Review & Outlook 2015: Sales & Marketing

Ivan Arrington
Director, Insights and Innovation
Butterball, LLC

Today, more than ever, we know the most intimate details about our consumers. In the past, purchase decision drivers were understood in the aggregate and marketing dollars were apportioned to address these facts. The data revolution of the last decade has allowed us to learn more about consumer habits and push marketing measurement to the household level. The next year will bring an explosion in opportunities to execute personalized marketing.

Using NFC and Bluetooth technologies like Apple Pay and iBeacon, retailers and marketers will be able to tie purchasing to people and then people to promotions in an inexpensive and effective way. Combining this data with information from the three major social marketing platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (who now have analytics portals) and the tantalizing prospect of aggregated frequent shopper data from Catalina’s Cellfire operation, will allow CG companies to craft specific, dynamic, personal content that can be delivered at the most effective moment.

What is stopping us? Technology is no longer the barrier to this vision of future commerce. Instead, companies will need to balance data privacy and security costs with concerns about ease of use. I believe creative thinking will win the day and the companies that best understand their consumer will be the biggest winners.

 

 

Sam Barclay
EVP and Managing Director, North America
StayinFront

Over the last 20 years, global businesses have realized significant efficiencies and savings by standardizing their back office operations — from consolidating accounting systems and manufacturing systems, to harmonizing procurement processes and standardizing hiring and development programs.  

In contrast, sales operations in local and regional subsidiaries have remained stubbornly immune to the globalization of processes. Country managers will cite local language, custom, law and practice for not adapting standardizing sales processes, while sales teams argue that their market is ‘unique’ and their processes and results should not be compared against others.

We encourage companies to focus less on the differences between ‘markets’ and more on the similarities between routes to market. The critical steps in the globalization of sales processes include: identifying all your different routes to market; aligning the way the markets define a KPI mathematically; and deploying the tools and technology to support the capture, calculation, analysis and dissemination of data. In a world where every basis point of extra margin is hard fought, the one-two punch of lower costs and higher revenues is hard to ignore.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Priscilla Berry
Berry Associates Communications Consulting, Adjunct Lecturer, Warrington College of Business Administration, Hough Graduate School  
University of Florida

It’s your brand… tell your story straight! While corporate leaders in 2015 will address their own internal lack of a connected corporate culture, they are, simultaneously, mandated to create both their corporate and their own personal brand. We have moved rapidly from a knowledge economy to a communication economy where it is now about the experience, and less about the product. To some extent, much of the former brand rational is dead because going forward, consumers will create their own products, use 3D printers to produce exactly what they want, or have it delivered by drone. The number of consumers with “no brand preference” will continue to grow.

Brands are often made and unmade via a personality or the current nuanced news, delivered via a hashtag. As the iconic Steve Jobs’ personality had much to do with the success of Apple, so, does the likes of Chip Wilson’s sexist and illiterate comments, which virtually destroyed Lululemon’s brand. The leadership factor will be more impactful going forward as consumers demand authenticity, transparency, a demonstrable corporate focus on sustainability, and C-Suite ethics. Flawed leadership can destroy a successful company and superior product overnight.

How quickly a leader can adapt and how effectively the story is told will determine how relevant and sustainable one remains.  

 

 

 

 

Zel Bianco
President & CEO
Interactive Edge

CPG companies seem to be after two things: more data and a more tailored shopper experience. What is so fascinating about this is that collecting more data should aid in creating the perfect experience for the customer; however in the real world the quest for more data and more insight is so alluring that retailers and suppliers often lose focus on the point of collecting all that information in the first place, frequently letting insight sit in data warehouses where it goes out of date before it can be accessed.

In 2015/2016 it will be essential to organize data sources and shopper insights into easily accessible libraries. This will allow data analysts to output their insights and the sales, marketing, and broker organizations to access the data they need, when they need it. Ideally, this will be done in a simple user format that will allow for self-service. At this year’s CMA conference Georgia-Pacific gave an excellent presentation on their best practice solution. They are able to output best practice, presentation ready reports with the latest data that can then be further customized to fit the business need. This enables them to take action faster than the competition, and use their time on more strategic tasks.

 

 

 

 

Joe Cavaliere
Chief Customer Officer
Newell Rubbermaid

Leveraging consumer insights to drive product innovation will remain the top priority for CPG companies. Consumer insights are critical to informing stronger joint business plans with merchandising strategies that perform better, increasing optimization of inventory productivity based on a deeper understanding of demand and utilizing trade funds more effectively.

As part of Newell Rubbermaid’s Growth Game Plan strategy to become the partner of choice for growth, we continue to conduct research on consumers’ needs and are increasingly collaborating with our retail partners to make ourselves mutually relevant in consumers’ everyday lives. That means putting product on the shelf that consumers want to buy and connecting with them in-store and online with the right message.

Another priority in 2015 is creating a seamless experience for our consumers in store or online. We will launch our global e-commerce hub by the end of Q1 2015, setting the course for success with an omnichannel approach for our brands.

Finally, CPG companies should closely examine opportunities for global expansion through emerging markets. We are conducting research and evaluating opportunities in these fast-growing markets to make a systematic and disciplined entry with relevant products for consumers and more strategic relationships with new and existing retail partners.

 

 

 

 

Rick Davis
Vice President, Business Planning, KUSA Sales
Kellogg Company

Data is now being generated from smartphones, vehicles, equipment, wearables, and so on. Couple these sources with the many others that are now generating data, along with the more traditional sources, and the landscape becomes rich with insights waiting to be discovered. The key to discovery is talent. Universities have been adding, not only graduate programs, but undergraduate degree programs as well. Unfortunately, there will be a shortage of these graduates for some time, and the individuals that possess these skills are in very high demand.

