P2PIQ-1221 by ensembleiq

DECEMBER 2021

Path Purchase

pathtopurchaseiq.com

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

WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE Celebrating our industry’s inspiring female leaders

INSIDE OMNISHOPPER AWARDS:

20 WINNING CAMPAIGNS

EVENT SUMMARY:

PATH TO PURCHASE LIVE

ACTIVATION GALLERY:

SOCIAL COMMERCE

STORE SPOTLIGHT:

GROOMED x BLESSWELL

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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

2021

OmniShopper Awards

We showcase the 20 winning programs that were recognized for excellence in shopper engagement.

SPECIAL REPORTS

Women of Excellence

Path to Purchase Live: The Digital Experience

Meet the 2021 winners of our annual awards program, which celebrates and connects female leaders who are contributing to the growth of the commerce marketing industry.

An overview of the Path to Purchase Institute’s November event, focusing on DTC, the physical store, social commerce and the shopper.

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VO LU M E 3 4 | ISS U E 8

December 2021 NEWS

DEPARTMENTS 6

Editor’s Note:

Honored to Honor

8 49

P2PI Member Spotlight Activation Gallery:

Social Commerce

14 Brand Watch:

Garnier, Rifle Paper Co. and Cambridge

P2P Toolkit

Spotlight: Packaging

L’Oreal’s Garnier worked with Walmart, while Rifle Paper and Cambridge teamed up at Target for collaborative activity in-store and beyond.

Store Spotlight

Groomed x Blesswell

Solution Provider News

Personnel Appointments/ Editorial Index

15 Loop Moves In-Store

Loop’s global reuse platform is working with Kroger-owned Fred Meyer stores in Portland, Oregon, for a pilot that begins in early 2022.

Editorial Advisory Board Keith Albright, Post Consumer Brands Dana Barba, Coca-Cola North America Stephen Bettencourt, Peapod Digital Labs Lianna Cabrera, L’Oreal Paris Cosmetics Mia Croft, Native Christiana DiMattesa, Under Armour Gregg Dorazio, Giant Food (Ahold Delhaize) Paige Dunn, FIJI Water, JUSTIN Vineyards &

62 Insider Intel:

Winery, Landmark Vineyards & JNSQ Wines

Johnsonville

Johnsonville Sausage collaborates with Bush Brothers & Co. for a large-scale partnership featuring a “Best of the Backyard” theme.

Jessica Fair, The J.M. Smucker Company Tony Fung, Bob Evans Farms Patrick Hallberg, Apple Travis Harry, Home Depot Jose´ Raul Padron, The Hershey Experience Rodney Waights, Beiersdorf

Path to Purchase IQ (USPS 4568, ISSN 2688-4984 ) is published monthly, except Feb, April, July, Aug. , by EnsembleIQ, 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Ste. 200, Chicago, IL 60631. Subscription rate for the U.S.: $90 one year; $166 two year; $14 single issue copy (pre- paid only); Canada and Mexico: $108 one year; $194 two year; $16 single issue copy (pre- paid only);Foreign: $122 one year; $233 two year; $16 single issue copy (pre- paid only); $60. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, IL 60631 Copyright 2021 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, 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Ste. 200, Chicago, IL 60631.

December 2021

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Editor’s Note

Editorial Director Jessie Dowd, jdowd@ensembleiq.com Executive Editor Tim Binder, tbinder@ensembleiq.com

Honored to Honor

Managing Editor Charlie Menchaca, cmenchaca@ensembleiq.com Digital Editor Jacqueline Barba, jbarba@ensembleiq.com Director/Member Content Patrycja Malinowska, pmalinowska@ensembleiq.com Managing Editor/Member Content Cyndi Loza, cloza@ensembleiq.com

J E S S I E D O W D, E D I T O R I A L D I R E C T O R

As 2021 comes to an end, I am thrilled to dedicate a large chunk of our last issue of the year to showcase the winners of our annual Women of Excellence Awards and the inaugural OmniShopper Awards. The opportunity to acknowledge outstanding achievements and excellence in an industry via special awards programs is, hands down, the best part of my job as a magazine editor. Shining the light on the companies and individuals who are excelling in their channels and fields is a cherished responsibility that I do not take lightly — plus, it’s loads of fun. I love the excitement of notifying a winner — the surprise, joy and sometimes disbelief in their voice, or the all-caps, exclamation-point-heavy email reply graciously accepting. It’s truly such an honor to be a part of it all. With that said, the awards competition process is not all moments of delight. It can be quite a grueling undertaking — methodically collecting, organizing, packaging and evaluating large volumes of entries. For both of these awards competitions combined, we received hundreds of entries. Luckily, we here at the Path to Purchase Institute are not left alone to the agonizing task of selecting the standout winners, thanks to the help of our expert judging panels. I’d like to extend a HUGE thank you to all of our 2021 judges (see page 16 and 36) for volunteering their time and expertise to meticulously review, score and select winners from an amazing pool of candidates and campaigns. It was no easy feat, and we could not have done it without them. On page 36, you can dive into the 20 campaigns that rose to the top as winners of our first-ever OmniShopper Awards program, which is the only recognition designed to honor excellence in shopper engagement across the entire path to purchase. Much like the Institute’s now-retired Design of the Times Awards, which ran for the last 26 years, the new program celebrates in-store marketing in all its forms (and across 12 categories this year), including newer tools like retail media and traditional methods like in-store displays. And on page 16, we feature the Women of Excellence Award winners, totaling 37 standout female executives across six categories: Executive of the Year, Mentorship, Technology, Innovator, Community Impact and Business Excellence. While their perspectives and career journeys are unique and diverse, they all hold one thing in common: their stories are inspiring. We hope that by getting to know them on this magazine’s pages, you’ll too be invigorated by these influential female leaders. I know I was. Congratulations to all of our Women of Excellence and OmniShopper Award winners for 2021 — 2022 has some big shoes to fill!

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, April Miller, Samantha Nelson

SALES & P2PI MEMBER DEVELOPMENT Vice President, Brand Director Eric Savitch, esavitch@ensembleiq.com Associate Director, Brand Partnerships Arlene Schusteff, 773.992.4414, aschusteff@ensembleiq.com Regional Sales Manager Orlando Llerandi, 678.591.8284, ollerandi@ensembleiq.com B2B Account Executive Patrece Remmel, premmel@ensembleiq.com Senior Director/Member Development Patrick Hare, phare@ensembleiq.com Director/Member & Business Development Todd Turner, tturner@ensembleiq.com Manager/New Member Development Katrina Lopez, 813.732.5281, klopez@ensembleiq.com

AUDIENCE

List Rental MeritDirect Marie Briganti, 914.309.3378 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES/CUSTOMER CARE TOLL-FREE: 1.877.687.7321 FAX: 1.888.520.3608 Between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST weekdays contact@pathtopurchaseiq.com

ENSEMBLEIQ LEADERSHIP TEAM

Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Litterick Chief Financial Officer Jane Volland Chief Human Resources Officer Ann Jadown Executive Vice President, Operations Derek Estey Executive Vice President, Content Joe Territo

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

December 2021

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eff,

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Member Spotlight A snapshot of industry leaders from the P2PI member community TONY FUNG

ALICIA CRESPIN

Senior Shopper Marketing Manager

Director, Omnichannel Retail Marketing, Target

Bob Evans Farms

Mattel

Biggest challenge right now: Supply chain, staying on top of consumer trends and what’s ahead in the post-COVID-19 world. New marketing tactic used in the past year you’re keeping in your toolbox: Online grocery shopping — either click-andcollect or delivery — is here to stay. Enabling shoppable media (add-to-cart functionality) to allow a seamless path to checkout for shoppers at any retailer across digital and social media channels will be a tool we will continue to leverage in future campaigns. Best advice received in your career: Choose a career that you love and are passionate about — not just a workday job.

Biggest challenge right now: Currently, it’s shipping and inventory challenges, which are very much out of my team’s control. We’ve planned out to the best of our abilities and things are changing daily, which in turn is a whirlwind effect — [we] have to change the media, social, influencer, etc. New marketing tactic used in the past year you’re keeping in your toolbox: Offers specific for same-day services. It’s a win-win. You are targeting your most loyal shoppers, plus you are alleviating margin pressure since there is no extra shipping expense. The Target shopper has already created this habit, so now it’s about maximizing those sales with a more strategic lens. Best advice received in your career: Self-advocate. You are the person responsible for your path. Of course, we have amazing managers to support it, but it all starts with you.

ERICA BEILENSON

Senior Director, Channel & Shopper Marketing

Pernod Ricard USA

Biggest challenge right now: Having limited in-person interactions as often as we would like with our colleagues, consumers, shoppers and customers, yet still creating meaningful moments of connection and conviviality to learn from each other and have some fun — which is so critical not only within the bevalc category, but also inherent to Pernod Ricard as we exist to unlock the magic of human connection. New marketing tactic used in the past year you’re keeping in your toolbox: We’ve leveraged several new tools over the past year. I would highly recommend any tool that allows for direct communications and connections with consumers and shoppers — not only for one-way communication and messaging, but also to receive feedback, opinions and stories via communities, panels and even programming tactics. The best advice in this space is to keep evolving your toolkit as your resources evolve. It’s important to be uncomfortable trying new partners and gaining quick learnings — the good and the bad. Best advice received in your career: Don’t be afraid to ask “why?” and if you want to lead change be mindful of having a solution or alternative ways to problem-solve when issues arise. Scenario planning and brainstorming solutions and new ways of making an impact has proven rewarding in my career.

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ANN GREEN

Senior Shopper Marketing Manager Bolthouse Farms Biggest challenge right now: As shopping behavior shifted during the pandemic, we quickly adopted an omnichannel approach and activated full-funnel marketing programs both online and offline, such as influencer, retail media and e-commerce. Balancing the need to test and learn while delivering results has been challenging, but energizing at the same time. New marketing tactic used in the past year you’re keeping in your toolbox: We’re focused on adding value beyond price to drive brand equity and engagement no matter where a shopper is on their purchase journey. We’re incorporating more social, valueadded rewards and QR codes. Our field sales team is a tremendous resource to activate programs at the store level. Best advice received in your career: Early in my career, a mentor sent me the quote, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Her point was to drill deep enough into the data to avoid the simple, but wrong insights that come from quick or careless analysis. It applies nicely to life also. IQ

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Path to Purchase Live: The Digital Experience

DTC, SOCIAL COMMERCE, THE STORE AND THE SHOPPER A recap of the key takeaways from the virtual event’s engaging sessions and panel discussions BY M I C H A E L A P P L E B A U M

THE PHYSICAL STORE: NEW REALITIES, OPPORTUNITIES The COVID-19 pandemic upended the retail landscape in ways few could have imagined. Grocery items throughout the center store that had been languishing for years experienced unprecedented category growth, even as e-commerce sales soared. In 2021, shoppers returned to physical stores in droves. Amazon opened 39 new Amazon Fresh stores and its firstever department store, while Target continued to execute on a $4 billion investment strategy to open new stores and remodel existing locations. “Now, everyone is asking: How do I maintain or even accelerate this growth as the pandemic recedes?” said Peter Cloutier, growth and commercial strategy lead for ChaseDesign. Cloutier, along with ChaseDesign President Joe Lampertius, outlined steps for continued retail improvement during a virtual session titled “The Physical Store: New Realities, New Opportunities” on Nov. 3 as part of Path to Purchase Live. Cloutier and Lampertius focused on four strategic areas: • Creating better category shopping experiences to drive incremental growth; • New digital tools and technology driving new growth in stores; • Corporate and brand partnerships delivering innovation and meeting shopper needs; and • How brands and retailers are turning the former pain point of checkout into a win. Part of creating better experiences is improving wayfinding and bringing excitement back into stores, Lampertius said. The Starbucks Signature Aisle endcap display — first introduced in Safeway stores back in 2013 and since rolled out to a number of different retail chains — has transformed the once-mundane

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coffee category. “It is a great example of how retailers can leverage one brand to change the way shoppers approach an entire category,” Lampertius added. Retailers also create excitement by introducing exclusive new products like Hello Bello, a plant-based premium diaper brand available only at Walmart. Stores also feature popular DTC brands like quip dental products and Winky Lux cosmetics. “People are taking their photos next to Winky Lux displays and posting them on social media,” Cloutier said. “It is one more way to surprise and delight customers in-store.” Partnerships between retailers and individual manufacturers can dramatically improve the shopping experience. Target used this strategy to reinvent its beauty department, fostering ease of shopping and motivating new product discovery. Meijer did the same for its baby department, Lampertius said. Retailers can achieve similar results by partnering with other retailers. The Kroger/ Walgreens collaboration, now three years running, has brought many of Kroger’s owned grocery brands into Walgreens stores and helped advance Walgreens’ goal of becoming a food destination, Lampertius said. Other successful partnerships include Walmart/ Gap and Target/Levi’s, he noted. Physical and digital tools are best utilized when blended together to improve the in-store shopping experience, Cloutier said. For example, iRobot’s Roomba self-emptying vacuum experienced double-digit sales increases due to the augmented reality demonstration that allowed in-store shoppers to see how the product worked in real time. Retailer apps can also enhance the brick-and-mortar experience with functionalities like item finder, store maps, price checkers and mobile payment. “Walmart’s store design built to work seamlessly with their app is where shopping is going,” Cloutier said. Self-checkout is an often-cited pain point for shoppers, according to many research studies. While mobile payment is often touted as

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PATH TO PURCHASE LIVE: THE DIGITAL EXPERIENCE a solution, Cloutier noted that only 25% of today’s consumers use smartphones for payment. Working with ChaseDesign, American Express introduced a “just walk out” store, which runs on a credit card scanning system, at Barclays Center and various pop-up locations (including one at the U.S. Open). Attendees could scan their credit card through a turnstile, pick up what they want and leave. The concept (which is similar to Amazon Go, but with no phone or app required) represents a new avenue of growth and innovation for mass retailers, Cloutier noted. “Fan satisfaction was up dramatically and they spent more while they’re there,” he said. “It’s been a phenomenally successful experience.”

WHY EVERY BRAND SHOULD BE DTC CURIOUS “DTC is more than a sales channel – it’s a connection channel that enables brands to have more meaningful relationships with their customers,” said Jane Butler, Google managing director of pureplay retail and DTC, during her session on Nov. 3. Butler teamed up with Ali Nehme, global chief commerce officer at Publicis Groupe, to make the case for DTC at a time of growing concern over protecting consumer data privacy. Given the deprecation of third-party cookies and new privacy regulations that may further limit thirdparty data collection, they argued it is critical for brands to have a viable first-party data collection strategy afforded by DTC. “Firstparty data will help with the privacy landscape, but more than that, it is the future of modern marketing,” Butler said. There are some common themes in what consumers look for in any DTC brand — one being an emphasis on the company’s values, Butler explained. “50% of consumers shop for brands that stand for something or have an interesting backstory — whether it’s using recycled products or being ‘made in America’ or being associated with a cause,” she said. “We often see founders of these businesses very personally involved in the storytelling and making that connection. It provides a validation that the brand understands who the customer is and aspires to be.” For example, Bombas was created when its founders (Randy Goldberg and David Heath) learned that socks were the most sought-after item in homeless shelters. The company now makes an equal donation to shelters with every purchase of a Bombas item, which also includes underwear and T-shirts. “Their message of trying to help solve the problem of homelessness is very clear,” said Butler, whose ad testing work with the company revealed that ads emphasizing the giving component of the purchase outperformed all other Bombas creative. Traditional brands have paid close attention to these DTC

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success stories and are increasingly diving into the realm, said Nehme. He highlighted three major drivers of the trend: • Data and insights: DTC generates privacy-safe, reliable data that can be leveraged to personalize messaging and engagement, as well as produce deeper customer insights. “Our research shows that the ROI on such a tactic or strategy is 0.8x, which means that every dollar spent gets you 8 dollars back,” Nehme said. • Experimentation: “You’re not going to be the best DTC brand from day one,” Nehme said. “Being able to conduct test-andlearn experiments, cut the risk for product development and go to the consumer faster is very important.” • Brand affinity: DTC has a proven halo effect on other channels. “Once you stand up your DTC program, you will very likely see the ROI across other brands,” Nehme noted. Butler expanded on these drivers with tips on best practices in DTC, starting with the need for a full-funnel approach. “You want to make sure the brand is engaged and easily discoverable across all channels, including social media and all of your owned and operated sites,” she said. Having sufficient automation technology in place is also critical to be able to leverage first-party data effectively online. “You’ve got to be able to make that automation flywheel spin to adapt to the ebbs and flows in consumer demand and changes in consumer behavior, as we learned over and over during the pandemic,” Butler added.

ACTIVATING SHOPPERS: BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE When asked to sum up his approach to behavioral science-based marketing, Valuegraphics Founder David Allison loves to tell the story of “Three Friends in an Alley.” It goes something like this: After a long night of drinking, three friends are walking home together and suddenly face a decision of whether to head down a dark alley or take another path. According to Allison, only one piece of information — primary values — is needed to predict what each individual would do next. The friend who values safety over everything else wants the group to avoid the alley at all costs. The friend who values adventure suggests going down the alley. And so on. The moral of the story is that purchasing decisions are often made at an emotional level based on instinctive human traits, or values, and not simply according to rational theories of marketing built on demographics and shopper insights. For this reason, marketers must understand the underlying psychological principles of behavioral science in order to predict consumer behavior with more accuracy, Allison said during the opening keynote session on Nov. 2. To be clear, Allison is not advocating that companies dispense with traditional marketing techniques. On the contrary, he puts “valuegraphics” (his proprietary methodology for leveraging the principles of behavioral science) at the base of a three-legged audience insight stool that also includes demographics and

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PATH TO PURCHASE LIVE: THE DIGITAL EXPERIENCE psychographics. “You need all three legs in order to understand your target audience and motivate them to do what you want them to do,” Allison said. The valuegraphics model borrows ideas from The Human Genome project, which found that 56 components or values were important enough to dictate all human behaviors and emotions. Allison develops customer profiles and marketing strategies based on this concept for organizations ranging from The United Nations (humanitarian causes) to Lululemon (loyalty programs) to PayPal (B2B merchant engagement). Allison offered a deep dive on how to implement David Allison behavioral insights in a recent Valuegraphics report called “The Food Shopper Study.” Comparing the most important values for online food shoppers versus in-store shoppers, the study found distinct differences in the factors that determine purchase behavior among the two broad groups. For example, whereas online shoppers are motivated by financial security more than anything else, that same value drops to the bottom of the list for in-store shoppers. “If you want to talk to one group versus the other, you have to realize that very different values are driving their decisions,” Allison explained. Let’s say a retailer or manufacturer wants to build a platinum loyalty program around three specific values that are known to be important to online shoppers: personal responsibility, wealth and social standing. Those insights could inform the development of loyalty features such as a matching dollar program that allowed the shopper to determine where to donate the money, which would tap into personal responsibility, or a membership program with an annual dividends check to trigger values around wealth. “The point is not necessarily that these are exactly the right ideas, but they do show how you can use values to make decisions,” Allison said. “Now you know what these shoppers care about, and not just demographic descriptions of who they might be.”

INFLUENCER MARKETING AND SOCIAL SHOPPING One byproduct of changing shopping behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the acceleration of social commerce. The number of U.S. social commerce buyers grew by 25.2% to 80.1 million in 2020 and will grow another 12.9% to 90.4 million in 2021, according to Statista. U.S. retail social commerce sales will rise by 34.8% to $36.09 billion this year, representing 4.3% of all retail e-commerce sales. Apparel remains the largest category for social commerce, but consumer electronics, cosmetics, home decor and consumer goods are also key players. Brands can capitalize on these trends by applying best practices in influencer marketing to their social commerce strategies, said Alessandro Bogliari, co-founder and CEO of The Influencer Marketing Factory, during his Nov. 3 session.

