and how that correlated to behavior. After earning her MBA, she had a stint at Coolsavings.com in the early days of digital coupons. It was there that she realized the potential for technology to make marketing as a discipline not only more sophisticated but also more human.

She joined Catalina Marketing in 2002 and spent nearly 12 years in various roles, eventually becoming responsible for most of its digital promotions products and services. In early 2015, she founded Dabbl and has served as its CEO ever since. She is one of three Women of Excellence honorees in the “Innovation” category.

What are your primary responsibilities?

O’Neal: My job is to attract talented human beings and make sure they have what they need to do the best job they can for our consumers and our clients.

Describe Downtime Dollars (the white label solution you offer to retailers).

O’Neal: Consumers are paid for engaging

with brands in store credit that they can use to buy anything in their favorite store. For every $1 of store credit earned on Downtime Dollars, customers will spend an incremental $3.60 on groceries in their favorite store on average. The key is that the “rewards” are not in the form of product coupons or rebates, because those only have value if planning a shopping trip around them. Downtime Dollars is an incremental savings opportunity for those consumers who do plan their trips, and a new and preferred opportunity for consumers who don’t use them. Because consumers are a partner in the media chain, they actually pay attention to the brand content, and that attention translates to significantly above-average results for brands – amazing recall and affinity scores and ... return on ad spend.

Did you design the program?

O’Neal: Yes, Downtime Dollars was designed by me and my team as a way to add unique, high value to retailer loyalty programs. As dollars off anything in the store, Downtime Dollars complements digital coupons and increases incremental spending overall for both the brand and the retailer.

What qualities do you believe make a true innovator?

O’Neal: If you’re not facing opposition and resistance, you’re not really innovating.

Things are the way they are for rational, valid reasons. An innovator challenges that rationality, and that kind of challenge generally turns people off. Given this, true innovators have to be motivated by something greater than themselves in order to have the resilience and persistence to keep going in the face of challenges.

What do you want to provide shoppers and consumers?

O’Neal: Every moment of every life is valuable, yet very little about the experience of being a consumer – especially as it

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relates to advertising – honors that truth.

According to the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), brands in the U.S. spend more than $1 trillion on the various elements of marketing. Divide that by the 127 million households in the U.S. and marketers are spending nearly $8,000 per household trying to understand and influence consumers. Very little of that money goes toward improving the life or the shopping experience of a consumer. In fact, oftentimes we’re creating addictive digital media consumption patterns, increasing the time it takes a budgetconscious consumer to shop, and worse.

When I realized this, I stopped enjoying my daily work as a loyalty marketer. I had to do something to get some of that money into the hands of the people who matter the most in the value chain, the consumer. Giving it to them as dollars off anything in their favorite store is what Downtime Dollars does. Figuring out how to make it happen in more retailers and with more brands is why I go to work every day.

What excites you most about where shopper marketing is heading?

O’Neal: The most effective sale happens when a knowledgeable salesperson (or shop keeper) is able to converse with a consumer because several valuable things happen concurrently in the course of that conversation – including mindshare because neither one of you is doing anything else. The second is insight, because the salesperson is learning about the consumer’s needs while the consumer is learning about the salesperson’s product or service offering.

As both are happening, the information presented about a product is relevant, heard and understood, resulting in very high conversion-to-sale rates. Finally, if the time spent together was enjoyable or otherwise deemed worthwhile, then relationship (or brand) equity is established or enhanced. This is the real opportunity of technology – to bring the consumer authentically closer to the people who make and sell the products they need or want, and vice versa, so they can help each other.

Women of Excellence: Collaboration

Laura Dickey Senior Shopper Marketing Manager, LALA U.S. the “Collaboration” category.

What are your current responsibilities?

Dickey: I’m responsible for customerspecific activation of the LALA and Promised Land brands. As the liaison between our brand and sales teams, I ensure all objectives are met while benefitting the customer – taking the brands’ campaigns to the store level and driving shoppers to stores to purchase our products. I’m the retailer specialist working with our sales team, so I need to understand what works and what doesn’t at each retailer, each customer’s pain points and sales objectives, and the capabilities each particular retailer offers, as well as what technology they have available for us to partner together.

Little did Laura Dickey know that a sixth-grade science fair project would foreshadow her work in shopper marketing. She had to track prices and other data for the same SKUs across a variety of retailers, and ultimately found prize-winning success in determining the best place to buy those items.

While her first job out of college was in real estate at a law office, her handling of business development stretch assignments motivated her to expand her career scope. In 2008 she joined Crossmark on the Cadbury team and spent the next seven years in retail operations. She started out as a supervisor in stores but was promoted internally and eventually earned an opportunity to manage her own team of more than 200 employees.

After earning her masters in marketing in 2015, she took a headquarters sales role to gain experience calling on customers, and then joined LALA U.S. in February 2017 as a senior shopper marketing manager, the position she holds today. Dickey is one of three Women of Excellence honorees in

How has collaboration with other teams within the company helped you push your work forward?

Dickey: The shopper marketing team was created here in 2015 by our director of marketing at the time. Initially, the majority of the shopper marketing activity was in-store POS and sampling driven. With increasing household penetration as a goal for our two biggest brands, trial became the primary focus, and we needed to move fast. I began to research digital demo tactics offered by each retailer, partnered with our sales teams to identify the specific business opportunity, and started working directly with retailers on a plan. After just one year of focusing on driving trial by leveraging these new tactics, household penetration increased 31% for LALA and 57% for Promised Land. It was a great team effort.

What results have you seen using new shopper marketing tactics?

Dickey: The first digital demo we executed performed way better than expected but had its pros and cons. We were successfully able to get our product into

January 2020

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more than 104,000 hands to support our trial efforts, and units per store per week during the promotion at this account went up 45.3%. These digital demos created such unexpected demand that out of stocks became a frequent occurrence for our brands, which led to disappointed shoppers and unhappy customers and negatively impacted program results.

This eventually led us to a more formal integrated business planning (IBP) process.

Can you explain more about the IBP process?

Dickey: As a coordinator, I represent all of marketing, working cross-functionally to help the company optimize the use of resources, guarantee service level and support the growth of the business. The IBP process provides a formal platform that allows the brand teams, shopper marketing, sales, supply chain and finance to collaboratively plan and make important business decisions together with the executive leadership team.

What in your work are you most proud of?

Dickey: The Promised Land brand team has a partnership with [pro football player] Jason Witten that we activated in-store at key retailers. We leveraged assets provided by [Witten’s] team (photography, a sweepstakes promotion opportunity for a VIP experience with Witten, taglines, etc.) to develop a full 360-degree execution.

What motivates you most in terms of the shopping experience?

Dickey: The list of opportunities to reach shoppers during the path to purchase is growing. It provides a platform to test multiple tactics tailored to the specific objective and partner with new vendors.

Shopper marketing is all about testing and learning, and we’ll continue to try to be more strategic with our approach going forward. Deciding if we want to encourage trial, increase frequency, educate, explore new usage occasions, grow basket size, or promote retention will affect the tactics we employ. And we need to ensure we’re always reaching the intended target.

Women of Excellence: Collaboration What makes a true collaborator?

Sheila Bonner Vice President, Shopper Marketing, Insights and Merchandising, Keurig Dr Pepper support national and regional account activation for Keurig brewers and coffee brands like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and The Original Donut Shop; beloved beverage brands including Dr Pepper, Canada Dry and Mott’s; and new expansion opportunities for Core water and our partner portfolio of brands including Peet’s, Forto and AShoc – and everything in between.

How have you pushed for collaboration in such a large organization?

Sheila Bonner started her career in finance with Morgan Stanley, and she acknowledges that’s a long way from shopper marketing and retail. But she moved to retail quickly, transitioning to expansion and strategic initiatives for FedEx Office retail services for more than four years. She has now been with Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) for 11 years, having initially joined Dr Pepper Snapple Group, which merged with Keurig Green Mountain in 2018. Her career path has since focused primarily on commercial and retail support through sales planning, merchandising, shopper insights and shopper/omnichannel marketing roles, and today she serves as the company’s vice president, shopper marketing, insights and merchandising.

She is one of three Women of Excellence honorees in the “Collaboration” category.

What are your current responsibilities?

Bonner: I lead the shopper marketing team, which includes digital shopper marketing, merchandising and shopper insights for our total portfolio. We

Bonner: It’s crucial for the shopper marketing function to be tightly integrated into the daily work of the full commercial selling and support teams, and it’s equally important for our organization to be connected to the upstream work with brand and media teams. When structures don’t naturally connect a team, clear process and collaborative behaviors become incredibly important to ensure open communication and aligned priorities. We, as shopper marketers, have the luxury of being able to work within the unique and dynamic space in between brands and retail, bringing knowledge and opportunities to both.

Discuss the merger of Keurig Green Mountain and Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

Bonner: The merger to form KDP created so much excitement and opportunity across the combined company. As it relates to the shopper marketing team, we helped to bring a new and expanded portfolio together to drive our vision of offering consumers a beverage for every need, everywhere they shop and consume. We now have the great fortune of working across a large and diverse portfolio to find brand, category and portfolio solutions for our retail partners and shoppers. As we’ve integrated the teams, we have been able to combine learnings and knowledge to form an even stronger team and, hopefully, a more successful partner to our customers along the way.

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Bonner: True collaboration requires building a foundational relationship between team members, grounded in mutual respect and trust. In order to drive the collective business together, there must be a healthy partnership developed by being authentic with your approach and clear with your intentions. I aspire to better understand my partners and their perspectives every day, and to be able to use those differences to drive to a better solution. I focus on engaging with an open mind and doing so from a place of positive intent and trust. If you take the time to build that foundation, the challenges are easier to work through and the celebrations are that much greater because you’re so connected in your efforts together.