What is very exciting is that there are some incredibly bright, talented, young people who are going to fill these college programs. I recently had the opportunity to observe two Michigan high school students who performed a research project dedicated to creating predictive analytics modeling of social behaviors. The work they did, and the findings they shared could have tremendous commercial value. As a result, we have offered an internship to one of the students, and I encourage all organizations to become involved with local schools and universities, and leverage, and learn from these amazing young people. These students represent the promise of analytics that many of us have hoped for. I can’t wait to see where they take us!

 

 

 

 

Stephen DeAngelis
Founder, President & CEO
Enterra Solutions, LLC

Cutting-edge data science has swung the door wide open for next-generation analytic/insight solutions such as cognitive computing. A big budget use case for CPG manufacturers and their retail partners is the use of cognitive computing to disrupt the marketplace in the area of TPO. Measuring your trade investment is becoming more difficult, and the complicated, often interrelated realities of modern category management have made it nearly impossible to rely on traditional approaches.

How do you value your investments when millennials don’t appear to be as loyal to brands as older consumers, retail ‘partners’ feature private label, and product categories are in constant flux?

Fortunately, data science and technologies, such as cognitive computing, have matured and can now analyze information and generate insights in near-real-time without having to add high-cost, hard-to-recruit data scientists to perform the analysis. Using a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning, cognitive systems continually learn from data sources, and refine their quality over time. Using more advanced scientific insight, CPG companies can better understand the impact of the confounding variables, generate actionable insights, and provide better recommendations for TPO on the fly. That’s a big change from the past.

 

 

 

 

Dean DeBiase
Chairman, AKTA & Reboot Partners
Senior Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer
Kellogg School of Management

Mobile-empowered consumers no longer see boundaries between physical and digital. Without a customer experience (CX) strategy, omnichannel behaviors are tough to monetize. CX is how customers perceive their experience across all channels and requires digital user experience (UX) practices, integrated business processes and logistics between all sales channels and partners. Macy’s and REI have been investing in blending digital (UX) and physical (CX) experiences, offering proof that managing this interdependence is smart business. Multi-screen shoppers seek benefits of omnichannel but expect a seamless experience. Consumers want personalization benefits shaped by their preferences and mobile lifestyles. It needs to be designed from a customer value perspective that situationally deploys the right platform at the right place and time with the right engagement options or offers.

In 2015, retailers will leverage technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons. Some will embed new capabilities on these platforms, adding co-op type access to their CG partners to jointly improve engagement, sales and loyalty. With technology’s accelerating pace, organizations must work with emerging startups, mobile partners like Shopkick, experience design groups like AKTA and industry leaders like ShopperTrak, to deploy in-store platforms, technology and analytics that enable retailers and their CG partners to develop next-gen customer experiences.  

 

 

 

 

Janet Dorenkott
Vice President
Relational Solutions, Inc.

Addressing the omnichannel dilemma should be a top priority for CPG manufacturers. The omnichannel brings with it a wide array of new challenges. Retailers struggle with internal competition between brick and mortar retail teams and their own e-commerce teams. Consumers face the frustrations associated with non-responsive web sites, pop-ups, shopping carts that don’t perform, coupons that don’t take, multiple searches to find the best price, frustrating return processes, etc. Ultimately, these frustrations all turn into distrust of both the manufacturer and the e-tailer they are purchasing from.

Manufacturers toil with a new phenomenon called “coupon stacking.” Customers use discounts from multiple sources, thereby eroding profits. In addition, negative sentiment typically targets the product or brand. Therefore, manufacturers need to manage and control consumer sentiment. Manufacturers must tackle the continuing issues they are saddled with related to the omnichannel by integrating the necessary data sources, identifying impact and begin tackling the problems with knowledge. Contract industry experts with integration expertise can take a fresh look at existing architecture, review current processes and provide you with a roadmap to solve both current issues associated with the omnichannel, as well as the long-term needs of the business.

 

 

 

 

Kerry Farrell
Managing Director
Accenture CAS Software

Although CPG companies have been using digital channels effectively for some time, many have yet to establish themselves as truly digital businesses. Differentiating your company in the digital marketplace is imperative. So what does it take? Recent Accenture research into what leading marketers do to set themselves apart highlights three key factors:

 

 

 

1. Using data and analytics to improve marketing impact
2. Recognizing the strategic importance of digital channels
3. Providing a consistent customer experience across all channels

Achieving these three factors involves breaking down the IT, marketing and sales silos and using agile technology and cloud-based services to foster increased data visibility. To become true digital businesses, CPG companies will also need to reorganize their strategies to begin and end with the consumer, then restructure processes and technology to deliver on the promise.

There is a real opportunity for Chief Digital Officers, to engage the generation of digital consumers. In this era of constant consumption — constant engagement is key. And companies that can engage with their consumers in a relevant, personalized way will have a distinct advantage over the competition.

 

 

 

Michael Ferrara
Chief Marketing Officer
HAIRUWEAR, Inc.

Today, consumers follow breaking news on topics they are interested in and instantly engage with brands on their web sites and talk back via social media. The old model of marketing built on a company timeline doesn’t cut it any longer. After decades of campaigns planned way in advance, it’s difficult for marketers to change to a mindset based on speed.