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Social commerce refers to the process of selling products directly on social media. The entire shopping experience — from browsing and product research to checkout — happens within the social media platform. This distinguishes social commerce from e-commerce, which is buying and selling goods via a website or dedicated app. With social commerce, brands can interact more with customers and set personalized discounts. The algorithm itself showcases products and brands that the customer is more likely to purchase. There are some rules of thumb that apply to all brands in social commerce, Bogliari said. For example, it is critical to partner with influencers who can share product knowledge authentically and direct shoppers to additional sources of information outside the social media platform. As one respondent in a recent Influencer Marketing Factory survey noted, “Even if we, Gen Z, know how to buy directly in-app without leaving a certain social media, I feel that the majority of the time we prefer to save a specific item seen on a social media post and visit the brand website to gather more information, such as brand values, customers’ reviews, and also we want to use desktop browser extensions like Honey to find potential discounts.” Bogliari advises marketers to keep apprised of updates to social media apps and features of major social commerce platforms, which include the following developments: • Instagram: Customers can “Add to cart” or “View on Website” products of brands they follow or they find in the Shop section. Shoppable story stickers are also an option. • TikTok: Partnered with Shopify to enable in-app purchases and revealed that it will introduce shoppable live streams and affiliate links for influencers. • Pinterest: With Buyable Pins (only available in the U.S.) customers can easily buy products directly from the app with the “Buy It” button. • Facebook Shop: Sellers can create their online store (like on Instagram) and customers can buy directly on the app with the buy button or ask questions via Whatsapp, Messenger and Instagram. The Live feature to sell products will be available soon. Every social media platform should be approached in a unique way. “You need a different message and different tone of voice for each platform,” Bogliari said. No matter where the content is distributed, Bogliari says that brands should always avoid an overt sales pitch. “If you want to play smart on social media, you want to be sure you are telling a story about the product or service,” he said. “Embed the product in some content that is informative or entertainment — and, in most cases, keep it short.” IQ

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Brand Watch

Garnier Hair Care Line Rolls Out to Walmart BY P2 P I STA F F

L’Oreal USA’s Garnier launched a new scalp-focused hair care line in October exclusively at Walmart. The Garnier Fructis Pure Clean Hair Reset collection rolled out to Walmart.com and more than 4,200 of the mass merchant’s 4,743 stores. It comprises a hydrating serum and conditioner, an anti-residue scrub, and shampoos for hydrating, clarifying or rebalancing hair and scalps. Priced at $6.97 each, the six products enjoyed secondary merchandising space in Walmart stores via a dedicated endcap display that touted the line’s ability to remove residue from hair and skin. “We are seeing skincare influence the hair care category now more than ever,” Alanna McDonald, Garnier president, said in a media release. “Our consumers are interested in hair care products inspired by their everyday skincare because they know those ingredients deliver on clean. The new Pure Clean Hair Reset collection includes products that contain popular skincare cleansing ingredients like charcoal, and micellar agents to address everyday build-up from styling products, gels and dry shampoo.” Garnier promoted the launch with a 15-second TV spot

A Brand Collab at Target BY P2 P I STA F F

ACCO Brands’ Cambridge teamed up with stationery and lifestyle brand Rifle Paper Co. to launch a collection of planners and office accessories exclusively at Target. The Rifle Paper Co. for Cambridge Collection comprises more than 30 products, including notebooks, pencils, planners and scissors that sport bright floral designs, which is Rifle Paper’s signature aesthetic. Ranging in price from $3.99 to $28.99, the collection rolled out to Target.com and Target stores on Oct. 13. In stores, the SKUs enjoy

secondary merchandising space via an endcap. An Oct. 16 Instagram update from Rifle Paper and a promotional page within Cambridge’s website (MeadCambridge.com) also supported the launch. “When designing the Rifle Paper Co. for Cambridge Collection, we were inspired to bring moments of beauty to everyday tasks,” said Anna Bond, Rifle Paper Co. co-founder, in a media release. “We created a collection of everyday and

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and multiple Instagram updates, some of which depict beauty influencers sampling the SKUs. Additionally, Garnier ran Ibotta rebates, as well as Facebook updates and Google search ads. Walmart has had a close partnership with Garnier, previously piloting the brand’s virtual hair shade selector augmented reality tool at 10 stores in 2019. The new extension is the latest move in Walmart’s efforts to woo Gen Z shoppers with its unique beauty and personal care offerings, which also include new exclusives from Bubble and Uoma Beauty. “We have a long-standing relationship with Garnier, and their brand is one our customers know and love,” Musab Balbale, Walmart vice president, beauty, said in the release. “It was important for us to collaborate on an exclusive product line to meet the needs of our Gen Z customers and reinforce our commitment to all customers. The launch of the Fructis Pure Clean Hair Reset collection expands our selection of on-trend products with sophisticated formulas and ingredients that deliver impressive hair and scalp benefits at an incredible value.”

giftable products that allows customers to express themselves with bold colors and bright florals, but is also full of functional details that make organization easy and inspiring. Lemons, hearts and charming floral designs bring this collection of planners, calendars and desk accessories to life.” The collection is the latest exclusive collaborative line Target has secured from Rifle. Rifle and Procter & Gamble’s Venus created a limited-edition sixSKU collection of razors, razor blades and shaving cream that launched at Target in July. IQ

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Retail Activation

Kroger Chain to Run In-Store Pilot with Loop BY C H R I S G E L B AC H

Loop’s move to an in-store retail model began in France in December 2020 with a pilot at Carrefour.

Loop’s global reuse platform will soon make its in-store debut in the U.S. at 25 Kroger-owned Fred Meyer stores in Portland, Oregon. The pilot, set to begin in early 2022, will offer a variety of products to customers in reusable packaging, including products from leading national brands and from Kroger’s Simple Truth private label. “Loop aligns with our vision of a future with zero-waste packaging,” said Lisa Zwack, head of sustainability for Kroger. “It also aligns with Kroger’s sustainable packaging goals for 2030, specifically our aim for 100% of ‘our brands’ packaging to be recyclable, compostable or reusable.” To qualify for the program, products must be sold in packaging that can be reused a minimum of 10 times before being recycled into the same packaging. Within those criteria, brands have great latitude as to the materials and type of packaging they use for the program. Each package is created by the brand with Loop’s guidance. The package can be a bespoke package designed for the Loop program, such as the stainless steel, double-walled ice cream container Haagen-Dazs is using

for its Loop packaging. It can be sourced elsewhere, such as a reusable hand soap dispenser used by a soap brand for the program. Or the Loop packaging can be an existing product, such as a Kraft Heinz glass ketchup bottle that meets the program’s reusability standards. Consumers will pay a deposit for each package and use their Loop tote to return their empties to a collection bin in front of Kroger stores. Loop will service the bins several times a week, sort the returns locally, refund consumers their deposits, send the empties to a regional cleaning center and ship them to the manufacturer for refilling. According to Loop CEO Tom Szaky, one interesting insight that influenced the program is how much consumers are willing to pay for it. “They are willing to pay a little extra for the content in a reusable packaging and we found that the upward limit of that was around a 25% premium,” Szaky said. “What was more interesting was that consumers were not sensitive to the deposit prices.” According to Szaky, this was the case for even very value-driven consumers and even for $10 deposits on products that only cost $5. “With a $10 deposit, you can spend up to $8 or $9 on the package as a brand,

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and that’s a huge budget if you think of the higher-quality materials, more functionality, all the things you can do with more money at your disposal.” Szaky also noted that while you would expect more traditionally eco-conscious brands to do particularly well, massmarket brands have seen the best results in initial pilots. “They’ve had an even bigger pop with consumers, and they’ve found that reuse brought to them a lot of consumers that were not buying their products before,” he said. The program will be promoted at Kroger through the circular and other earned channels, with participating brands doing their own earned, social and digital campaigns to support the program. In-store support will include informational point-of-sale materials as well as in-store Loop ambassadors who will explain the program to shoppers. Loop’s move to an in-store retail model began in France with a pilot at Carrefour starting December 2020, then with similar pilots at AEON in Japan and Tesco in the U.K. Each of those chains has started to expand their Loop programs to new stores and additional SKUs after success with their pilot runs. Loop considers a pilot successful if the products perform equal to or better than their non-Loop counterparts in both trial and repeat, if they aren’t just cannibalizing the sales of existing products, and if the packaging is being returned. “In other markets, we’re seeing 80% of packaging come back within 60 days,” Szaky said. “We have to see the returns, or the program is not really delivering on the reuse component.” Kroger will likewise be in test-andlearn mode with its pilot. “Our expansion plans will be guided by the pilot, and then we will consider next steps based on customer feedback and engagement,” Zwack said. The Kroger initiative is part of a larger Loop global expansion that will soon include another in-store pilot in select Walgreens stores in New York. IQ

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SPONSORED BY

2021

WOMEN of Excellence BY E R I K A F LY N N

he Women of Excellence annual awards program celebrates and connects female leaders who are contributing to the growth of the commerce marketing industry, as well as promoting diversity and inclusion in their fields. This year’s impressive list of 37 winners represent a diverse mix of voices from brands, retailers, agencies and solution providers spread across six different categories — and we honor them here on the following pages, spotlighting their contributions to the industry and how they’re leading their organizations and teams to success. We hope you find their stories as inspiring as we do. Congratulations to these phenomenal Women of Excellence!

Executive of the Year (page 17) • Enid Barillas, Agustin Morales • Felicia Hale, Coca-Cola Co. • Molly McFarland, AdAdapted

Mentorship (page 22)

• Lee Esmond, Mosaic North America • Audrey Haston, PepsiCo Demand Accelerator • Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero • Kristin Moore, Nestle Coffee Partners • Karen Munns, VMLY&R • Ashley O’Donnell, Rust-Oleum • Jen Senerius, The Mars Agency

Technology (page 26)

• Kelly Kachnowski, The Mars Agency • Pinar Kaprali, Pensa Systems • Tejaswi Kilaru, Foresight ROI • Caron Sanders, The Giant Co. • Charu Thomas, Ox • Nawshi Williams, Crossmark • Olga Yurovski, Shopperations Research & Technology

Innovator (page 29)

• Jacquelyn Baker, VMLY&R • Elizabeth Harris, Arc Worldwide • Colleen Kelly, Anheuser-Busch • Melissa King, Lowes Foods • Deb Kreider, The Giant Co. • Mary Mooney, Mooney Farms • Surabhi Pokhriyal, Colgate-Palmolive

Community Impact (page 31) • Deanna Behrens, The Mars Agency • Derisa Bethea, Family Dollar • Tekisha Boone, GE Appliances • Kate Clarke, Giant Food • Diana Stern, National Retail Solutions • Jennifer Tinker, TwinOaks Integrated Marketing

Business Excellence (page 33) • Natalie Benoit, GE Appliances • Joyce Cress, GE Appliances • Jennifer Hale, Coca-Cola Co. • Meghan Heltne, The Mars Agency • Dianne Le, Avocados From Mexico • Bethany Stephens, Soapbox Influence • Mary Tarczynski, Parabolic

THANKS TO OUR JUDGES! Kandi Arrington SVP Client Leadership, The Mars Agency

Brooke Bright Director of Retail Product Management, Label Insight (NielsenIQ)

Guadalupe Cano Owner, Visual Latina

Laura Dickey Senior Shopper Marketing Manager, Avocados From Mexico

Renee Fuller Senior Director of Marketing, Milk Bar

Stacy Jackson Content Activation Lead, North America, Coca-Cola Co.

Susan O’Neal CEO, Dabbl

Tammy Teague Chief Information Officer, Key Food Stores Co-Operative

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR Enid Barillas CEO Agustin Morales

Enid Barillas is a second-generation business owner. When she joined the family business in 2005 as the CEO/COO of Agustin Morales Inc., she dove into the dynamics of the supermarket industry, identifying new technologies and developing trends that might impact it, just as she had as a project manager for large pipeline projects while at BP, and as a technical senior manager at Bell Laboratories. Barillas graduated from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez with a degree in mechanical engineering (she also holds an MBA from the University of Miami Herbert Business School). Now, she’s at the helm of Agustin Morales, where she’s led a complete reinvention of the culture and mission of its supermarket (which is part of a growing supermarket chain of independent grocers) through education and integration of analytics to understand demand. The company currently has three supermarkets under its umbrella — all part of the Supermercados Econo chain in Puerto Rico — and Barillas leads all efforts for Econo Isabela, Econo San Sebastian and Econo Gate 5, Aguadilla. Since opening the stores, Barillas set out to disrupt the business model of the food retail industry in Puerto Rico. “We will challenge the status quo,” she said at the time. “We will make our grocery stores nutrition-centric — and our customers will reward us with their loyalty.” Barillas’ strategy was to differentiate its business through service, education and value, rather than pricing. “I needed to transform the business my parents built for more than 30 years, convince my peers to adopt the same strategy, and educate

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consumers about nutrition without losing revenue,” she says. “I encountered a lot of opposition internally within the company, and I had to sell the vision to our employees, most of whom believed the pricing war was the only way to succeed.” Barillas hired a licensed nutritionist to provide nutrition and wellness guidance to customers free of charge, marking the first supermarkets in Puerto Rico with a retail dietitian. Beyond the instore programs that included cooking demonstrations, sampling and wellness festivals, the company’s “Healthy Path Market” (HPM) initiative was also gaining traction. It included mandatory training for all employees on basic nutrition and available certifications, which turned employees into advocates for good nutrition and ambassadors for the new products entering store shelves. Growing the business while transforming the culture brought about many challenges, Barillas says, including learning to balance its branding to appeal to the high-end customer seeking specialty items as well as to the core customer seeking nutritional choices at competitive prices. “Our businesses serve a wide variety of segments: low-income families with limited budgets, people with specific dietary needs seeking products and nutrition education, high-end customers looking for products flown in from Europe and the mainland, and professionals looking for local innovations and food-service solutions,” she says. “Our daily challenge is to meet all those demands.” Sales have continued to grow even through a crippling posthurricane economy and the COVID-19 pandemic. Barillas says her vision for the future includes the growth and impact of HPM, which received its second national award in 2020. “The market keeps evolving and I have managed to create a competitive differentiation between our three stores and the rest of the grocery stores,” she says. “We’re showing people how to enjoy food with nutritional best practices in mind.” Barillas continues to be an innovator in the grocery space, directing several initiatives based on best practices within and outside the industry, including zero food waste, 100% paperless processes, ugly-produce marketing, and greater support and mentoring of local farmers.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR Felicia Hale Vice President, Equipment Strategy Coca-Cola Co.

Felicia Hale leads with wisdom and passion. She puts her team first, always bringing a human connection, and understands consumer and customer needs. Hale is responsible for leading the overall equipment strategy for Coca-Cola North America as the vice president of equipment strategy. She is charged with managing the strategy and execution for Coca-Cola Freestyle. The bottler’s dispenser platform offers more than 200 choices for consumers, and serves more than 6 billion drinks per year through 50,000 dispensers located in 30,000 retail and foodservice customer outlets. When Coca-Cola Freestyle launched, it was a disruptive innovation that delivered the best dispensed beverage experience to both customers and consumers of the Coca-Cola brands, Hale says. In an effort to provide a touchless experience for consumers that allowed customers to continue selling Coca-Cola Freestyle beverages and drive revenue during the onset of the pandemic, Hale oversaw the development and launch of Mobile Pour on Freestyle. It allows consumers to pour a Coca-Cola Freestyle drink from their mobile phone without ever touching the dispenser. “The Mobile Pour innovation is an example of how our team was focused on delivering value and brought forward a solution to allow our foodservice customers to continue to operate Freestyle machines in a touchless way,” she says. The ease of Mobile Pour — and the fact that consumers don’t need an app or to share personal data to use it — has led to more than

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2 million pours using the technology. This allowed Coca-Cola’s customers to keep their dispensers operational while adhering to local health and safety guidelines. Any challenges the team faced along the way stemmed from the ever-changing dynamic of the pandemic, associates working remotely and the need to move with speed, according to Hale. “Our teams collaborated in an agile way to bring this innovation forward,” she says. Her vision today is to continue to deliver the best dispensed beverage experience to both customers and consumers of the CocaCola brands, while continuing to accelerate the platform’s growth and value. She must also continue to stay ahead of the rapid pace of innovation in the marketplace, which is not an easy task. “We have to anticipate the needs of our customers and consumers before they are prevalent, and continue to bring innovation platforms to the market with speed,” Hale says.

CAREER BACKGROUND: Hale is a graduate of the University of Miami with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, and now serves on the school’s alumni board of directors. She assumed her current role at Coca-Cola in early 2021, overseeing the Freestyle business and managing the long-term strategy for beverage equipment solutions for the company. Prior to that, she served as the Freestyle commercial strategy leader and has held a variety of commercial and operations roles at the company. Over the past 10 years, Coca-Cola has launched several sparkling brand extensions, accelerated category growth, and has grown revenue and value share under her leadership. Before joining the bottler, she worked at Georgia-Pacific, Novartis and General Mills. In her time at these companies, Hale served in a series of sales, marketing and operations roles and led commercial innovation.

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WOMEN

WE CELEBRATE ALL WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

TALENT

LEADERSHIP

From Business Excellence and Technology to Community Impact and Mentorship, women influence every aspect of the commerce industry—and we think that’s worth celebrating. At IN Connected, we’re grateful for our female leaders who drive innovation for our clients through insight, creativity, and expertise. That’s why we take great pleasure in congratulating the 2021 Women of Excellence award winners and all women of excellence everywhere. Connect with us, today, for fully connected, commerce-ready activations.

info@inconnectedmarketing.com

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inconnectedmarketing.com

12/7/21 12:29 PM

2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR Molly McFarland Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer AdAdapted

Molly McFarland offers a unique perspective as a woman in the tech start-up world. A native of Maine and a graduate of Tulane University in English and creative writing, she started her career at an architecture firm before marketing software. But in 2012, she added co-founder to her list of credentials when she and a previous coworker and friend, Mike Pedersen, opened the doors for mobile ad solution company AdAdapted. Consumer behavior was changing rapidly at the time and McFarland says shoppers were increasingly adopting mobile into their path to purchase. “It was clear, even early on, that mobile devices would change how consumers navigated the shopping experience and their activities in the real world would be influenced by what was happening in those digital environments,” she says. The realization that apps were a critical driver of these changes — and that they provided valuable and useful data — sparked the notion that there would be “an enormous opportunity” to help advertisers connect the dots between how shopping behaviors were changing and how they could engage their consumers, she adds. But even at that time, McFarland says the company couldn’t have known just how much mobile would affect how people shop. The evolution is far from over, she predicts,

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highlighted by the immense changes the industry has witnessed throughout the pandemic, as shoppers have shifted further toward e-commerce options. As chief revenue officer for AdAdapted, McFarland brings expertise in the mobile advertising environment, add-to-list solutions, and extensive knowledge on how to reach and engage consumers in an ever-changing ad space. Empowering top CPG brands, agencies and retailers to enhance their behavioral targeting capabilities, the AdAdapted platform offers a strategic approach to aligning brands with category-relevant consumers and creating a data-driven connection based on prior engagement and activity. McFarland has led the company’s growth from a team of two to nearly 70 employees. While the opportunity for the business has remained consistent, growing and scaling the company has been the biggest challenge, McFarland says. “Shifting from a small startup to a fully fledged, but still growing company has created different dynamics and obstacles,” she notes. “That said, our growth to this point enables us to do things we never could have dreamed of five years ago.” Under her leadership, AdAdapted has doubled revenue year-overyear for several years running and was recently recognized on the Inc. 5000 list for the second consecutive year with 372% three-year revenue growth. McFarland says her vision for the company is clear. “We want to be the solution for any advertiser who wants a shopper to save an item to buy later,” she says. “We have a patent on our add-to-list technology, which we believe makes us the current best-in-class and future option for advertisers in our space.”