What motivates you most in this space?

Bonner: Without question, the shortening of the path to purchase in the digital space is the most exciting for me, both as a shopper professional and as my household’s primary shopper. In past years, we were resigned to digital elements that just brought awareness or drove to an information-based site. Now, the ability to drive directly to cart means we can read the impact of digital more clearly, drive to conversion more quickly and integrate onand offline shopping patterns better. We’re focused on providing brands that have a defined job in consumers’ lives by setting up clear occasions and easy solutions as shoppers learn to navigate their new and evolving shopping journeys.

What does the future of shopper marketing look like?

Bonner: The speed at which opportunities are developing to reach shoppers in new ways is very energizing. Over the past few years, as our retail partners continue to rapidly evolve their capabilities to influence the shopper experience, we’re able to drive awareness for our brands while tracking results with greater precision. As we see capabilities and data converge in shopping platforms, we’ll see a huge unlock in the ability to intercept shoppers wherever they are and measure the results with better confidence of effectiveness.

Women of Excellence: Collaboration

Courtney Becker Senior Director of Strategic Procurement & Partnerships, Insignia Systems and expand our ability to provide custom solutions to our clients. I partner with our sales team daily to provide them the information they need to be successful, and to ensure the materials we produce are of the highest quality standards. I also explore emerging product opportunities to identify ways to expand our offerings.

How has collaboration with other teams within the company helped you push your work forward?

Courtney Becker ’s retail career started with a part-time job at Anthropologie (part of the Urban Outfitters family) that soon turned into a full-time management position. She chose to leave the challenging retail schedule behind after a few years, taking her knowledge of store operations to the support side at Rockler Cos., a national woodworking chain. She spent seven years there before joining Insignia Systems, lured there to a position in which she could utilize her knowledge of in-store operations. As Insignia has transformed, she has experienced different roles during a nearly five-year tenure. She now holds the title of senior director of strategic procurement & partnerships, a position she assumed in August 2019.

Becker is one of three Women of Excellence honorees in the “Collaboration” category.

What are your current responsibilities?

Becker: I develop and oversee relationships with external vendors that help us enhance our internal capabilities

Becker: It’s a daunting task to step into something you don’t know anything about, and little did I know that signs and displays can be very complex. But what I did know right away was the importance of starting relationships with people in all areas of the company. You have to find a go-to resource person on the sales team, in production, the warehouse, finance – the entire company.

Collaboration starts small with a question here and there, but it grows over time until you find yourself fully immersed with people throughout the organization. It has also helped me develop by challenging me to think in new and different ways since there’s always some healthy tension as we work to find the right solutions. It’s amazing how ideas can grow out of disagreements into plans that work best for everyone.

What qualities do you believe constitute a true collaborator?

Becker: First, having the trust and respect of your fellow collaborators. You have to be transparent and accountable to the team by being honest if something isn’t working. Along with gaining that trust, you have to reciprocate to show respect and professionalism to others. Second, gaining individual support for difficult decisions ahead of time. It can be very powerful to have buy-in from critical team members to ensure things move in the right direction.

January 2020

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Third is understanding the appropriate times for the appropriate actions.

Sometimes you need to be a compassionate listener who sympathizes with challenging situations; other times you need to be critical and direct if there is a missed deadline or problem with accuracy.

What is your role when it comes to working with third-party retail solution vendors?

Becker: To ensure we have the right partners in place with the right capabilities to meet our clients’ needs. This involves maintaining numerous relationships with partners, negotiating pricing changes as needed, looking for efficiencies across projects we’ve previously executed, keeping up to speed on new trends, overseeing the accuracy of all ongoing estimates, and executing projects.

What are you most proud of in your work?

Becker: A peer committee I started in early 2019. I gathered all my director-level peers to discuss how we were leading our teams, what things were working well, what challenges we were facing, etc. It was a great opportunity to realize we were all dealing with similar challenges and discuss ways to work together to overcome them, and it provided an opportunity to take a much-needed pause from hectic day-to-day activities to collectively reflect on broader topics that can easily get overlooked. Each month, a different director identifies a topic to discuss and we make time to collaborate together.

What excites you most about the future of this space?

Becker: I can’t wait to see what ways technology and the in-store experience will continue to converge, and I’m most curious about how technology will merge into displays and merchandising. We’re currently exploring ways to incorporate technology into our displays from an execution standpoint to track and identify when and where displays are set up. It can be hard to keep up, but I’m glad to be a part of a team that’s not afraid to be bold, challenge the status quo and thrive in a changing environment. IQ

PATH TO PURCHASE

# TRENDS 2 Our annual state of the industry report examines some of the major issues affecting consumer goods companies as we begin a new decade.

BY T I M B I N D E R

Compared to last year, how has your organization’s investment (budget) changed for the following areas?

It’s full speed ahead with spending for digital media and e-commerce, according to our 2020 Path to Purchase Trends survey of consumer goods marketing professionals.

Seventy percent of respondents said their companies have increased investments in digital media and e-commerce compared to the previous year, while pretty much no one said spending in those areas has decreased (see chart). Meanwhile, 75% said their companies’ investment in shopper marketing, in-store marketing and consumer promotion has either increased or stayed the same. Even with traditional media – which garnered the most “decrease in investment” responses (27%) – 60% of respondents said spending has either increased or stayed the same.

Budgets are just the tip of the iceberg among the subject matter in our annual Trends report.

Conducted in late October 2019, our online survey queried U.S.-based consumer goods marketing executives. We asked them to discuss collaboration, compare Walmart and Amazon, rate their digital media activity, and assess their in-store activity, among other topics.

On the following pages, you’ll find survey results and analysis by the editors of Path to Purchase IQ. Our report will extend beyond this month into February with a detailed report on retailer digital media platforms.

Increase in investment Shopper Marketing

Flat, stayed same

In-store marketing

8.9% 13.3%

40.0%

Trade promotions

17.8%

43.3%

Digital media

(paid search, Internet, ads, social)

7.8%

18.9% 70.0%

46.7%

Mobile

(SMS mobile app/website advertising)

E-commerce content (PIM, DAM, delivery packaging, etc.)

8.9%

13.3% 48.9%

20.0%

33.3%

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31.1%

14.4%

22.2%

13.3%

46.7%

January 2020

33.3%

14.4%

3.3%

11.1% 37.8%

4.4%

12.2%

40.0%

Insights & analytics

Don’t know

Consumer promotions

12.2%

37.8%

4.4%

Decrease in investment

Traditional media (TV, print, etc.)

13.3%

24.4%

26.7% 71.1%

35.6%

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION

S 2020 Analysis # Collaboration/JBP ..............................Page 26

In your organization, into what function does shopper marketing report?

# Walmart and Amazon ...................... Page 28 # Digital Marketing.................................Page 29

46.1%

Marketing

# In-Store Activity.................................. Page 30

36.0%

Sales Dedicated shopper marketing department

13.5%

# Trending Topics....................................Page 32

Other 4.5% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

January 2020

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#

PATH TO PURCHASE TRENDS 2020

Collaboration/JBP

BY P E T E R B R E E N

It’s commonly accepted wisdom across the industry that the need for truly strategic, collaborative joint business planning between brands and retailers has become even more critical in the new omnichannel marketplace. With consumers now enjoying far more shopping options than ever before, traditional trade partners need to align more closely to make sure that shoppers will keep choosing them.

It’s therefore not a very promising sign that only 11% of companies consider themselves to have “highly effective” JBP at their organizations, with most of the rest labeling their current efforts as “good” with room for improvement or “mediocre” but getting better (see chart, page 27).

Perhaps surprisingly, respondents directed most of the blame for these less-than-ideal processes internally rather than on unwilling or unenlightened retailer partners – with the dreaded “silos” identified most often as the culprit. “It can be a challenge to implement needs when we have 10 cooks in the kitchen,” said one respondent. “We start the planning process working crossfunctionally, but as we move to execution we get more siloed,” said another.

Still, most organizations do at least seem to be trying. While the sales department naturally Only 11% of continues to lead the JBP process (see chart at companies have right), it’s certainly a positive trend that nearly ‘highly effective’ two-thirds of respondents report that both and brand marketing are involved JBP practices. –shopper as well as top management. Such breadth and depth of participation bodes well for conversations that should be rising above the level of pricing and trade promotion.

Another good sign might be that, in terms of planning, respondents report that slightly more than one-third of their shopper marketing programs are driven by an equal balance of retailer and brand objectives (see chart below right). That’s up 10% since the question was asked last in our Trends 2016 report.

The recent push by leading retailers to establish themselves as bona fide digital media platforms will hopefully not distract from ongoing efforts to develop stronger JBP practices. Ahold Delhaize, for one, makes a clear distinction between its bannerlevel growth-building collaboration with CPG partners and the companywide, cross-chain digital reach it’s now actively selling via Peapod Digital Labs, sales team lead Linda Crowder told Path to Purchase Expo attendees last November.

Elsewhere, Target narrowly beat out Walmart as the retailer

January 2020

Which business units are typically involved in your joint business planning?

92.5%

Sales Brand Marketing

66.3%

Top Management

66.3% 63.8%

Shopper Marketing

57.5%

Insights/Analytics

36.3%

Supply Chain

33.8%

Digital Marketing Demand Planning

28.8%

IT

6.3%

Other

6.3% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

In the current year, what percentage of your organization’s shopper marketing programs are … ?

Primarily driven by retailer objectives

29.3%

Equal balance of retailer and organization

34.3%

Primarily driven by organization’s objectives

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36.4% 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

PATH TO PURCHASE TRENDS 2020

How would you describe the current state of joint business planning at your company?