I want to develop an emotional connection with our social community that we can build on to go beyond just our product benefits and be a bigger part of our consumers’ lives. As part of our integrated marketing strategy, we’ll differentiate our brands by having a majority of our social media content non-branded and informational. The content will be filled with engaging how-to’s and hair tips from expert stylists that is very visual with photos and videos that are relevant and unique. We’ll also leverage our experts to tell our innovative, high quality, and advanced construction product story to increase media interest, add credibility and drive consumer and customer excitement.  

Don’t just sit on the sidelines. Start posting, blogging, tweeting, and pinning today. Otherwise, you will fall short achieving a relevant and compelling marketing message.

 

 

 

 

David Ganiear
Vice President
PWC Strategy&

The explosion of data available to CG companies via the continued adoption of digital channels, coupled with existing enterprise and external partner data is well heralded. Companies have focused on the plethora of fragmented technology solutions to harness this data, but have struggled to demonstrate clear value. As opposed to tackling big data, CG companies should instead make it a top priority in 2015/2016 to identify and begin tackling “Big Imperatives” where advanced analytics can unlock the most value from this underlying data. For instance:

 

 

 

• Leveraging consumer insight to drive product innovation
• Optimizing marketing mix among traditional and emerging digital channels
• Driving improved trade promotion effectiveness
• Reexamining retail mix across evolving retail formats

Once identified, each Big Imperative should be clearly defined in the context of the expected business benefit it is intended to drive. Next, the data and analytics capabilities that are required to achieve the expected outcome should be detailed along with an estimate for the required investment. Fundamental capabilities include being able to collect the right data, cleanse and integrate it, and drive the analysis via a combination of tools, algorithms, and skilled resources — which, in our experience, is one of the biggest gaps for CG companies to address.

Pursing this type of targeted initiative can help CG companies move beyond drowning in big data to reaping the benefits from harnessing Big Imperatives.

 

 

 

Brian Girouard
N.A. Consumer Products Leader
Capgemini

In 2015, CG companies should focus on raising and maintaining levels of trust with their consumers. Over-spamming, ignoring complaints, irrelevant promotions, and data breaches have caused a trust crisis.

This trust gap has particular implications in today’s digital world, as companies invest in technology initiatives to better understand and connect with consumers more effectively. But this raises key issues, including how to build trust with consumers via the standardization of information relating to product descriptions and ingredients; how to address increasing consumer expectations; how to ensure that accurate data is being delivered by new intermediaries like app providers; and how to address the consumer insights versus privacy trade-off.

While designing consumer-related initiatives, companies must establish a dialogue built on respect and trust, adhering to a code of business conduct, which addresses data usage and privacy. Consumers must be granted opt-in/out choices for sharing personal data. They must be heard and responded to in timely, relevant ways across all channels, such as social, online, contact center, and e-mail. Product data in all channels must be complete and accurate. With every consumer-related initiative, the litmus test should be, “will this build or damage trust?”

 

 

 

 

Jon Golovin
CEO
Retail Solutions, Inc.

One-size-fits-all marketing won’t cut it anymore. CPG companies and their retailer partners will start to implement solutions to personalize each customer’s in-store experience by leveraging digital advertising, social media and mobile technologies to deliver offers and promotions. Customer-centric marketing preferences will also make in-store shopping more interactive and engaging. Mobile devices will take payments, demo products, provide more information or promotions and encourage social sharing. This changing relationship with consumers is increasing supply chain complexity and demand volatility. It’s creating new challenges and also opportunities as companies seek to make their services more consumer-centric. The data retailers need to share with suppliers is evolving. The frequency and granularity of that data is changing. CPG companies not only need to understand the demand as seen by store sales, but also demand from e-commerce orders. The amount of data retail execution systems must handle is exploding. With these changes to how consumers shop, how brands market, and how data is gathered and shared, current systems will become taxed and ineffective for today’s shopper experience. Vendors servicing the retail industry will need to re-architect their platforms to support massively parallel systems that can process multiple types of data and huge data sets quickly, while driving value and measuring performance.

 

 

 

 

Suhas Gudihal
Chief Technology Officer
AFS Technologies

CPG companies are undergoing a major transformation to a digital business. They have invested heavily in building a global-scale supply chain and technology to support the change. Senior executives realize that the data they collect at touch points can unleash value beyond just operational efficiency.

CPG companies are recognizing the fact that technology is capable of game-changing business transformation. The technology trends that should be a priority for CG companies are:

 

 

 

1. Big data: collected from multiple sources can depict patterns, turn them into insights to help create customer demand, product preferences and shopping cues.
2. Data security: management and privacy will create a competitive differentiator, especially in view of the recent security breaches in the retail segment.
3. Augmented reality: is creating a new digital experience enriching relationship between consumers and brands. Activities like shelf tags with ratings and product information can be engaged thru electronic content via hologram technology.
4. Social media: will continue to be a powerful enabler for future customer engagement.
5. Predictive analytics and data visualization: CPG companies should utilize these to refine decision making.
6. Mobile and location based services: will continue to enhance the impact of direct-to-consumer marketing.

 

 

Srishti Gupta
President, Media Center of Excellence
Information Resources, Inc. (IRI)

To achieve accelerated levels of growth, CPG managements are intensely focused on continuing to win in the markets they serve and activating new markets. A new frontier to creating the critical 1:1 interactions that can enable this growth is making TV advertising more addressable and programmatic, as digital advertising is today. This capability, new to the advertising world, will go mainstream in 2015.  

With these new capabilities, CPG marketers can place targeted ads on networks and in day parts, genres, series/programs and web sites where consumers are actually watching and engaging.