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

MENTORSHIP LEE ESMOND

AUDREY HASTON

SARAH HOFSTETTER

Senior Vice President – North American Commerce, Experience and Retail Marketing Mosaic North America

Director, Shopper Strategy PepsiCo Demand Accelerator

President Profitero

Audrey Haston is known as a trailblazer in PepsiCo for her leadership and creation of the PepsiCo Demand Accelerator Mentorship program, with more than 50 active members across the country in many different disciplines, ranging from insights and category management to space and shopper strategy. Noticing a gap at the company, Haston developed the program two years ago after gaining senior leadership buy-in and sponsorship, ultimately rolling out a best-in-class program. The program offers multiple levels of pairings, including traditional 1-to-1 senior leader mentoring junior associates, reverse mentoring, peer-to-peer and group mentorship. The result of her efforts is a 95%-plus awareness of the program and more than 90% engagement with it. A very robust matching process ensures the best possible mentorship fit, which has led to the program’s growth in its second year. Haston graduated from the University of Dayton with degrees in international business and Spanish. She began her career at Conagra Brands, where she held various sales and category management roles supporting national and regional customers. In 2015, Haston joined PepsiCo, leading category insights for Frito-Lay North America warehouse brands. Two years later, she went on to lead the Demand Accelerator Space team focusing on commercialization of space capabilities and project management of hundreds of space projects per year. Most recently, she stepped into leading a team that is focused on driving actionable insights within PepsiCo and its partners as the director of shopper strategy for PepsiCo Demand Accelerator. Following her mentorship, one mentee has been equipped to present several large presentations with audiences of more than 50 people, covering merchandising optimization and multicultural beverage strategies. Many of those strategies have since been accepted and implemented at national grocers across the country.

Sarah Hofstetter is a natural storyteller. Early on that translated into aspirations of being a journalist and a college internship at The New York Times. With a degree in sociology and journalism from Queens College, she ventured instead into public relations, which started her journey in communications and eventually led to brand strategy, emerging media and several executive-level positions. She says a consistent theme in her career over the past 25 years has been around “helping bridge the gap between consumer behavior and brand adoption,” whether a voiceover IP while at IDT/Net2Phone, search and social at 360i, or in e-commerce now at e-commerce analytics and digital shelf excellence provider Profitero. Prior to joining Profitero, Hofstetter spent 13 years at 360i, rising to chairwoman and CEO and growing the agency from $5 million to $180 million. Aside from her current duties as president of Profitero, Hofstetter is an active leader who grooms, mentors and advocates for talent in the industry across all levels, from c-suite executives to college students, focusing on their career, boards, personal growth and more. Currently mentoring more than a dozen women in various capacities, she committed herself to helping others in the industry after she saw the need for increased female leadership as she rose in her career. Many recognize her as a mentor who demystifies the ambiguous, offers candid guidance, and is a trusted advisor and coach. Hofstetter also sits on Campbell Soup Co.’s board of directors and was an AdWeek mentor in 2019 and 2020. Last year, she also co-founded EVE (Elevating Visionaries in E-Commerce), a mentorship program for women in e-commerce who are learning how to navigate uncharted territory, pairing 20 executive leaders with 20 up-and-comers across several global brands to help them advance in their careers.

Lee Esmond was recently appointed to a combined leadership role, balancing c-suite responsibilities across several teams within Mosaic North America and managing 20 key accounts. In 2021, she restructured three standalone teams into an integrated omnichannel group. She also leads the development and execution of integrated marketing solutions inclusive of shopper, experiential and retail marketing programs. Esmond has held several positions within Mosaic during her nearly 10-year tenure. With a degree in environmental studies and outdoor education from Prescott College, she started her career at Pinnacle Systems in marketing, working in San Francisco and Paris. After a brief stint with Mosaic North America in San Francisco, she spent seven years at The Mars Agency as director of shopper marketing in Bentonville, Arkansas, before making her way back to Mosaic in June 2012, working out of offices in northwest Arkansas, Chicago and Toronto. Esmond’s work encompasses the Integrated Commerce Business Unit, the CPG and experiential marketing team, and Mosaic’s U.S. shopper marketing team. She shares knowledge, advice and opportunities to cultivate space for others in a variety of ways, always cognizant of the need to mentor women and working moms, and is especially attuned to how the pandemic has transformed the way we live and function. As chair of Mosaic’s Diversity and Inclusion Mentorship Program, she provides resources and support to more than 20 mentees, ranging from junior- to senior-level employees, as well as non-employees who have demonstrated interest in marketing.

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Congratulations!

Deb Kreider

Caron Sanders

Director of Meat and Seafood

Director of Human Resources

Innovator Award

Technology Award

Winners in the

2021 Path to Purchase Women of Excellence Awards From your team at

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

KRISTIN MOORE

KAREN MUNNS

ASHLEY O’DONNELL

Senior Manager, Shopper Innovation & Experience Nestle Coffee Partners

Connections Director – Discoverability, Performance Content VMLY&R

Vice President, Brand Marketing Rust-Oleum

In 2020, Nestle Coffee Partners created an organization-wide, strategic diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) program. Kristin Moore stepped forward and engaged executive leadership as a liaison/voice for the broader organization. The efforts she led — which included various workshops for nearly 400 employees — enabled all employees to take action against their personal DE&I commitments, empowered leadership at all levels, and increased both personal and leadership accountability. Moore has spent her career in CPG, starting at General Mills after graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in marketing. After more than five years in various business management roles, she moved to Starbucks where she worked in category development. In August 2018, she joined Nestle, also in category development, before assuming her current post as senior manager, shopper innovation and experience, in December 2020. Through her work with the DE&I program, employees’ desires for connection and mentorship became apparent and, in response, Moore helped develop and launch the organization’s first-ever DE&I Mentorship Program. She remains an active participant, serving as a mentor to two under-represented mentees. Her humble, caring approach to mentorship comes through 1-to-1 investment in individuals at all levels in the company, while the ripple effects of her interactions touch the entire organization. Through these efforts, Moore has been a voice for change in the organization’s recruiting process as it works to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace. She is also part of the company’s DE&I recruiting efforts through a video designed to assist in attracting new, diverse talent.

Karen Munns strives to push herself and others every day. She says spreadsheets, project plans and databases “fuel her fire” in her pursuit of data-driven, results-oriented deliverables. She has more than 20 years of experience in e-commerce, strategy, branding, communications, workflows and professional coaching. Munns graduated with a degree in journalism with an English minor from Baylor University, and more recently earned an executive MBA from Texas Woman’s University. Beyond leading best-in-class commerce content work at VMLY&R, she directly manages and coaches a team of individuals, and is one of the most appreciated and revered leaders in her group. She is an advocate for her team both inside and outside of work, and actively seeks opportunities to help them improve their work while encouraging growth in other areas. As a strong role model and advocate for other working parents and caregivers, she leads with empathy, authenticity and by example as a single working mother. In turn, several teammates have sought her out for advice or requested her to be their coach, and because of her mentorship, two of her direct reports received promotions this year. Munns is also known for her independent research and training on professional development topics, and she recently published an article online titled, “You Are Not a Fraud: How Imposter Syndrome Affects Women in Leadership.” Her research and speaking recently merited an invitation to serve on the Texas Woman’s University alumni speaker bureau, working with alumni and current students on future career steps.

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Ashley O’Donnell demonstrated a unique vision as a leader and role model when she founded and launched a new community at the company called Women@ Rust-Oleum, with the mission of investing in the women at Rust-Oleum by providing them with the tools and support to grow their careers. As the brand team’s leader, she consistently strives to help others achieve better results through encouragement and by pushing them to think more strategically and holistically. With a degree in marketing from Texas A&M University, O’Donnell began her career as a marketing manager at The Lowry Food Co. before moving into a merchandising role at Armstrong World Industries six years later. She also spent five years at Newell Brands in merchandising and brand marketing before landing at Rust-Oleum, where she has spent the past 13 years. As vice president of brand marketing for nearly four years, O’Donnell has been responsible for setting the long-term strategic direction across all of the company’s business platforms. The 200-plus member Women@Rust-Oleum community recently celebrated its two-year anniversary. In that time, it has provided women with leadership opportunities as well as guidance and support on work-life balance, business acumen and skill development, charitable giving and social activities that provide intercompany networking. Objectives include championing diversity and inclusion, connecting women across job functions, having a positive/open dialogue, encouraging employees to showcase and develop their leadership skills, boosting engagement with a supportive community, and inspiring employees to problem solve and innovate. In late October, O’Donnell was promoted to vice president, consumer group commercialization and strategy, and will now be working for Rust-Oleum’s parent company, RPM. She will continue in her executive sponsor role with Women@Rust-Oleum.

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deanna behrens

- community impact

kelly kachnowski

meghan heltne

- business excellence

jen senerius

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- technology

Deanna, Kelly, Meghan, & Jen ... Thank you for bettering us and inspiring us, but most of all, for choosing us.

- mentorship

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

TECHNOLOGY

JEN SENERIUS

KELLY KACHNOWSKI

PINAR KAPRALI

Senior Director, Client Leadership The Mars Agency

Vice President, Commercial Development, Marilyn Platform The Mars Agency

Co-Founder and Head of Product Pensa Systems

Jen Senerius exemplifies the concept of mentorship at The Mars Agency by offering guidance, coaching and thought leadership for more than 30 cross-functional team members. As senior director, client leadership, she leads her team in the development of an annual business plan, conducts monthly client leadership team meetings and quarterly business reviews with cross-functional team members, and optimizes insights within the creative/program development process. She is also tasked with coaching and mentoring her direct reports to ensure successful growth within the organization. With a finance degree from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, Senerius started her career at an investment firm out of college. The following year, she took a new role at hybrid brand strategy and design agency VSA Partners. She fell in love with the shopper marketing space and later held positions at Arc Worldwide, Geometry Global and Performics before landing at The Mars Agency in January 2020. “What I love about shopper [marketing] is the fact that what we do ties back to conversion and is driving the needle for brands in a measurable way,” she says. Since joining the agency, Senerius has been credited with helping build team members’ skill sets and confidence. She was chosen to serve as a mentor for its summer internship program. The program involved 11 interns from different colleges, backgrounds and career aspirations participating in various agency activities, daily functional tasks, and a cross-functional team assignment in which they were tasked with working on an actual business project for a key client. For the crossfunctional assignment, Senerius mentored two teams of interns in their quest to deliver possible solutions for the client’s business need, guiding them through the agency’s “Pathway to Growth” process. The teams ultimately presented their solutions to senior leaders at both Mars and the client, and to the entire agency at the end of the project.

Kelly Kachnowski didn’t always have her sights set on being a technology expert. She studied media studies and broadcasting at Eastern Michigan University, and her first job was at a radio station as a morning show host and music director. She went on to be a marketing manager for Palace Sports & Entertainment, marketing concerts and events at three of the top-attended venues in the country. But in 2010, she landed at The Mars Agency, starting in media and holding several positions before eventually working in the technology and analytics space. She is considered a role model for the new breed of “techie” needed in the business world — an executive who can lead client relationships or work on specs with the IT department. Today, Kachnowski leads all activity related to the agency’s proprietary technology platform, Marilyn, an end-to-end commerce marketing advisor. Instrumental in guiding the platform’s design and development, she has also engineered Marilyn’s commercial delivery, overseeing the business and marketing plans, sales efforts and, most importantly, client success efforts. Kachnowski works daily to refine and customize Marilyn to ensure that it seamlessly addresses the specific data needs of its largest CPG clients. She ensures the platform delivers on its promise of improving their planning processes while simultaneously working with the agency’s internal IT team to continuously enhance its capabilities and functionality, ensuring that Marilyn will help shape the future of commerce marketing measurement. Her work includes building an unrivaled archive of performance data and relevant industry information that will give clients a predictive understanding of future marketing impact.

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As leader of the product and data analytics team for Pensa Systems, which delivers data as a service, Pinar Kaprali has been at the forefront of providing data-driven insights to the industry regarding on-shelf availability of CPG products across retail channels. After growing up in Turkey, Kaprali earned a degree in computer science from the University of New Hampshire. She started her career as a software engineer at computer software company Borland Software (now Micro Focus) before founding TNN (Turk Nokta Net), a market leader in Turkey of internet services and complex project management. She went on to also found Enkuba Technologies, a startup accelerator; PhonoClick, a software and IT services company; and TeamGram.com, an all-in-one cloudbased tool — all based in Istanbul. Kaprali’s steadfast leadership in the CPG industry leveraging data and analytics to adapt to the needs of CPG brands and retailers in a rapidly changing marketplace has gained attention from her colleagues. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the industry — as omnichannel grocery rapidly accelerated and retail stores became de facto e-commerce distribution centers — was immense, and the need for accurate and timely on-shelf product inventory data increased exponentially. Kaprali led a team of data scientists to adapt the Pensa data signal to the evolving needs of CPG brands and retailers and the consumers they serve, making a direct impact on the ability to meet the needs of shoppers. A longtime entrepreneurial leader, Kaprali has also amplified her leadership in the data analytics space and built bridges across cultures and continents by founding and serving on the board of KAGiDER Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

TEJASWI KILARU Director, Data Operations Foresight ROI Tejaswi Kilaru is surrounded by technology every day, tasked with overseeing Foresight ROI’s shopper marketing data management for analytics. Responsible for developing and maintaining the databases used for the processing of client data, she builds custom reporting queries for internal analysis and works cross-functionally, both internally and externally, to ensure that client datasets are

complete and accurate. She also assists with creating the initial insights for client engagements by providing an understanding for a client’s dataset. Kilaru holds a degree in information technology from India. She spent more than two years at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as a software engineer, working mainly on data management using SQL Server tools. In 2015, she earned her master’s in computer science from Northern Illinois University. She landed at Foresight ROI as a database developer, was later promoted to database manager and assumed her current post as director of data operations in April 2021, using tools like SQL Server and Alteryx every day. Kilaru has addressed shopper marketing measurement with accomplishments that have helped solve the hurdle in marketing analytics today. She standardized the disparate shopper marketing tactic input data into homogeneous

measures that analytic measurement models require. She has also developed a system that rates the quality of the input data based on standardized criteria, which has been found to be related to the accuracy of the analytic models. Shopper marketers can now know the quality of the analytic input data before providing better input data if available, and better understand what to expect from the quality of the inputs. Finally, Kilaru developed the database code to automate data standardization, data ratings, outlier identification and mapping for analytic models. By documenting the methods and code for repeatability with a full quality-assurance program for accuracy, she has enabled Foresight ROI to save clients significant time, money and resources in the data collection process and measurement output.

From Our Family to Yours

CONGRATULATIONS TO DERISA BETHEA for being a 2021 Path to Purchase Institute Women of Excellence Winners for Community Impact! We are so proud of the Black History Month HERstory Campaign that she helped bring to life, and we’re inspired by the passion that she brings to Family Dollar every day. Thank you for being a shining star, Derisa!

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

CARON SANDERS

CHARU THOMAS

NAWSHI WILLIAMS

Director, Human Resources The Giant Co.

Founder & CEO Ox

Vice President, Insights & Analytics Crossmark

Caron Sanders has a proven business, operational, analytics and talent management acumen, consistently adding value to The Giant Co. by identifying and executing on opportunities for improved performance. As the director of human resources since early 2019, Sanders has made significant impact in the application of data and technology to support the company’s more than 35,000 team members. She became an integral part of the COVID-19 response team. Tasked with creating and developing internal protocols, processes and communications to ensure the safety of the team, Sanders led the development of an automated intake form where team members could detail diagnoses, close contacts and other critical information using a communication toolkit to enable real-time messaging to all affected team members. A graduate of Hood College, Sanders started as a manager of Weis Markets before moving into human resources. She has since held HR positions at Weis Markets, Ahold USA, Retail Business Services and The Giant Co. Under her leadership, The Giant Co. was the first of the Ahold Delhaize USA brands to implement Everbridge, a notification system that streamlined and centralized the many communications necessary throughout the pandemic. It is still being used as a safety and health communication tracking tool. Sanders also established a consistent plan to provide bi-weekly COVID-19 updates, and introduced the use of Dinesafe, a case-tracking and risk-mitigation tool to position the retailer to proactively identify and manage future concerns. Her team has access to thorough, relevant reports, data and analytics, enabling them to accurately compare their data with national data and pinpoint growing trends that might make an impact on the organization. Sanders’ knowledge and understanding of the power of technology and her talent and instinct for identifying how it can improve operations, particularly in a time of crisis, have positioned The Giant Co. as a model not only for other Ahold brands, but for the grocery industry as a whole.

Charu Thomas founded Ox, formerly known as Oculogx, when she was just 18 years old, using her experience in augmented reality to maximize order picking and fulfillment for industry-leading Fortune 500 retailers. An influential game-changer ever since, her awards and accolades include: Forbes’ 30 Under 30, TechCrunch’s SF Disrupt Top Pick in Retail/E-Commerce, winner of the Atlanta Startup Battle 3.0, Microsoft Imagine Cup international runner-up, and a Lemelson-MIT prize finalist. Thomas graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in December 2018 with a degree in industrial and systems engineering and operations research. While there, she worked in research and completed the first student author work on routing autonomous vehicles/cross-docks in urban centers. Her work was presented as a keynote at an international logistics symposium. She was also the first author on heads-up display order picking work. Thomas founded Ox in January 2019 with a mission to build tools retailers need to transform their retail stores into micro-fulfillment centers through optimized pick-from-store operations. She serves as its CEO today. The company’s services enable retailers to fulfill more efficiently, accurately and cost-effectively by leveraging machine learning and AI to optimize all sides of fulfillment and deliver a better customer experience. Especially during the pandemic, Ox technology helped retailers pivot to provide more fulfillment options at a faster rate than ever before. Thomas is also an industry mentor with the National Science Foundation.

Nawshi Williams manages a team of more than 70 insights professionals supporting an extensive list of clients as the vice president of insights and analytics at Crossmark. She faces the challenges of data and analytics in CPG every day with the high demand for both due to the large number of brands the agency supports. Crossmark’s vision for a complete digital transformation, with partners IBM and Microsoft, centered around an advanced analytics platform designed from scratch, with design elements resulting from direct input from sales and insights managers. Williams managed the task of building and launching the innovative platform, balancing the inquisitiveness of an insights leader with the pragmatism of a line sales manager. A graduate of George Washington University with a degree in international business and an MBA in finance, Williams started her career at SymphonyIRI Group. After more than eight years in various roles, she moved to The Clorox Co. in sales positions. From there she held various business development and category management roles at Motts, a division of Cadbury Schweppes, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Stints back at SymphonyIRI Group as well as at Advanced Beauty and Pharmavite eventually led her to Crossmark, where she landed in early 2016 as senior director of business insights. Williams’ CPG background prepared her for building the state-of-the-art advanced analytics platform. Using new data management techniques, Accelerator processes more than 7 billion lines of POS data with the ability to handle even more. Accelerator is supplied to every sales manager, providing instantaneous access to the answers they need for every “moment of truth” with customers. Still new, results show that data queries are returned in seconds, usage rates are approximately 90%, and the predictive promotion and assortment tools significantly improve client productivity and efficiency.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

INNOVATOR

OLGA YUROVSKI

JACQUELYN BAKER

ELIZABETH HARRIS

Founder & CEO Shopperations Research & Technology

Executive Vice President, VMLY&R Commerce VMLY&R

Chief Strategy Officer Arc Worldwide

Olga Yurovski is a true innovator in technology. She spent more than 15 years in the CPG and consumer electronics industries working in brand management, product development, category management, consumer promotions and shopper marketing. But her focus evolved into making marketers’ jobs more efficient and data-driven by standardizing and automating planning processes and enabling robust post-promotional analytics. So, in 2014, she invented Shopperations, a collaborative, cloud-based software that does just that. Her background might suggest she would find her passion in this space. She earned a degree as a specialist in international management from National Mining University, one of the oldest Ukrainian technical universities, now known as Dnipro University of Technology. She also holds an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. Today, as CEO, Yurovski leads her team in creating new industry standards and offering modern, realtime, sustainable collaboration and planning tools that solve a real need for clarity for clients when dealing with media vendors. She also built Vendorstan, based on a simple yet powerful idea that CPGs and buyers of media need help finding each other and speaking the same language. A portal for solution providers to share their technologies, it gives marketers an unbiased destination to learn about new capabilities.

