Rise - June 2019

JUNE 2019

consumergoods.com

RETAIL INTELLIGENCE FOR THE STRATEGIC ENTERPRISE

INSIDE DIRECT TO CONSUMER: BRANDS TAKE AGGRESSIVE STEPS WITH DTC STRATEGIES

DIGITAL MARKETING: WHO’S WHO REPORT SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON CG/RETAIL EXECS

ANALYTICS SUMMIT:

RCAS EVENT ROUNDUP SHOWS SUCCESS RELIES ON PEOPLE

Hall of Fame

Jody Kalmbach Helping to shape the (digital) future at Kroger

POWERED BY

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© 2019 Quotient Technology Inc. Quotient and the Quotient logo are registered trademarks of Quotient Technology Inc. Source: Quotient internal reporting (Q3 2018)

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Contents.

R E TA I L I N T E L L I G E N C E F O R T H E ST R AT E G I C E N T E R P R IS E

26

RCAS Summary

We provide an overview of the Retail & Consumer Goods Analytics Summit, which took place April 24-26 in Chicago.

32

SPECIAL REPORTS

42

48

Consumer goods companies are expanding their DTC capabilities and offering hints at their ultimate strategies.

Our seventh annual report recognizes more than 130 brand and retail executives who are making notable contributions in digital marketing.

Hall of Fame Q&A: Direct-to-Consumer Who’s Who in Digital Marketing Jody Kalmbach Selling Strategies Kroger’s Jody Kalmbach is one of three 2019 selections for the Path to Purchase Institute Hall of Fame.

She’s helping to shape how millions of shoppers transact digitally every day.

June 2019

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June 2019.

VO LU M E 32 | ISS U E 6

NEWS

8 ‘All-Star’ Program

Minor League Baseball partners with brands to engage fans.

10 Para’Kito and AR Para’Kito’s in-store display uses augmented reality to engage shoppers.

16 Gillette’s Target Exclusive Target stocks P&G’s Vera Bradley + Venus shaving products.

16 Joy at Walmart

P&G’s exclusive shaving brand Joy targets women at Walmart.

18 BodyArmor AR 12 Jack Daniel’s and AR at 7-Eleven Jack Daniel’s launches a mobile app that uses AR to help tell its story.

12 MillerCoors’ Smart Tap

MillerCoors promotes a “smart” beer tap in response to Bud Light.

13 Walmart’s In-Store

Technology

Walmart is testing several P-O-P innovations at stores near its HQ.

7-Eleven and BodyArmor launch AR on the retailer’s mobile app.

18 Hello Bello

at Walmart

Walmart supported the launch of plant-based baby brand Hello Bello.

20 Best Buy’s Processes Electronics retailer has digitized its store merchandising system.

DEPARTMENTS 6

Editor’s Note:

Bill Schober

22

P2PI Member Spotlight: Campari America

64

Activation Gallery:

In-Store Product Reviews

70

P2P Toolkit

73

NEW Horizons

74

Shopping with Steve:

Home Improvement Channel

76

Solutions Guide:

Digital Incentive Platforms

79 Solution Provider News 81 Personnel

Appointments/ Editorial Index

82

Retailer Intelligence:

Mattel’s Barbie and Walmart

74

14 Oreo and House Parties 20 Neuriva at Walgreens Cookie brand and Ripple Street host parties at consumers’ homes.

RB reaches out to Walgreens shoppers ahead of Neuriva’s launch.

14 Madison Reed

24 P2PI’s League

and a Chatbot

Madison Reed and Ulta bring “Madi” chatbot to roughly 1,200 stores.

of Leaders

See the participants in P2PI’s and CGT’s League of Leaders.

Retail Intelligence For The Strategic Enterprise (USPS 4568, ISSN 2642-9985 ) is published monthly, by EnsembleIQ. Editorial & Advertising offices: 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Ste. 200, Chicago, IL 60631.

Subscription rates: $125 for U.S. addresses; $190 for Canadian addresses; $275 for all other addresses. Single copies (pre- paid only): $20 in the U.S. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, IL 60631, and additional mailing addresses. Copyright 2019 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 RISE. - Retail Intelligence for the Strategic Enterprise, PO Box 3200, Northbrook IL 60065-3200.

June 2019

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RETAIL INTELLIGENCE FOR THE STRATEGIC ENTERPRISE

Editor’s Note.

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

They Rose; Will You? marketing & commercial officer at Chobani?

He was a career ad agency pro who, when brought over to the CPG side, decided to revolutionize management inside the yogurt company. He’s taking down the walls separating marketing, sales, insights, product innovation, creative, and commercial finance and realigning them into a unified “Demand Department” with an elegantly straightforward mission: Put Chobani’s dollars where they’ll generate the most demand.

Or consider the breadth of April Carlisle’s contributions to marketing over the past 30 years. This Coca-Cola exec broke into a business that put her out on the road yet insisted that she still wear high heels. She became an industry speaker, educator, innovator, pioneer and all-around agitator for getting shopper marketing that proverbial “seat at the table.” She was the “sine qua non” contributor for our very first industry wall charts, helped develop and popularize “Store Thought Clinics” at P&G, and today is training and creating a global network of next-generation shopper marketers as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. Try following the footsteps of this Hall of Famer … in high heels.

And then there’s my old boss – and maybe to some degree the Steve Jobs in my extended analogy up top – Peter Hoyt, founder of the Institute. I joined Hoyt Publishing in 1994 and witnessed all his innovations first-hand: shows, awards programs, industry data, educational programming, PRISM, the League, P2PI, glossaries, wall charts, and on and on.

But I don’t think anyone can describe his contribution better, and with more credibility, than another industry pioneer, Dina Howell: “Most will never know just how instrumental you were in the adoption of shopper marketing as an industry standard,” she wrote last month. “But for those of us who do, we sincerely thank you!”

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

B ILL SCHOB E R, E DITOR E ME RITUS

There are two kinds of people in this world: • There are those who’d read the Steve Jobs biography and its horror stories of impossible demands, brutal deadlines, 180-degree turns and sky-high expectations and groan, “Oh. My. God.” • And then there are those who read the Steve Jobs biography and all the stories and think: “Oh my god … cool!”

Most people don’t like challenges. But I bet most of the people reading this magazine do, and that somewhere, deep down, they also envy the folks who got to work at Apple Computer way back in those insane, insurgent, innovative and industrytransforming years.

Well, envy no more. The CPG industry is on the verge of a transformative shift of its own, rejecting the conventional product-centric approach of the past in favor of enterprise-wide, consumer-centric strategies. And it’s still a ground-floor opportunity for anyone willing to step up to the challenge. If you’re looking for role models, I represented this magazine and the Path to Purchase Institute last month in honoring four mold-breaking people who’ve set a very high bar.

Take, for example, Jody Kalmbach, vice president, digital experience, at Kroger, who is profiled on page 32 of this issue. With a college degree in psychology and several years of relatively conventional marketing experience, this 2019 Hall of Fame inductee nonetheless transformed herself into a technology leader at a place called Amazon and under the watchful eye of a guy named Bezos. No pressure there, eh? And as if that weren’t enough, she’s now in the midst of another high-wire act: Helping Kroger vault from being almost nowhere digitally five years ago to the envy of the industry today.