As TV advertising evolves, marketers can move beyond current age/sex targeting. They can fine tune current media plans based on purchase behavior and, with the expansion of addressable and programmatic TV, more effectively activate those audiences.

Mobile advertising will play a critical role as well. CPG spending in TV and digital should total roughly $20 billion in 2015, of which mobile will contribute approximately $3 billion.

Finally, savvy marketers will become increasingly adept at optimizing cross media strategies. Combined, the window into a consumer’s TV, digital and mobile viewing habits will enable advertisers to have a consistent view of their consumer across media channels and will facilitate cross-media efficiency planning.

 

 

 

Dale Hagemeyer
VP, Industries Research, Manufacturing
Gartner, Inc.

For developed markets, manufacturer/retailer collaboration will become more critical in 2015/2016. What happens when Amazon strides towards being the new Walmart? It picks its categories and brings tremendous pressure upon manufacturers. At the same time it wants to start home delivery. This means investing in brick and mortar infrastructure to stage product and deliver. But as manufacturers and retailers improve in areas such as data sharing, more joint efforts to connect with consumers, and more willingness to think about future products that the market will require, they will not only survive, but thrive.

On the other hand are the emerging markets where increasing numbers of consumers have the income and desire to consume the same goods as in developed countries. This becomes the model for organic growth and increasing lifetime customer value. With many developed markets seeing negative population growth it is really expensive to steal share or increase consumption. On the investment side, this means investing in technologies such as distributor management to improve execution through channel partners, provide visibility to the flow of products, and close the loop on asset and collateral management. IT professionals should take the time to understand these markets. The opportunity to sell to an incremental five billion people is pretty big.

 

 

 

 

David Hale
CEO
Gigwalk

Looking ahead, CG companies will increasingly look to real-time data collected by field teams in order to stay ahead of the curve and remain competitive. After all, what good is data if not derived in real time? Brands are often convinced that data collected in house will be as accurate as any other solution and more cost effective. As most brands and retailers have come to realize, this method of data collection is simply not enough as it does not provide a comprehensive view of what’s occurring in store and often does not account for common mistakes. By marrying POS data with real-time data, brands are now able to get a grasp of what’s really going on with their product onsite.

Today, there are mobile solutions specifically designed to deliver a level of intelligence on the fly, for mobile workforces worldwide. At the pace that technology is advancing, making the investment will help companies be better prepared for the future.

By embracing such solutions, brands will be able to implement product launches, trade events and promotions more effectively than ever before and possess the ability to keep products on the shelf. It’s precisely this level of visibility that can become a game changer for the way you manage your products in store.

 

 

 

 

Rick Hall
SVP, Revenue Management and Optimization
Nielsen

2014 was a watershed year of change across the CG landscape, and 2015 looks to be more of the same. E-commerce continues to take growth out of traditional retail, and digital advertising, smartphones and social networking are putting companies in direct contact with consumers. Data resulting from these transactions is exploding. Big data platforms are surfacing to enable better collection and processing of all the new data.

Given the rapid pace of change, most companies could benefit from having a partner versed in working with big data. Companies will want to select a partner who can deliver the full solution including data management and advanced analytics – all connected to applications that optimize program decisions.

To meet this challenge and embrace the opportunity of change, CG companies need a big data strategy. Successful strategies will focus on measuring the effectiveness of a company’s complete sales and marketing program across all channels and sources of demand. The solution is not your father’s DSR focused on integrating demand signals into the supply chain. Rather, the solution is to apply advanced analytical modeling to both traditional sales data and individual consumer information to support the allocation of resources where they will have the most impact.

With successful implementation of a big data strategy that supports a broader data set, advanced analytics and direct-consumer marketing, CG companies can intelligently plan and deliver profitable programs and increase customers across all channels.

 

 

 

 

LeTicia S. Hallstead
VP, Trade Relationship Management
Flintfox International

Implementing a fully integrated, real-time customer and trade relationship management ecosystem should be the top priority. This end-to-end visibility is designed specifically to help CPG organizations achieve their revenue management objectives. A closed loop TPM solution is important to effectively create profitable promotions and manage trade spend dollars, and a robust customer relationship management (CRM) solution is vital to managing selling and collaboration across the supply chain.

TPM and CRM solutions are often viewed as disparate entities that do not share the same data sets. In reality, TPM and CRM solutions not only function on the same data sets, such as accounts, products and invoiced orders, but also utilize many of the same KPI’s such as gross and net profit; estimates versus actuals; period versus period analysis, etc. How valuable would it be to have real-time visibility into customer information, product line item specific profitability, margin contribution and trade promotion costs all from within a single revenue management ecosystem? Seamlessly embedding TPM inside CRM ensures a single version of truth as it combines all customer, product and trade-related data, thus reducing risk with increased trade ROI transparency.

 

 

 

 

Jon Harding
Global CIO
Conair/Cuisinart Corporation

Enable revenue growth through new applications of digital technology to create an omnichannel consumer experience with your company’s brands and products. Key focus areas for 2015/2016 include:

 

 

 

• Improve consumer interaction through better digital marketing to individual consumers and improved CRM systems to capture all interactions with an individual consumer irrespective of the communications channel used.
• Improve consumers’ interactions during their path to purchase. Your products are consistent in terms of product information and images. At the end of the path to purchase; whether on your firm’s e-commerce site or a retailer e-commerce site, or in a retail store, there needs to be consistency of information.
• Post-purchase interactions such as returns also need to be handled consistently irrespective of channel through which the product was purchased.
• Best practices to achieve this priority should include:
• Use Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to startup faster and be more agile going forward.
• Centralize storage of the necessary information and digital assets in the cloud to have a scalable and robust solution.
• Continue to build ever more sophisticated information security controls into your systems and networks to protect your company’s information and digital assets from the ever-evolving threat of attack, damage and key information loss.