11.3%

Highly effective Good, but plenty of room for improvement

46.3%

Mediocre, but making progress

33.8%

Still struggling to make it happen

8.8% 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

respondents believe should serve as the industry’s role model for collaboration (with Kroger a pretty close third). Respondents praise Target for providing “an environment that creates joint business plans for long-term success,” and “visibility and buy-in that Target narrowly allow for joint objective planning and beat out Walmart goal-setting.” “While tough, they also like to partner to solve problems and provide as the retailer value for their guests,” said another. ‘role model’ for The ultimate goal is for JBP to look beyond year-over-year sales targets collaboration. to achieve new, sustainable growth by developing collaborative plans that meet the needs of the shared target: the shopper. In that scenario, the JBP process aims to drive growth at the category level or beyond, is informed by consumer and shopper insights rather than historical sales figures, and delivers plans seeking to solve each partner’s long-term business challenges through shared resources and aligned objectives.

# E-Commerce Is your company pursuing direct-to-consumer sales?

Yes. We already are selling direct to consumers.

31.7%

40.7%

It doesn’t have an impact

53.3% 15.0%

More retailers are using individual store locations for e-commerce logistics/fulfillment. How is this affecting your inventory planning and product distribution strategies?

Yes. We do not currently sell direct to consumers, but are working on a strategy.

No. We have no plans at this time to sell direct to consumers.

It is not a concern right now, but we’re looking into it

27.8%

It is starting to have an impact on inventory planning and product distribution

27.8%

It is already a significant challenge 3.7% 0%

January 2020

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5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

#

PATH TO PURCHASE TRENDS 2020

Walmart and Amazon

BY PATRYCJA MALINOWSKA

One of the latest changes coming out of Walmart HQ in Bentonville that could directly affect suppliers is a promotional signage purge intended to reduce clutter at the shelf. Exactly how much and how broadly Walmart is pulling back on promotional signage remains to be seen, yet a third of respondents already anticipate that the new restrictions will impact their organization’s sales at the retailer (see chart at right).

Naturally, the anticipated impact seems to be most pronounced among product categories (such as grocery) that rely heavily on signage to promote new items and offers. “Our category relies on frequent impulse purchases, so removing the signage that help call out the product could negatively impact the impulse purchases at shelf,” one respondent said.

Another commented, “It reduces the chance for messaging to the shoppers and impacting their behaviors, ultimately cutting in-store communications opportunities.”

Those who weren’t worried that the change would impact sales reported that their organizations already spend minimally (or not at all) on custom signage. “I think shoppers are so much more mobile now that the impact of in-store signs has significantly decreased,” one respondent suggested. Another said: “There are now digital capabilities that we can leverage to target our consumers.”

Alternative areas of potential investment cited by respondents ranged from pallets/endcaps to digital media/360-degree omnichannel investments and retailtainment, to Walmart owned co-op programming. One respondent even foresaw the ability to make up for any slight impact on store sales through Online Grocery Pickup volume.

A year ago, as part of its efforts to improve digital capabilities, Walmart introduced preferred digital content partners to help ensure that technical issues and business priorities are addressed efficiently and effectively. About one-fifth of survey respondents indicated that working with these partners has improved business, but many still aren’t sure of the impact (27.0%) or aren’t even engaging with them (32.4%).

Another strategy that has become increasingly more visible and nuanced at Walmart and other big retailers like Amazon is partnering with suppliers on exclusive brands. Among respondents who are already executing (17.8%) or considering (32.9%) this strategy (see chart at right), the motivations ranged from a spirit of partnership and avoiding trade conflict to the opportunity to test new products on a large scale and increase

January 2020

Walmart is pulling back on promotional signage and removing supplier signs in various categories.

How will this impact your organization’s sales at Walmart?

Significant impact on sales

10.7%

Slight impact on sales

25.3%

No real impact on sales

36.0%

We don’t have promotional signage at Walmart

18.7% 9.3%

Not sure / Don’t know 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Walmart and Amazon are both partnering with CPGs to offer exclusive brands. Is this a strategy your organization has considered?

Yes, we’re already doing it

17.8% 32.9%

Yes, we’re considering

49.3%

No 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

sales volume – or, as one respondent put it: “because money.”

Another respondent went so far as to say that “mass market cookie-cutter brands are dead” because good strategy requires building around unique shoppers at key retailers.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s recent competitive advertising practices – including placing competitor ads on product detail pages and private-label ads under add-to-cart buttons – have already had a negative effect on business at the retailer for 11.4% of respondents, while another 31.4% said they aren’t sure of the effect but are concerned. Many (44.3%), however, said Amazon’s practices haven’t had any effect yet.

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#

PATH TO PURCHASE TRENDS 2020

Digital Marketing

BY CYNDI LOZA

Revisiting a topic we raised in a similar question in our Trends 2017 report, we asked brand marketers which touchpoints are most and least important to their digital marketing strategy (see chart below). Paid search ads shot up to the top of the list this year with 23% of participants calling the touchpoint most valuable – compared with just 9.3% in 2017.

Explaining the reason for their choice, various respondents said paid search ads deliver a solid return on advertising spend. Another respondent explained that given the fact that “most consumers search Amazon or Google for product information prior to going to [the] store or e-store for purchase, it is critical that our brands are near [or] at the top of the search.”

Additional responses for other “most important” selections included: • Retailer websites/media platforms: “Our reach is multiplied greatly with other sites than just our own.”

• Brand websites/apps: “It is where we have the most control over strategy, execution, creative and data.”

• Social media: “Given the ability to geo-target, which is beneficial for our brand, and target specific users, it allows for messaging that resonates with the shopper and the ability to pivot quickly should the retail offering change.”

Conversely, third-party apps continue to be the least important touchpoint among digital marketing strategies, chosen by a whopping 50% of respondents – versus 24.6% in 2017. Although they are extremely popular with brands for reaching large and often relevant groups of shoppers, some respondents labeled the apps as ineffective, or said they simply are not used or are not a priority at their company.

Which of these touchpoints is MOST/LEAST important in your digital marketing strategy?

MOST LEAST Paid search ads Retailer websites/media platforms

3.3%

Your brand websites/apps

8.3%

21.3%

Loyalty programs (retailer/brand)

9.8% 5.0%

Display ads on external sites

6.6% 5.0%

Third-party app

3.9%

Retailer apps

3.9% 8.3%

Sponsored content on external sites

• Rate each retailer’s digital media platform on its performance in targeting effectiveness, measurement capabilities, ROI, data sharing, sales growth and creative freedom.

50.0%

1.6% 6.7% 0%

10%

More Trends Coming in February

• What percentage of your retailer digital media activity is dedicated to the following objectives?

16.4%

14.8% 8.3%

Social media

Taking a page from Amazon’s playbook, top retailers such as Walmart, Target and Kroger are building up their digital media assets to position themselves as credible options for brand advertising.

But while shopper marketers and customer teams have long understood the effectiveness of advertising on “retailer.com,” many CMOs, brand managers and digital media planners are still unconvinced. In the February issue of Path to Purchase IQ, we’ll assess the current state of leading retailer media platforms and the current mindset of consumer product manufacturers as they determine the best way to work with these critical marketing vehicles.

To complement this feature story, we’ll present additional Trends 2020 survey results – including rating the performance of the digital media platforms at Amazon, Walmart, Target, Kroger, Albertsons, Ahold/Peapod, Giant Eagle, Southeastern Grocers and Staples.

• In your organization, from which budget is your retailer digital media spend primarily allocated?

23.0%

5.0%

# Retailer Media Platforms

20%

30%

40%

50%

January 2020

60%

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#

PATH TO PURCHASE TRENDS 2020

In-Store Activity

BY CHARLIE MENCHACA

Survey respondents were a little tough on retailers when it came to rating their overall in-store and online experiences (see chart below right). On a 1-5 scale, the highest in-store score earned was Best Buy’s 3.7, and the highest score for online was Target’s 3.5. In our 2017 survey, Target rated the highest for in-store experience. There was no love for dollar store aesthetics as Family Dollar received the lowest ratings for both in-store and online. The chain also received the lowest score for in-store in 2017. (We didn’t ask about online in 2017.)

Walmart’s and Walgreens’ tight standards for in-store merchandising earned them the highest ratings for restrictiveness in display acceptance (see chart, page 31), while Albertsons Cos. was lauded for being very or somewhat open for display acceptance.

Asked to compare their current and past practices, 40% of respondents said their in-store marketing activity is now focused more on delivering product information than it used to be (see chart below). While 23.3% said they’re still focused primarily on secondary product placement , an equal number said they’re now emphasizing experiential elements as well – with one person noting that his brand’s in-store activity is “focusing on disruption and shopper engagement.”

Similar to recent years, the majority of respondents (63%) were clear in pointing out that e-commerce does not have a significant impact on their in-store display activity (see chart, page 31). One survey respondent said, “We plan e-commerce activity based on what we’re doing in-store. It’s more about supporting in-store than [it is] e-commerce leading.” In contrast, one respondent said that the company’s spend is shifting to online as many shoppers are not even stepping in the store anymore.

How would you rate the following retailers on the overall customer experience they provide? (scale of 1 to 5)

5 - Consistently provides engaging experiences 1 - Does not provide new and engaging experiences

IN-STORE

What best describes your in-store marketing activity compared with your past practices?