Or how about Peter McGuinness, chief

Executive Editor Tim Binder, tbinder@ensembleiq.com

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

SALES & P2PI MEMBER DEVELOPMENT President Terese Herbig, 773.992.4438, therbig@ensembleiq.com

Associate Brand Director Simone Knaap, 973.607.1374, sknaap@ensembleiq.com Associate Brand Director Bill Little, 828.237.3350, blittle@ensembleiq.com Associate Brand Director Rich Zelvin, 773.992.4425, rzelvin@ensembleiq.com Senior Director/Member Development Patrick Hare, phare@ensembleiq.com Director/Member/New Business Development Todd Turner, tturner@ensembleiq.com VP/Member Services Jennifer Zannelli, jzannelli@ensembleiq.com Manager, New Member Development Katrina Lopez, klopez@ensembleiq.com

ENSEMBLEIQ LEADERSHIP TEAM

Executive Chairman Alan Glass Chief Executive Officer David Shanker Chief Human Resources Officer Ann Jadown Chief Financial Officer Dan McCarthy Chief Digital Officer Joel Hughes Chief Innovation Officer Tanner Van Dusen President, Path to Purchase Institute Terese Herbig President, NA Retail Group and Canada Jennifer Litterick Executive Vice President, Events & Conferences Ed Several SVP, Technology Brands John Kenlon Group Brand Director, Healthcare Donna Kerry

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

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Consumer Engagement.

Minor League Baseball Launches ‘All-Star’ Retail Program League teams with five brands and retailers to engage fans

at games. “Engaging with our fans in-ballpark is a point of difference for us in the marketplace,” David Wright, chief marketing and commercial officer for MiLB, said in a media release announcing the program. “We are excited to see that engagement drive success at retail.”

The program is supported in grocery stores in participating markets with signage that varies by retailer. Some will have header cards, some shelf tags, and others both. Participating retailers include Weis, Winn-Dixie, Meijer and multiple Albertsons Cos. banners.

BY C H R I S G E L B AC H

Minor League Baseball (MiLB) has rolled out its largest retail campaign ever. The national “Grilling All-Stars” program encompasses five brands with activation in more than 100 MiLB markets and 13,000 retail locations during the 2019 season. The program was created with Harrisburg, North Carolina-based agency Brand Activation Maximizer (BAM).

The participating brands are Bush’s Best (baked beans) from Bush Brothers & Co., Kimberly-Clark’s Scott (bath tissue and paper towels), Bimbo Bakeries USA’s Ball Park (buns) and Southeastern Mills’ Louisiana (hot sauce).

MiLB and BAM created the program following extensive research showing that the league’s fans are heavy hitters when it comes to grilling-related purchases. More than 10 million MiLB attendees have grilled at least once in the past year and have spent a total of more than $2 billion on groceries in the past week, according to Nielsen data.

The program gives MiLB partners an efficient way to convert their league sponsorship into retail activation, says Mike Morris, consumer experience manager for Bush Brothers & Co. Morris turned to BAM to help find other brand partners to share cost while creating scale and retailer excitement that it could not build simply on its own.

“The in-park activation portion of the program is key since it focuses on the ‘pre-shop’ portion of the path to

“The in-park activation portion of the program is key since it focuses on the ‘pre-shop’ portion of the path to purchase. That means we are able to drive consumers into stores looking for our brand.”

Mike Morris, Bush Brothers & Co.

purchase,” Morris says. “That means we are able to drive consumers into stores looking for our brand, reducing our dependence on hot price points and in-store display during a few key weeks.”

The program engages fans in-ballpark using a digital network powered by ISM Connect, Doylestown, Pennsylvania. It encourages fans to use Grilling All-Stars products when planning summertime fun around the grill, and gives them the chance to win exclusive prizes, retail packages, experiences and more.

“Grilling All-Stars” also gives the brands an opportunity to reach the 40 million consumers who attend MiLB games each year – and to join in on the fan interaction

June 2019

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Ahold Delhaize USA’s Food Lion also is participating with in-store Vestcom tags and a prime endcap position for the program in its stores.

“Minor League Baseball is a massive national property, but it allows us to activate locally,” BAM president Tad Geschickter said in the release. “We look forward to connecting fans in each ballpark to our brands at participating retailers and to ultimately driving some tremendous sales results for all involved.”

The MiLB creative team played a significant role in the program, as did the marketing communications firm PinckneyHugo Group, Syracuse, New York. Rise

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Rise

Winner of 12 DOT Awards

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Consumer Engagement.

Para’Kito Uses Augmented Reality to Attract Repellent Shoppers

H-E-B but continue to roll out across the U.S. Para’Kito, which began operations in Europe in 2007 and in the U.S. in 2014, also offers direct-to-consumer sales via its website. The company’s products also are available through e-commerce giant Amazon.com, where Para’Kito employs its own widget.

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

Para’Kito has brought a unique twist to merchandising in the mosquito repellent category with an in-store display that uses augmented reality to engage, entertain and inform shoppers about its wearable products.

Para’Kito teamed with Atlanta-based display maker Georgia-Pacific to bring the idea to life through an interactive floorstand. To engage, shoppers scan a QR code on the display that directs them

to go.parakito.com, where they can choose from a menu of three AR-enabled experiences: • A 60-second, camerabased repellent game.

• A three-question quiz to determine the ideal product for their needs.

• A short video starring professional surfer Maud Le Car wearing a Para’Kito product.

Para’Kito chief executive officer Patrick Goguillon says the company wanted to figure out a way to make more product information accessible to shoppers in stores.

“With this whole technological revolution happening, we know that a lot of people use their phones in the stores, and so that’s what we worked on first,” he says.

Partnering with Georgia-Pacific on this made sense, according to Goguillon, since GP was working on developing AR and camera-recognition technology and looking for a partner for trial at the same time that Para’Kito wanted to innovate at retail.

“We brought [a really innovative product to the U.S.], something that didn’t exist, and the whole challenge when you bring new products and new concepts is to be able to explain it to consumers,” Goguillon says.

“The key to successfully executing augmented reality at retail is to understand the shopper and what will resonate with them,” Brian Hutchinson, director of shopper marketing at Georgia-Pacific, said in a media release announcing the program. “For the Para’Kito display, we recognized an ideal opportunity to use this technology to both engage and inform shoppers in a way that helps them make a smart purchase.”

The displays are already in such chains as Whole Foods, REI, Ace Hardware and

June 2019

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Goguillon views the new AR display as a game-changer that has already gained the company a lot of attention through events and the media. Para’Kito’s announcement of the display launch gained millions of impressions, which Goguillon says is evidence of the huge interest from the industry in differentiated in-store and online experiences that offer shoppers something unique. “It’s all about bringing something different to the retailer.”

Coinciding with the new display, Para’Kito also rolled out the annual color and design updates for its wearables.

“Every year, we bring new things to the market. If you look at the mosquito market, it’s a big category. The way we’ve been able to really be present ... and have a lot of availability and distribution is [by bringing] innovation,” such as the category’s first natural products and a roll-on repellent applicator, Goguillon says.

This AR experience was Para’Kito’s way of helping consumers understand why they should choose the brand. Goguillon says the company also raises awareness via public relations outreach and product spotlights on talk show segments. As one recent example, Para’Kito is included in the May edition of O, The Oprah Magazine as a must-have product. Rise

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Technology Innovation.

Jack Daniel’s Tells AR-Flavored Stories

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

Jack Daniel’s, the Tennessee whiskey brand from Brown-Forman, launched a mobile app that uses augmented reality to help tell its story through an engaging consumer experience.

Through a partnership with San Francisco-based Tactic, the app takes consumers on an AR-enabled journey of the Jack Daniel’s distillery through a series of “pop-up book style dioramas” that provide more than 10 minutes of content, according to a media release.

Launched April 15, the AR experience tells three separate stories of the brand’s history. The first turns the front label of Jack Daniel’s bottles into a

miniature version of the distillery. The second takes consumers through the process of making Tennessee whiskey, while the third shares stories of the man behind the brand’s name: Jack Daniel.