 

Justin Honaman
Managing Partner, CPG / Retail North America
Teradata Corporation

No longer are CG organizations looking to source all technology capability from a single partner. Several factors are forcing both business leaders who require technology, data, insights, and analytics, and technology leaders looking to transform antiquated, inflexible, expensive-to-manage platforms, to consider an analytics ecosystem versus an “all-XYZ” partnership approach. The dominant ERP players continue to push their “single source” strategy but are significantly behind upstart big data, analytic, and integrated sales and marketing (cloud-based) technology players. The analytics space is hot with new entrants joining the fray daily. Bottom line — no, you do not need to have all of your data in one place in order to drive business decisions across the enterprise. What is needed is a flexible ecosystem that enables data capture, harmonization-as-needed, and analytic capability to answer deeper questions regarding data and related insights.

Programmatic ad buying has been a hot topic with CPG marketers as they look to more effectively spend marketing dollars via data-driven, targeted methods versus historic mass methods.

Digital capabilities will help CPG organizations to identify consumer preferences and trends, optimize product assortment, deliver personalized marketing messages, refine pricing and promotional strategies, and connect with target consumers. Organizations that enable consumers to quickly and easily locate and acquire products as part of a social experience will have the best chance of success (especially with millennials).

 

 

Kevin Klock
CEO
Talking Rain Beverage Company and Sparkling ICE

A top priority for CG companies in 2015 should be to build stronger retail relationships by offering customized programs for each retailer individually. By assisting retailers with category management to maximize their profitability, companies are able to create a win-win situation for both the brand and the retail partner.

In 2015, another key focus should be placed on using concrete metrics and technology to objectively judge the performance of marketing initiatives and campaigns, as well as the reach of distributors’ footprints nationwide.

We believe the key to success in 2015 will be capturing improved processes to better understand the overall marketplace, where to manufacture, and what to manufacture.

 

 

 

 

Charlene Li
Founder & CEO
Altimeter Group

In 2015/2016, context is king, so you must know who your digital customers really are and what they are doing. Business time is now dictated by empowered customers, who expect near real-time relevancy — everything from advertising and customer service to context-aware security will need to tap into rich, fast insights, now readily available to business decisions makers. There is the rising expectation that you know that @KimStrong9999 on Twitter is Kim Armstrong, one of your best, most influential customers. Taking social data and appending it to your customer database is a top priority for many organizations, but all too often, these initiatives are put into a holding pattern while waiting for the ultimate big data and social identity disambiguation system. Also, organizations will need to tap into data such as physical location, perhaps down to the store level. More advanced organizations will need to figure out what context is most important to understand in a customer’s journey, and then focus on the platforms needed to act on that data in near real-time. And in the context of real time data and analytics, customers will want more than assurances that their data is being used appropriately — they will demand transparency on what you know, when you know it, and how you are using the data.

 

 

 

 

Valeria Maltoni
Founder and CEO
Conversation Agent LLC

Going beyond mere observation and monitoring of consumer behaviors to gaining a deeper understanding of the contextual triggers behind them requires commitment. The payoff will be a better understanding of specific opportunities to influence choice at the point of purchase. For example, what makes a mother pick up one brand of cereal versus another may include both emotional and rational decision triggers. Yet it is not as simple as appealing to nostalgia or offering a coupon. Contextual inquiry is useful to assess behavior online and in store to uncover the hidden reasons that shape choices where it matters the most.  

Brands need to approach marketing and communications with honesty by answering three key questions: 1) Is there a problem with our product or service? For example, young people may not be buying certain products anymore because their parents use them; 2) What insights can you draw from observation? Dove Sketches brought to light how women often see themselves as less beautiful than others see them; 3) How does the brand appeal to purpose? Patagonia is a living example of this.

 

 

 

 

Sarah Meyer
Trade and Customer Marketing Manager
RICH Products Corporation (Consumer Brands Division)

Communication by means of social media, texting and e-mail continue to rise and, while it’s a magnificent thing, technology has caused our completely dependent society to lose touch with something. 

The same trend is happening in our offices today. The ability to sell against insights that are gained with robust analytics and ensuring that we are ahead of the curve on all things mobile are critical. No doubt we should be focusing on these, but amid the race to ensure we are not behind in this rapidly changing data and digital environment, something often gets overlooked.

That something is people. A company’s strength is found in its people and oftentimes, it just means looking up from our technology and connecting face to face. We will all have initiatives in 2015/2016 to ensure we are appropriately analyzing all the data we have collected and create new ways to not only reach, but leverage our shoppers through mobile, but the companies who will have a true competitive edge will be those who make it a priority to pay attention to their people. Ensure the right people are in place. Develop them. Then enjoy the return on your investment while the people ensure the other initiatives are met.

 

 

 

 

Cassandra Moren
Sr. Director, CG Industry Marketing
Oracle

CG companies and retailers are asking how they can they better engage with millennials to buy their brands and get them in the store. Given the attractiveness and size of the millennial market, Interbrand and Oracle recently conducted a study to understand millennials from a behavioral perspective.

The research findings determined that five segment breaks exist within the millennial generation, based upon the clustering of their various attitudes and behaviors, each representing a cluster or “tribe” of people that behave similarly: 1. The Up & Comers; 2. The Mavens; 3. The Eclectics; 4. The Skeptics; and 5. The Trendsetters.