Jacquelyn Baker doesn’t like to settle for the status quo. She possesses an innate ability to set a vision and innovate solutions to achieve it, maintaining an eye toward both short- and long-term success. In November 2020, WPP introduced VMLY&R Commerce, an end-to-end creative commerce company, in response to new consumer expectations. Baker, a 10-year VMLY&R veteran, played an integral role in planning and executing the merger, and helping to reimagine the role commerce channels play to ensure marketers think beyond the confines of digital alone. She now serves as the unit’s executive vice president. Built on the retail heritage of Geometry and scaled through the agency’s connected brand promise, VMLY&R Commerce has set out to help modern brands grow by unifying marketing strategies around commerce. Baker sits on the company’s North American Executive Committee and manages a portfolio of more than $15 million. Her work contributed to VMLY&R being named the top advertising network for 2020, with a nearly 5% year-over-year revenue growth in North America. With a marketing and international business degree from the University of Cincinnati, Baker also holds an MBA from University of Phoenix. She began her career in category and account management before becoming a marketing manager in strategy and planning at Luxottica Retail. In early 2010, she moved to The Creative Department as a senior brand leader and then to Rockfish for the next six years. She moved under the VMLY&R umbrella in August 2017 as managing director and has held her current post for one year. Baker’s knowledge of retail ecosystems and ability to help clients optimize customer experience across digital transformation was the impetus behind her formalizing the launch of a new practice at VMLY&R Commerce, focused on Commerce Customer Experience (CCX). Overseeing a team of more than 70, she is responsible for ensuring this expertise is brought forward across all businesses.

Elizabeth Harris has a “relentless curiosity” about people — how they think, feel, behave and shop — and an unmatched passion for continued learning, innovation and reinvention. As chief strategy officer at Arc Worldwide, she has fueled transformational growth across the agency and broadly throughout the organization. Harris graduated from Indiana University with a degree in communications and psychology. She started her career in marketing research at The Chicago Tribune. Moving to the client side at Grey Advertising and then Young & Rubicam in New York, she transitioned to advertising brand strategy. Back in Chicago after eight years, Harris went from building brands to also activating them at DraftFCB. She has been in the Leo Burnett Group at Arc Worldwide in strategy and planning roles for the last 11 years, elevating to her current post in early 2018. Harris is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, teaching shopper marketing in its graduate program for more than nine years. Harris’ drive to keep Arc on the leading edge of commerce spurred her to create Arc’s “Archer” operating system — a proprietary platform that leverages several interconnected data tools to reveal not only the resistance that keeps people from purchasing products, but also strategies to overcome that and help brands and categories grow. Backed by Epsilon data, Archer fuels insights on 255 million U.S. shoppers at the unique ID level, providing customized data solutions for clients. Harris also founded Strategy University, a first-ofits-kind educational program to help fellow teammates in any field learn, grow and evolve their strategy craft. Launched in early 2021, the tool took a full year to conceptualize, design and execute. Recently, the platform was made available to the entire Publicis Groupe network through internal AI platform Marcel, with more than 30 courses available.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

COLLEEN KELLY

MELISSA KING

DEB KREIDER

Head of Trade & Shopper Marketing Anheuser-Busch

Director, E-Commerce Operations Lowes Foods

Director, Meat & Seafood The Giant Co.

During her 10-year career at Anheuser-Busch (A-B), Colleen Kelly has held strategy, distributor and field sales roles after graduating from the beer maker’s global management trainee program. She moved into the company’s trade and shopper marketing practices in a regional position at the end of 2015, and assumed leadership at the national level in 2018, now based in New York. The necessity for innovation spurred on by the pandemic forced Kelly and her team to rethink a go-to-market plan that previously relied heavily on in-store merchandising, sports sponsorships and live events. She worked with the experiential team and key retail partners to support the Cinco De Mayo holiday; Reventon, a portfolio-driven program instore and online, became the company’s virtual music festival for both consumers and shoppers; and “Homegating” options gave consumers the opportunity to engage at-home through recipes, partnerships and football gear. Finding new routes to market and vendor partnerships allowed A-B to quadruple its digital sampling in 2020, creating a more targeted shopper approach that has scaled in 2021. Kelly’s leadership was crucial in response to ever-changing market conditions, accelerating timelines on digital pilots already in the pipeline, and collaborating with retail partners to modify existing promotional plans. A key contributor to The Vault, a state-of-the-art collaboration center housed on A-B’s St. Louis campus that opened in July, Kelly is building a series of connected commerce learning modules about winning in-store, the digital shopping journey and other topics that will introduce new technologies and ideas to drive these strategic partnerships. The Babson College graduate earned a bachelor’s degree in business management and is currently pursuing her MBA in business analytics and machine learning. She also completed a 12-month coaching program with BetterUp in 2020-2021, and is currently in the Global Women’s Leadership Program at ABI and the co-chair of its U.S. Women in Beer and Beyond ERG.

Melissa King knows how to build high-performing teams and drive revenue for multi-unit stores within the retail, grocery and specialty food industries. With extensive experience in field operations, e-commerce, human resources, sales, marketing, finance and management, she is currently responsible for leading the e-commerce and omnichannel practices and operational execution for more than 76 stores across three states for Lowes Foods. A graduate of Pensacola State College with a degree in business, management, marketing and related support services, King also earned her MBA in global business administration from Oxford Brookes University in 2020. Having spent more than 10 years at Academy Sports + Outdoors as an operations manager, then in human resources at Bass Pro Shops and as a store manager at Big Lots, she moved into grocery at The Fresh Market in 2012 as a store manager before having two stints as a regional manager of operations. She stayed in operations, moving to Lucky’s Market for two years before joining Lowes Foods in March of 2020. She also served as president and CEO of Spot On Recruiting from late 2019 until November 2021. As director of Lowes Foods’ e-commerce operations since May 2020, King oversaw the triple-digit growth of e-commerce sales that year. She also developed the firstever curbside impulse program in the country sponsored by Coca-Cola, instituted a “Locker Pick-Up” program and execution to include cutting-edge B2B strategy, implemented drone usage and a coordinating “go forward” plan, and designed pickup and parking lot areas to include new fixtures, signage and paint. Under her leadership, Lowes Foods has been recognized by FlyBuy as having the lowest curbside wait times in the U.S., and the retailer has been identified by Dunnhumby as the No. 1 grocer and No. 3 retailer for guest experience, convenience and safest store to shop.

Under Deb Kreider’s leadership, the meat and seafood departments throughout The Giant Co. have seen significant improvements in meeting the needs of today’s families. Kreider began her career with the retailer nearly 30 years ago and has been a part of numerous industry innovations along the way. She currently serves as director, meat and seafood, which includes leadership of category management, merchandising and pricing, representing approximately 14% of the overall business. With a degree in business administration from the University of Maryland, Kreider joined The Giant Co. in operations in 1991, working within its stores for nine years. She then transitioned to corporate and has held several positions over the years, moving to her current post in January 2019. Kreider has taken the initiative to evolve processes and operations in order to more fully meet the needs of today’s customers and actively promote one of the retailer’s three philanthropic pillars: Healing Our Planet. She has led efforts to eliminate the use of Styrofoam in the meat and seafood departments, converting to PET recyclable trays instead. Also, as the pandemic intensified and meat supply was constrained, she worked creatively to keep as much product as possible safely in the stores. Between the first and second weeks of March 2020, meat department sales increased by approximately 75% and steadily grew, with an innovative new assortment of packages and product mixes that were added under her leadership. In August 2020, Kreider led the launch of the company’s private-label Cook-in-Bag line of meat and seafood items, offering families easy, nutritious, affordable meals. She strategically positioned the line for success through a comprehensive marketing and promotional plan that began with meat managers trying the products at home with their families and encouraging team members across the brand to do the same through a special exclusive promotion.

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Category: Community Impact COMMUNITY IMPACT

2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

SURABHI POKHRIYAL

Owner and CEO Mooney Farms

Global Head of Digital Commerce Colgate-Palmolive

Mary Mooney started Mooney Farms 35 years ago to support her family. But she very quickly began to make her mark in the grocery industry with her innovative mindset and business acumen. She gained the respect of buyers (mainly male) in the retail produce department in 1986, sold the idea of marketing her kiwi jam next to the fresh kiwi fruit, and introduced “value-added” merchandising to the produce department, now a widely used strategy across the country. As a pioneer in the retail category of sun-dried tomatoes in U.S. markets with its Bella Sun Luci brand, Mooney has been consistently challenged to stay on the forefront of innovation and new product offerings, such as the company’s newest addition to the snack category, plant-based tomato jerky. The vegan jerky is made from California-grown sun-dried tomatoes that undergo an intense pressured process to create the three clean-label ingredient flavors. It contains 80% less sodium than traditional jerkies and appeals to consumers looking for a plant-based, on-the-go, better-for-you snack. The new product was named “Artisan PlantBased Jerky of 2021” from the Tasty Awards and was recognized as the best overall meatless product of the year by the Mindful Awards. A graduate of California State University, Chico, with a degree in information communications, Mooney continues to give back to the students of her community by supporting local universities and taking part in local fundraisers each year. She has also continued her sustainable efforts as a female farmer, producing olives for her olive oil product lines including estate grown Arbequina olive oil, and new extra virgin olive oil dressings that are on track to launch in 2022.

Surabhi Pokhriyal has led the charter on digital transformation and e-commerce acceleration for several Fortune 100 companies. Her expertise lies in leading cross-functional P&L and budget management with multigeography teams in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America, transforming digital marketing and frictionless commerce. She currently heads global e-commerce for Colgate-Palmolive. Pokhriyal is an engineer and earned her MBA from the National Institute of Industrial Engineers, one of India’s top business schools. Her work experience includes time at Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Cognizant and Johnson & Johnson before assuming her current role at ColgatePalmolive in January 2021. During the past year, Pokhriyal has championed several new processes and controls to establish new and sustainable operations in marketing of consumer products, such as recognizing a paradigm shift for in-store purchases (more about experience and less about product), actioning SUMO (straight up missing out) versus acknowledging FOMO (fear of missing out), and optimizing media. She also led the company’s future-state and readiness efforts, working to transform a 215-year-old company with new thinking, including embracing technology; adopting AI and cloud computing that drives automation; strategizing convenience as the new normal and understanding how to partner with Instacart, Uber Eats and other “non-traditional” players; and retraining individuals in the organization to focus on how to use technology as an enabler to making better decisions that will impact sales, share and profits. Pokhriyal is a regular speaker at industry conferences and podcasts on digital transformation and e-commerce, and a member of the CGT/RIS executive council and Digital Shelf Institute. She’s also a co-creator of the Women in E-Commerce executive forum, and a mentor/advisor to e-commerce technology providers, venture capital and entrepreneur roundtables.

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COMMUNITY IMPACT

MARY MOONEY

DEANNA BEHRENS Senior Manager, Client Leadership, Customer Development The Mars Agency

Deanna Behrens has a passion for service, and she didn’t waste any time making an impact in her current post at The Mars Agency. The company’s mission is to make a positive impact across what it calls the “Triple Bottom Line,” consisting of its clients, the agency and its communities. Behrens, who holds a degree in communications from Miami University and an MBA in marketing and international business from Xavier University, began her career in human resources but quickly realized that the marketing world was where she wanted to be. After stints at a local marketing arm of Grey Global Group and Empower MediaMarketing, she moved to Chiquita Brands and then Perfetti van Melle, where she was first introduced to shopper marketing. She also spent three years at medical device company AtriCure before joining The Mars Agency in April 2019. Once there, Behrens took on leadership of its Start Small committee, first in its Cincinnati office with monthly give-back opportunities and then at the corporate level. The agency’s community volunteer initiative, Start Small, focuses on giving back to local communities through small acts of kindness. Behrens has organized and led volunteer efforts across offices more recently. In her new role on the Start Small Executive Committee, Behrens helps coordinate and plan initiatives across the entire company (15 offices and 600 people), ensuring that all office-level leads are equipped to be successful. In addition to her service work at the agency, she is an active volunteer at the Cincinnati Zoo and Ohio Alleycat Resources Clinic, has volunteered at Big Brothers & Big Sisters and the St. Rita School for the Deaf, and serves as a mentor at Xavier University.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

DERISA BETHEA

TEKISHA BOONE

KATE CLARKE

Manager, Marketing Planning & Strategy Family Dollar

Shopper Marketing Senior Manager GE Appliances

E-Commerce Merchandising Manager — Non-Perishable Giant Food

Derisa Bethea was the driving force for the first-ever Black History Month shopper program at Family Dollar in 2021. Propelled by a large donation that she negotiated from a key vendor partner for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the program drove awareness of influential black leaders in communities around the country using Family Dollar’s partnership with the BGCA. It also created incremental sales with a positive return on investment and return on ad spend during the month of February. Bethea attended Longwood University for three years and then graduated from The Art Institute in Tampa, Florida, with a degree in merchandising. She started her career at Belk in 2012 on the e-commerce team. From there she moved into merchandising and marketing/advertising roles, spending five years with the company. In 2017, she joined Lowe’s on its digital team and, in 2018, moved over to Family Dollar as a marketing specialist and a marketing planner before being promoted to a marketing planning and strategy manager, her current post, that same year. Her colleagues say she is always pushing to integrate more diversity into each of Family Dollar’s shopper programs, using visual representation and activations that speak to the diversity of their shoppers and team members. Internally, she is a liaison between marketing and the diversity, equity and inclusion team, making sure that what is being planned at a marketing level has synergies with what the company is trying to achieve.

As the shopper marketing senior manager for GE Appliances, Tekisha Boone is tasked with creating digital marketing campaigns that drive shoppers to GE’s dealer stores and websites. Especially during the pandemic, Boone’s leadership played a crucial role in the success of its dealer partners, using disruptive GE creative assets to drive shoppers to independent dealers online versus national retailers. She was also instrumental in increasing co-op reimbursement to GE’s dealers for digital advertising, providing 100% reimbursement to support dealers’ efforts moving toward digital. It became imperative for dealers to offer selling sites and be more digitally savvy. While offering digital support for dealers when they were forced to stay home and operate via mobile and websites, Boone found ways to also support community outreach programs. She was also active in the company’s partnership and investment in “Together We Rise” — an initiative to support children in foster care. Boone graduated from Bellarmine University with a degree in communications and English. She started her career at Nestle as a sales representative before moving into category roles. She then held roles at PepsiCo as a SuperValu account executive, Alberto Culver, General Mills, SC Johnson and Abbott before joining GE Appliances in April 2018. Outside of work, Boone is an avid volunteer. She and her family sewed more than 200 masks for essential workers and the homeless while also raising money to provide N95 masks with nonprofit Sew Masks for Columbus at the start of the pandemic. She also spends more than 700 hours each year mentoring and inspiring students to believe in themselves and love their differences as the co-founder of ACT Against Bullies, a community service group for students.

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Kate Clarke knows how to be successful inside the workplace as well as in cooperation with those in the community around her. She led a ground-breaking partnership between Giant Food and Union Kitchen, a local food and beverage incubator based in Washington, D.C. Through this program over the past year, more than a dozen small business entrepreneurs have been able to sell their products via Giant’s e-commerce channel. Clarke’s leadership in developing and expanding the relationship helped these startups succeed in the community and provided Giant shoppers with more locally sourced options. Across the country, customers’ desire to shop small and shop local was elevated since the start of the pandemic, making Clarke’s efforts and this partnership even more successful in their ability to create jobs, build community and celebrate diversity. Top-performing products from Union Kitchen are now starting to expand beyond e-commerce into Giant’s retail stores, and Clarke’s support is turning the business into a powerful pipeline of innovation. Clarke graduated from James Madison University with a degree in communication and media studies. She began her career at Custom Ink as a sales and service manager before moving into merchandising for the custom apparel company. After 14 years, she joined The Home Depot as manager of online category experience, flooring and paint, a position she held for nearly two years. In February 2020, she moved to Giant Food and assumed the position she holds today.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

JENNIFER TINKER Vice President, Client Leadership TwinOaks Integrated Marketing

National Retail Solutions (NRS) was founded with a mission to help small, underprivileged and underbanked independent retailers survive and thrive. Diana Stern has helped it grow since she joined in 2017, contributing toward the development of new products and services consistent with its commitment of helping the underserved retail community. Recently promoted to vice president of marketing, Stern has worked to expand the company’s offerings far beyond its primary baseline POS product, with the addition of multiple premium features to help retailers be more efficient and generate revenue. She has provided the leadership to build and market, from the ground up, new products and services — all aligned with the NRS mission of helping mom-andpop stores compete with large-chain operations. The NRS point-of-sale ad network is in more than 15,000 retail locations across the U.S., directly impacting and influencing consumers’ paths to purchase. As of October 2021, the company now offers point of sale-eWIC integration, which helps its merchants incorporate the government assistance program for low-income households. This is “a game changer,” Stern says, because NRS offers eWIC at the most affordable pricing in the industry. “We’re helping our retailer customers better service their communities and bring in more foot traffic, while keeping our program extremely affordable.” Stern’s training and background was primarily in marketing-focused graphic and web design, with a bit of sales mixed in. She started her career at The Voice & Opinion newspaper, managing advertiser relationships, as well as covering events and contributing as a journalist with the New Jersey Press Association. She then led the creative team at Gold Mark International, coordinating marketing initiatives for political campaigns and organizations and, in 2012, co-founded 3Media Marketing, leading marketing and creative ventures on behalf of an assortment of clients, including venture capitalists, nonprofits, political sectors, businesses, organizations, schools and more.

In less than two years at TwinOaks, Jennifer Tinker has defined excellence in client leadership with her strategic and growth-focused mindset, while imprinting on the agency’s culture, setting the standard for humility and servant leadership. Still new to the agency when she took the reins of one of its largest and newest clients, Bimbo Bakeries, she helped grow the business 30% in the first year. A graduate of Colgate University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and interdisciplinary writing, Tinker has worked in the agency space for more than 10 years supporting clients such as Bimbo Bakeries, PepsiCo, P&G and Walmart. In 2017, she took a multi-year hiatus from shopper marketing and teamed up with clinical psychologist, Dr. HaeSung Han, to co-found POETIC, an intensive aftercare program to break the cycle of victimization for girls who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. Her experience in business management, client services, partnership-building and storytelling, and her awardwinning skills as a grant writer have been instrumental to POETIC’s success in gaining the community support it needed to grow. She led a luncheon event in Dallas that raised a record-breaking $1 million-plus in net proceeds for the organization. In 2019, POETIC was named Social Innovator of the Year by the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and Nonprofit Team of the Year by D CEO magazine. Later that year, Tinker transitioned into her current role as chair of POETIC’s board of directors and returned to her career in shopper marketing. Tinker was also appointed to the Mayor’s Star Council, a volunteer organization made up of civically minded young professionals who work in tandem with city government to educate emerging leaders about the challenges facing Dallas and enlist their aid in finding solutions.