Focused more on delivering product information

40.0%

Focused more on experiential elements

23.3%

Focused primarily on secondary product placement

23.3%

Other

13.3% 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

January 2020

45%

Best Buy 3.7 Target 3.6 Kroger 3.3 Meijer 3.4 Costco 3.4 H-E-B 3.2 Home Depot 3.1 Whole Foods 3.1 PetSmart 3.0 Publix 3.0 7-Eleven 2.9 Lowe’s 2.9 Sam’s Club 2.9 Walmart 2.9 Walgreens 2.8 CVS 2.9 Albertsons 2.8 Aldi 2.7 Petco 2.7 Office Depot 2.6 ShopRite 2.6 Ahold Delhaize 2.5 Staples 2.5 Dollar General 2.4 Family Dollar 2.4

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ONLINE Target 3.5 Walmart 3.5 Best Buy 3.4 Whole Foods 3.3 Home Depot 3.1 PetSmart 3.1 Kroger 3.0 Meijer 2.9 Petco 2.9 Costco 2.8 Lowe’s 2.8 Albertsons 2.7 H-E-B 2.7 Sam’s Club 2.7 Staples 2.6 Ahold Delhaize 2.5 Office Depot 2.5 ShopRite 2.5 Publix 2.5 Dollar General 2.3 7-Eleven 2.2 CVS 2.2 Walgreens 2.1 Aldi 2.0 Family Dollar 1.9

PATH TO PURCHASE TRENDS 2020

SURVEY METHODOLOGY

Please rate the following retailers on their restrictiveness in display acceptance.

Very/somewhat restrictive Walmart

Not sure

Target

Kroger

12.0%

14.3% 25.0%

Very/somewhat open

20.7% 41.4%

52.0%

36.0%

60.7%

In late October 2019, several thousand U.S.-based consumer goods marketing executives were emailed a questionnaire to be completed online. The names were drawn from Path to Purchase IQ magazine subscribers, Path to Purchase Institute members and others in the EnsembleIQ database, with an emphasis on people with director, manager or senior executive titles.

From those emails, 90 consumer goods marketing executives submitted surveys. Each respondent was entered into a drawing for one of four $100 Amazon gift cards.

The survey was administered and the data compiled by EnsembleIQ Research Solutions.

37.9%

FOR ALL CHARTS Albertsons

Walgreens 11.8%

15.4% 34.6%

23.5% 50.0%

Respondents: Consumer product marketing executives.

Please source all charts to: the Path to Purchase Institute/Path to Purchase IQ magazine.

CVS 18.7%

64.0%

31.3%

50.0%

# Private Label

What impact has e-commerce had on your in-store display activity?

Required us to adopt digital/interactive components for in-store

53.7% 42.6%

Walmart

13.0%

31.5%

Target

Changed the product/SKUs 7.4% that we merchandise Other 7.4%

Costco

25.9%

Kroger

25.9% 11.1%

Whole Foods

It has had no impact 10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

9.3%

Aldi

63.0% 0%

(Select up to three)

Amazon

16.7%

Changed the creative concepts that we use

Which of the following retailers’ private-label strategies are most threatening to CPG brands?

70%

Albertsons 5.6% CVS 5.6% Dollar General 5.6% 7-Eleven

3.7%

Publix

3.7%

Sam’s Club

3.7% 1.9%

Walgreens

Ahold Delhaize 0.0% Meijer 0.0% Other 5.6% Don’t believe private label is a threat

9.3% 0%

January 2020

| 31 | consumergoods.com

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

#

PATH TO PURCHASE TRENDS 2020

Trending Topics

BY T I M B I N D E R

For the second straight year, we asked participants to choose from a list of topics which would be most and least valuable to them in the coming year. While the selections were spread pretty evenly, emerging brands were called out most often (17%) as most valuable.

Among the reasons given: “We like to know what is growing in the market place,” and “The beverage category has been bombarded with innovation.”

On the other end of the spectrum, CBD (cannabidiol) was understandably the leader for least valuable (26%) as many said it simply doesn’t apply to their products.

But, interestingly, only three other topics were called out more often than CBD as most valuable. Clearly, CBD is on the radar.

Here is additional reasoning behind some other “most valuable” selections: • Health and wellness: “It’s a huge concern for our consumers.”

• Sustainability: “Given our 2025 goals, corporate social responsibility is becoming a real focus for us, our suppliers and retailers.”

• Voice-enabled commerce: “It is quickly coming and we feel very uncertain about the blueprint for success.” Also, “It’s a huge disruptor in the marketplace, and no one has figured how to capitalize on it.”

• Artificial intelligence: “Everybody is talking about it.” Also, “We don’t know much about how to engage the AI world and need to plan for it.”

• All-inclusive marketing: “Our shopper strategy has a 360-degree approach and we would like to ensure we learn new trends to keep up with consumer needs.” Meanwhile, one respondent who chose “allinclusive marketing” as least valuable wrote: “This has become white noise with consumers and is often divisive.”

We left it open for respondents to suggest an alternate topic. Among those identified were customization (“Because that is what the customers are asking for”) and new and exciting products (“It’s the only way we can grow the business”). IQ

Of the following, which would be the MOST and LEAST valuable topics of interest for your organization in the coming year?

MOST All-inclusive marketing

5.7% 7.6%

(pride/lifestyles)

9.4% 11.3%

Artificial intelligence

3.8%

Augmented reality/VR

Emerging brands

1.9% 7.6% 0.0%

5.7% 3.8%

Influencer marketing

7.6% 7.6%

Subscription services Sustainability

3.8%

Transparency

3.8% 3.8%

11.3%

5.7% 3.8%

Voice-enabled commerce

| 32 | consumergoods.com

7.6%

5.7% 7.6%

Plant-based products

0.0% 0%

January 2020

26.4% 17.0%

5.7%

Ethnic marketing

Other

11.3% 7.6%

CBD

(cannabidiol)

Health & wellness

LEAST

7.6% 5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Activation Gallery

Beer/Wine/Spirits Especially at holiday time, secondary displays from a variety of beer, wine and spirits brands find their way into the aisles of grocery, drug and mass stores. Some familiar brands often deploy eye-catching spectaculars, while others try to stand out with unique, attractive endcaps and floorstands. Here’s a sampling of recent activity spotted by Path to Purchase IQ’s editors. Many more beer/wine/spirits activations are showcased on the Path to Purchase Institute’s member website, P2PI.org.

Tito’s Handmade Vodka commanded attention near checkout at CVS Pharmacy with a holiday-themed endcap made up of case stacks, a large Santa Claus figurine and a branded dog house communicating the brand’s “Vodka for Dog People” program, which is meant to “better the lives of pets and their families far and wide,” according to the campaign’s microsite VodkaForDogPeople.com.

San Antonio Winery’s Stella Rosa earned endcap space at Walmart – a full, double endcap in some stores – with the limited-edition art series wine bottles it released at the mass merchant to tie in to Halloween and Day of the Dead. Supporting P-O-P materials included Stellaween-themed base wraps, case stacks and pole toppers. The bottles were also available at limited Target locations.

January 2020

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Menage a Trois deployed a winter-themed endcap display at booze-friendly CVS Pharmacy locations, complete with an inflated snow globe on top of case stacks with various wines from the brand.

Activation Gallery

Anheuser-Busch’s Stella Artois, Budweiser and Bud Light as well as Heineken deployed massive holiday-themed displays at Southeastern Grocers’ Winn-Dixie. The displays were positioned side by side in at least one store. The Budweiser/Bud Light displays showcase one of the famous Clydesdales hovering over case stacks, while Heineken employs a tall Christmas tree display sitting on top of case stacks lined with a branded wrap.

Stella Artois’ display looks like an updated version of the nostalgic holiday-themed endcap introduced in 2017 that was named Best of the Times for 2018 in the Path to Purchase Institute’s annual Design of the Times competition.

Pernod Ricard’s Beefeater called attention to its brand block in the liquor section of a Missouri Walmart store with custom aisle violators and shelf blockers touting its original London Dry gin as well as a new strawberry-flavored variety dubbed London Pink. Deployed in June, the shelf blockers presented recipes incorporating the liquor. Both signage types carried QR codes leading to additional recipes on the brand’s website.

January 2020

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THE ART OF MERCHANDISING

TM

Mark Anthony Brands’ Mike’s hard lemonade activated its national partnership with The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at Walmart, earning secondary merchandising space for its ASPCA-branded 12-bottle variety packs on a pallet in the liquor aisle. The case stack was topped with a header promising a 25-cent donation to ASPCA for each case purchased between March 1 and Sept. 30, 2019. The header also carried a take-one tearpad dangling $5 off the purchase of any two six-packs or one 12-pack by mail from April 1 to Sept. 30.

Bogle Family Vineyards’ Phantom wines were stocked on wooden floorstands complete with a hanging lantern at Niemann Foods’ Harvest Market location in Champaign, Illinois. Also at that store, Cooper & Thief Cellarmasters’ wine enjoyed secondary merchandising space via a unique, industriallooking floorstand. Shelf tags on the display communicate whether the wines were aged in tequila or bourbon barrels.

HOOKS | SHELF MERCHANDISING | LABELING WWW.TRIONONLINE.COM/ART | 800-444-4665 ©2015 Trion Industries, Inc.

January 2020

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Technology Innovation

P2P Toolkit

A roundup of technology-driven tools that drive consumer understanding, engagement and conversion on every step of the path to purchase.

BY PAT H T O P U R C H A S E I Q S TA F F

Since 2013, Coca-Cola Co. has been celebrating the holidays with its polar bears, so naturally, the bears are making their way into digital ad tools. This season, consumers could scan various Coca-Cola cans and bottles with their Apple or Google phones to open up different augmented reality scenes in the phone, including seeing the polar bears come to life in a light show and battle in a snowball fight. When two cans get scanned together, the polar bears play “Jingle Bells” on glass bottles. Coca-Cola worked with the San Francisco-based Tactic to develop the AR experiences. Coca-Cola said it’s the “first large-scale” AR program by the beverage company.