This is just a glimpse into the subsets within this generation. What quickly becomes clear is that targeting millennials as a whole is ineffective as they range from financially dependent teens to married homeowners with kids. By considering these unique segments and determining which has the most potential for your brand, there’s an opportunity to build a deeper connection and deliver an experience that will appeal to the next generation of customers.

 

 

 

 

Dipu Mukherjee
Director of Innovation & Analytics
Frito-Lay Go-To-Market
Division of PepsiCo
 Rahul Bhattacharya
CPG Advanced Analytics Lead
Accenture

The advent of ubiquitous digital technologies in the analytics and mobile application space is empowering CPG companies to place predictive analytics in the hands of the salesforce, and thereby allowing their front-end sales teams to make better planning decisions and be more effective in their sales discussions with key customers.

While front-end sales teams in most CG companies have been performing ad-hoc spreadsheet analysis using market measurement and POS data for making trade promotion event decisions, they have traditionally not been able to use this data to power predictive analytics applications that are intuitive, easy to use, and available on a mobile platform for effective use in the field.

A pilot conducted at Frito-Lay North America as part of the Go-To-Market Innovation and Analytics program has shown how predictive trade promotion models with customer POS data can be used to build a simple, intuitive application that can be accessed from a workstation or a tablet. These models helped evaluate multiple events across products, weeks, customer segments, tactics and price points in terms of key volumetric and financial performance metrics for both the manufacturer and the retailer in order to create granular fine-tuned win-win trade plans that can be communicated effectively as a selling story to the customer.

Account teams were provided the capability to create scenarios and choose the most effective one thereby allowing for efficiency and granular growth across store clusters. The ability to arm the company sales force with the power of predictive analytics has finally arrived.  

 

 

 

 

Jason Murphy
General Manager
Wipro Promax Analytics Solutions

Big data. Got your attention? In 2014 many organizations became hell bent on gathering as much shopper data from as many places as possible. However, these same organizations still failed to really harness the power of information from the reams of data they already had at their disposal. Is adding more data really the answer, or is finding ways to gain more value a much better strategy first?  

The companies who arguably get the best insights, best promotions, more successful campaigns and greater brand loyalty are those who start with the end in mind and have a clear definition of what it is they are trying to achieve, and why before setting out their objectives and putting a supporting plan in place — the same guiding principles apply to any big data!

The use of loyalty data is also front-of-mind. Created by the retailers to help with insights into the shopper buying behaviors and patterns, and loved by the consumers for their personalized rewards and incentives, it is however the manufacturers and brand owners, who have much to gain. Getting the most value from big data initiatives is not a new challenge but a grounded strategy. Clear objectives and the right data is a great place to start!

 

 

 

 

Mark Osborn
Global Lead, CP Industry Marketing
SAP

Looking to 2015 and beyond, it will be imperative for CP companies to invest in extending the ability to deliver personalized experiences to increasingly refined segments of consumers, even down to segments of one.

Channel proliferation gives consumers more access to information, to each other, and to commerce, which has empowered their decision making. The traditional approach of using the right pricing, packaging and promotion to encourage brand loyalty is less effective as consumers increasingly value experience over brands.

The challenge is that consumers define ‘experience’ broadly, to include every interaction along the now non-linear path to purchase and beyond. Engaging consumers at the right place, right time and in the right way requires companies to transform marketing execution. Successful CP companies will be the ones that invest in two key areas in 2015.

Most important is a focus on consumer profiling and segmentation, social media monitoring and sentiment analysis, and marketing information management and content syndication. Being able to bring these capabilities together will further support coordinated marketing execution.

Beyond this, companies need to develop flexible and agile processes that will allow marketing teams to test, iterate and adapt faster, on a smaller scale, and to more targeted segments, to optimize marketing performance and spend.
 

 

 

 

Nick Parnaby
Chief Marketing Officer
1WorldSync

In a word, TRANSPARENCY. Customer loyalty, growth in profitability and competitive edge is becoming increasingly tied to a CPG business’s ability to provide adequate transparency of its product information. This globalized demand for product information transparency means that it must be a top priority focus for CPG companies in 2015 and beyond.

Today’s choice-conscious consumer is equipped with the knowledge and tools to make informed purchasing decisions for themselves and their families. Their expectations to find readily available product information, including allergens and nutritionals, kosher versus halal, gluten-free, phthalate-free, lead-free, organic, etc., is now the new normal. CG companies must be equipped to deliver on this, throughout the lifecycle of a product.

Across the globe, health organizations, manufacturers, retailers and government agencies are working together to provide transparency of information to consumers and stakeholders throughout the supply chain. For CG companies this means that their products, brand and reputation are tied closely to their ability to offer transparency and visibility to customers, trading partners and the end consumer. Whether it’s from farmer’s gate to consumer’s plate or from factory to pharmacy, every size and nationality of CG business must adapt to this new era of transparency.  
     

 

 

Radha R
EVP — Retail, CPG, MFG, Travel & Hospitality
Mindtree Limited

It’s time to start thinking of a different kind of personalization — personalizing assortments and promotions at a store level based on the store’s format, size, location, channel classification, throughput and so on. In the same way that algorithms can quickly crunch consumer data and help retailers present shoppers with content that appeals uniquely to them, next-generation analytics tools can help CPG companies with recommending assortments and predicting stock gaps before they happen.