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BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

DIANA STERN Vice President, Marketing National Retail Solutions

NATALIE BENOIT Shopper Marketing Senior Manager, The Home Depot GE Appliances

Natalie Benoit is responsible for growing the GE Appliances’ house of brands at The Home Depot, where the growth of its GE Profile brand is a shining example of her impact. Benoit has made it her mission to connect the Home Depot shopper with GE Profile appliances because of their innovative features that make consumers’ lives easier. Benoit graduated from the University of South Carolina with a degree in journalism and mass communications. She started her career at customer activation agency Scoppechio, spending nine years in account services roles. She joined GE Appliances in her current role in May 2019. Since then, Benoit and her sales team have grown GE Profile sales and attention for the GE Profile brand at The Home Depot. In 2019, the team brought the retailer’s innovative partnership with “Star Wars” to stores. For the first time ever, The Home Depot collaborated with the GE Profile and “Star Wars” teams to create custom branded in-store materials for its Black Friday racetrack suite, a coveted placement during this shopping holiday. In addition, The Home Depot ran GE Profile/“Star Wars” digital creative to drive consistent messaging across the shopper journey. The initiative drove Black Friday online sales and orders up year-over-year and recorded a lift in profile-branded searches on HomeDepot.com. In 2020, Benoit launched the GE Profile brand campaign, “This is Smarter Cooking,” within Home Depot channels, driving year-over-year growth and reinforcing significant increases in GE Profile floor commitments. This year, the retailer is partnering as a sponsor of the 2021 ESPN “College Gameday” built by The Home Depot. It was an ideal opportunity to highlight GE Profile’s innovative in-oven air fry capabilities, and Benoit helped secure a media contract, has driven key branding and product recommendations during creative development, and will be executing the first-ever GE Profile influencer campaign with The Home Depot, while driving crossfunctional support internally at GE Appliances.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

JOYCE CRESS

JENNIFER HALE

MEGHAN HELTNE

Senior Customer Marketing Manager GE Appliances

Vice President of Marketing Coca-Cola Co.

Vice President, Customer Development The Mars Agency

As part of GE Appliances’ company objectives to offer products that serve customers in more meaningful ways, Joyce Cress developed and executed an omnichannel marketing strategy for the company’s first-ever 100% kosher-certified ovens. GE Appliances technology, certified by the Orthodox Union and the Hisachdus Harabanim, works in conjunction with a Shabbos Keeper (sold separately) and overrides the usual everyday electrical operation of the appliance, making it compliant with the rules of Jewish law during Shabbos and Yom Tov. It was an important program, as the company tries to get closer to consumer needs and wants with greater personalization. Cress partnered with several cross-functional organizations at GE Appliances, including product development, engineering, merchandising, training, marketing and sales, as well as the Orthodox Union to execute the marketing plan. Her hyper-local field marketing campaign, which launched just prior to Passover 2021, targeted several heavily concentrated New York and New Jersey Jewish Orthodox communities and consisted of digital and print advertising, social, PR and P-O-P. The campaign helped to drive growth in this new segment of GE Appliances’ cooking business and gain additional appliances market share. Cress, who holds a degree in advertising and marketing from the University of Miami, began her career in marketing. She’s worked for companies such as Jarden Consumer Solutions (now Newell Brands), HP in both national and global shopper marketing/campaign marketing, and Office Depot in category marketing, digital and merchandising. She joined GE Appliances in February 2020 as the senior customer marketing manager for Lowe’s, the position she holds today.

Jennifer Hale has an enterprise mindset with creative problem-solving and best-in-class leadership capabilities, consistently resulting in mutual growth for the Coca-Cola system and its customers. She and her team have driven revenue and share growth for three consecutive years with a portfolio of notable convenience store customers. Hale graduated from Belmont Abbey College with a degree in business management. She started her career at Career Sports & Entertainment (CSE), working her way up to vice president of event marketing and creative services. She became an entrepreneur for five years, freelancing for CSE and establishing a general manager mindset and appreciation for teamwork and ROI. In 2010, she joined CocaCola and held several shopper marketing positions before being named vice president of marketing earlier this year. Utilizing macro trends and category insights, she partners with customers to meet their consumers’ rapidly changing needs while driving growth. In 2020, she created and implemented a one-day sampling event for a brand relaunch, resulting in more than 250,000 samplings in one day, driving 320,000 store visits within seven days of the promotion and a 6.91% store conversion rate. She tied the event to the kickoff of daylight saving time and launched an innovative campaign with wayfinding app Waze, making Coca-Cola the first CPG brand to engage the app. The campaign’s one-day digital billboards and posters garnered more than 35.8 million impressions across 16 markets. Hale adapts online and offline shopping experiences, inspiring shoppers to purchase Coca-Cola brands and drive customer revenue. In 2021, she designed the first cross-channel digital sampling event for a new brand promotion and with it launched a multi-week sampling opportunity for any retailer in any channel. Her team provided creative for in-store signage and digital and social channels. The program launched with more than 30 retail partners on Sept. 1.

Meghan Heltne’s passion is helping her clients transform their business and partnerships at Target. She leads the agency’s Target team across all of its clients, consistently measured as best-in-class by peers, clients and within Target. Credited with leading the development and expansion of thought-leadership pieces to keep the agency engaged in the strategic priorities and opportunities within the Target ecosystem, she partners seamlessly across internal and external teams to develop business-building and problem-solving ideas, creative and programs. Heltne graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in communications. She started her career at Fallon as a project manager, moving to The Mars Agency as an assistant account executive after two years. In 2011, she joined Coca-Cola, as the bottler’s shopper marketing manager supporting the Target business and five years later, she returned to the agency as director of customer development. She was promoted to her current position in April 2019. Since assuming this role, she has grown her team from seven to 13 people, including commerce media specialists who focus on the growing Roundel retail media platform. Heltne is an expert in connected commerce and finding opportunities for brands at Target, leading clients to double the level of engagement and services the agency provides them and, in turn, improving their business results. Heltne also pushes her teams and cross-functional partners to build plans and programs that go beyond joint business planning commitments and are based on clearly identified opportunities for partnership and growth. She works in collaboration with Roundel to evolve, challenge and improve the platform and find new opportunities to align with Target’s merchant team to secure in-store support for these media programs.

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2021 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE

DIANNE LE

BETHANY STEPHENS

MARY TARCZYNSKI

Associate Director, Shopper Marketing & Partnerships Avocados From Mexico

President & Chief Enthusiast Soapbox Influence

Principal, Client Solutions Lead Parabolic

Bethany Stephens spent her early childhood in Kingston, Jamaica, then moved to the state of Washington when she was 12 years old. From a very young age, she loved good marketing and storytelling. She earned a degree in French from the University of Arkansas, and after early career roles that spanned non-profit, tourism, economic development and consulting — including her own Magpie Marketing — she joined Kendal King Group as its director of strategic marketing. Less than two years later, she created Soapbox Influence. A division of Kendal King Group, Soapbox Influence exists to build brands through authentic conversations, helping companies leverage the power of emerging voices to tell their brand stories, and delivering actionable insights to help CPGs and retailers stay on pace with shopper trends. The company brings a unique brand of influencer marketing, social strategy and social intelligence to the retail and consumer goods marketplace, leveraging enthusiastic influencers, content creators and early adopters to drive awareness and activation for brands through grassroots word-of-mouth marketing. In the past five years, Stephens has transformed Soapbox into a multimillion-dollar company focused on being a modern workplace with values placed around taking the high road, assuming diversity, being continuous learners, making your own stack of work, and always giving praise and assuming the best in others. Soapbox Influence was awarded an Ad Age “Best Places to Work” in 2021. Soapbox has a community of more than 10,000 influencers who represent major household brands. Stephens likes to say that she built a company she would have wanted to work for when she was in her 20s. She has done just that with her female entrepreneurial spirit, along the way winning several regional and national awards for her work inside the company and throughout the industry.

Mary Tarczynski became a partner at Parabolic nearly six years ago and has completely transformed the company ever since with her deep understanding of shopper marketing, her strategic problem-solving, and growth of the business and team through her mentorship. She has cultivated both large and small new clients, leading to double-digit agency growth every year. She’s a graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in public relations who also holds a master’s degree in marketing research from the University of Georgia. Tarczynski has more than 25 years of experience leading cross-functional teams to build equity and drive sales for CPG brands at retail. She spent the first part of her career in category management, shopper marketing and consumer promotion roles at Coca-Cola, Kraft, Clorox and Kern’s Beverages. She then joined The Mars Agency and built a West Coast team for clients such as Campbell’s, Clorox, Coca-Cola and Diamond Foods. She left corporate marketing and immersed herself for four years in emerging ad tech with leadership roles at Collective Bias and Ditto and, in 2016, co-founded Parabolic, a shopper marketing agency offering “ideas with trajectory” — integrated strategies, concepts and activations to help established and emerging natural brands sell in and sell through at retail. Tarczynski has opened new categories for the company, landing its first cannabis and CBD clients and launching shopper marketing programs for some of the largest players in those spaces. She is a true partner to all of her clients who are generating positive ROI on insights-driven, integrated omnichannel programs. Her leadership has led to a 56% increase in Parabolic average monthly net revenue since the beginning of the pandemic.

When Dianne Le joined Avocados From Mexico (AFM) six years ago, she was charged with developing its shopper marketing discipline and building shopper insights from the ground up. Today, she is at the helm of the team that develops and executes omnichannel shopper campaigns in everything from digital and social media activations to in-store strategies and path-to-purchase research. Le graduated from the University of Kansas with a journalism degree and later from the University of North Texas with her master’s in journalism with a minor in business administration. She has also attended executive education courses at NYU Stern School of Business and Yale School of Management. She started her career at a small software company as a marketing manager before landing at Keurig Dr Pepper in 2005, where she stayed for 10 years, holding positions in customer marketing, business development, brand and shopper marketing and, finally, consumer and shopper insights. Since joining AFM in 2015, Le has helped grow new business and increase the brand’s market share by leading a variety of omnichannel projects. She is currently the associate director, shopper marketing & partnerships. A hallmark project was the development of AFM’s 2021 Shopper A&U study. Responsible for extracting key insights from the study’s results to illustrate the shopper’s path to purchase and how it has evolved — over time and through the pandemic — Le shared the shopper-specific data with AFM’s research partners and built a framework to validate and summarize the findings, ultimately building strategic playbooks. Le is also the project lead for Avo University Online, the avocado industry’s first digital B2B education platform for retailers and foodservice. Avo University Online helps to dismantle the top avocado barriers by sharing knowledge with retailers and foodservice operators in an online format which, in turn, leads to market share growth.

December 2021

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2021

Excellence in Shopper Engagement We showcase the 20 campaigns that rose to the top BY M I C H A E L A P P L E B A U M

he Path to Purchase Institute’s inaugural OmniShopper Awards program is the first and only recognition designed to honor excellence in shopper engagement across the entire path to purchase. Much like the Institute’s now-retired Design of the Times Awards, which ran for the last 26 years, the new program recognizes and shines a spotlight on in-store marketing in all its forms, including newer tools like retail media and traditional methods like in-store displays. Overall, there were 20 winning campaigns in 12 categories. Read on for the details about the 2021 winners …

THANK YOU TO OUR JUDGES! Ari Fernandez

Commerce Marketing Manager Conagra Brands

Tony Fung

Senior Shopper Marketing Manager Bob Evans Farms

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Jayme Jansky

Head of Omni-Shopper Marketing (Field) Unilever

Frank Ogura

Director of Product Management, Digital Product and Technology Team BJ’s Wholesale Club

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2021

AWARDS

INTEGRATED PATH TO PURCHASE ACTIVATION Campaign: Say Aloha to Flavortown Summer Sweepstakes

Entrant/Brand: King’s Hawaiian Retailers: Kroger, Albertsons/Safeway, ShopRite, Meijer, Southeastern Grocers, Publix, Giant, Stop & Shop, Schnucks, Giant Eagle, Target, Tops, Harris Teeter, Weis, Food Lion, Price Chopper, Smart & Final, Stater Bros, AWG, Lowes, Piggly Wiggly, Hy-Vee, SuperValu, Military

King’s Hawaiian wanted to give shoppers more irresistible bun options beyond the traditional bread aisle and expand buying occasions for its portfolio of hamburger, hot dog and slider buns during the 2021 summer grilling season. Working with The Wilson Group, augmented reality studio Zappar and Hood Packaging Corp., King’s Hawaiian developed an omnichannel campaign that leveraged recent trends in gaming and cooking to overcome barriers to purchase in the deli/bakery section of grocery retailers, where most King’s Hawaiian buns are sold. The “Say Aloha to Flavortown” campaign, featuring celebrity chef Guy Fieri, used an interactive AR experience to encourage shoppers to find their product in-store and participate in a sweepstakes, with a grand-prize culinary escape to Hawaii. By

Campaign: Homemade Heroes Entrant: VMLY&R Commerce and Mondelez International Brands: Oreos, Ritz, Chips Ahoy Retailer: Albertsons Companies

Last summer, Mondelez needed to drive sales of its snack brands Oreo, Ritz and Chips Ahoy at Albertsons stores without a boost from the Summer Olympics, which had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Inspired by the insight that 19% of people switched where they shopped during the pandemic because they wanted to support a local business, Mondelez created a program to celebrate the everyday or “homemade” heroes, including parents who became experts in home schooling, as well as healthcare, grocery store and other frontline workers. Mondelez was able to provide financial, health and emotional assistance to those groups of people

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scanning a QR code with their phones, visitors could instantly explore Flavortown Beach through web-based AR tools to find exclusive recipes, play games and watch cooking videos, all the while racking up more “flavor points” as part of the summerlong sweepstakes program. The campaign leveraged preshop tactics such as on-site retailer banner ads, boosted product search, retailer app integration and digital coupons. In stores, point-of-sale displays featuring a unique QR code enabled consumers to launch the AR experience and enter the sweepstakes. Additionally, POS materials with retailer-specific, QR-coded messages from Fieri — including entry shrouds, bread aisle shelf talkers, front lobby signs and floor talkers — directed grocery shoppers on where to find the products. “Say Aloha to Flavortown” set a King’s Hawaiian record for most displays sold in for a summer program, with 93% increase in incremental displays versus the year-ago period. The promotion drove a 19.3% increase in volume growth for the brand’s grilling portfolio and far exceeded expectations for customer engagement with a total of 230 million impressions.

via a charitable tie-in with the Albertsons Companies Foundation and local food banks. Throughout the month of July, every purchase of a Mondelez product at an Albertsons store was matched with a donation to the foundation. At the same time, an integrated program across 13 Albertsons Companies divisions transformed Mondelez Olympic packaging into a local support program with activation across all retailer touchpoints. Dynamically geo-targeted social posts featured the Homemade Heroes messaging and patriotic-themed recipe inspiration from participating brands. Expandable rich media display ads reached Albertsons shoppers primarily on mobile, driving to more information and to add-to-cart on a division-specific landing page. In stores, merchandising including at-shelf tags, custom endcaps, lobby displays, check stands and incremental floorstand displays helped shoppers navigate the purchase of Mondelez participating products and drove further conversion. Homemade Heroes gave a major lift to both Mondelez brands and the respective snack categories at Albertsons stores. The gains from participating brands during the promotional period over the previous year included Oreo (up 14%), Ritz (26.8%) and Chips Ahoy (28%). All told, the program generated $100,000 in donations to the Albertsons Companies Foundation.

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2021

AWARDS

INTEGRATED PATH TO PURCHASE ACTIVATION Campaign: Neutrogena Makeup the Gap 2020 Entrant: Johnson & Johnson Brand: Neutrogena Retailer: Walmart

The cosmetics category suffered big sales declines in 2020 due to shifting consumer priorities in the pandemic. Johnson & Johnson’s Neutrogena cosmetics brand wanted to help stem the slide and drive sales at Walmart by appealing to the values of Gen Z female shoppers through a charitable partnership with Girl Up, an organization whose mission is to advance girls’ skills, rights and leadership opportunities. For every Neutrogena makeup product sold at Walmart, the company donated $1 to Girl Up. One of the challenges for Neutrogena and Walmart was that Gen Z prefers to shop for cosmetics at specialty retailers. Thus, a combination of authentic influencers, custom content and paid social media support was used to educate young Walmart shoppers on the benefits of the partnership with Girl Up. To increase mid- and lower-funnel conversion, Neutrogena worked with Walmart Connect Media to reach relevant shoppers on a series of broad reach tactics, on-site and off-site display ads,

Campaign: Sing It With Oreo Entrant: Eastwest Marketing Group/Pratt Industries Brand: Oreo Retailers: National grocery stores across the U.S.

In 2021, Oreo decided it was time to move away from the last several years of product-focused campaigns toward a more altruistic marketing concept with purposeful messaging. With so many people struggling in their lives, Mondelez International’s Oreo brand looked to spread a little bit of kindness through music and turned to one of entertainment’s biggest stars, Lady Gaga. Oreo and Lady Gaga teamed up on a “Sing It With Oreo” campaign to promote a limited-edition Oreo cookie inspired by the artist’s “Chromatica” 2020 album release. The pink-colored golden Oreo cookie with green filling came in three custom embossments and was enveloped in shiny pink packaging to stand out on shelves. Fans were invited to “speak your heart” and “spread the love” via tunes dubbed “Oreograms” that they either borrowed from Lady Gaga or recorded themselves by scanning a code on the packs. Participants entered a contest whose grand prize winner would receive a chance to collaborate with Lady Gaga on an original Oreogram. To celebrate the release, Oreo hosted a digital scavenger

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all of which drove traffic to a custom brand engagement page on Walmart.com. In stores, an out-of-aisle display featured top selling Neutrogena makeup items and relevant “Makeup the Gap” messaging. Neutrogena Makeup reached its goal of providing Girl Up with the maximum promised donation of $50,000 as a result of the successful activation. The brand saw a 38.9% increase in pointof-sale at Walmart and drove incremental displays in 500 stores, resulting in an additional $111,000 in shipments. Additionally, strong media results included a 23.8% sales lift when comparing the spending of test and control groups exposed to the online advertising. Neutrogena drove 57.5% of new buyers to convert at Walmart via the ads executed by Walmart Connect media.

hunt on Twitter in which 50 fans were randomly selected to win packs of Gaga Oreos signed by the artist and valued at $125. Oreo also sent a mailer with the limited-edition products to social influencers who aligned with the brand’s kindness platform. In stores, national point-ofsale with images of Lady Gaga and the products included more than 34,000 four-shelf floorstands placed in grocery stores across the U.S. Consumers went “gaga” for the Oreo program, which contributed to the brand’s sales lift of 6.3% in February 2021 over the previous year, per Nielsen data.

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c o n n e c t e d

c o m m e r c e

The what, the how and the why now Watch the videos to uncover the secrets driving brand growth across the new commerce landscape.