“In today’s world, it’s important for us to reach fans and consumers where they are,” Jeff Cole, modern media director for Jack Daniel’s, said. “That means sharing content that’s unique, interesting and relevant through a variety of digital [media].” Cole also pointed to the “immersive” VR experience the brand launched in 2016, as well as an ongoing podcast dubbed “Around the Barrel.”

“This new AR experience is taking our brand storytelling to the next level,” he added.

After downloading the dedicated app,

Technology Innovation.

MillerCoors ‘Smart’ Tap Counters Bud Light

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

Amid its ongoing feud with AnheuserBusch’s Bud Light, MillerCoors is promoting a “smart” beer tap.

The technology-driven marketing gimmick is part of MillerCoors’ response to the recent Bud Light ad campaign

criticizing the ingredients used to make Miller Lite and Coors Light – specifically, corn syrup.

Dubbed “The Coors Light,” the tap is “powered by Bud Light negativity” and uses technology to monitor the rival brand’s activity on social- and broadcastmedia channels in real time, according to MillerCoors. Whenever Bud Light virtually attacks Coors Light, the tap handle lights up, indicating that everyone in the participating bar gets a free round of Coors.

The unique tap was installed in five participating bars across the U.S. to coincide with the start of college basketball’s NCAA Tournament in late March.

“Bud Light has been attacking us out of frustration for weeks now,” said Ryan Reis,

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consumers simply point their mobile devices at any 50 milliliter to 1.75 liter bottle of Jack Daniel’s to activate the experience.

“Augmented reality is in an exciting stage, and new technology and techniques are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” said Peter Oberdorfer, president of Tactic. “The Jack Daniel’s AR app features technology that sets the bar for creative storytelling in this new medium.

The learnings and best practices from Jack Daniel’s will help inform the development of AR apps across different brands and industries.” Rise

vice president of brand marketing for Coors, in a media release. “We believe people just want to move on. So we invented this smart beer tap that does the listening for them – and even better, turns Bud Light’s negativity into rounds of Coors Light on us.”

The tap debuted at bars in New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Omaha and Las Vegas on March 22-23, the tournament’s first weekend. “When they bring hate, we will literally bring light,” Reis said in a MillerCoors “Behind the Beer” blog post. “The more Bud Light talks, the more we refresh.”

The brand is staging a similar promotion at other “key accounts” across the U.S., offering a free round whenever one of the negative Bud Light ads plays on the onpremise TVs as a way to “further connect with drinkers,” according to the release.

The controversy between the brands followed Bud Light’s Super Bowl LIII commercial, which knocked the use of corn syrup during the brewing process for Miller Lite and Coors Light as part of a broader campaign pushing for ingredient transparency in the category. Rise

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Technology Innovation.

Walmart Brings Technology to the Shelf

touchscreens – which offer additional product information as well as video tutorials – and find them similarly labeled on the display below. L’Oreal’s flagship brand and Maybelline, Coty’s Sally Hansen and CoverGirl, Hard Candy, Flower, Johnson & Johnson’s Neutrogena, Revlon and e.l.f. Cosmetics are among the participating brands.

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

Walmart is testing several tech-focused P-O-P innovations at stores near its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters:

DIGITAL PRICE LABELS The mass merchant is pitting two different types of digital price labels against each other to see if they can be controlled quickly and seamlessly through programming, saving time for employees and providing accurate, realtime pricing for shoppers.

In the bread aisle of its Pleasant Crossing test store in Rogers, Arkansas, Walmart is trialing the more subdued of the two digital price labels: e-ink tags.

About the same size as the retailer’s printed paper labels and positioned one by one along the shelf, the digital labels are ideal for merchandise that commands a larger shelf area. They appear relatively flat for digital signage, eschewing color for a streamlined look employing black font and a white border.

A few miles away in “store number one” on South Walton Boulevard, Walmart is experimenting with a more flamboyant digital presentation, this time in the densely packed cereal aisle. There, rather

than standalone price units, entire lengths of shelf edges have been digitized with mounted LED strips that hang down lower than traditional shelf fronts.

Appearing radiant and pixelated, the digital shelf strips employ a Walmartblue background. Areas of the strips communicating pricing instead adopt a white-on-black or black-on-white treatment for the text and background color, with an item’s per-unit price highlighted with a yellow background. The strips also depict QR codes linking to more product information.

COSMETICS VIDEO KIOSKS In an upgraded “Beauty & Skincare” department in store number one, Walmart has modified two endcaps by adding touchscreen displays flanked by multiproduct glorifiers topping each aisle side of a three-sided, half-height merchandising unit.

One endcap spotlights products for trends such as bold lips and sculpted brows, while the other corrals “best sellers” across many categories including makeup brushes, foundation, eye shadow and concealer.

Shoppers can browse the products by the same trends and categories via the

June 2019

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SMART HOME VIDEO DISPLAYS Walmart is elevating Wi-Fi routers and Google voice devices with interactive smart home displays spotted at the Pleasant Crossing test store and in other locations.

Positioned in-line in the electronics and entertainment department, a multibrand display for “whole home Wi-Fi” positions devices from Google, Netgear Orbi, Belkin International’s Linksys Velop and Eero as “best routers” in terms of speed and coverage. The units are displayed out of the box for shoppers to touch and feel. Buttons for each of the brands trigger different promotional videos to play on a screen built into the display header.

A similar display dedicated to Google smart home speakers also presents various models out of the box. Buttons on that display trigger videos that let shoppers explore how voice commands can be employed with the devices for actions related to entertainment, temperature, safety and security lighting and shopping. Rise

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Consumer Engagement.

Oreo, Target Drive Awareness via House Parties

BY C Y N D I L O Z A

Mondelez International teamed with Irvington, New York-based influencer marketing company Ripple Street to host some 300 parties at consumers’ homes aimed at driving awareness of new Oreo SKUs at Target.

Oreo enlisted Ripple Street to organize house party events on Feb. 23 with each host receiving a party kit comprised of a Target gift card; an Oreo-branded miniBluetooth speaker, a deck of cards, and a checkerchief board; 12 Oreo cookie pop sockets, touchscreen gloves and collapsible cups; 12 Oreo chocolate candy bars; and 12 Oreo mint chocolate candy bars.

More than 13,000 consumers applied

via RippleStreet.com to host parties, during which hosts were encouraged to have fun with their friends and party guests with games such as Oreo cookie checkers. The events also served to spotlight the brand’s national “Stuf Inside” sweepstakes and encouraged participants to use #OreoTheStufInsideParty on their Instagram posts for a chance to be featured on Target.com. Select content was included on Target.com’s #TargetStyle page and the Oreo product listing page.

The activation generated nearly 16,000 social shares, more than 3,500 pieces of consumer-generated content, and drove applicants and hosts to Target to purchase Oreo SKUs more than three times over the

Retailer Relations.

Madison Reed, Ulta Expand Partnership

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

San Francisco-based Madison Reed is expanding its partnership with Ulta Beauty to bring the prestige hair care brand and its “Madi” chatbot to roughly 1,200 stores in the U.S. The expansion comes about two years after the duo’s first collaboration, which brought Madison Reed products to select Ulta stores and Ulta.com. Now, the Illinois-based retailer will offer a full array of the brand’s “salon-quality” hair care in stores, including radiant hair color kits, color reviving gloss, root touchup powder, color-protecting shampoo and conditioner and hair care primer.

Nearly all Ulta stores will also carry the brand’s Light Works balayage highlighting kit, which originally launched in 100 locations in 2018 and won an Allure “Best of Beauty Breakthrough Award” that same year.

Madison Reed also integrated the “Madi” chatbot it first introduced in 2017 to the exclusive partnership with Ulta. Shoppers

June 2019

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course of the program, according to Ripple Street.