The data foundation that would enable such transformation is readily available from store profiles, a store’s prior purchase history and category data and data on competitive stocking, comparative pricing, etc. Intelligent algorithms can use this data to finely segment stores and create custom value propositions. Using a mobile device, a salesperson can quickly generate a customized assortment. As he negotiates a sale, a set of promotions for cross-sell and up-sell opportunities can be created on the fly. And before the sale closes, the software code can recommend a special discount to offer. All of this is specifically tailored to that one store, and uniquely different for the next store.

It’s only a matter of time before the industry norm is using big data to perform this kind of near-real-time analytics. CPG companies that don’t get on board now are in danger of being left behind.

 

 

 

Chris Rice
VP Sales & Marketing, N.A.
Exceedra Inc.

The biggest opportunity area I see for CPG companies is improving the customer planning process and supporting technology, of which TPM and TPO are components. Most companies that have a TPM system of some sort and have likely made considerable investments over time to improve trade spending. This may have some executives under a false impression that they have the problem solved. However many companies have discovered that it doesn’t truly support all of the planning work the customer teams do in spreadsheets prior to TPM input.  

Implementing an integrated customer planning solution will have a far-reaching positive impact on trade planning, trade spend effectiveness, and post event analysis. As the plans get better and more accurate, this will also improve the sales forecast that flows into demand planning, supply chain, and the S&OP process. Customer planning should also provide the foundation to support a joint customer business planning process for the strategic customers that most impact your business.

For those moving to a TPM system or changing systems, it would be wise to map out an approach that puts the customer planning process as the top priority in your selection criteria. After all, if the sales team won’t use your system of choice then the likely result of your deployment will be less than optimal.  

 

 

 

 

John M. Rossi
GM & Global Head — CG Consulting
Wipro Limited

2015 is the year that the CG industry is going to truly figure out Direct-to-Consumer (DTC). DTC is not e-commerce. It’s physical buildings… it’s online… it’s marketing via digital mechanisms… it’s mobile commerce… it’s developed countries and emerging markets driven… it’s Smart Vending machines… it’s supply chain evolution… it’s always available and becoming easy to implement. CG manufacturers will embrace DTC this year. First movers will enjoy having stronger loyalty information from their shoppers, their households and the actual consumers of their products. Be careful though, fatigue will set in by the time the third or fourth company in the same category tries to get additional loyalty to use their mobile apps.   

These first movers will realize when someone buys their window cleaner, furniture polish, bathroom cleanser, but not their floor cleaner. Bundling of products will be easier, prevalent and predictable.

Whether the shopper’s order is picked up at the front door of their favorite retailer, shipped via a third-party aggregator or delivered directly to your door — DTC is a game changer. For many, it will start with direct marketing via a mobile device, but quickly evolve to measuring conversion. It’ll be a small step to m-commerce and home delivery via a subscription service — guaranteed recurring revenue with a built-in business case. First movers will be printing money. Who’s next?

 

 

 

 

Bill Schamp
Director of Consumer Products
Clarkston Consulting

Looking towards 2015, trade marketing will arguably remain the dominant sales and marketing component within the CG industry and the one that will continue to receive the most spending. This, along with rapid changing shopping habits shaped by smart technology and e-commerce should call top attention to not only the design of trade marketing programs but also to their enablement.

Impressive progress has been made in trade promotion technologies that transform demand data into optimal promotional plans, so much so that the number of software options can be daunting. However, astute sales and marketing organizations are recognizing that the most powerful decision support tools capable of exploiting robust data are only as effective as the business processes they support. To this end, as a first step, before implementing new or refreshing existing software, it is critical to examine end-to-end trade processes.

Business process excellence is critical yet often underestimated. In order to improve profitability, increase sales, or save costs in the increasingly complex price and promotion retail environment — begin with business processes. No technology can produce these results without a solid process foundation. Ultimately, retail activation is based on effective insights that lead to well-informed marketing decisions, founded on trade marketing processes established in advance of technology solutions.

 

 

 

 

Lara Skripitsky
Director of Digital and E-Commerce
Johnson & Johnson Canada

It is arguably one of the most exciting and challenging times to be a marketer. The explosion of mobile, real-time experiences and consumer touchpoints has radically changed the way people experience and interact with brands. The ability to harness those interactions and consumer relationships is one of the many opportunities that digital offers brands to grow their business in a real, authentic way. It requires agility, the willingness to take risks, rapidly learn from failure and continual iteration of marketing strategies. It also requires commitment beyond just the marketing team: cross-functional teams need to understand rapidly changing digital ecosystems and the entire overall organization must embrace the new pace of marketing in order to succeed.

 

 

 

 

JD Spangler
Chief Commercial Office
Vestagen Inc.

Inexpensive Ubiquitous Embedded Analytics will turn the big data discussion on its head and eventually render big data angst a thing of the past. New solutions incorporate a robust set of analytic tools precisely focused on the critical business analysis needed to evaluate and adjust. These analytic dashboards enable an expanded number of resources to make informed decisions and nearly real-time course corrections. Recently we executed a series of Facebook ads with a variety of messages and objectives. Immediately we had performance measures like click through rate, cost per click, and cost per thousand impressions. No time needed to assemble the data or do the calculations. Similarly vanilla e-mail marketing solutions execute A/B message tests, optimize send time by day/time using comprehensive analysis of best performing past campaigns, and summarize best performing subject lines.  CG leaders need to push the deployment of fingertip analytics in all platforms and drive development of mobile applications that put key analytic output in the hands of every front line employee. Additionally, organizational structures need to move resources from data crunching to decision making. Winning companies will be structured to take insight and rapidly cascade through all platforms and components of the business.