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12/7/21 12:32 PM

2021

AWARDS

INTEGRATED PATH TO PURCHASE ACTIVATION Campaign: Back to Well at Walmart Entrant: GlaxoSmithKline Brands: Advil, Theraflu, Robitussin, Clorox, Kleenex Retailer: Walmart

For consumer healthcare marketers, the 2020-21 cold, cough and flu season was an especially challenging period given the compounding effects of the pandemic. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) saw an opportunity to drive sales at Walmart with a wellnessthemed campaign that arose from a co-marketing partnership with Clorox Co. and Kimberly-Clark. The “Back to Well” campaign, which ran from October 2020 through March of this year, included a choice of $10 Fandango gift card rewards for Walmart shoppers who purchased $25 worth of products from participating brands Clorox, K-C’s Kleenex and GSK’s Abreva, Robitussin, Theraflu, Advil and Flonase. GSK worked with Breaktime Media to design a series of web pages on DailyBreak.com that bundled products with easy add-to-cart options and offered tips for promoting good health and hygiene during the cold and flu season. Similar features were employed

COLLABORATIVE: BRAND-RETAILER

(Long-Term Partnership)

Campaign: 2021 Sam’s Club/PepsiCo Always On Portfolio Support Entrant/Retailer: Sam’s Club Brands: PepsiCo portfolio cross brands

Responding to drastic changes in shopper behavior that occurred in 2020, Sam’s Club partnered with PepsiCo to transition 2021 marketing plans from individual, campaign-based initiatives to an upfront annual strategy. The sweeping program was based on three strategic pillars: utilizing cutting-edge technology to support product innovation; growing household penetration through always-on acquisition marketing; and driving incremental share for Sam’s Club during the key events of spring, summer, back-to-school, fall football and holiday. Creative elements

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at a shoppable landing destination on Walmart.com. Digital display ads promoted getting “Back to Well” themes and the reward offer, with both visual and audio cross-platform ads delivered through mobile and web apps like Pandora, iHeartRadio and Pinterest. In Walmart stores, sidekick displays used imagery of a mother and son to emphasize the importance of caring for loved ones during the pandemic. GSK was the only major OTC brand to successfully grow share at Walmart during the softest cold and flu season in recent memory. During the span of this program, GSK increased buyer conversion (up 6.7 points), share of wallet (3.1 points), dollars per buyer (15.5 points), and dollars per trip (10.7 points). Additionally, GSK brands saw incremental sales lifts of 3% during the stockup months of October, November and December, and recorded its largest feature display support to date, with three displays totaling incremental sales of $1.5 million.

of the program were designed to encourage stock-up by promoting the value and convenience of PepsiCo products at Sam’s Club stores across seasonal timeframes. Differentiated creative versions and featured products enabled granular audience targeting, such as seasonal treasure hunters, betterfor-you snack and beverage seekers and flavor lovers. Crosscategory and cross-brand portfolio tactics were used to entice occasion-based shopping and drive basket building. The program’s unique activations included floor projection, push notification, and curbside pickup sampling with customer member survey questions and custom media reporting. To leverage the current tailgate season and return of football season, Sam’s Club and PepsiCo partnered on a targeted push notification reaching the most engaged members on the Sam’s Club app (4.5 million target audience) and encouraging stock up of their favorite snack and beverage items prior to the football season kickoff. Year-to-date results through July, per Sam’s Club Media Group Member Connect, included more than $5.3 million in incremental sales for a $9.60 incremental ROAS out of $57.3 million total sales from members who were served the ad units; an average of 9.7% sales lift and 9% penetration lift on total PepsiCo portfolio; 86.3 million impressions delivered; and an estimated 138,000 new buyers from new member acquisition.

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31.232 P2P half page ad v1.2_f.pdf

11/24/21

6:02 PM

We are proud to be the recipients of the inaugural 2021Omnishopper Award for Best Integrated Path to Purchase Activation

Mahalo!

CMY

theWILSONgroup.net

zappar.com

THE PATH TO PURCHASE INSTITUTE is the only community that connects commerce professionals THE TO PURCHASE INSTITUTE THE PATH PATHand TOmarketing PURCHASE INSTITUTEto JOIN the intelligence, innovation, and influence is the community that isPATH the only only community that connects connects THE LEADERS THE TO PURCHASE INSTITUTE needed to navigate the complexity of today’s commerce and professionals to WHO ARE SHAPING commerce and marketing marketing professionals to is the only community that connects consumer retail landscape and drive growth. the innovation, and influence THE FUTURE the intelligence, intelligence, innovation, and influence commerce and marketing professionals to OF COMMERCE! needed the today’s THE to PATH TO PURCHASE INSTITUTE needed to navigate navigate the complexity of complexity of today’s consumer retail landscape and drive growth. the intelligence, innovation, and influence is the retail only community thatdrive connects consumer landscape and growth. commerce and marketing professionals to today’s navigate the complexity of BECO Mneeded E A M E M BEto R TO DAY ! intelligence, innovation, and influence To learn more about membership packages that the align with your goals, consumer retail landscape and drive growth. please contact your sales representative or needed visit p2pi.org/membership. to navigate the complexity of today’s consumer retail landscape and drive growth.

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THE LEADERS LEADERS THE THE LEADERS WHO ARE SHAPING WHO WHO ARE ARE SHAPING SHAPING THE FUTURE FUTURE THE THE FUTURE OF COMMERCE! COMMERCE! OF

THE INTELLIGENCE: Expert and editorial insights covering THE INTELLIGENCE: Expert and editorial insights covering THE INTELLIGENCE: Expert and editorial insights covering THE INTELLIGENCE: Expert and editorial insights covering in-store, digital, retail marketing, actionable insights to to in-store, digital, retail marketing, actionable insights in-store, digital, retail marketing, actionable insights to in-store, digital, retail marketing, actionable insights to drive shopper engagement and sales. Highly relevant drive shopper engagement and sales. Highly relevant drive shopper engagement and sales. Highly relevant drive shopper engagement and sales. Highly relevant andand content-rich professional development and training content-rich professional development and training and content-rich professional development and training

12/7/21 12:32 PM

2021

AWARDS

COLLABORATIVE: BRAND-RETAILER

(Single Activation)

Campaign: Make It Home Entrant: General Mills Brands: Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Chex Retailer: Walmart

Despite an acceleration of positive trends in athome baking and Walmart grocery e-commerce due to the COVID-19 pandemic, General Mills’ core baking brands entered Walmart’s key holiday baking season with declines in shopper spend and number of trips. To reverse those numbers, General Mills redoubled its efforts to appeal to Walmart moms with digitally savvy families (a persona dubbed “Holly”) in an omnichannel “Make it Home” campaign that tied together its Betty Crocker, Pillsbury and Chex brands. Display banners, social posts and responsive

IN-STORE MARKETING: ON-SHELF CAMPAIGN Campaign: Be the Best House on the Block Entrant: Vestcom + Pinterest Brand: Mars Wrigley candy (M&M, Snickers, Skittles) Retailer: Albertsons Companies

For the 2020 Halloween season, Mars Wrigley needed to drive incremental candy sales despite COVID-19 posing widespread disruption to the typical trick-or-treating buying occasion. Through a partnership with Vestcom, Pinterest and Albertsons, Mars Wrigley engaged shoppers through a “Be the Best House on the Block” campaign that connected rich digital brand content to the point of decision at the shelf-edge. The campaign targeted Albertsons shoppers who are active Pinterest users, primarily Millennial and Baby Boomer parents looking for creative activities for their children during the Halloween season. Pinterest users who actively sought sources of inspiration were presented sponsored ads, driving to an enhanced landing page offering touchless trick-or-treating and at-home Halloween ideas with shoppable links. Halloween-themed recommendations included recipes for “monster cheesecake bites,” guides to build

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search banners engaged Holly while she was building her online grocery basket. Custom online experiences — including recipes, videos, quizzes and interactive games — drove her to Walmart’s digital baking center, where recipe solutions from General Mills’ portfolio brands were made easily shoppable with quick add-to-cart functionality across all ingredients. Walmart’s in-store bake center featured Betty Crocker, Pillsbury and Chex items along with pointof-sale on pallet displays carefully located throughout the store. General Mills activated beyond the store with the Walmart Holiday Drone Show. Hundreds of people attended the drive-in entertainment event and witnessed thousands of programmed drones performing a holiday light show. Meanwhile, social influencers inspired Holly by creating content showcasing how they baked family memories using products from the participating brands. “Make it Home” boxes were shared with 1,000 Walmart shoppers across the country, providing the same full-size product samples, spatula, cookie cutters, placemats and limited-edition card game. Not only did the General Mills Holiday Portfolio program deliver double-digit increases in sales and new shoppers, but it also delivered a $14.98 return on ad spend, nearly 2.5 times the campaign benchmark. Influencers sparked 241,000 social engagements, including 16,618 organic engagements within Instagram for a 33.4% engagement rate, far exceeding the industry benchmark of 8%.

“boo baskets” or “trick-or-treat stations,” and tips for hosting a “ghoulish game night.” At Albertsons stores nationwide, shoppers were presented with an immersive experience at the shelf edge. Vestcom’s shelfAdz replaced standard price tags for participating Mars Wrigley’s products, while the message was reinforced through in-aisle signage. All of the “Be the Best House on the Block” shelfAdz tags and signage invited shoppers to scan a Pinterest pin-code, directly linking to Mars Wrigley’s Halloween-themed digital content. Campaign results revealed both dollar and unit sales lift as well as incrementality compared to same sales a year ago: a dollar sales lift of 15.6% in the promotional period with 22.1% incrementality, and a unit sales increase of 6.8% with 17% incrementality. (Incrementality is defined as the sales increase from the pre-period and the promotional period.) These results also outpaced the category significantly during the promoted period.

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2021

AWARDS

IN-STORE MARKETING: DIGITAL ACTIVATION Campaign: Your One Stop Gift Shop-Cheers to the Naughty & Nice Entrant: Pernod Ricard Brands: Absolut, The Glenlivet 12, Jameson, Kahlua Jameson Black Barrel, Martell Blue Swift, Avion 44 Agency: The Marketing Arm

For the holiday season, Pernod Ricard wanted to appeal to shoppers who were new to the company’s portfolio of brands, which include Absolut, The Glenlivet 12, Jameson, Kahlua Jameson Black Barrel, Martell Blue Swift and Avion 44. Working with The Marketing Arm, Pernod Ricard identified two main shopper profiles: the Holiday Host and the Premium Gift Giver. The latter group believes a gift is a reflection on them and wants to make an impact with what they’re giving. These shoppers also planned to buy more gifts and attend more holiday gatherings. Notably, 60% give gifts of beer, wine or spirits during the holidays and 57% seek recommendations on their purchases. The centerpiece of the program was a Spirits Gift Guide quiz, which was hosted on a microsite and served as the digital consultant to help shoppers determine what spirit would best fit the

Campaign: Sanpellegrino Sam’s Club Virtual Bartender Entrant: The Mars Agency Brand: Sanpellegrino Italian sparkling mixers (BlueTriton Brands) Retailer: Sam’s Club

The Sam’s Club team at Nestle Waters (now BlueTriton Brands) came to The Mars Agency in May 2020 to help launch its new Sanpellegrino Mixers. The team was able to sell in the mixers to the 250 Sam’s Club locations that had liquor stores, but needed to drive sales and gain full distribution across the entire chain. Creative challenges stemmed from the loss of in-club sampling during the pandemic, as well as Sam’s Club’s stricter clean-store policy prohibiting signage. In addition, the brand’s target audience of “CEO Moms” was experiencing COVID-19 message fatigue, so the aim was to bring a sense of normalcy — and a bit of fun — back into her daily routine. Enter the Sam’s Club Virtual Bartender, a charming digital host inspired by Sanpellegrino’s partnership with Dante NYC, which provided exclusive access to the iconic Manhattan cafe’s drink recipes. Thanks to web-based augmented reality (WebAR) technology, members could scan an on-pack QR code to call up the Virtual Bartender in about five seconds, or recreate the

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person they would be purchasing for. This digital quiz engaged shoppers while they were on the hunt for what to buy, resulting in a personalized recommendation driving them to a store locator and online retailers. In stores, a one-stop-shop gift merchandising theme was featured in floor displays and paper point-of-sale assets that played off the “Naughty or Nice” elf theme. The Pernod Ricard program drove sales and incremental spend with a 15.3% conversion rate. Participating brands saw add-to-cart rates of more than 20% at retailers like Total Wine & More and Spec’s, and received a 10% sales lift at Total Wine & More specifically. Overall, the Spirits Gift Guide had more than 100,000 total visits and in-store activations included approximately 45 platform displays and 75 Wow display pickups executed at Total Wine & More locations.

experience on a dedicated brand page at SamsClub.com. Cocktail demonstrations featured a different “vibe” for each flavor in the variety pack, drawing inspiration from the recipes to determine the wardrobe, the bar set and even the music for each iteration. In the first week of full distribution when all shopper tactics were live, the product sold 6,010 units — a 68% increase over the prior week. Nestle Waters gained full distribution for the item in all 600 Sam’s Club stores. Within the first two weeks, the Virtual Bartender experience attracted 2,286 active users, 8.5% of whom returned for another visit. The program concluded with a 68% video completion rate, 85,804 engagements and an average dwell time of 6 minutes, 50 seconds.

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2021

AWARDS

IN-STORE MARKETING: STORE/AISLE REINVENTION Campaign: Timberland Herald Square shoe wall redesign Entrant: In-Store Experience Brand/Retailer: Timberland

Timberland’s Herald Square store in midtown Manhattan is a high-profile, high-traffic destination, but its relatively small size means that every inch of space needs to merchandise products effectively. The previous shoe wall showed more than 120 SKUs, but it was plain and uninviting. Timberland sought to reimagine the wall as a focal point by adding brand storytelling, color and depth — but with half the number of SKUs. Working with retail display manufacturer In-Store Experience, Timberland created a wall system with custom pegged inserts that could house anything from boot shelves to photo frames, while being sturdy enough to hold heavy industrial digital screens. The net effect is a bright, modern wall that showcases the signature Timberland boots and effectively tells the story of the brand’s new sneakers and hiking shoes. The screens are currently being used as digital signage, but they are touch-enabled and Wi-Fi ready, so they can become interactive experiences in the future.

IN-STORE MARKETING: PRODUCT DISPLAY

(Temporary)

Campaign: Jefferson’s Ocean Replica Ship Bookend Display Entrant: Bish Creative Display Brand: Jefferson’s Ocean (Castle Brands, owned by Pernod Ricard) Retailers: Undisclosed premium grocery and liquor stores

Jefferson’s Ocean is an artisanal brand of premium Kentucky bourbon with a unique product heritage. Its owner, the Pernod Ricard beverage company Castle Brands, took full advantage of that history in working with Bish Creative on a custom display for grocery and spirits stores concentrated in upper-income urban areas of the U.S. Jefferson’s Ocean is aged on the deck of a large ship, traveling to 25 ports and five continents before being transferred via barrels from Kentucky through the Mississippi River and ultimately bottled on the east coast of the U.S. The wave

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Several tactile approaches were used to showcase the boots. Hiking shoes were presented in a deep frame with faux grass backing to represent their intended habitat. Apparel, backpacks and hats were cross-merchandised with shoes to present a broader merchandise line and drive basket mix. Two large digital screens present modern video footage to brighten the area and draw in customers. Even with reduced traffic due to COVID-19 and less than half the amount of previous SKUs on display, the store saw sales that matched or exceeded previous levels. As local businesses and workers at the Empire State Building return to normal hours, sales are expected to jump even higher. New expansions of the concepts are planned in the months ahead.

action adds to the smoothness and richness of the product — a compelling point of differentiation for the target audience of 35- to 55-year-old professionals in urban locales, where tasting Jefferson’s Ocean was just as important as sharing the experience and consuming with friends and family. The displays were built as a replica of the transport ship. Practical features allowed retailers to carry products on the floor and adjust the display as purchases were made so that it could always remain full. Details of the captain’s bridge, the offloading crane and the deep blue color were among the re-created elements of the real ship that lent authenticity to the design. This merchandising program was sold into premium grocery and liquor stores with a life expectancy of 90 days. Record sales were reported during that time frame on average 50% more than forecast, leading retailers to adjust their promotional calendar to keep the display in-store for an additional 90 days. At the completion, forecasts were made for the next fiscal year, and it was desired and requested that this display be reproduced and sold into the same stores, as well as additional stores, creating an overall lift of 120%.

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2021

AWARDS

IN-STORE MARKETING: PRODUCT DISPLAY

(Temporary)

Campaign: Walmart Bud Light Super Bowl Activation Entrant: Anheuser-Busch Brand: Bud Light Retailer: Walmart

In 2021, Budweiser used its longstanding NFL sponsorship to drive purchases of Bud Light and Bud Light Seltzer at Walmart in the days leading up to Super Bowl LV. The party-themed campaign included a bundled “Snack Time” offer for $15 back on purchases of Bud Light and PepsiCo’s Pepsi and Tostitos products. Bud Light’s Super Bowl campaign spanned various on-site, digital and in-store activations. The in-store elements included point-ofsale signage and interactive stunt activation, both of which tied back to overall campaign message and goals. Bud Light had off-shelf displays in 2,500 stores that were supported with signage communicating the partnership and $15-off value offer. This last touchpoint when a shopper arrived in-store reiterated the same message contained in digital ads and on Walmart.com during the pre-shop phase. The brand engaged shoppers at two Walmart stores in Tampa, Florida, to reiterate

Campaign: Bic Us. Entrant: Inspira Marketing Group Brand: Bic Retailers: Dollar General, HEB, Giant Eagle, Walmart.com

Marketing in the razor category is littered with confusing messages and product claims. Bic’s insight teams revealed that clear and concise messaging is the key to differentiation in the commodity category, and Bic used that insight to develop retail merchandising support for the launch of its new “Us.” unisex brand of system razors. Working with Inspira Marketing Group, Bic rolled out a series of omnichannel tactics to drive shoppers to Dollar General, Giant Eagle, H-E-B and Walmart.com during the second through fourth quarter in 2020. The in-store components included a freestanding unit that featured a 5-foot razor and 3-D elements to create true in-aisle stopping power. At Dollar General stores, a special placement between men’s and women’s razors enabled the product’s inclusive messaging to be reinforced. Bic encouraged shoppers to pull information and offers from shelves via retailerintegrated coupons, side wings, die-cut shelf talkers, and eyecatching PDQs designed to introduce the unisex razor category and set Us. apart from other razor system brands. Through these efforts, Us. drove trial and grew market share

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the pre-shop message that beer is available via Walmart’s online pickup and delivery app (OPD). Bud Light used its partnership with the NFL to have Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleaders and drumline go with Walmart associates to deliver groceries in the online pickup area when shoppers made a beer purchase. The local stunt activation was the first of its kind to be executed within AnheuserBusch at Walmart. The events generated local excitement as the team was in the playoffs, ultimately winning the Super Bowl, which drove extra PR and traffic to Walmart stores. In addition, Bud Light drove communication around beer availability on OPD, a gap that still needs help closing.

throughout the promotional period, reaching an all-time share high of 60% and achieving the No. 2 razor system position at Dollar General. Further, the brand brought new shoppers into the shaver category, with key customers delivering 62% category growth and 30% in incremental sales. By offering the utility of two SKUs (male and female) in one package (unisex), the Us. razors help customers manage limited space, and they’ve been rewarded with a product that has been three times more productive than the item it replaced.

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2021

AWARDS

IN-STORE MARKETING: PRODUCT DISPLAY

(Long-term)

Campaign: LED+ Display Entrant: Frank Mayer and Associates Brand: GE Lighting, a Savant Company Retailer: Lowe’s

Entering 2020, GE Lighting wanted to create a display at Lowe’s stores that would promote customer engagement while showcasing key features of its new line of LED products, such as

DIGITAL: DIGITAL MEDIA ACTIVATION

(Non-Retail Media)

Campaign: All Good Entrant: The Mars Agency Brand: All (Henkel) Retailers: Walmart, Target, Kroger, Albertsons

Once seen as a leading stain-fighting brand, Henkel’s All detergent was losing mindshare among retailers and consumers alike. Marketing in the laundry category was being driven by powerful new formulas, formats and fresh scents. Shoppers were increasingly shifting away from nostalgic brands like all toward those offering deep discounts and an innovative new look. Henkel’s core insight that “Happiness is measured in moments, not loads” summed up its approach to target the 55% of moms who consider laundry a chore and want to get the job done with minimal fuss. For these moms, All’s trusted heritage as a stainlifter was the right choice to remove common kid stains from things like grass, mud and chocolate. The brand’s creative team produced colorful images and an upbeat message that celebrated the cleanup role that moms play and what matters to her most — her kids — with two simple words: “all good.”

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LED battery backup, dusk to dawn, speaker and color. The displays, scheduled to run through 2022, needed to appeal to a target audience of affluent, educated female shoppers who are open to trading up to high-end products for the connected home. Working with Frank Mayer and Associates, GE Lighting rolled out a new LED+ Display for inline shelf placement and spoke to the consumer via push-button interactive controls. The design of the display, positioning in-store and lighting features kept consumers engaged in learning more, while being designed for easy placement and usability. This display complemented a full national marketing investment that included commercials airing on subscription television services (e.g., Hulu), paid social advertising, digital ad placements, audio commercials on Pandora and Spotify, as well as promotions delivered in shopper promotional apps like Shopkick and Ibotta. The core theme of the marketing campaign was presented as “Brighter Together” to emphasize the idea that, with one simple additional function, the products go beyond standard lights to make life a little better. The campaign generated more than 48.3 million impressions, helping to inform the core audience on the quality and value of the LED+ simple solutions. In-store promotional apps drove 2.7 million impressions alone and 280,000 in-store engagements with an 18% conversion rate.