“The goal of the party was to drive awareness of new Oreo products at Target, along with trips and purchase frequency through an immersive experience that captured the Target [shopper’s] path to purchase while amplifying the fun with Oreo in-store, online and at home with friends and family,” says Stephanie McHale, regional vice president, sales, Ripple Street.

The house parties were part of a full 360-degree program at the mass merchant that included in-store sampling, displays and Target Media Network digital activation that all aimed to drive “awareness of new items at Target along with our base products to drive Oreo frequency and build baskets at Target,” says Jennifer Mason, customer director, shopper marketing, Mondelez International. Rise

can text a selfie to “34757” and the AIpowered Madi will do what she normally does: ask a few quick questions and make a hair color recommendation. However, rather than directing shoppers to MadisonReed.com to purchase the suggested color, it directs to a “radiant hair color kit” e-commerce page within Ulta.com.

“Ulta Beauty’s commitment to hair color and hair care has been unwavering, and they are the undisputed market leader in hair as a result,” Amy Errett, chief executive officer and founder of Madison Reed, said. “Our expansion into stores nationwide reflects the mutual admiration our companies have and the strong performance of [our] products to date.”

Madison Reed was a finalist in Rise’s 2017 “SMB Award” competition. Rise

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Rise

Georgia-Pacific Corrugated Displays

An attraction for interaction.

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P L E A S E

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Retailer Relations.

Gillette’s Vera Bradley Collection Rolls Out to Target

BY C Y N D I L O Z A

Target is exclusively stocking a collection of special-edition razors and shaving accessories from Procter & Gamble’s Gillette Venus sporting a print from luggage and handbag design company Vera Bradley.

The Vera Bradley + Venus collection rolled out to Target stores and Target. com on April 7. It includes a razor handle and “Blushed Bloom”-scented shaving cream depicting the popular “Daisy Dot Paisley” pattern found on Vera Bradley bags and travel accessories. In stores, the items are stocked on endcaps outfitted with signage positioning the SKUs as new at

the retailer and employing the Vera Bradley pattern.

“The collection is being supported by a multifaceted marketing plan that includes digital, social and PR elements,” says Kara Buckley, P&G’s head of global grooming communications. “The in-store experience brings to life the design experience of this collection and will consist of a beautified shelf space dedicated to the lineup, in addition to endcap display and in-store marketing.”

When asked why the brand decided to partner with Target to launch the collection,

Retailer Relations.

P&G Brings Joy Exclusively to Walmart

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

Procter & Gamble launched a new shaving brand dubbed Joy exclusively at Walmart. The line is targeted at women, comprising a razor with a pink or teal handle and refill cartridges as well as shaving gel and mousse.

The products make a fresh statement in stores’ personal care departments with prime merchandising space on endcap displays from WestRock that employ bold pink and teal color blocks and multiple circular elements, including a wheel edged with a parade of the unboxed shavers. In the aisle, an in-line header and plastic violator

showcasing the shavers out of the box call attention to the brand’s positioning within the shelf set.

Support on Walmart.com has included a home page carousel ad and display ads running throughout the site, both linking to a dedicated brand showcase. Paid search ads supported at launch.

A dedicated standalone website as well as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube accounts all link back to Walmart.com for purchasing. The brand also has commissioned posts from bloggers and distributed free samples to solicit user

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Buckley said that the retailer is “known for bringing form and function together into sensorial shopping experiences and smart product designs that are accessible and affordable to all. They were the perfect retail partner to bring this first-ever designer razor collection to the market.”

The mass merchant regularly receives exclusive products and launch windows from manufacturers, most recently for Unilever’s Love Home and Planet household items and Welly Health PBC’s Welly first-aid SKUs. Continuing its strategy of giving digital native brands an in-store presence, Target also began exclusively stocking Procter & Gamble’s Native deodorants in September. Native recently expanded to Walmart stores. Rise

reviews. Media support included an article and launch event by PopSugar.

On Walmart.com, Joy items range in price from $3.47 to $15.97, with a Joy razor and two refill cartridges priced at $8.97.

The new product uses Gillette blades but doesn’t play up the affiliation, its only indication being a subdued Gillette logo on the blade mechanism.

Not making that claim in its positioning let Joy skirt a storm of controversy surrounding Gillette at the time of launch for its “The Best Men Can Be” ad.

The Joy rollout comes on the heels of rival and digitalnative brand Harry’s (soon to be acquired

by Edgewell Personal Care) launching women’s body care brand Flamingo exclusively at Target. Rise

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Consumer Engagement.

7-Eleven, BodyArmor Team for AR Experience

BY CY N D I LOZ A

7-Eleven teamed with National Collegiate Athletic Association sponsor BodyArmor this year to launch a pair of March Madness-themed augmented reality experiences within the retailer’s mobile application.

Using a smartphone’s front-facing camera, the first experience encouraged users to open their mouths to drink a virtual beverage from BodyArmor – which Coca-Cola Co. has a minority stake in – while messages quickly communicated the SKU contains natural sweeteners, electrolytes, vitamins and natural flavors. The “BodyArmor Hydration Selfie” experience then turned users

into basketball players, superimposing the real-time image of their face and head onto the body of a player spinning a ball on a finger.

Users could customize the skin color, gender and jersey color of their players, which were depicted on a basketball court backdrop employing the March Madness logo.

The second experience leveraged a phone’s rear camera to anchor a miniature basketball game in an iPhone user’s environment. (The game just seemed to respond to the phone’s movement for users with an Android phone.) Following a 3-point shooting contest format, the “BodyArmor

Retailer Relations.

Baby Brand Gets Full Launch Support from Walmart

BY PAT RYCJA M A L I N OWS K A

Walmart supported the launch of new and exclusive plant-based baby brand Hello Bello with prime merchandising space as well as digital and print activity.

Co-founded with comical acting couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, the celebritybacked brand launched with 10 items including diapers, personal and home care items, outdoor products and gifts, all ranging in price from $1.88 to $23.94.

A Walmart.com home-page carousel ad first introduced the brand as a Walmart exclusive in late February, promising “premium baby care for happy babies, happy planet.” The ad as well as paid

search ads linked to a brand showcase introducing Bell and Shepard with a promotional video. In early March, a circular feature appealed to costconscious parents by touting the brand’s value.

In stores, Hello Bello diapers, wipes and personal care items earn prime secondary merchandising space in the baby department with a colorful, whimsical endcap display that communicates price points as well as brand messages such as “premium for all” and multiple product benefits ranging from plant-based ingredients to cute designs. The

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3-Point Shoot Out” game allowed users to compete with a virtual opponent to see who can make 10 baskets first with three rounds of escalating difficulty available per game.

Available in March and early April, both experiences could only be accessed by 7Rewards loyalty members, who earned 150 reward points for sharing their basketball selfie and up to 30 points for winning in the mini basketball game. Members also earned double points by purchasing a 28-ounce BodyArmor SKU. The retailer used Zappar’s AR content creation toolkit, ZapWorks Studio, to create the digital imagery that mobile users could activate and share on social media, according to Mobile Marketer. 7-Eleven and Zappar also collaborated last year for the retailer’s first AR in-store experience that tied in to the theatrical release of 20th Century Fox’s “Deadpool 2.” Rise

display also directs shoppers online for additional designs.

Bulk diaper packs, meanwhile, receive a brand block in-line.

The brand also operates dedicated social media accounts and its own DTC website, where it offers bundled subscriptions at a discounted price. The site links to Walmart. com and offers a store finder.