Denver-based Locai Solutions, an e-commerce solutions provider for retailers, has partnered with Wakefern to build out a meal planning e-commerce tool for its shoppers under the ShopRite banner. (Later in the year, Wakefern will roll out the tech to its The Fresh Grocer banner.)

The Locai platform, called CookIt, leverages a combination of menu planning tools and ways to buy fresh foods with one click. ShopRite will call its new e-commerce solution The Recipe Shop and it will be found at ShopRite.com/recipeshop.

The tool looks at what those users are shopping for online and can suggest personalized recipes, as well as pricing out that recipe so the shopper knows how much it will cost on the site. In addition, there are more than 500 recipes that any user can access as well.

January 2020

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Walmart turned its printed Christmas toy catalogue into a dynamic shopping experience this year by leveraging Beaverton, Oregon-based Digimarc Corp.’s platform, which digitally tags items in the catalog so they can be scanned by the Walmart app to be purchased immediately online. The “Scan & Shop powered by Digimarc” technology is being promoted within the 35 million printed catalogs that are available in Walmart’s nearly 4,800 stores. The catalog, with its scannable technology function, includes early deals and items to buy for the holiday. Walmart integrated the Digimarc SDK into the Walmart app so users can scan the bar code in the catalog to open up the interactive feature. The two companies are also working together, based on an announcement in April, to use the bar code on packaging to help reduce food waste and automating a lot of the fresh food inventory process.

By scanning QR codes on select packages of Pepsi packages, users can unlock a digital scratch-off game from PepsiCo that can award consumers money from as little as $5 to as much as $25,000 that they can instantly give to a friend or charity. Pepsi continues to tap into some engaging digital programs with its packaging, such as a recent AR-enabled summer program on Pepsi bottles that scanned codes to add stickers to Instagram posts. The new “Gift it Forward� program has shoppers scan the QR code, but they must get three matching globes in the game to unlock cash.

Propeller Health, a digital health company that helps consumers suffering from asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), announced that its mobile app will now include access to the pharmacy at CVS, Walmart, Kroger and Rite-Aid. Users can make in-app prescription refills or locate a nearby pharmacy, all while continuing to use the app that offers important services like connecting a consumer’s inhaler to deliver insights on medication use, as well as information about symptom triggers and environmental factors that can cause harm. They can then consult with their physician and form better treatment plans.

Shopify is designing e-commerce for email, rolling out a new tool to help retailers who sell over its platform to build, manage and track email marketing programs through Shopify. Currently, a select group of retailers using Shopify have access to customizable email templates and assets to roll out email initiatives to boost sales over the platform. The new Spotify tool comes with measurements on click-through rates and what products are being added to a shopping cart and purchased, as well as email opens.

January 2020

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P2P Toolkit

SPOTLIGHT: At the Shelf Sally Beauty Supply rolled out a virtual try-on tool for shoppers to engage with in stores. The tool helps shoppers discover new hair colors or makeup looks. The tool, called ColorView, is available either at the kiosk or on the retailer’s Apple or Google mobile app. Consumers answer three questions to narrow down into some AI-powered color suggestions. Then through the camera in the in-store unit or the user’s phone, augmented reality technology overlays the new colors to virtually test out before buying.

“The app accomplishes augmented reality by using a proprietary set of artificial intelligence libraries to perform facial recognition, facial mapping and real-time biometric tracking using our customer’s smartphone,” Joe Brenner, group vice president and chief information officer, Sally Beauty Supply, said in a news release.

When shoppers try on a virtual color, the product or shade is automatically added to the user’s shopping list in the mobile phone. From there, the user can add it to a cart to purchase or save it for later. Engagement with the app was available immediately, while the kiosk will be in more than 500 stores within a few months.

Through its Quincy, Mass.-based services company Retail Business Services, Ahold Delhaize announced it was piloting a frictionless, small-format store concept called Lunchbox, similar to concepts previously covered in P2P Toolkit from Amazon Go, Grabango and Standard Cognition.

Paul Scorza, executive vice president of IT, and CIO, Retail Business Services, said with the concept they considered themselves to be fast followers, looking at the technology other companies have tested (such as overhead computer vision cameras and shelf sensors) and implemented at a lower cost. The company partnered with UST Global, a digital solutions company. Both will demo the product at National Retail Federation Big Show next month.

For Ahold, the Lunchbox frictionless concept is being tested at the Retail Business Services office.

The cafeteria was being remodeled and Lunchbox was rolled in, serving 1,000 associates. About a dozen shoppers can shop at once inside the small shop. For now, using the proprietary Retail Business Services app, shoppers scan the phone to check into the store, grab items and go. The technology tracks shoppers at the shelf, knowing what was selected. It automatically charges the shopper’s credit card linked to the app.

January 2020

| 38 | consumergoods.com

Caetlyn Roberts Giant Food

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Store Spotlight

Menards Headquartered in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Menards has more than 300 home improvement stores located primarily in the Midwest. The retailer is known for having a catchy slogan and jingle, “Save big money at Menards.” When Path to Purchase IQ’s editors recently visited Menards stores in Elk River and Cambridge, Minnesota, as well as Long Grove, Illinois, we couldn’t help but notice that Menards is much more than a traditional home improvement store like Home Depot or Lowe’s. As anyone familiar with Menards already knows, many of the consumer packaged goods that you’d normally shop for through other channels are a big focus inside these stores, alongside all the home improvement items you’d expect to find there. And the CPG products aren’t just stocked, they are significantly marketed in the store.

The amount of space devoted to pet products in Menards is substantial – maybe the equivalent of a small pet store.

Nestle’s Purina Pro Plan and Blue Buffalo’s Blue Wilderness were among the products that received prime endcap space as well as complementary floor clings.

Grocery, household and other CPG items are merchandised in the center of the store. SC Johnson’s Ziploc, Southeastern Mills’ Shore Lunch and Link Snack’s Jack Link’s were among the many brands called out via floorstands and endcaps.

January 2020

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Upon entry, shoppers encounter a significant in-line display of laundrycare products from Procter & Gamble’s Tide, Gain and Era brands. Top brand Tide was promoted on end panels and shelf talkers.

Menards leverages floor clings throughout its stores for products in multiple categories. Here you see examples for Procter & Gamble’s Bounty paper towels as well as for King Juice Co.’s Calypso lemonade and BA Sports Nutrition’s BodyArmor sports drink.

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Path to Purchase Solutions Guide

Digital Shopper Engagement Solutions The following is a comparison chart of 39 companies providing digital solutions that help consumer goods companies connect with shoppers and effectively influence their behavior. For more information about these and other digital shopper engagement providers, visit P2PI.org.

P L AT F O R M / S E RV I C E

K E Y C L I E N TS

U N I Q U E F E AT U R E S / B E N E F I TS

Ahalogy Muse, Ahalogy Brandables

• General Mills • Johnsonville • Mondelez International

Ahalogy is a leader in trend-driven influencer content and social media marketing. Clients include more than 100 major brands. Muse delivers category trend data; Brandables creates premium influencer content.

Moment marketing

• Clorox Co. • Johnson & Johnson • Red Bull

Aki Technologies’ moment marketing delivers personalized advertising during a consumer’s most receptive mobile moments to drive stronger awareness, store/web traffic and sales.

Breaktime Media

Breaktime Content

• General Mills • SC Johnson • Unilever

Breaktime Media uses bite-sized content to engage, inspire and influence purchase. It creates and distributes this content all along the path to purchase and activates it against a built-in audience of 36 million shoppers.

Catalina

Audiences by Catalina

Not available

Catalina has introduced 700-plus syndicated and countless customized purchase-based audience segments and sales-lift measurement services, through the LiveRamp Data Store, enabling CPG marketers to securely communicate value to shoppers across mobile, desktop and TV screens.

CO M PA N Y / W E BS I T E

*Ahalogy

www.ahalogy.com

Aki Technologies

www.a.ki (SEE PROFILE ON PAGE 44)

www.breaktimemedia.com

www.catalina.com

* Information compiled by Path to Purchase IQ

January 2020

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P L AT F O R M / S E RV I C E

K E Y C L I E N TS

U N I Q U E F E AT U R E S / B E N E F I TS

Checkout51

• Kellogg Co. • Mondelez International • Procter & Gamble

Checkout51 is a mobile cash back app that allows more than 16.6 million registered members to save on their favorite grocery products from any retailer across the U.S. and Canada. The app is available in Spanish.

• Kraft Heinz • Procter & Gamble • Unilever

CoOptions is focused on active/healthy lifestyle sampling with brands that meaningfully engage consumers along their wellness and passion paths. Our points of difference include in-depth consumer research, professional-grade geolocation of sampling touchpoints around key retail account locations, and strategic marketing capabilities.

Conversant

Not available

Conversant provides deep understanding of millions of consumers (not just segments or site cookies) that can help brands reach their shoppers for years across all devices, wherever they are in the purchase cycle. The company helps clients run efficient campaigns that drive offline sales.

Eyeview

Eyeview Performance Video

• Bayer • Nestle • Pepsico

Eyeview’s performance video is personalized to drive conversion, ROI and omni-shopping sales lift. Proprietary, data-driven technology informs the creative, serving each consumer the most contextually relevant video ad, featuring hyper-local store information and e-commerce, timely and local product, pricing, and hyper-local environmental data.

Fandango Rewards

Earn Rewards Platform

• Bimbo Bakeries • Johnson & Johnson • Monster Energy

Fandango helps brands activate loyalty by allowing consumers to earn points toward a catalog of rewards when they make qualifying purchases.

