Tips to Align Shopper Marketing and Trade Promotions
As shopper marketing initiatives continue to gain momentum, CPG organizations are seeing increasing interaction between the teams responsible for trade funding/programs and those responsible for shopper marketing solutions. The intersection of the two disciplines is creating both operational and financial challenges while organizations seek to define the best path forward.
Booz & Company recently conducted an industry-wide survey to build a better understanding of the magnitude of these changes. The resulting findings provide the industry with insights on how to enhance the impact of their shopper marketing programs in addition to facilitate better planning and coordination between trade promotions and shopper marketing.
On Feb. 23, 2012, during a CGT web event, Barbara Ford, senior vice president, AMG Strategic Advisors, Acosta Sales & Marketing Co., joined Matt Egol, vice president, Booz & Co., and Jon Van Duyne, senior executive advisor, Booz & Co., to discuss the survey and the implications for the CPG industry going forward.
Egol presented four key takeaways from the study:
- Takeaway #1: Shopper marketing is a maturing discipline that is still evolving, but increasingly touching trade promotion processes from planning to funding and execution.
- Takeaway #2: While companies across all CPG industries are facing similar challenges, a pack of leaders is emerging. They are establishing best practices that are resulting in brand share growth and ROI from shopper marketing investments.
- Takeaway #3: Any company can become a leader in shopper marketing by focusing on building winning capabilities (i.e., superior planning, organization, metrics).
- Takeaway #4: Future leaders in shopper marketing will leverage digital to enhance the effectiveness of shopper solutions and build more holistic capabilities for stronger collaboration with retail trading partners.
Acosta’s Ford next delivered a real-life example, explaining how Clorox used insights to create a scalable solution for growth. Its “Prevent, Protect & Soothe” program, created with AMG, collected and co-located a variety of products, including Campbell’s soup, Kellogg’s cereal, Brita water filters, Dial soap, and Clorox disinfectants, in a coherent solution around the themes of preventing illness, protecting the health of family members, and soothing them if they did become sick. “You’re looking for a win for the shopper, the manufacturer, the brand and the retailer, and this [Clorox] really is a great example of insight-driven solutions.”
To become a leader in this space, like Clorox, Booz & Company recommends other CPG companies take the following actions:
“1. Identify and pursue the right solution platform priorities (those that offer attractive headroom for growth) and engaging the right set of retail partners around these priorities; 2. Align sales and marketing organizations to better focus on solution platform priorities; 3. Develop new funding and planning processes to support better decision making, greater lead time, and superior execution.”
To download the Booz & Company viewpoint, click here.
To listen to this web event in its entirety, click here.