Hello Bello taps into the growing clean-ingredient market for baby care and increasing popularity of niche brands that mean something, while leveraging influencer credibility and Walmart’s price-reducing scale. Rise

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Rise

Attract

Engage

Execute

Measure

Retail Reimagined At WestRock, we recognize the urgent need to reinvent the retail experience to better serve the ever-changing expectations of the time-pressured shopper. The rise of online shopping has placed incredible demand on retailers to offer relevant, engaging shopper solutions designed with a balance of appeal, convenience and functionality to become the shopping destination of choice.

Let’s work together to reimagine retail merchandising for the next generation and beyond. westrock.com/displays

Š2019 WestRock Company. WESTROCK, WestRock and Design, and the WestRock Logo are trademarks owned by WestRock Company. All rights reserved.

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Enterprise Excellence.

Best Buy Modernizes Visual Merchandising Processes

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

Best Buy has digitized another part of its business: its historically paper-heavy, time-consuming and headquarter-centric store merchandising system.

The electronics retailer has partnered with cloud-based visual merchandising software provider One Door to digitize its print-based merchandising system.

The retailer’s new tablet-based digital map software replaces and substantially simplifies the cluttered 18-layered store maps and planograms that were difficult to read. Using embellished “colours and halos,” the software tells employees exactly where to find products and displays. It also

localizes all the information needed by in-store merchandising teams such as the store map, planograms and visual merchandising standards (all formerly found in separate places) so they can be accessed in the field, in real-time, on a tablet.

During a joint session at the National Retail Federation’s 2019 “Big Show,” Aaron Pyles, senior director of retail operations for Best Buy, said the retailer has heard for years that the 18-layer store maps and planograms are hard to read and require too many steps. The old, primarily print-based system was not only tough to understand but also required multiple trips out of the physical store and into the warehouse, taking up too much associate time that

could be spent serving customers.

Employee feedback helped form a more efficient, system-wide practice that – like the electronic shelf labels (ESLs) Best Buy has introduced to 280 stores (with more pending) – allows for real-time access to data.

“Digital ends up giving everybody in the process a much higher level of visibility and confidence that things are being done properly, and ultimately, that stores are being set the way they want,” Tom Erskine, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of product, One Door, told NRF’s STORES magazine. Rise

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Retailer Relations.

CMY

RB Turns to Walgreens Ahead of Neuriva Launch

K

BY T I M B I N D E R

RB reached out to Walgreens shoppers ahead of the April 2019 launch of the manufacturer’s Neuriva brain performance supplements.

An ad in the retailer’s March coupon book, which hit stores Feb. 24, employed an “It’s time to brain better” message and touted the product as “Coming Soon.”

A feature in Walgreens’ March 3 circular carried the same messages. Both also promoted pre-orders of the product at Walgreens.com.

Additionally in March, shelf blockers on health and wellness endcaps announced Neuriva as “Coming Soon.”

On March 31 just prior to launch, the same coupon book ad also appeared in Walgreens’ April version of the book.

Upon launch, the product earned a feature on the front page of the retailer’s April 7 circular. The following week, an interior circular feature carried a bold “Now available” tag.

In some stores, Neuriva’s “original” and “plus” SKUs were stocked on opposite sides of a two-way floorstand near the pharmacy department. Rise

June 2019

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occasion to a Spritz occasion, delivering a cocktail solution for consumers and a value proposition for retailers in the two subchannels for expansion (liquor and grocery).

Member Spotlight.

Campari America

What will shoppers see in-store?

CHASEN: For grocery, we have a variety of cross-merchandising tools including a cross-merchandising rack for the floral department that holds both Prosecco and Aperol, as well as refrigerator clings to promote the Spritz on cooler doors in the liquor channel and where chilled sparkling is merchandised.

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

CHASEN: We would like to leverage shopper and retailer insights. We would also like to build trade publicity and awareness within the retailer community about our portfolio and what Campari Group brings to the industry.

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

CHASEN: The future will be all about

Campari America is a wholly owned subsidiary of Davide Campari-Milano S.p.A. At the heart of Campari America are two legends in the American spirits industry. The first, Skyy Spirits, was founded in San Francisco back in 1992 by the entrepreneur who invented iconic SKYY Vodka. The second is the world-famous Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, where they have been making the world’s finest whiskies since the 1800s. Both companies were purchased by Davide CampariMilano and together they form Campari America, which has built a portfolio known for its quality, innovation and style, making it a top choice among distributors, retailers and consumers.

Campari America manages Campari Group’s portfolio in the U.S. with such

leading brands as SKYY Vodka, Grand Marnier, Campari, Aperol and many more.

Institute staff asked Steve Chasen, vice president, trade marketing, a few questions about the business.

Tell us about a recent campaign for one of your products.

CHASEN: I will describe our Aperol Spritz off premise spring-summer program. The Aperol Spritz cocktail is a global phenomenon, as Aperol is the third fastest-growing spirits brand in the world and the number one fastest-growing spirit brand by value in the U.S., according to Nielsen data. The singular drink strategy has been proven around the world and all communication drives education around how to make the perfect Aperol Spritz. We have taken a sub-channel-specific approach to address converting the Prosecco

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experiential. That could mean immersive brand and educational events for consumers and trade, which might then be amplified through digital networks. It will mean creating retail experiences that resonate with shoppers while helping the retailer grow their bottom line as well as crafting an ownable shopping experience.

We also think augmented reality and virtual reality will be a bigger part of consumers’ lives at home and in the store, and we will look to be ready when that day comes. Imagine a consumer making a “virtual Negroni” on a VR headset and then putting the ingredients into a virtual shopping cart and having them delivered for a party that night. It’ll be here sooner than we think. Rise

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

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P2PI Events.

League of Leaders Participants

Abbott Laboratories • Kimberly Casey, Director, Shopper Experience Team • Mandy Jones, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager

AJW-Advisory • Andy Walter, Principal

Aki Technologies • Matt Knust, VP, Sales • Scott Swanson, CEO

Albertsons Cos. • Karl Meinhardt, VP, Social & Digital Marketing • Karen Sales, VP, Digital Partnerships & Shopper Marketing • Ryan Voorhees, VP, Integration

• Christopher Costello, VP, Sales & Marketing • Frank Coughlin, Director, Retail Sales • Missy Hackett, Shopper Marketing Manager

• Natalie Halpern, Team Leader/ Associate Director , Shopper Marketing & Omnichannel • Sharon McKnight, VP • Tara Vaishnav, VP & Chief Architect, Enterprise Technology Strategy & Architecture

Brown-Forman Corp.

The Coca-Cola Co.

Bigelow Tea Co.

• Tony Costa, SVP & CIO

• Tammy Brumfield, AVP, Shopper Marketing, West • April Carlisle, VP, Shopper Marketing, National Retail Sales • Doug Middlebrooks, AVP, Shopper Marketing, National Convenience Retail

Callaway Golf

Colgate-Palmolive Co.

• Mary Beth O’Mara, Channel Portfolio Manager • Julie Lynn York, Group Manager, Portfolio & Partnership Marketing

Bumblebee Foods

• Patrice Gausselin, R&D Director, Strategy & Operations

• Lori Holmes, Director, Sales Applications • Sage Kuttler, Director, Category Management • Alan Schneider, Senior Director, Business Applications

The Antigua Group Inc.

Catalina

Amway

• Chris Devous, VP of Information Technology/CIO

Arc Worldwide • Elizabeth Harris, EVP, Strategy Director • Soche Picard, CEO

Church & Dwight

Bayer HealthCare • Carol Cresong, Director, Sales Strategy

Beiersdorf • Rodney Waights, VP, Shopper & Customer Marketing

Conagra Brands

• Bob Waibel, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing

Conair Corp.