The “all good” campaign included a national strategy and retailer-specific activations. Branded content on Pinterest and paid media inspired moms to embrace the task of cleaning up their kids’ messes with help from All. Similar advertising themes were deployed in shopper programs with Albertsons, Kroger, Walmart and Target, including engagement on the retailers’ ad platforms, paid search and in-store signage. During the campaign, All’s dollar sales increased 15% overall versus the prior period, and rose 21% and 49% at key accounts Kroger and Walmart, respectively. Target experienced its biggest impact in online sales, posting 201% growth versus the prior year. In addition to sales growth, the campaign delivered a 40% increase in dollars per total distribution points on core Henkel items versus the prior year, per the company.

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2021

AWARDS

DIGITAL: MOBILE ACTIVATION Campaign: Connecting Shoppers with High-Demand Products During Unprecedented Shortages Entrant: GroundTruth Brand: Undisclosed fresh meat brand Retailer: Walmart

During the pandemic-induced run on store shelves in the spring of 2020, it was critical for brands and retailers to direct shoppers to locations with in-stock available items. One fresh meat brand turned to GroundTruth’s in-stock targeting solution to drive consumers to Walmart stores where its products were available either via grocery pickup or an in-store visit. In-stock targeting allows GroundTruth to dynamically turn media on or off based solely on product availability at nearby surrounding stores. For this fresh meat brand (name undisclosed), location-based audience targeting was

Campaign: Off The Eaten Path (OTEP) Engagement with Moment Marketing at Scale Entrant: Aki Technologies Brand: PepsiCo

PepsiCo’s new better-for-you snack brand Off The Eaten Path (OTEP) was struggling to connect with customers in the booming “permissible” and premium snacking marketplace. Familiarity with the brand is low, with 5% aided awareness and only 58% distribution, according to PepsiCo. Given that today’s consumers have bountiful healthy snack options and are bombarded with online ads in the category, OTEP needed a solution that would help the brand stand out and connect with multiple audience segments. Working with Aki Technologies, PepsiCo created a personalized messaging strategy targeted to three segments: Youthful SelfImprovers, Wholesome Families and Active Retirees. The campaign leveraged Aki’s proprietary Moment taxonomy to identify the optimal moments to reach each segment. It then employed multiple ad formats — video, rich media and banners — to ensure that the rightsized ad experience was delivered in each moment. For example, a video ad was best suited to people in “lean back” states, when there is more time to watch and engage. Each creative in the variation group was personalized with

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used to reach known shoppers of specified Walmart stores. The tactic drove 93% of visits for consumers who placed an order online for pickup and 83% of all clicks on ads to “Add to Cart.” Custom audience targeting allowed the brand to target known shoppers of select Walmart stores that fell into specific audience segments like Millennials, BBQ & Grilling Enthusiasts and Natural Food Shoppers. Purchase-based targeting, which targeted audiences who had previously purchased this brand or products from a similar category, successfully drove twice the average click-through rate on the in-store-focused creative. GroundTruth’s innovative solution helped this supplier drive more than 800,000 visits to Walmart stores, as well as a 24% increase in sales during the period. Because of the precision of the targeting tactics, the ads proved relevant to the right people at the right time, leading to a low cost per visit of only $0.26. Of the total visits observed, 24% came from new shoppers, indicating that the ads for in-demand product helped drive new business by shifting consumer behavior.

branding, product features, a lifestyle statement, tagline/call to action and other variables such as location and time of day. Aki Technologies ran more than 250,000 variations of creative, which were dynamically updated through technology that spared the cost of manual production and trafficking. The campaign also included non-personalized creative for a comparative analysis that produced a deeper understanding of the impact of the strategy. In the top-line result, the personalized creative engaged customers 2.66 times better than non-personalized creative. Additionally, results for each of the targeted audiences exceeded campaign benchmarks across most segments and campaign tactics. Video completion rates, for example, were more than 90% for all segments, as compared with benchmarks in the 70% to 90% range.

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2021

AWARDS

DIGITAL: RETAIL MEDIA ACTIVATION Campaign: Build Your Own First Aid Kit Entrant: Johnson & Johnson Brand: Band-Aid Retailer: Target

Build Your Own First Aid Kit (BYOFAK) is an ongoing Targetexclusive program from Johnson & Johnson’s Band-Aid brand. In 2020, BYOFAK met the massive shopper shift to digital with an omnichannel campaign, developed by Roundel, whose mission was to build baskets while bringing style to the first-aid aisle at Target stores. Based on the shopper insight that parents “want to feel prepared for anything,” Target and Band-Aid offered a personalized, fashion-forward first aid bag free with the purchase of three participating Johnson & Johnson (J&J) items. A 20-plus week endcap was stocked with participating first aid items and two uniquely designed bag options found only at Target. The free bag offer was communicated to shoppers on the header card, shelf trays and bag tags, based on research that suggests shoppers look to all these places for information. To drive digital traffic and conversions, Roundel conducted an online campaign across mobile and desktop. Messaging was

DIGITAL: SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVATION Campaign: Driving Social Commerce for Tillamook with Hyphen Entrant: The Stable Brand: Tillamook Agency: The Mars Agency

Retailer: Walmart The Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA) is a daily cooperative in Oregon that manufactures and sells dairy products under the Tillamook brand name. In June and July 2021, Tillamook partnered with The Mars Agency and retail marketing firm The Stable on a social commerce campaign to drive trial and purchase for the Tillamook cheese and ice cream product lines at Walmart. The Stable’s media team built a geo-targeted Walmart program by leveraging Hyphen, a solution that pairs multichannel media buying with shoppable ad-tech, all under one platform. With Hyphen’s post-click inventory intelligence tool fueled by store-

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split between a promotional call to action and insight-based preparation, personalized to first aid occasions consistent with pandemic behaviors. Static banners, stop-motion video and social video were integrated across touchpoints with lifestyle photography enhancing the occasion message (a family cooking, camping, etc.). Pinterest video and carousel ads were used to engage prospective shoppers in the upper funnel, while Snapchat helped create awareness among younger Millennial and Gen Z parents. BYOFAK increased Target’s share in first aid by 75 basis points during a three-month period last summer, and sales were up 17.7% versus the previous year. J&J’s basket size and share of wallet increased substantially. BYOFAK buyers spent more than double on first-aid products as compared with general buyers in the category, and 60% of those dollars were spent at Target, versus 13% for all first-aid buyers.

level data from Walmart, Tillamook was able to show an in-stock item based on the user’s location, thereby ensuring Tillamook never sent a customer to an out-of-stock page on Walmart.com. The prospects clicked on a targeted ad in their social feed and were seamlessly driven to the Tillamook Hyphen platform, where they could add products directly to their Walmart cart. Hyphen was highly effective at building baskets across both product lines, driving a total of 5,500 Tillamook items to baskets for purchase. An average of four products were added to carts, which translated to a 2% add-to-cart rate and 9% engagement rate (both well above the category average). A total of $190,000 in incremental sales was generated during the promotional period. Carousel ads were the highest-performing and highestconverting ad sets, making up 45% of Tillamook’s add-to-carts. Hyphen was successful at driving purchase across not only ice cream and cheese (for a 2% and 5% sales lift, respectively), but also driving lift across the company’s entire portfolio, for a combined 5% halo lift.

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ActivationGallery

Social Commerce Over the last year or more, social media platforms have been rolling out updates at a rapid pace to make buying products without leaving their platforms easier. Snapchat and video streaming platform TikTok have emerged as major players in the social commerce space. And while platforms go in and out of style — short-form video sharing app Vine being a notable example of a trend that rose and fell — it’s noteworthy that TikTok has been the fastest-growing social app. The app was already gaining traction in early 2020 and was buoyed to peak popularity by the COVID-19 pandemic. As consumers were maintaining social distance physically, TikTok and other social media platforms provided a digital space to connect. Meta (formerly Facebook) and its wholly owned Instagram platform are also still advertising heavyweights for brands and retailers, despite an onslaught of negative press. Marketers are going beyond simply promoting products on social media and increasingly leveraging the platform to complete the path to purchase. They’re leveraging things like livestream shopping events and shoppable ads, as well as profiles, influencers and even cultural trends to not miss the moment and meet consumers where they are. BY J AC Q U E L I N E B A R B A

Following Uoma Beauty’s launch of an exclusive skin care and cosmetic line at Walmart, the partners generated a second wave of excitement in July with a fashion show livestreamed on Facebook (and Walmart.com) that introduced four SKUs to the collection. Uoma founder Sharon Chuter and influencer Sir John participated in the livestream event, which was part of the “Walmart Shop Live” series that previously promoted the retailer’s Pioneer Woman and Gap Home collections. Walmart plugged the livestream via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and Uoma touted the exclusive SKUs on Instagram.

Walmart was the first to test TikTok’s “shoppable product experience” in December 2020, allowing consumers to shop mostly private-label items during a one-hour livestream that drew seven times more engagement than expected, according to the retailer. For its second TikTok livestream event early in 2021, Walmart employed TikTok star Gabby Morrison to give a 60-minute beauty tutorial, spotlighting national brands such as LVMH’s Marc Jacobs as well as L’Oreal’s Maybelline and CeraVe. The retailer also offered a sweepstakes awarding three bundles of home decor and beauty items.

Leveraging “National Sausage Month” in October, Sigma’s Zatarain’s recruited 11 chef influencers and bloggers to share special football halftime recipes calling for the brand’s andouille and Cajun smoked sausages (manufactured through a license from McCormick & Co. and marketed by Sigma-owned Bar-S Foods) on Instagram. The influencers also directed their Instagram and blog followers to Kroger, Sam’s Club and Walmart stores for Zatarain’s products.

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ActivationGallery

Department store chain Nordstrom in October used shoppable, sponsored Instagram story ads and updates from Conde Nast’s Allure beauty publication to tout a seven-piece gift incentive (valued at $180) on select Estee Lauder purchases of $39.50 (promo code required, although not depicted in the ads). A “Shop Now” swipe-up feature opened an Estee Lauder brand shop within the retailer’s website.

In November, Coca-Cola Co.’s Vitaminwater ran sponsored “Acquire Wetness” Facebook updates to promote its gutsy flavor, launched in March 2021. The gifstyle update positioned the flavor as good for “tumtum health,” communicating “this ad can help you buy some” by tapping it. The “Shop Now” button linked to a landing page (operated by e-commerce enabler MikMak) that invited users to “check out” via Amazon, Walmart, Target and Instacart, without leaving the platform.

Ahead of the holidays, Walmart’s Connect media business introduced an omnichannel campaign called “Joy. Fully,” which includes shoppable livestreams, posts and ads. Walmart offered a series of on- and off-platform shoppable livestreams with various publishers, well-known influencers and other partners. It also offered a feature called “Taste. Fully,” including the discount giant’s first large-scale launch of shoppable recipes on Pinterest, with supplier partners like General Mills, Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo. The ads enable shoppers to seamlessly add all ingredients from shoppable recipes to their Walmart cart and purchase them in just a few clicks.

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Toy giant Hasbro ran its first-ever live shopping event, hosted by Emmy Award-winning TV personality Daphne Oz and Buzzfeed contributor Ivan Emilio. The “Hasbro Holiday Shopping Live” event broadcasted from a Hasbro microsite and via Hasbro’s Instagram and Facebook Live channels. It featured special guests and activities, including a lineup of family creators offering tips for gift wrapping and product demos. Consumers could browse and make purchases via shoppable tags directly on the microsite throughout the event. Additionally, Hasbro donated one game or toy (up to 100,000) to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots for every viewer that joined the live event.

TRION

P.O.P FIXTURES AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Plastic Hooks

Inventory Control Clips

Pushpins

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Components

Sign Clips and Holders

Product Pushers

Order Online With a Click! COMPETIT IV NO

1965

Since

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Hooks

Walmart recently became the exclusive retailer for several directto-consumer cosmetics brands with huge social media followings, including KAB Cosmetics, a brand co-founded by Kim ZolciakBiermann, Ariana Biermann and Brielle Biermann of Bravo TV’s “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and “Don’t Be Tardy”; and Bedoya Beauty from Isabel Bedoya, an influencer with more than 3 million Instagram followers. The retail giant supported the launch heavily on social media by spotlighting the brands on Walmart.com through a “Loved by Influencers” e-commerce hub.

Backplates

Amazon tapped into “The Real Housewives” franchise by partnering with Kyle Richards of Bravo TV’s “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” who is an existing Amazon influencer, for a shoppable livestream event via Amazon Live. Sponsored Instagram updates touted her “musthave products” and included a “Watch Now” button linking to a dedicated landing page within Amazon.com, where users could watch her “One Outfit Six Ways” livestream or scroll down for past livestreams, without leaving the platform.

O R STAT

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ActivationGallery

Target, no stranger to Pinterest, recently ran sponsored shoppable Pins promoting GlaxoSmithKline’s Sensodyne toothpaste and its availability for the retailer’s DriveUp service. Using swipe-up functionality, the ad linked to a web page within Target.com listing 24 Sensodyne products next to “Add for pickup” buttons, without exiting Pinterest.

DTC brand and membership-based online retailer Public Goods recently began leveraging TikTok and launched a dedicated “TikTok Favorites” web page, depicting dozens of products, within its e-commerce website. The brand includes the link to the web page in its bio on the platform.

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Skincare startup TruSkin ran sponsored Instagram ads touting its vitamin C facial serum benefits and the product’s “50,000 ‘5-Star’ Ratings,” while exclusively directing users to CVS Pharmacy. A “Shop Now” swipe-up button linked users directly to a product details page within CVS.com, without exiting the platform.

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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. The Shipt “Preferred Shopper” option, announced in late August, seems like the next logical step in the grocery delivery business. A customer who really likes the Shipt shopper who handled their order can give them a fivestar rating, which opens an option to add the person to their Preferred Shopper list. If that shopper accepts the request, he or she will be prioritized to shop for the customer’s future orders. A test of the program was reported to be “incredibly successful” with both higher satisfaction rates and order frequency. Shipt also says that 95% of customers use the feature “right out of the gate” and reported higher satisfaction levels. They also tend to tip more when paired. When Samsung launched its new Galaxy foldables and Watch4 series in Europe this fall, it did so with in-store augmented reality (AR) experiences employing scannable QR codes. The goal of the messaging was to shift the focus away from the devices’ technical features and toward all the practical benefits they offer. Something worked, as Samsung reports that the average time spent with the AR was 3.5 minutes. The AR experience was created by London-based Zappar using its AR platform, ZapWorks. Instructions on using the scannable QR codes were communicated through screens, wobblers, spec cards, print advertising and out-of-home advertising near bus stops.

Are you a Bravoholic? Good news: As of November, you can shop for your favorite “Bravoleb’s” products on NBCUniversal’s Virtual Bravo Bazaar, an AR-driven website that lets viewers buy products associated with shows (such as the “Real Housewives” franchise) on the Bravo channel. Visitors navigate the site by clicking and dragging on the screen or using arrows on the floor to explore various “rooms.” The site is built around merchandise that’s not available anywhere else and uses an e-commerce tool called Bill Schober is Editor Emeritus of Path to Purchase IQ. He’s been associated with the Institute since 1994, covering all aspects of consumer marketing with a special em“NBCUniversal Checkout” that allows phasis on the shopping experience. He welcomes any questions, comments, requests shoppers to stay on the site while still or pitches about P2P Toolkit, and can be reached at bschober@ensembleiq.com. making purchases.

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P2P Toolkit In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, a whole lot of e-commerce sites suddenly took notice and belatedly began spotlighting offerings from their Black-owned business partners. One of the actual pioneers in the space for several years now is Miiriya, an app that enables Black-owned brands and businesses to sell their products and services to consumers without transaction or listing fees. Miiriya’s operator, Lamine Loco, says that many of the vendors on the site are struggling businesses, so it is important that they receive 100% of their earnings. The plan, therefore, is to operate the app with the support of donations — like Wikipedia and PBS — so Miiriya can underwrite the vendors’ credit card and PayPal fees for them. To make it even easier for supporters, there’s a special “Businesses that need help” button inside the app.

Proof that ruthlessly efficient robots can’t take over everything: A Dutch supermarket chain announced that in 2022, it will roll out “chat checkouts” to 200 of its stores across The Netherlands. Two years ago, Veghel, Netherlands-based Jumbo Supermarkets set up a special checkout lane (called a “Kletskassa,” a play on the word “klets,” which means chatty) at one of its stores where unhurried cashiers (nice human beings, in other words) are empowered to take extra time conversing with customers. The idea, says the retailer’s CEO, is that loneliness is a particular challenge for the elderly, and stores are an important neighborhood meeting place. Checking out takes a bit longer than usual, and that’s okay. Jumbo has initiated related programs in its stores, such as the “All Together Coffee Corner,” where customers can sit and speak to other members of their local community. Volunteers also help older people by handling some of their shopping and providing company.

Here’s an example of three innovators teaming up to change the game. This fall, Vroom Delivery began partnering with a last-mile delivery-robot operator, Tortoise, to deliver goods for “urban convenience retailer” Urban Value Corner Store Store. Chicagobased Vroom is a full-stack e-commerce solution focused on convenience stores; Mountain View, California-based Tortoise is pioneering low-speed remote repositioning for zero-emission vehicles like delivery bots and shared scooters; and Dallas-based Urban Value is a specialized retailing concept considered ideal for high-density apartment communities. The delivery bots can carry 100 pounds of goods in a sealed container that is remotely opened by the operator at its destination. They operate on the sidewalk at an average speed of 3 mph with the ability to maneuver around people, cars, pets and other obstacles.

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Denver-based Ibotta just completed its “Free Thanksgiving Dinner” promotion, the second year of a program that the company says helped feed more than 3 million Americans in 2020. It is built around a 100% cash-back offer on classic Thanksgiving staples: turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes and more. To redeem, consumers can use Ibotta’s app or browser extension, or visit the website for instructions on how to shop at select retailers. For 2021, more items were added to the list, which features brand sponsors Coca-Cola, Campbell’s, Birds Eye, Idahoan, McCormick and others. The program was scheduled to end by Nov. 24 (or as long as supplies lasted).

In early November, Los Angeles-based Smarty, a premium online shopping service, launched a mobile app version of the company’s web browser extension. Founded in 2018, Smarty’s web browser extension automatically applies the best coupon onto purchases from more than 6,000 U.S. retailers (most notably Target, Walmart and Best Buy), as well as 20,000 global merchants. The company says that its new mobile app version (available on iOS or Android) functions the same way, automatically applying coupon codes and offering cash back on purchases. Smarty also added a price comparison feature using a barcode scanner. The new app also makes savings-sharing easier, too; if a user clicks on a link that a friend has shared, Smarty offers the auto-applied coupons and cash back once enabled on the mobile device.

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Azusa, Californiabased personal care packaging manufacturer APackaging Group has released a patented line of pump dispensers dubbed “The Infinity Pumps,” which it claims are completely recyclable. The manufacturer — which says it is a “go-to” supplier for brands such as Unilever, Estee Lauder and Procter & Gamble — designed a line of packages without any metal construction (typically the element that prevents beauty packaging from being recycled). The company also says that these pump packages for cosmetics are “e-commerce certified,” meaning that they can withstand the rough shipping environments.