Fetch Rewards

• Kraft Heinz • MillerCoors • Unilever

Fetch is a retailer-agnostic mobile shopping platform that empowers brands to connect with shoppers directly in a categoryexclusivity environment aimed to drive shopper loyalty through more effective promotion and other tactics.

Flipp

• Bayer • McCormick & Co. • Procter & Gamble

The consumer-facing Flipp app is a planning tool for millions of shoppers. Flipp delivers digital ads from more than 1,000 retailers to help users find deals. Both retailers and brands use the Flipp marketplace to deliver personalized experiences and drive incremental sales.

Freedom

• Chobani • Kraft Heinz • Unilever

Freedom is an open incentives network with more than 42 million unique shoppers in the U.S. that includes load-to-card retail loyalty programs, mobile cash back apps (including Checkout51) and print-at-home couponing.

GasBuddy iPhone/ Android app, website

• Dr Pepper Snapple Group • 5 Hour Energy • Hershey Co.

GasBuddy helps 15 million monthly drivers decide which convenience stores to stop at for gas, food and other necessities, using crowd-sourced information to compare prices and view ratings. With the c-store channel being so fragmented for CPGs, it provides a solution to reach this audience at scale.

CO M PA N Y / W E BS I T E

Checkout51

(NewsAmerica) www.checkout51.com

CoOptions Sampling Store

www.samplingstore.com

*Conversant Media epsilonconversant.com

www.EyeviewDigital.com

www.fandangorewards.com

Fetch Rewards

www.fetchrewards.com

*Flipp www.flipp.com

Freedom

(NewsAmerica) www.getfreedomapi.com

GasBuddy

www.gasbuddy.com

Lifestyle Product Sampling

*Information compiled by Path to Purchase IQ

January 2020

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2020 DIGITAL SHOPPER ENGAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE

COMPANY PROFILE It’s never been harder to get consumer attention.

Today’s consumers are busy, distracted and overwhelmed by messaging, information and choice. If you want your advertising to stand out, you can’t add to the noise. You need to be part of the solution.

When your advertising demonstrates that you understand a consumer’s wants and/or needs in a given moment, you’re much more likely to make that valuable connection.

This is particularly true for mobile, where consumer behavior and mindsets change from moment to moment. Your success depends on understanding key questions, like: What moments does your audience experience? When are they most likely to respond to your message?

What creative and ad format will help you reach your campaign goals?

This is where Aki Technologies comes in.

Let us help you win the mobile moment.

Aki Technologies’ moment marketing analyzes vast sets of data signals in the moment, mapping the receptivity of each of your audience segments and enabling the optimal ad experience for each moment.

Aki’s moment marketing is powered by state-of-the-art tech, but it’s a more human approach to advertising. The result? Your ads stand out— as part of the solution, not the problem.

Ready to learn more? Contact us at shoppermarketing@a.ki

At-A-Glance WHO WE ARE

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

CONTACT

At Aki, we want to make advertising better for everyone.

That’s why we created moment marketing—by helping you reach audiences when they’re most receptive, we deliver better experiences for consumers and increase the value of your advertising.

• • • • •

Matt Knust, VP, Sales mknust@a.ki

EXPERTISE Aki’s moment marketing technology identifies patterns in consumer behavior to deliver personalized messages when your audience is most receptive. Drive stronger awareness, engagement, traffic and sales by targeting the mobile moments that offer the most advertising impact.

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Tailored Mobile Moment Ad Strategy Ad formats: Video, Rich Media, Display, Audio Custom Audience Insights Personalized Creative Messaging In-House Creative Services

Todd Benedict, CRO tb@a.ki Tel: 415.462.4254

CLIENTS • Johnson & Johnson • Clorox • Red Bull

• Bimbo Bakeries • General Mills • Nestle Purina

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IF YOU’RE NOT REACHING SHOPPERS IN THE RIGHT MOMENTS,

YOUR MOBILE ADS MIGHT AS WELL RUN ON THIS. You know you need to reach mobile consumers, but how do you build strong connections with an audience that isn’t always receptive to mobile ads?

Moment marketing science helps you identify and target the moments when your mobile ads are most likely to get attention. The result? Greater impact, a more efficient ad spend and a better ad experience for consumers. www.a.ki/shopper | shoppermarketing@a.ki Moment Marketing Moment Science Marketing Science P2PIQ_FULL_PAGE_BLEED.indd 1

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2020 DIGITAL SHOPPER ENGAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE

COMPANY PROFILE Our Foundation GroundTruth is the leading mobile location advertising company for driving store visits and sales performance. Our platform is powered by our proprietary Blueprints mapping technology and patented location signal verification algorithm. Combined with our demand-side platform, Groundtruth Ads Manager, advertisers can create highly customizable shopper audiences, target them in real time, and understand in-campaign performance to optimize and drive results.

Best in Class Ways of Working with GroundTruth In-Store Activations

vertising veraging ation based

Driving awareness and sell-through

New Product Launch

Sales Lift for Specified Stores Driving sales & lift measurement of selected subset of stores (OGP)

Driving awareness and trial of new products across stores with availability (i.e. first scan data)

to reach shoppers throughout the consumer journey Retailtainment

Driving awareness & store visits around key events

Multi-Product/ Partnership Awareness

Driving maximum unique awareness of products before shopper visits store

Performance: Our primary focus is driving store visits and sales for our clients. We leverage a unique combination of visitation and sales data at the store level to understand performance in-flight, optimize for results, and drive measurable ROI for our clients.

Advanced Targeting: With our mapping technology, Blueprints, we can identify shoppers of specific store locations, build highly customizable audiences, and target shoppers in real-time throughout their path to purchase.

Transparency: We are fully transparent in how we source our data and activate digital media campaigns. Our demand-side platform is available for both managed service and self-service allowing clients complete transparency into how our technology is working for them.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT – ADVANCED TARGETING – QUALITY AND TRANSPARENCY

and influence purchase decisions along the way by delivering in the moment, relevant messaging.

At-A-Glance WHO WE ARE

d mobile targeting driving ts and sales performance

GroundTruth is a mobile location technology company that drives results. By unlocking our location data and audiences, we enable you to build off of what real shoppers are doing in the real world in order to influence store visits and sales.

EXPERTISE

We are the mobile locations experts and we drive ww.groundtruth.com performance. We understand there is a direct correlation between store visits and sales, and through our proprietary buying platform we optimize for results throughout a campaign’s lifecycle to drive measurable outcomes for our clients.

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES

CONTACT

• • • • •

Mark Fleisch VP, CPG Shopper Marketing mark.fleisch@groundtruth.com

Advanced Mobile Targeting Store Visit and Sales Measurement Analytics Guaranteed Performance Pricing Models Creative Services Managed Service and Self-Service

CLIENTS

@groundtruthco • Procter & Gamble • • • •

PepsiCo Kraft Heinz Kimberly Clark Mars Wrigley

GROUNDTRUTH.COM 12/16/19 12/17/19 12:26 10:28 PM AM

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We drive digital advertising performance by leveraging consumer and location based data and insights

to reach shoppers throughout the consumer journey

and influence purchase decisions along the way by delivering in the moment, relevant messaging.

Advanced mobile targeting driving store visits and sales performance Learn more: visit www.groundtruth.com

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@groundtruthco

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2020 DIGITAL SHOPPER ENGAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE

COMPANY PROFILE Move Consumers from Ad to Action.

See results when you partner with Valassis to make your marketing strategies even smarter.

We convert billions of data points into meaningful engagement to inspire action and grow your business. Today’s omnichannel consumers want consistent personalization. With our unique insights and marketing technology, we’re able to anticipate intent, target the right consumers, personalize and scale your multichannel campaigns, and optimize performance.

The Valassis Difference.

Our proprietary marketing technology connects billions of consumer behavior and location signals to determine who is in-market and ready to buy, and how best to engage them to spark a response. We actually deliver and optimize omnichannel campaigns on your behalf with our diverse online and offline media solutions, closed-loop platform, and superb analytics. Our culture is also different, connecting our employees to causes and growth opportunities at work and in our communities.

Award-winning Valassis Consumer Graph™ Anticipate intent thanks to the vast, online and offline consumer data flowing through our graph, which provides a full consumer view. It earned a 2019 “Sammy” product of the year in the Sales and Marketing Tech Awards.

At-A-Glance WHO WE ARE

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

INDUSTRIES SERVED

Valassis is the leader in marketing technology and consumer engagement. We work with over 60,000 companies and brands in a wide array of industries, partnering to anticipate consumer intent, inspire action, and create demand.

Spark engagement when and where it matters via our:

• Consumer Packaged Goods • Grocery • Restaurant • Retail

EXPERTISE We turn intent into action using unparalleled predictive intelligence. Every day, Valassis converts billions of data points into meaningful engagement across multichannel media.Transforming the way brands motivate consumers, optimize campaigns, and drive measurable results.

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• • • • • •

Valassis Consumer Graph™ Valassis Intent Engine™ Online Advertising Print Marketing Data Solutions Analytics & Measurement

• • • •

Telecom Healthcare Financial Auto

CONTACT Susan Rothwell Chief Revenue Officer sfrothwe@valassis.com

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CO M PA N Y / W E BS I T E

GroundTruth

www.groundtruth.com (SEE PROFILE ON PAGE 46)

*Ibotta

cpg.ibotta.com/

Inmar Intelligence www.inmar.com

InMarket

www.inmarket.com

Krazy Coupon Lady

www.thekrazycouponlady.com

*Macaroni Kid

www.macaronikid.info

Merkle (HelloWorld) www.merkleinc.com

*Myxx

www.myxxsolutions.com

*PCH/Media

media.pch.com

P L AT F O R M / S E RV I C E

K E Y C L I E N TS

U N I Q U E F E AT U R E S / B E N E F I TS

Ads Manager/ Demand Side Platform, Blueprints/ Mapping platform

• Kraft Heinz • PepsiCo • Procter & Gamble

GroundTruth’s mobile location advertising platform is powered by a proprietary Blueprints mapping technology and patented location signal verification algorithm. The platform allows advertisers to create shopper audiences, target them in real time, and drive real results.