• Marta Cyhan, CMO • Geoff Sherman, VP

Cavender’s

• Jairo Garcia, Shopper Marketing Director, Walmart

Enjoy Life Foods

• Rick Davis, President

• Nick Alex, Chief Financial Officer • Joel Warady, General Manager, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer

Del Monte Foods

FCB/RED

DDG LLC

• Rahi Khandelwal, BI & Analytics Head - Director Enterprise Information Management • Jennifer Reiner, Director, Omnichannel Marketing & E-Commerce • Gary Thomas, Senior VP of Operations

Duracell • Joe Cerone, Team Leader, NA, Merchandising • Peter Gorzkowski, Director, Shopper Marketing

• Tina Manikas, President • Curt Munk, Executive Planning Director

Ferrara

• Lena Lewis, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing

Food Lion LLC

• Neil Norman, Director, Customer Loyalty & Shopper Marketing

FreshDirect

• Sonia Dalvi, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing

GE Lighting

Coravin

• Beth Orozco, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing

General Mills

Coty US

EBIDTA Consulting Partners

• Dan Bracken, VP, Consumer Engagement • Tom Kreszl, Director, Sales Business Transition

• Rosanne Olken, Director, Category Management & Shopper Insights • Nigel Stokes, Global Sales

The Clorox Co.

CVS Health

• Matthew Dacey, VP, Loyalty & Personalization • Grant Violanti, Senior Director, Loyalty & Personalization

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• Cass Harris, Brand Manager, NA & Shopper Activation

• Rochelle Hartigan, Senior Marketing Leader - Brand & Advertising

• Yvethe Tyszka, VP, Marketing

• Lauren Ehreth, Shopper Marketing Manager • Kate Grasman, Director - IT Business Operations

Energizer Holdings

• Derek Lehman, Director, Channel & Shopper Marketing • Charles White, VP, Brands & Marketing

E. & J. Gallo Winery

• Jon Harding, Global CIO

• Jim Thompson, CFO

DAS Cos.

•Tony Bender, Founder

Edge Marketing • Liz Fogerty, Chief Strategy Officer • Allison Welker, EVP & GM

Edgewell Personal Care • Minna Raffin, Director, Marketing Strategic Planning

• Jay Picconatto, Marketing Director, Shopper Marketing

Georgia-Pacific

• Justin Honaman, VP, Technology & Transformation • Brian Hutchinson, Director, Shopper Marketing • Laura Knebusch, VP/GM, Napkin Category • Will Philips, National Accounts Manager • John Pfalzgraf, Director, Consumer Knowledge

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GlaxoSmithKline

• Mary Beth Barrett, Director, Shopper Marketing

Great Northern Instore • Pat Graf, VP, Display Sales Development • Mike Schliesmann, SVP, Business Unit Manager

GroundTruth • Mark Fleisch, VP, CPG • Sarah Ohle, VP, Marketing insights

Hallmark Cards • Patrick Gahagan, VP, Category Management • Tina McGuire, Marketing & Visual Merchandising Director

HMT Associates • Patti Conti, President & CEO • Rick Einhaus, EVP, Strategic Planning & Insights

Infosys • Kishor Gummaraju, Managing Partner, Infosys Consulting • Parag Jain, Vice President & Head Retail, CPG & Logistics, Americas

Intel Corp.

Keurig Dr Pepper • Andrew Barker, Senior Director Shopper Marketing • Sheila Bonner, VP, Shopper Marketing, Insights & Merchandising

Kimberly Clark • Denny Belcastro, SVP Industry Affairs • Aaron Gretebeck, Senior Manager, Shopper Marketing COE • Sheila Lukaszewski, Global Director Category & Shopper Insights

LALA U.S. • Vanessa Carlson Bueno, VP, Marketing & Shopper Marketing • Shaun Nichols, President

LG Electronics

• Matt Allen, Senior Manager, Shopper Marketing • Jessica Fair, Director, Omnichannel Customer Marketing • Kelly Sweeney, Senior Manager, Shopper Marketing

Johnson & Johnson • KC Hagin, Director, U.S. Omni & Shopper Marketing • Stephanie Hayes, Director, Consumer Promotion • Mark Pettiford, VP, RGM Commercial Data & Analytics • Kevin Puppe, Senior Director, IT • Sri Rajagopalan, VP, eCommerce • Rahul Verma, Senior Manager, eCommerce • Ben Walker, IT Director - Sales Technology

Johnsonville Sausage • Dan Baltus, Customer Insights Manager • Joe Bourland, Director, Strategic Insights & Analytics • Stephanie Plehn, Shopper Marketing Manager

Kellogg Co. • Mike Clifford, Director, Shopper Marketing • Aaron Elleman, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing

• Glenn Brown, VP, Creative Director • Mike Lane, CEO

MillerCoors • Brooke Roller, Senior Manager- Channel Marketing Small Format • Wayne Vonder Heide, Senior Manager, Large Format

• Kyle Yearick, VP, Trade Marketing

• Rich Scuteri, VP, Customer & Salesforce Solutions

• Javier Cazares, Senior Director Business Development, RCM • Werner Graf, Global Head, CPG Industry

Moet Hennessy USA Mondelez International

MarketingLab/SellCheck

The J.M. Smucker Co.

Meyers

L’Oreal USA

Iovate Health Sciences International

• Matt White, VP, Sales Strategy

• Christine Austin, Customer Marketing Director • Holly Oakes, Customer Marketing Director/Brand Director, News & Sports

Mindtree

Madison Rose LLC

Jack Link’s

Meredith

• Stewart Henderson, Senior Manager, Shopper Marketing • Rachel Olson, Senior Manager, Shopper Marketing • Dave VanderWaal, VP, Marketing, LG USA & Canada

• Renee Novello, Director, Shopper Marketing & Global Retail Marketing

• Brian Cavanaugh, CMO • Jason Prowse, Category & Consumer Insights Manager

• John Van Driest, Director, Marketing & Communications

• Chris Gordon, Chief Business Strategist • Rich Butwinick, President • Mark Lenss, VP, Managing Director

Mars Petcare • Todd Stone, National Accounts Manager

Mars Wrigley Confectionery • Susan Barkalow, Shopper Marketing Team Leader

Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA • Brian Kubicki, VP, Marketing • Susan Lambert, Director, Shopper Marketing & Customer Insights • Dena Soulakis, Shopper Marketing Manager

Materne GoGo Squeez • Joe Kasinskas, Senior Director, Customer Marketing

Mattel

• Stephen McGowan, RVP, Shopper & Consumer Activation • Michael Tilley, Biscuit Lead, Shopper Marketing & Strategic Partnerships

The Nature’s Bounty Co. • Charles Meyer Hanover, Director, Consumer Insights • Andrea Simone, SVP, Chief Business Transformation and Information Officer

Nestle Starbucks Coffee • Tiffany Huey, Director, Shopper Marketing • Kelly Marsh, Director, Shopper & Seasonal Scale Marketing (TLA) • Deb Silhacek, Senior Marketing Manager

Nestle USA • Alex Placzek, Director, Shopper COE

Nestle-Purina • Anthony Dimattia, Director, Shopper & Ecomm • Christina Lawrence, VP, Shopper Marketing • Jason Vita, Director, Shopper Marketing

• Meredith Jang, Senior Director, Advanced Analytics, Shopper Insights & Marketing • Pamela Velarde, Director, Customer Marketing

Newell Brands

Meijer

Ocean Spray

• Diane Boeskool, Customer Marketing Manager • Lanny Curtis, Director, Customer Marketing • Michael Ross, VP, Marketing

Menasha Packaging Co. • Jeff Krepline, VP, Sales Strategy & Business Development

• Daniel Siegel, VP, Information Delivery • Stephen Sigrist, VP Customer Service & Customer Supply Chain • Jamie Head, CIO