 

 

 

 

Ben Stiller
Principal, Consumer Products
Deloitte Consulting LLP

The world will never be slower than it is today. Over the past few years, many CG companies started experimenting with big data and analytics. Some dipped their toes in the water by hiring a data scientist or purchasing visualization software. While “dabbling” into big data and analytics has led to some interesting insights, it has left many companies unfulfilled, failing to meet high expectations. Dabbling can be the first step, used to convince executive teams to invest more. However, the real value and competitive advantage exists for those that can cross the chasm from dabbling to “doing”.

So what does doing mean? Doing means using new big data and analytics to fundamentally change how work gets done. It could be using crowdsourcing to change the way retail execution is done, using digital menu scrapers to spot trends before any focus group can, or predicting new product launch success within days or hours of launch based on a variety of digital data sources. Doing requires more systematic integration of new digital data sources with more traditional, internal enterprise data warehouses. It requires enterprise science capabilities including sensors and machine learning predictive models. Finally, it means making a commitment to change the way decisions are made within the company. Dabbling delivers interest. Doing will deliver step-change competitive advantage.   

 

 

 

 

Alain Sylvain
Founder & CEO
Sylvain Labs

The simple reality is that consumers no longer operate in a vacuum –– they are increasingly savvy about the inner-workings of product development and marketing. There are no secrets and the successful company of the future will behave more humbly and more transparently. They will develop products with consumers and not necessarily for them. After all, consumers know better than we do.

 

 

 

 

Heidi Underwood
Modern Trade Capabilities Manager
Coca-Cola

Social listening and comprehensive consumer analytics are must-have capabilities to invest against to strengthen your digital strategy and social branding. Yes, we all maintain a digital presence, but talking without listening remains just that. Sophisticated listening and analytics provide essential ingredients to ensure meaningful and relevant social responses, adding positive brand value and increasing consumer sentiment. However, realizing this IT capability requires technology savviness infused with creative problem solving. Fostering a continuum of creative engagement between IT and the business has become paramount to building effective solutions. Without tight collaboration, it is difficult to unlock the power that digital and social media can deliver to your bottom line. Along with the velocity of change in the technology landscape comes the need to fuel quicker solutions based on flexible platforms. As we embrace this need and build an operating model to accommodate it, the lines between IT and the business begin to blur. This leads to a rapid progression of ideation into tangible business solutions. The only question that remains is how to continue to pull creative talents forward with greater speed and agility to meet the growing need for these types of innovative solutions. Investing in key capabilities to support continued growth in the digital era requires a fresh lens of creative thinking coupled with an unparalleled level of collaboration.

 

 

 

 

Joel Warady
Chief Sales & Marketing Officer
Enjoy Life Foods

In looking at the opportunities that exist for CPG brands in 2015/2016, none offer more excitement than mobile. Research analyst Jan Dawson termed many mobile technologies ‘The Digital Layer.’ In essence, when thinking of the digital layer, it allows us to utilize technology to enhance analog actions.

A great example is how Uber has transformed transportation. It is incorrect to think that Uber is a technology company. The fact is it is a digital layer of things that exist in the physical world. Without the car and the drivers picking up humans, or delivering goods, Uber doesn’t work. The technology enables the analog actions.

The same is true in CPG. At the end of the day while brand awareness is great and provides bragging rights, brands will only benefit if their product is sold off shelf. Brands must focus on how current technology can act as a digital layer, making the supermarket buying experience, easier, faster, and more intuitive for the consumer. Consumers will have a database in their pocket allowing them to utilize the criteria of their choice. We must be prepared to customize the one-to-one mobile experience for each shopper, allowing him or her to make intelligent decisions that lead to the purchase of our brand.

 

 

 

 

Kirk W. Wheeler
Executive VP/GM, Global CPG Practice
Manthan

In the year ahead and beyond it will be imperative for CPG manufacturers to collaborate much more closely and creatively with their retailer partners to truly understand and then activate the shopper’s journey.

Many CPG companies and brands have been experiencing, at best, anemic growth as they grapple with historically challenging problems.

A critical first step to better understand today’s shopper —and activate her buying journey — is for CPG and retail to adopt a collaborative engagement model that allows shopper data to be shared and insights co-authored and activated. To that end, new technologies such as Demand Signal Management (DSM) are helping to transform the old disconnected and mostly unproductive CPG/retail dynamic. These technologies harness big data and advanced, predictive analytics to optimize joint efforts around trade funds, in-store activation and merchandising. For example, new price promotion technologies are helping CPG manufacturers and their retailer counterparts to maximize returns by driving efficiencies in promotional spend and optimizing the marketing mix.

Bottom-line, CPG organizations and retailers can join together to build an analytics-driven growth engine that powers highly personalized and relevant marketing activities and creates massive new efficiencies in trade and marketing spend. That’s a win-win for everyone involved.

 

 

 

 

Dmitri Williams, PhD
CEO and Co-Founder
Ninja Metrics

For 2015/2016, we see a top priority emerging of knowing your customers and the influence they provide to others within your system. We all know that people influence each other. If your family or friends do something, your chances of doing it go up. This kind of influence can, not only be predicted, it can be measured. We call this “social value” and it is responsible for between 20 percent and 50 percent of all spending.

Influence firms measure influence by looking at what people say on Twitter, and how often others listen to them or re-Tweet. That’s a good way to know who’s got a big audience, but it’s not actually influence. It’s more important to look at actual behavior data because real influence leads to doing something, not talking. Did your customer cause others to buy a movie ticket, play more of a video game, or spend longer in the app? That’s bottom-line influence.

If you have these types of social value&n