Ibotta

Not available

Ibotta has provided millions of dollars in cash back rewards to shoppers on their everyday purchases. For brand and retailer partners, Ibotta is an efficient way to generate incremental purchases on a pay-per-sale mobile platform.

Inmar Connect

Not available

Inmar Connect delivers scalable, data-driven technology that powers meaningful shopper experiences and revenue-driving results. Through Intelligent Media, Integrated Incentives and Optimized Delivery solutions Inmar uniquely enables more connected, better performing activations.

inMarket

• Energizer • Heineken • NatureMade

Since 2010, inMarket has helped its partners better understand who their consumers are, why they make decisions and where to most effectively reach them. Through its location-based advertising suite, brands activate real-time digital advertising in the moments that matter, generating powerful results.

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest

• Procter & Gamble • Kimberly-Clark • L’Oreal

Millions of shoppers trust The Krazy Coupon Lady to help them shop smarter on everyday purchases, and the company leverages that trust to connect people to products and brands. Krazy Coupon Lady works with many of the biggest names in CPG, retail, affiliate and elsewhere to create high-performing campaigns that influence purchase decisions.

Macaroni Kid

Not available

Macaroni Kid has the unique ability to geo-target influencer messaging for shopper marketing campaigns. Its model has more than 500 local Macaroni Kid Publishers across the U.S. who reach local readers — 90% of whom live within 10 miles of their influencer.

Human Loyalty

• Anheuser-Busch • Coca-Cola • Johnson & Johnson

Merkle is a global performance marketing agency that helps brands deliver unique, personalized customer experiences across platforms and devices. Its acquisition of HelloWorld enables enhanced connections with shoppers through data-driven promotions, loyalty programs, and CRM.

Not available

Myxx dynamically connects brands and retailers to consumers through personalized “shoppability,” providing unique insights to help drive deeper funnel engagement, conversions and measurable sales lift across the path to purchase (and repurchase).

Not available

The digital advertising arm of Publishers Clearing House, PCH/ Media offers creative digital media and audience solutions to help marketers identify the right people and persuade them to buy.

Advertisers can target segments of PCH’s premium first-party audience for remarketing, loyalty or exclusions.

Myxx Recipes

PCH/Media

* Information compiled by Path to Purchase IQ

January 2020

| 50 | consumergoods.com

CO M PA N Y / W E BS I T E

*Pinpoint Data

www.pinpoint-data.om

*PrizeLogic

www.prizelogic.com

*Prodege

www.prodege.com

*PromotionPod

www.promotionpod.com

P L AT F O R M / S E RV I C E

K E Y C L I E N TS

U N I Q U E F E AT U R E S / B E N E F I TS

CouponChek, Barcode Wizard, Others

Not available

Pinpoint Data’s integrated services help clients improve the quality of their data and the coupons they distribute. Each Pinpoint product produces and delivers accurate, high-quality, user-friendly, innovative and cost-effective services.

PrizeLogic

• Hershey Co. • Samsung • T-Mobile

PrizeLogic is a leading independent digital engagement agency that uses data-driven insights and strategic incentives to capture consumer attention and motivate action. From turnkey sweepstakes to custom loyalty programs, its technology platform seamlessly scales to meet each client’s specific objectives.

Not available

The new Shoply app provides a next-generation approach to retail through in-store shopping solutions that are strengthened by powerful insights and deliver an improved experience and more engaged consumers.

Not available

PromotionPod provides custom digital coupon programs for brands and shopper marketing agencies in the U.S. and Canada.

Brands can build a direct-to-consumer marketing channel using owned web properties, social networks, and media with digital offers powered by PromotionPod.

Shoply

PromotionPod

Quotient

Quotient Promotions Cloud

• Clorox Co. • General Mills • Procter & Gamble

Quotient is a leading digital promotions, media and analytics company delivering personalized digital coupons and ads – informed and measured with proprietary shopper and online engagement data – to millions of shoppers daily. Quotient has exclusive and non-exclusive relationships with numerous U.S. retailers, including Albertsons, Ahold-Delhaize and Dollar General.

RevTrax

Offer Management Platform

• Clorox Co. • Danone • Kimberly-Clark

The RevTrax Offer Management Platform empowers hundreds of leading brands to deploy discount offers across digital marketing channels, track the performance and connect insights to decisions that save money and drive more ROI from their existing marketing efforts.

Ansa

Not available

Ansa utilizes daily store-level POS data to automatically target, optimize and measure digital marketing campaigns for leading CPGs, agencies, trading desks and ad networks. Retail Solutions Inc. is a software-as-a-service company that transforms data into value in the store, on the shelf and with shoppers.

SavingStar

• Bertolli • General Mills • Henkel

Through a national network of 100-plus loyalty card-linked grocery retailers and 35-plus receipt scan retailers, SavingStar crafts mobile promotions and loyalty programs that deliver best-in-class ROI. More than 7 million shoppers have joined the program. Its exclusive technology also can be white-labeled for large brands.

Not available

One of the longest-operating shopper rewards apps, Shopkick provides consumer engagement across the full path to purchase. The platform drives store visits, center aisle traffic and incremental sales. The pay-for-performance pricing model delivers ROI at levels above industry norms.

www.quotient.com

www.revtrax.com

*RSi/Ansa

www.ansainside.com

*SavingStar (Quotient) www.savingstar.com

*Shopkick

www.shopkick.com

Shopkick

*Information compiled by Path to Purchase IQ

January 2020

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CO M PA N Y / W E BS I T E

Shopliftr

www.shopliftr.com

ShopperBridge

www.shopperbridge.com

SmartCommerce

www.smartcommerce.com

*SKU Local

www.skulocal.com

Snipp Interactive www.snipp.com

TPG Rewards

www.tpgrewards.com

Valassis

www.valassis.com (SEE PROFILE ON PAGE 48)

*Verve

www.verve.com

P L AT F O R M / S E RV I C E

K E Y C L I E N TS

U N I Q U E F E AT U R E S / B E N E F I TS

SMART Dynamic Creative Optimization Ad Platform

• Del Monte Foods • McCormick & Co. • Kellogg Co.

The proprietary Smart platform enables message personalization for digital ad creative to drive enhanced consumer engagement that results in superior in-store sales lift. Our core offering has its foundations in the weekly trade promotions featured in store circulars, which we digitize, normalize and amplify through our platform.

ShopperBridge Mobile Location Ad Delivery at Retail

• Dr Pepper Snapple Group • Procter & Gamble • Smithfield Foods

ShopperBridge uses precise latitudinal/longitudinal targeting to deliver brand ads to shoppers on their mobile phones while they are in the store, before checkout at the moments closest to product selection, to drive sales and positive ROAS on shopper marketing programs. It can reach up to 80% of shoppers at any given retailer, reducing media waste.

Click2Cart

Not available

Click2Cart removes the friction that has limited the potential for digital impulse purchases for brands. Ads, social media, websites, videos, etc., that once built only awareness are now direct e-commerce response points driving millions of dollars of products into retailer carts.

Savings.com

• Conagra Brands • SC Johnson • Tyson

SKUlocal offers targeted shopper solutions to identify and engage specific shopper segments. Its combination of targeted direct mail, customized social integration and geo-specific digital activations deliver measurable results for clients in the CPG, OTC, pharmacy and retail grocery marketplaces.

SnippCheck Transaction Processing Platform

• Kellogg Co. • L'Oreal • Starbucks

Snipp is a global loyalty and promotions company with a focus on fostering meaningful brand relationships through disruptive engagement solutions. Our shopper marketing programs generate unique first-party data that help build robust, proprietary data sets to enable intelligent decision making.

TAP Mobile Engagement

• Johnson & Johnson • Kellogg Co. • Tracfone Wireless

TAP Mobile Engagement enables brands to connect with shoppers through personalized content and incentive offers direct to their mobile device. The platform provides powerful collateral compliance and engagement metrics. When used on-pack, TAP transforms the brand's package into an "Intelligent Package" that provides entirely different experiences for consumers throughout the pre-sale, purchase and consumption lifecycle.

Valassis

• Clorox Co. • Revlon • Unilever

Valassis turns intent into action using predictive intelligence.

Every day, Valassis converts billions of data points into meaningful engagement across multichannel media, transforming the way brands motivate consumers, optimize campaigns, and drive measurable results.

Verve

• Ford • PepsiCo • Unilever

Verve is a location-based mobile platform that connects advertisers with consumers to deliver successful business outcomes. Its proprietary location intelligence, patented technology, premium mobile inventory, and analytics capabilities empower marketers to reach and engage consumers with compelling mobile ad experiences.

* Information compiled by Path to Purchase IQ

January 2020

| 52 | consumergoods.com

Solution Provider News Design of the Times 2020 Call for Entries The Path to Purchase Institute’s Design of the Times contest is now accepting entries for this year. The competition celebrates in-store displays and digital activations, recognizing their role in any successful shopper marketing initiative since 1993. Entries are due on or before Feb. 14. A late entry period will be open from Feb. 15 through Feb. 21 at an additional cost. Winners will be featured at the 2020 Path to Purchase Expo in November. For more information and to submit entries, visit dot-awards.com.