Oracle • Michael Forhez, Senior Director, Consumer Markets • Gerald Poncet, Global Managing Director, Consumer Markets • Mario Vollbracht, Global Director of Consumer Markets

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PepsiCo

SAS

• William Langford, Senior Director, Sales • Ben Mayfield, Director, Customer Supply Chain • John Phillips, SVP, Customer Supply Chain & Go-to-Market • Katie Schiavone, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing, NAN Brands, Gatorade & Propel • Chad Stubbs, VP, Portfolio Retail Marketing • Esperanza Teasdale, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing

• Elizabeth Dove, Senior Manager • Dan Woo, Principal Industry Consultant - CPG

Pernod Ricard USA

Smithfield Foods

• Ravinder Atwal, Director, Customer Marketing • Scot Henderson, Director, Consumer/Shopper Insights • Megan Taves, Director, Customer Solutions, Chains

Pfizer • Jennifer Holahan, Senior Director, Shopper & Category Insights to Activation

Philips Consumer Lifestyle • Keri Dreyer, Shopper Marketing

Procter & Gamble • Matt Barresi, Director, Brand Operations & Shopper Marketing • Amanda Teder, Associate Brand Director, Head of Shopper Marketing

Quad • Mike Draver, SVP Sales, In-Store

Quotient • Chad Summe, SVP & General Manager, US Sales • Jason Young, Chief Marketing Officer

Rembrandt Foods Inc • Paul Hardy, VPGM Sales & Marketing

Reynolds Consumer Products • Kathryn Freemond, Shopper Marketing Manager

SC Johnson & Son • Andrew Frailing, Director, Shopper Marketing

Siemens • Richard Davies, VP, Consumer Goods & Retail Practice • Suzanne Kopcha, VP, Consumer Products & Retail • Julia Anderson, Global CIO • Marilyn Richards, Senior IT Director

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits • Ann Dozier, CIO • Kirsty Dyson, VP, Supplier & Customer Info Tech Collab

Strategy&, Part of the PwC Network

• Shub Goswami, Director • Keya Petersen, Director

Suavecito International

• Doug Rammel, VP, Corp. Development

Sundial Brands

• Christine Keihm, SVP, Marketing

Swisher International • Karen Saber, VP, Business Analytics

Tata Consultancy Services

• Sanjiv Ahuja, Director • Robert McKelvey, Director - CPG

Tiesta Tea Co.

• Ashley Whitney, Director of Marketing

TPN

• Sarah Cunningham, Senior Managing Director, Client Service & Development • Christy O’Pella, Senior Managing Director, Dallas

Tri-Coastal Design

Rich Products Corp.

• Mark Mignone, VP, Sales

• Daryl Miller, Director of Shopper Marketing & Insights

Tyson Foods

SAP • EJ Kenney, Global VP, Consumer Products • Harris Vogel, Global VP, Consumer Products

Saputo Cheese USA Inc. • Nicole Austin, Manager, Social & Digital Media • Ray Langton, Senior Product Manager • Brad Panarese, Marketing Manager

• Alicia Mosley, Director, Shopper Marketing • Christopher Witte, VP, Total Store Leadership

Valassis Digital

• Jason Kaplan, Executive Director, Shopper Marketing & CPG • Suzanne Skop, VP, CPG Solutions

Wakefern Food Corp.

• Cheryl Williams, CIO

Western Union

• Tonya Johnson, Marketing Director

UPCOMING EVENTS • P2PI League of Leaders, June 3-5, at The Westin O’Hare (Rosemont), Chicago • CGT League of Leaders, June 18-20, at SAS headquarters, Cary, North Carolina

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&

P2PI Events.

Camels, Hot Air Balloons and the Need for Change An overview of the Retail & Consumer Goods Analytics Summit (RCAS), which took place April 24-26 at the Swissotel Chicago

BY P 2 P I S TA F F

Despite the transformative change sweeping the consumer goods industry, success in the analytics practice still relies on its oldest asset: people.

That was the somewhat ironic key takeaway from the 2019 edition of the Retail & Consumer Goods Analytics Conference, which kicked off in April in Chicago with a milestone: the use of a robot named Pepper (courtesy of HCL Technologies) to introduce the first speaker.

But although the planned agenda would have suggested that the adoption of artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics tools and other new-age technology would dominate the discussions, most of the presentations and subsequent conversations at least broached the subject of “human” personnel.

Based on the discussions, traditional consumer product manufacturers and retailers are working hard to identify the new skills required of a data-driven organization; to attract the new, often younger talent they need to fill those skill sets in a highly competitive job market; to re-educate the existing workforce not only on new technologies, but also on new strategic methods of problem solving; and to figure out how much of the current workload can be effectively “re-assigned” to machine learning and other automated tools.

One of the more critical of those new skills – storytelling, the need for analytics professionals to effectively translate data into digestible forms for business users and top management – was fully demonstrated on the stage through a

P2PI president Terese Herbig and Pepper

procession of speakers who used tall tales, anecdotes, parables and the occasional offcolor remark while offering their personal best practices in designing an intelligent, analytics-informed modern enterprise.

Among the more entertaining of the storytellers were a pair of presenters from Mars Inc. Event Co-Chair Tarun Kataria, the company’s global director of advanced analytics and machine learning, told an ancient Arabic parable about three sons who are unable to properly divide 17 camels among them as their father had directed until adding, then later subtracting, an 18th camel. The moral of the story being that “analytics is the 18th camel” that can drive success for organizations. (See sidebar on page 30.)

Meanwhile, Mars chief digital officer Sandeep Dadlani modified an existing joke about a lost hot air balloonist asking

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directions from a pedestrian to illustrate the oft-troubling disconnect between the analytics team and the rest of the enterprise. (See sidebar on page 31.)

Throughout the event, speakers and attendees alike acknowledged a similar shift in traditional thinking among both manufacturers and retailers that, ultimately, will lead to organizations fully guided in their go-to-market strategies by advanced analytics.

One significant example came from Walmart’s enterprise chief information officer Clay Johnson, who noted that chief executive officer Doug McMillon has charged the company to give all employees the necessary understanding of new tools and technologies rather than using language they can better understand – because the time has come for everyone to become part of the

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intelligent enterprise. “[We were] talking about cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning – all these different buzzwords. One of the business leaders said, ‘Hey, we need to figure out how to take those words and put them into terms the business can understand,’” explained Johnson. “And Doug stopped and said, ‘No, we actually need to go the other way around. We need to force people to learn this terminology because it is what mainstream is.’ That right there was a mind-shift. That set the tone, not only for the c-suite, but for the rest of the company.”

The following is an executive summary of the event’s full agenda:

Unlocking the Future: Using AI-Driven Analytics to Determine Corporate Strategy Derek Smith, vice president of services, Prevedere Attendees at the opening day workshop agreed that while defining the business problem at their organizations can be relatively simple, integrating the right data and insights arguably takes the longest amount of time.

About 64% of respondents to Prevedere’s 2019 “Bridging the Data Divide” survey indicated they are not satisfied with their company’s ability to understand the impact of external factors on performance. One way to combat this is to transform existing analytics to be more forward-looking in a strategic roadmap.

Executives noted that, to see a full transition from a reactive to a predictive enterprise, companies need to change their internal culture. “The change management sometimes is harder than the system integration,” said Smith.

Data & Analytics Share Group Kapil Dabi, partner/principal for digital, and Patrick Moriarty, managing director, EY To succeed in the current environment, companies must focus on the human

element to bridge the gap and move from insights to action to value. This was among the topics of the opening-day Data & Analytics Share Group hosted by EY. The critical success factors to drive positive returns from data & analytics are business need, flexibility, data privacy and usercentricity, explained Dabi.

