Editor’s Note

Introductions Are in Order

PETER BREEN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

We devote a lot of space But the program will also reward in this issue to introduce in this issue to introduce e ective activation across all other shopper noteworthy industry noteworthy industry touchpoints, both separately as distinct practitioners, including the practitioners, including the tactical executions and as part of more 164 members of our Who’s Who 164 members of our Who’s Who comprehensive campaigns that were in Insights & Analytics list for 2021, a group of designed to reach shoppers at multiple executives that e ectively – and impressively stages of their purchase journeys. – kept their organizations informed during To that end, awards categories will cover a particularly challenging year for tracking everything from in-store displays and on-shelf shopper behavior (see page 32). signage to social media and retail media

We also introduce you to 13 must-know networks. And while we’ll single out the practitioners whose e orts in helping their critically important need for strong brandcompanies respond to the pandemic of retailer collaboration – still the foundation of 2020 made them worthy of recognition as most best-practice shopper marketing – we’ll the Institute’s rst-ever Industry Innovators enter new territory by covering e orts driving (page 14). We also recognize Kroger as our direct-to-consumer sales for brands as well. rst Retail Innovator of the Year – but you Visit OmniShopperAwards.com/2021 for more already know the nation’s largest grocer. information.

Elsewhere, we introduce you to our latest And what’s even more exciting about the proprietary research, a deep dive into the rst-ever OmniShopper Awards is that we’ll current state of the shopper marketing be announcing the winners at … function within manufacturer organizations (page 24), a few pretty unique shopper- Introducing Path to Purchase Live. facing augmented reality activations (page … the rst-ever Path to Purchase Live event, 48), and one particularly experiential which will be held Nov. 1-3 in Orlando, Florida. supermarket (page 52). Yes, that does say “in” Orlando. Based

But I’d like to use some space here to on the supportive feedback we’ve introduce everyone to a couple of new received from numerous members of the initiatives that the Path to Purchase Institute Institute community, and given the overall will be rolling out this month. We hope you’ll reopening of public venues across the U.S., be as excited about participating in them as we’re going to host our rst post-pandemic we are about bringing them to our industry. in-person event this fall. We’re currently working on the agenda, Introducing the OmniShoper Awards. but the plan is to build a schedule that not We’re going to continue our e orts to only will give attendees all the conferencecelebrate innovation this year by launching style learning they’ve come to expect from the OmniShopper Awards, the rst and only our events over the years, but also to o er a recognition program designed to honor wealth of opportunities to meet face-to-face excellence in shopper engagement across with industry leaders, potential business the entire path to purchase, and conducted partners, and each other to further the by the only business intelligence source that education in personal ways that aren’t so actually covers the entire path to purchase. easily replicated through virtual experiences.

The OmniShopper Awards will, naturally, You’ll be hearing plenty about the shine a spotlight on in-store marketing in OmniShopper Awards and Path to Purchase all its forms, much like the Institute’s Design Live over the next few months. Visit P2PI.org of the Times Awards has done for the last and PathtoPurchaseIQ.com to stay up to 26 years. (We will, however, be retiring the date. We’ve got a lot more introductions to DOTs as a stand-alone program.) make this summer.

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

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