Mars Wrigley Partners with Standard Cognition Mars Wrigley and Standard Cognition are working together to help retailers evolve into a new world of autonomous checkout by integrating seamless technology and impulse category sales. Mars first reached out to Standard Cognition, suggesting the two companies work together to better understand what impact autonomous checkouts would have on shoppers’ experience, particularly at the end of the trip when they’re traditionally seeking products to reward, recharge and remind. This is much of which traditionally takes place while waiting in line for a cashier. During the initial phase of the partnership, Mars and Standard Cognition will educate each

other on their respective capabilities across technology, shopper journey insights and the intersections of operational efficiencies and merchandising excellence for impulse in a cashierless world.

Promotions solution, which brings proprietary incentives to offline receipts printed at checkout. Through its In-Lane solution, Quotient can reach shoppers not yet engaged with digital coupon programs by delivering offers at the bottom of their in-store receipt versus a separate printed paper coupon. The In-Lane solution provides brands the opportunity to reach shoppers in-store and in real-time at checkout. The solution allows CPG brands and retailers to unify shopper experiences across touchpoints and simplify their targeted campaign planning with a single source provider.

The solution is now available to other retailers nationwide.

MinuteKey Turns to Concept Designs MinuteKey asked Concept Designs to develop a lighted sign that would provide both direction and branding. The giant 32-inch by 13.5-inch, two-sided key is lit by an internal LED panel that backlights screened acrylic panels front and back. The key assembly is fashioned from gray powder-coated steel.

The key is mounted on a powder-coated steel stand that can mount with hardware to the top of the kiosk or with high strength neodymium magnets to a display rack.

Concept Designs supplied two versions of the key – a generic green key and an orange key that is unique to The Home Depot.

Albertsons Cos. Integrates Quotient’s Targeted Digital Promotions Albertsons Cos. was the first retailer to roll out Quotient’s In-Lane Targeted Digital

January 2020

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Green Bay Packaging Teams with CompanyBox Green Bay Packaging Inc. became a minority owner of CompanyBox, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based company formed in 2014 by Louie DeJesus and the DeJesus family. CompanyBox utilizes proprietary workflow processes and software to be one of the few companies in the U.S. mastering the web to print in packaging. CompanyBox makes custom packaging widely available by combining digital printing and digital cutting with the accessibility and reach of the web.

CompanyBox will continue to operate under the leadership of Louie DeJesus. IQ

Send your solution provider news – new products, projects, programs and technologies – to Charlie Menchaca at cmenchaca@ensembleiq.com.

Personnel Appointments BRAND MARKETERS Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, Miami Stephanie Silvestre, vice president of supply chain planning and logistics, was promoted to senior vice president of supply chain. Silvestre has been a change leader for the organization and has managed all aspects of product acquisition, inventory, logistics, forecasting and analytics. Continuing to report to Silvestre in her new role are Andrew Vermilion in replenishment, logistics and analytics and Tracey Friend in sales and operations planning.

Unilever, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey Fabian Garcia, former president and chief executive of Revlon, has been appointed president, Unilever North America. He succeeds Amanda Sourry, who decided to retire from the company after more than 30 years of service to pursue new opportunities. Garcia reports to Chief Operating Officer Nitin Paranjpe. Conny Braams, executive vice president, Unilever Middle Europe, has been appointed to the new role of chief digital and marketing officer.

RETAILERS Albertsons Cos., Boise, Idaho Chris Rupp – who once served as an

KATHRYN MCLAY

CHRIS RUPP

Amazon vice president and, most recently, as general manager of Microsoft’s Xbox business engineering team – was named Albertsons chief customer and digital officer. Rupp is responsible for enhancing the shopper experience across all digital touchpoints, accelerating the e-commerce business, and deepening shopper relationships through loyalty programs.

She will also help lead the company’s enterprise data strategy and data science capabilities.

Sam’s Club, Bentonville, Arkansas Kathryn McLay, former executive vice president of Walmart Neighborhood Markets, was named Sam’s Club president and CEO. McLay joined Walmart in 2015 as the vice president of U.S. finance and strategy before she was promoted to senior vice president of supply chain. She succeeds John Furner, who became Walmart U.S. president and CEO.

JOE TERRITO

TANNER VAN DUSEN

EnsembleIQ appointed Joe Territo as its senior vice president of content and named Tanner Van Dusen as managing director of the Path to Purchase Institute. In his role, Territo will oversee cross-platform content strategy and new product development for all EIQ brands across the grocery, convenience, health and wellness and path to purchase/technology sectors. Territo brings more than two decades of cross-functional B2B, consumer content and digital leadership experience. In Van Dusen’s new role, she is charged with driving the growth strategy for P2PI’s industry-leading membership community, extensive portfolio of events, its flagship media property Path to Purchase IQ, and professional development services. Van Dusen will also retain her role as EnsembleIQ’s chief innovation officer. She will leverage the company’s core innovation capabilities to develop new member services including critical research and thought leadership, new training and development platforms, and exclusive live events.

Editorial Index AB InBev ............................................34

Forrester...........................................6, 8

Menage a Trois.................................33

Quotient ...........................................53

Ahold Delhaize .........................26, 38

Geometry Global .............................. 9

Menards .............................................40

Sally Beauty Supply ......................38

Albertsons Cos..........................30, 53

Green Bay Packaging ....................53

Mike’s Hard Lemonade ................14

San Antonio Winery .......................33

Amazon.com ....................................28

Heineken ...........................................34

MinuteKey .........................................53

SC Johnson .......................................40

BA Sports Nutrition ........................41

Hershey Co., The..............................10

MOjO Marketing ............................... 9

Best Buy .............................................30

HMT Associates ................................. 9

Mondelez International .......... 9, 18

Shopify ...............................................37

Blue Buffalo Co. ............................. 40

Home Depot, The ...........................53

Nestle Coffee Partners ...........17, 55

Bogle Family Vineyards ................35

Insignia Systems ............................23

Nestle Purina Petcare ...................40

Coca-Cola Co., The..........................36

Keurig Dr Pepper ............................22

News America Marketing ...........11

CompanyBox....................................53

King Juice Co. ...................................41

Niemann Foods ...............................35

Concept Designs ............................53

Kroger .........................................27, 31

Nike........................................................ 6

Converse ............................................. 6

LALA U.S.............................................21

Path to Purchase Institute ...........53

Cooper & Thief Cellarmasters .....35

Link Snacks .......................................40

PepsiCo ..............................................37

TPN ......................................................10

CVS Pharmacy..................................33

Locai Solutions ................................36

Pernod Ricard ..................................34

True&Co................................................ 6

Dabbl ..................................................20

Lowes Foods ....................................... 9

Phoenix Creative Co. ....................... 9

Wakefern ...........................................36

Digimarc Corp..................................36

Mark Anthony Brands ...................35

Procter & Gamble ....................11, 41

Walgreens....................................12,30

Family Dollar ....................................30

Mars .....................................................53

Propeller Health ..............................37

Walmart..... 26, 28, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 55

January 2020

| 54 | consumergoods.com

Southeastern Grocers ...................34 Southeastern Mills .........................40 Standard Cognition .......................53 Tactic ...................................................36 Target ..........................................26, 30 Tito’s Handmade Vodka................33

Retail Intel

Starbucks Inspires Walmart Shoppers with AR

• Put a bow on it: Wrap festive ribbons around coffee cups. “[The AR element is] a fun way to drive moms that are insanely busy during the holidays down the aisle without asking them to do something more,” Maxwell says.

On Walmart.com, a “make merry memories” display ad that ran on the home page invited consumers to “gather with Starbucks coffee all season.” The ad linked to a corresponding showcase

BY PAT RYC J A M A L I N O W S K A

Nestle’s Starbucks Coffee unwrapped a fun holiday program at Walmart incorporating augmented reality to spotlight a variety of seasonal SKUs ranging from ground coffee to K-cups and cookie straws.

“We tried to inspire shoppers to stir up merry memories with Starbucks at home throughout the entire season instead of just one time,” says Karen Maxwell, who leads shopper marketing for Walmart at Nestle Coffee Partners. “I love the program because it really helps shoppers easily find Starbucks at home coffees throughout the holiday season no matter how they shop Walmart.”

In stores, P-O-P materials – including shelf trays and side panels on a dedicated endcap in Action Alley, plus a variety of shelf talkers in the coffee aisle – call attention to seasonal SKUs and depict a

QR code that triggers the AR experience.

Shoppers point their smartphone cameras at the code and then scan the packaging of a participating product to materialize a red door in the aisle. Knocking on the door (tapping the phone screen twice) transports users inside a home decked out for the holidays. They can then rotate 360 degrees to unveil various cozy scenes – from a Christmas tree to a fireplace – with each vignette offering up a beverage suggestion, including: • Holiday cookies are served: Pair Starbucks holiday blend coffee with cinnamon sugar snickerdoodles.

• Enjoy your favorite Starbucks coffee: While decorating & wrapping gifts.

• Cozy up by the fire: With cups of Starbucks peppermint mocha-flavored coffee.

January 2020

| 55 | consumergoods.com

offering themed videos and “add to cart” buttons for seasonal SKUs. The destination additionally delivered a “minty mocha coffee” recipe and a ZIP code locator to find “Merry Memories Mobile Tour” instore sampling events.

The omnichannel program kicked off mid-October and ran through almost the end of December. It was the first Starbucks activation at Walmart to incorporate AR. “We’ve been building year over year with Walmart in supporting seasons and they’ve been partnering with us in seasonal activation for the last several years,” Maxwell says. “We started conversations [for this program] early – in quarter one of 2019 – and then had them often, which would also be my advice to suppliers: Partnering with your customer is key.” IQ

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