P2P Toolkit

SPOTLIGHT: Packaging

Hamilton, Bermuda-based Bacardi says it cut the plastic in its gift packs by 50% for the 2021 holiday season. The company said it removed 147 tons of the single-use plastic it normally used every year in its gift packs through new designs that replaced plastic inserts and trays with sustainable alternatives made from cardboard that’s been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Bacardi says this represents a major step toward its 2023 goal of removing 100% of all single-use plastic from its gift packs and P-O-P materials; its 2030 goal is to be completely plastic-free. Bacardi already has achieved its 100% plastic removal goal in specific 2021 gift packs for brands such as Reserva Ocho, Grey Goose, Martinia Fiero and Dewar’s.

In November, online printer Smartpress.com of Chanhassen, Minnesota, entered the product packaging field with “Tuck Boxes.” The boxes are said to be 100% recyclable and come in three sizes designed to accommodate retail products like candles, cosmetics and soaps. Smartpress occupies a niche as an online printer for creative agencies, graphic designers, nonprofits and marketing professionals. The company says it is a carbonneutral printer and holds environmental certifications like EcoVadis Gold and ISO 14001. It reports that it is home to one of the largest fleets of HP Indigo HD presses in the world.

In October, Seattle-based Jones Soda Co. launched a new series of AR labels featuring the fortune teller character Zoltar. (You might remember him from “Big,” the 1988 movie where a Zoltar-type fortune-telling machine turned a child into an adult played by Tom Hanks.) Each AR label has an image of the character plus a Reel Label icon. Once triggered, the character reads humorous fortunes in short videos that combine “Zoltar’s infinite wisdom” with Jones Soda messaging. Consumers can also share a text-based screenshot that replicates one of the fortune cards dispensed by animatronic Zoltar machines.

Aliso Viejo, California-based OTACA Tequila recently deployed a smart packaging array designed to invite its customers to engage, track and authenticate their purchases. Working in collaboration with Fremont, California-based Identiv, OTACA is printing near field communication (NFC) tags (which have a standard circular form factor) and attaching them to the tops of its tequila bottles. Once shoppers read the tags with their smartphones, Identiv’s NFC transponders connect them to an IoT ecosystem that lets them access OTACA’s custom digital experience. This includes information on the specific bottle and its provenance, data about its supply chain journey, a history of the brand and its founders, the harvest schedule for future bottlings and instructions on how to place a future order. OTACA’s consumer engagement platform is managed by SUKU, a blockchain-based ecosystem that is said to ensure security, transparency and reliability.

December 2021

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StoreSpotlight

Groomed x Blesswell

BY J AC Q U E L I N E B A R B A

Pop-up concept stores have continued to gain traction in recent years, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic forced brands and retailers to adapt store formats for optimum agility. Pop-up retail experiences can fill several brand needs and boost consumer engagement and awareness without needing to place significant investment into permanent brick-and-mortar locations before testing the market. They also offer a unique opportunity for brands to launch new products or services, experiment with new partnerships or bring consumers back to stores. Pop-up experiences are most popular for emerging or digitally-native brands, often focused on creating consumer awareness and loyalty as well as engaging consumers. Khaled Mohamed Khaled (better known as DJ Khaled) recently tested the pop-up shop waters to introduce his new CBD-infused skincare brand Blesswell to Chicagoans and tourists through an “immersive, ultra-luxe self-care experience.” Groomed x Blesswell first opened on Sept. 29 at IHG Hotels & Resorts’ Kimpton Gray Hotel storefront in Chicago’s financial district, originally slated to live through Oct. 23. Due to strong early success with reservations completely booked, the pop-up relaunched in November after briefly closing in October, and extended its stay into the holidays through Dec. 31. Path to Purchase IQ took a closer look at the store-within-a-hotel experience.

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Located near the intersection of Monroe and LaSalle streets in Chicago, the Kimpton resides in a historic high-rise building with a modern luxe interior. Upon entering, guests and shoppers are greeted with a desk depicting a “Hello, Chicago” message with an illuminated sign. A QR code depicted on a floor decal in front of the desk invites guests to scan it for a welcome message from DJ Khaled himself via YouTube.

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Another interesting element of the pop-up shop features a quote from Blesswell’s celebrity co-founder Khaled. A large piece of wall art quoting the Grammywinning artist turned inspirer of good vibes reads: “Aside from love and family, health and wellness are our greatest blessings. That’s the key.” In addition to providing plenty of “Instagrammable” moments, Groomed x Blesswell also offers lounge seating with gaming, and a bar serving up Beam Suntory’s Jim Beam highballs, Hornitos seltzers and On The Rocks Cocktails.

The open space mimics a modern barbershop with two “state-ofthe-art” grooming stations. Awardwinning barber JC Tha Barber, alongside some of Chicago’s very own barbers that are part of the Anti Broke Barbers Club, rotate in and out of the shop to provide services and share tips and trends related to the CBD-infused line.

The full collection of Blesswell products — including a blue charcoal face mask, conditioning beard oil, daily moisturizer, facial cleansing scrubs and an ultimate shave cream, as well as branded merchandise like hoodies — is available for purchase on-site. Product presentation is minimal, with product sporadically merchandised throughout the store, including on a floating shelf/illuminated art installation communicating a “Live Well Love Well Bless Well” message. A wall display and rack serve as a product merchandising wall similar to those found in a salon or barbershop.

In addition to offering branded Blesswell products, the experience’s primary offering is its complimentary grooming services, including cuts, shaves and facials using Blesswell products. Consumers can make appointments for a service through a dedicated microsite or via walk-in to experience the shop.

Blesswell was developed in partnership with Endexx Corp.’s CBD Unlimited operating division and launched back in May exclusively at Blesswell.co. The company plans to bring the pop-up experience to other cities across the country in 2022. Impact Brokers, a Miami-based agency specializing in CBD brands, heads up Blesswell’s sales and integrated marketing efforts, including the pop-up. As the self-care market continues to grow, particularly among younger consumers, wellness and grooming is one emerging subcategory. DJ Khaled’s CBD line is just another example of how DTC brands are experimenting with pop-up spaces in this expanding market.

December 2021

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Solution Provider News

Aki and ReserveBar Form Retail Media Partnership Digital marketing company Aki Technologies and ReserveBar, a tech platform in the luxury and premium spirits space, have joined forces to help brands deliver dynamically personalized digital advertisements to targeted spirits buyers. The collaboration marks Aki’s first partnership focused solely on premium spirits as it continues broadening its retail solutions. ReserveBar’s unique first-party analytics inform each advertisement’s personalized elements, including on-site data, transaction data and shopper preferences. The promotions are designed to run in moments when the brand message will be most relevant to the shopper’s current mindset and need, such as when holiday shopping for a premium gift.

The Stable Acquires Walmart Agency

Breaktime Media Debuts Fast Break

Bolt Nabs Tipser

To meet customer demand for a quicker and more simplified offering, Bostonbased Breaktime Media launched a product called Fast Break. The digital content solution can be live in as little as 72 hours and still includes product personalization, e-commerce and in-store conversion, as well as guaranteed results, according to the company. Fast Break campaigns can be activated nationally or support shopper marketing efforts at individual retailers.

Bolt, a checkout and shopper network company, has acquired Tipser, a Swedishbased tech company enabling commerce across digital touchpoints, to advance their shared vision of enabling shoppers to check out immediately at the point of discovery. Tipser has spent the past 10 years building its embedded commerce technology enabling consumers to purchase products

The Stable, a commerce agency that supports brand launches online and in stores, has acquired Arkansas-based agency The Retail Firm. The firm was founded in 2018 by Josh Breeden. Chad Goss and Kevin Head later joined as partners. It provides sales support, supply chain services, data analytics and category insights to national brands, including celeb-backed Hello Bello, consumer electronics brand Oculus and private-label suppliers at Walmart and Sam’s Club. The Stable, known for introducing brands, such as digitally native Function of Beauty, Ring and Cora, into major retailers, has spent this year growing its omnichannel service offerings and support for brands across all channels of commerce. The combined company will now employ approximately 300 people with offices in Minneapolis, Seattle and Bentonville, Arkansas. The Stable hopes this merger will strengthen its existing Walmart division by bringing together retail sales, operations, digital, creative, technology, data and its patented AdTech platform Hyphen all in one place.

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natively across touchpoints, including an online publication, mobile marketplace, price comparison site, social media platform or search engine. Bolt says it will leverage Tipser’s turnkey publisher marketplaces, touchless merchant integrations and headless implementation capabilities to enhance Bolt’s new “Remote Checkout” solution. By combining Tipser’s tech with Bolt’s SSO Commerce and its network of shoppers, Remote Checkout offers publishers the ability to monetize traffic on-site and build direct relationships with their visitors and turn anonymous visitors into logged-in account holders. All this is done while offering consumers an instant one-click checkout instead of redirecting them to another site.

Volta Launches Media Network Volta Inc. unveiled Volta Media Network, offering advertisers a digital, locationbased network that engages consumers where they shop. Volta operates a nationwide network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers that incorporate digital displays. Volta installs these location-based media stations in high-traffic retail locations, like Albertsons Cos. and Whole Foods Market stores, and partners with advertisers to sponsor the service. Volta Media Network offers a dynamic platform for brands to engage potential shoppers and influence behavior right before they walk into a store or other commercial property to make a purchase. IQ

For the latest updates on products, projects and technologies, visit pathtopurchaseiq.com.

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Personnel Appointments BRAND MARKETERS The Campbell Soup Co., Camden, New Jersey Former Family Dollar merchandising executive Charles Nevin was named chief customer officer, meals and beverages. He succeeds Michael Pierson, who was promoted to chief customer officer of the snacks division in August. Nevin leads the U.S. retail sales efforts for Campbell’s soups, sauces and beverages business. Campbell also hired Stewart Lindsay, former managing director of corporate engagement at The Nature Conservancy, to be VP of corporate responsibility and sustainability.

RETAILERS Dollar General, Goodlettsville, Tennessee Michael Joyce was appointed SVP of supply chain strategy, inventory and demand management. Joyce heads the company’s supply chain functions, including product fulfillment, strategy and demand chain management. He will report to Tony Zuazo, Dollar General’s EVP of global supply chain. Joyce previously served as SVP of planning, replenishment and supply chain optimization at Jo-Ann Stores. He held various roles of increasing responsibility during his four years with

MICHAEL JOYCE

KEVIN KONKEL

the company. Prior to Jo-Ann, Joyce led advanced analytics consulting initiatives at KPMG and McKinsey & Co., as well as various roles in supply chain, IT and analytics at Amazon, Xilinx Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. Raley’s, West Sacramento, California Chief Operations Officer Kevin Konkel will retire, effective Jan. 7, after 44 years with the company. He started as a bagger working for his father and advanced through the organization, holding senior roles in sales and merchandising, store operations and marketing before joining the executive leadership team. Raley’s plans to share a series of leadership changes following its acquisition of several other operating companies.

SOLUTION PROVIDERS Arc Worldwide, Chicago Matthew Weiner, former SVP and group creative director, was promoted to chief

CHARLES NEVIN

CHERYL POLICASTRO

creative officer. He leverages data to enhance omnichannel and creative shopper solutions while stimulating conversion, loyalty and advocacy. The company also made the following hires: Sarah Tynan as EVP, head of growth; Renee Martin as SVP, creative director; and Chhavi Saxena as SVP and finance director. TPN, New York Cheryl Policastro was promoted to chief strategy officer. She continues to lead the strategy and insights discipline at TPN to advance the agency’s overall vision while also focusing on forwardlooking opportunities for the company and its client partners. Policastro has a range of retail, brand and analytics expertise. Her appointment bolsters TPN’s predominantly female-led c-suite and furthers the company’s commitment to the advancement of women. IQ

Editorial Index ACCO Brands .............................................14 AdAdapted ...............................................20 Agustin Morales .......................................17 Aki Technologies................................. 47, 58 Albertsons Cos.............................. 37, 42, 62 Amazon.............................................. 50, 51 American Cornhole League ......................62 Anheuser-Busch ................................. 30, 45 APackaging Group ....................................55 Arc Worldwide..........................................29 Avocados From Mexico ....................... 16, 35 Bacardi .....................................................55 Bedoya Beauty .........................................51 Bic ............................................................45 Bish Creative ............................................44 BJ’s Wholesale Club ..................................36 Blesswell ..................................................56 BlueTriton Brands .....................................43 Bob Evans Farms .................................. 8, 36 Bolt ..........................................................58 Bolthouse Farms ........................................8 Breaktime Media......................................58 Bush Brothers & Co. ..................................62 ChaseDesign.............................................10 Coca-Cola Co., The ...................16, 18, 34, 50 Colgate-Palmolive ....................................31 Conagra Brands ........................................36

Crossmark ................................................28 CVS Pharmacy ..........................................52 Dabbl .......................................................16 Eastwest Marketing Group ......................38 Endexx Corp..............................................57 Estee Lauder.............................................50 Family Dollar ............................................32 Foresight ROI Inc ......................................27 Frank Mayer and Associates, Inc. ..............46 General Mills ...................................... 42, 50 GE Appliances............................... 32, 33, 34 GE Lighting ..............................................46 Giant Co., The ..................................... 28, 30 Giant Food................................................32 GlaxoSmithKline ................................ 40, 52 Google .....................................................12 Groomed ..................................................56 GroundTruth.............................................47 Hasbro......................................................51 Henkel......................................................46 Hy-Vee .....................................................62 Ibotta .......................................................54 Identiv......................................................55 IHG Hotel & Resorts ..................................56 Influencer Marketing Factory, The ...............13 Inspira Marketing Group ..........................45 Instacart...................................................50

In-Store Experience ..................................44 Johnson & Johnson ............................ 38, 48 Johnsonville Sausage ...............................62 Jones Soda Co. ..........................................55 Jumbo Supermarkets ...............................54 KAB Cosmetics..........................................51 Key Food Stores Co-Operative...................16 King’s Hawaiian ........................................37 Kraft Heinz ...............................................50 Kroger ................................................ 15, 49 Label Insight ............................................16 Loop .........................................................15 L’Oreal USA ......................................... 14, 49 Lowe’s ......................................................46 Lowes Foods .............................................30 LVMH .......................................................49 Marketing Arm, The .................................43 Mars Agency, The .. 16, 26, 31, 34, 43, 46, 48 Mars Wrigley ............................................42 Mattel ........................................................8 Meta (fka Facebook).................................49 Miiriya ......................................................54 Milk Bar....................................................16 Mondelez International...................... 37, 38 Mooney Farms..........................................31 Mosaic North America ..............................22 National Retail Solutions .........................33

December 2021

NBC Universal...........................................53 Nestle Coffee Partners ..............................24 Nordstrom ................................................50 OTACA Tequila...........................................55 Ox.............................................................28 Parabolic ..................................................35 Pensa Systems..........................................26 PepsiCo ...................................22, 40, 47, 50 Pernod Ricard USA ......................... 8, 43, 44 Pinterest...................................................42 Pratt Industries ........................................38 PrizeLogic.................................................62 Procter & Gamble .....................................14 Profitero ...................................................22 Public Goods ............................................52 Publicis Groupe ........................................12 Reserve Bar ..............................................58 Retail Firm, The ........................................58 Rifle Paper Co. ..........................................14 Rust-Oleum Corp. .....................................24 Sam’s Club .................................... 40, 43, 49 Samsung ..................................................53 Shipt ........................................................53 Shopperations Research & Technology .....29 Sigma.......................................................49 Smartpress.com .......................................55 Smarty .....................................................54

Snapchat ..................................................49 Soapbox Influence....................................35 Stable, The ......................................... 48, 58 SUKU ........................................................55 Target................................14, 48, 50, 52, 62 TikTok .......................................................49 Tillamook .................................................48 Timberland ..............................................44 Tipser .......................................................58 Tortoise ....................................................54 TruSkin .....................................................52 TwinOaks Integrated Marketing ...............33 Unilever ...................................................36 Uoma Beauty ...........................................49 Urban Value Corner Store .........................54 Valuegraphics ..........................................12 Vestcom ...................................................42 Visual Latina.............................................16 VMLY&R ....................................... 24, 29, 37 Volta Inc. ..................................................58 Vroom Delivery ........................................54 Walmart ...........14, 38, 40, 42, 45, 47-51, 62 Weis Markets............................................62 Zappar......................................................53

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Insider Intel

Johnsonville Champions Backyard Cookouts BY PAT RYC J A M A L I N O W S K A

Johnsonville Sausage rallied around a “Best of the Backyard” theme for its overarching summer 2021 marketing campaign, bringing on board longtime collaborator Bush Brothers & Co. for their first-ever, large-scale national partnership. “When we put this program together [in December of the year before], we didn’t really know what summer was going to look like this year…so we kind of took the little more conservative approach and thought, ‘no matter what happens in summer 2021, people are going to get together in their backyard,’” says Fiona Redhair, marketing manager at Johnsonville. The resulting theme of “backyard bests” — positioning Johnsonville dinner sausage links as the best cookout protein paired with Bush’s baked beans as the best cookout side — resonated with shoppers and retailers alike while remaining flexible enough to allow for account-specific activations tailored to each participating retailer’s receptivity of particular tactics. Johnsonville and Bush’s activated their respective sponsorships of the American Cornhole League (ACL) to tie the campaign back to not only eating and grilling in the

backyard, but also having fun and playing games — specifically cornhole, which only requires one hand to toss a bag, conveniently leaving the other free for eating a brat. Another ACL sponsor, Pit Boss, also came on board. The main crux of the campaign involved a sweepstakes running on a flexible timeline, supported by P-O-P activity plus digital layers where possible. Consumers uploaded receipts showing qualifying Johnsonville/ Bush’s purchases to a promotional website to vie for backyard prize kits, and could earn additional entries by engaging with the brands’ grilling videos and recipes. PrizeLogic administered the sweepstakes. Additional support included social media activity plus a retail-focused TV spot that ran during ESPN and CBS broadcasts of ACL tournaments from May through August. Retail partners ranged from the biggest chains in the U.S. to small independent grocers, with some boasting over-the-top displays, account-specific prize pools and unique activations. Johnsonville sent their Big Taste Grill and cornhole pros to a few events in the Hy-Vee market, for example. Incremental display, a Hy-Vee Seasons magazine feature and digital banner ads provided extra support. Albertsons Cos. also got behind

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the program like never before, holding its own internal division virtual cornhole tournament. The grocer also offered a meat manager incentive that drove creative display building and merchandising. The largest retailers opted out of the sweepstakes component, but got on board with the overall theme and the Johnsonville/Bush’s pairing. “There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all, especially on the e-commerce side with each of these retailers, so you go through their media groups and you find a way to work within [their restrictions],” Fiona says. For example, Target does not promote brand sweeps, and Walmart preferred a unique “Let’s Get Grilling” message. So Johnsonville worked with each retailer’s e-commerce teams to get on-site banner ads or offsite media under a backyard grilling theme, with all the creative linking to e-commerce pages. The effort even brought in new retail partners outside of Johnsonville’s home territory, such as mid-Atlantic grocer Weis Markets. The smallest independent grocers received an easy-to-execute and flexible sales kit designed to support summer grilling that included promotional POS materials, plus a soft-sided cooler they could put up for display and then use as a prize in a giveaway. The campaign delivered great results in a difficult environment, increasing share of total dinner sausage links over not just 2020, but also 2019. The sweepstakes amassed more than 275,000 consumer engagements, including 65,000 unique entrants and 57,000 opt-ins for more information from Johnsonville. The effort also drove increased brand awareness and connection with Bush’s baked beans among a younger consumer group. “The program saw strong engagement, improved brand equity and helped us get in-store support in a record number of chains,” says Penny Caudill, Bush’s brand manager. Planning is already underway for the 2.0 version of the Best of the Backyard program slated for summer of 2022, and Johnsonville has recruited Kingsford to join the effort. IQ

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Featuring special retailer guests in each episode, join us for a dialogue about current trends and strategies that are driving innovation for the next era of retail. In partnership with Great Northern Instore, the Path to Purchase Institute invites you to listen in to a discussion with executives from today’s leading retail chains, emerging brands and parallel industries as we dive into the issues impacting the evolution of retail.

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