How Walmart is Designing the Intelligent Enterprise Clay Johnson, EVP & enterprise CIO, Walmart; and Andy Walter, former VP, IT & shared services, Procter & Gamble During a “fireside chat,” Johnson explained how the retailer has created a Digital Transformation Office chaired by CEO Doug McMillon to make sure the c-suite is in the know and on board with IT and other related projects. Among the many endeavors supporting the enterprise, Walmart is testing the use of robots in 100 stores to scan for inventory (and even sweep the floor) while not being disruptive to shoppers.

Walmart’s Clay Johnson and former P&G exec Andy Walter

Dadlani revealed a new purpose for the company: “The world we want tomorrow started with how we do business today.”

Furthermore, “‘Digital Mars’ accelerates shaping the world by empowering associates to create value 100 times Mars chief digital officer Sandeep Dadlani

faster.” The Mars Digital Engine, Dadlani says, finds the problem, solves the problem and automates the solution.

The company has 11,000-plus associates engaged in design thinking. “Once we have the right questions and reframe the problem, we use data and analytics to find the right answers,” he said.

License to Disrupt: Using a Digital Factory to Drive Change Remco Brouwer, SVP, digital innovation & strategy, Randstad Holding

As the retailer evolves its e-commerce and online grocery offerings, one challenge it faces is striking the right balance between the use of stores as shopping locations and fulfillment centers. Other topic areas Johnson discussed included Walmart’s use of predictive analytics/machine learning to hire better employees, and its growing partnership with Microsoft: After signing a cloud-deployment agreement in 2018, the partners opened co-located space for employees in an Austin, Texas, office that has a startup culture. “You can’t tell who is who,” he said.

Concerning competition with Amazon, Johnson said that Walmart has experienced success once it shifted from being defensive to becoming offensive.

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Driving Digital Transformation at Mars Sandeep Dadlani, chief digital officer, Mars Inc.

Brouwer detailed how HR staffing/ consulting firm Randstad created a “Digital Factory” in 2017. It was built next to existing structures in the company, reporting directly to the CEO. The multifunctional and multicultural team operates as a startup.

Its mission is to scale the best ideas quickly around the enterprise. It serves as a model for a new way of working across the enterprise by delivering or failing fast, learning fast and capturing the learnings.

Among the challenges Randstad has faced are the difficulties in driving change; accepting that assumptions from the past might not be valid today; learning how to drive scale and speed across a fragmented enterprise; and navigating the journey to become a truly client- and data-centric organization. Change management is the key to realizing benefits, he said.

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&

A VC’s Perspective on the Potential of AI Lonne Jaffe, managing director, Insight Venture Partners Artificial intelligence has generated headlines everywhere – even theatrics – as companies try to capitalize on the hype. Computers are creating their own models of the world, and data is critical to the success of new models.

But there are limitations and challenges that still exist with AI. Among them are the fact that data availability is still highly manual for many companies, it’s still difficult to trace or explain a decision, and privacy concerns limit AI applications.

Investing in AI requires technical expertise to avoid common pitfalls and theatrics.

A Startup’s Perspective on Analytics Brady Duncan, co-founder, MadTree Brewing In creating a purpose-driven company, MadTree Brewing uses data analysis and word visualization techniques through an applied analytics traits assessment tool to attract ideal employees and grow.

Duncan detailed how MadTree wants to hire the right people and understand

17 Camels When he died, an old man left behind 17 camels to be divided among his three sons in the following manner: half to the eldest, one-third to the second and one-ninth to the youngest.

As hard as they tried, the sons were unable to determine how to divide 17 camels in those ways. They took their problem to an elder in their village, who solved the dilemma by giving one of his own camels to the siblings.

Now, with 18 camels in hand, the sons were able to complete the task: the eldest son received 9 camels, the second son 6 and the youngest 2. And the 18th camel was returned to the elder.

MadTree Brewing co-founder Brady Duncan

them; refresh the company’s purpose, values and vision while rallying stakeholders around them; and monitor/measure progress through an equity health check of employees, partners and consumers.

Attacking the Biggest Business Opportunities with Advanced Analytics Andy Walter, former VP, IT & shared services, Procter & Gamble; Eric Chen, director, analytics & data science, Unilever Asia; Maria Macuare, VP, data & analytics, Campbell Soup Company; Mark von Oven, former VP, analytics, Target Corp.; Reiko Yoshida, data science, Facebook In a discussion led by Walter, panelists tackled topics such as consumer and shopper engagement, engaging c-suite executives, measuring success, and talent development.

Macuare said that CPG companies are doing a very mediocre job leveraging customer data, although they do well with their own consumer data. In dealing with executives and getting their buy-in, Chen said it’s important to understand their business strategies and plans, enroll them as fully committed sponsors, get moving on projects as quickly as possible, and get them implemented quickly to illustrate impact and value. Then, when it goes well, step back and let others talk about it.

Supercharge Your Demand Planning & Forecasting with Machine Learning Rick Davis, president, DDG, LLC There’s a changing environment for demand planners, but one constant is that organizations need and expect improvements in forecast accuracy, Davis said. Companies need to identify opportunities to leverage machine learning to perform remedial tasks. IA – intelligent automation – will set new standards of quality, efficiency, speed and functionality that allow demand planners to be elevated into more strategic roles.

Building a Foundation for Intelligent Collaboration Joe Wright, lead for integrated business planning, Kellogg North America’s Integrated Center of Excellence Wright explained how the CPG manufacturer undertook an effort to improve the collaborative planning

From left to right: Unilever Asia’s Eric Chen; Campbell Soup Co.’s Maria Macuare; Mark von Oven, formerly of Target Corp.; and Facebook’s Reiko Yoshida

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Yoshida explained the ideal situation she has at Facebook, a bottom-up company where the individual teams doing the work are empowered and there’s no executive-driven approval process. Von Oven (who also served as the event’s Retail Co-Chair) said it’s important to justify your existence and show how much value you provide to the organization.

Where talent is concerned, Chen said, “We’re a scarce resource. Use that to your advantage. Engagement with senior leadership is critical.” Added Macuare: “Data scientists are the ones closest to the problem. Use them as a source of innovation.”

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process with key retailer partners. After identifying the three main “pinch points” in its existing process – residing in the areas of product data, commercial analytics and supply chain analytics – Kellogg found ways to drive crossfunctional analytics and cross-channel consumer insights (across category management, sales, marketing, supply chain, operations and executive management) to improve inventory management, reduce out of stocks and increase sales.

transformation, the “humans” involved also need to change the way they learn by shifting from deductive to inductive reasoning, finding the correct hypothesis within data rather than using data to prove (or disprove) the hypothesis. “We have a tendency to try and prove ourselves right” rather than letting the data guide us, he said. “We have not been educated to say, ‘I don’t know,’” Apert said, encouraging RCAS attendees to “learn to relearn, or even learn to unlearn” the analytic practices that have been guiding the industry until now.

Key Takeaways from the 2019 Retail & Consumer Goods Analytics Study Pete Reilly, SVP of sales, marketing & services, AnswerRocket; Larry Layden, client partner, Capgemini; Mahesh Kumar, CEO & founder, Tiger Analytics

Unlocking the Power of Unused Data Jamie Lancaster, VP, Contact Center of Excellence, Kroger

Using the Retail & Consumer Goods Analytics Study as a backdrop, the panel discussed the efforts being undertaken by manufacturers and retailers to move from a product-driven to a knowledgedriven business focus. While progress is being made in the development of both internal analytics capabilities that can inform and direct the entire enterprise and mutually beneficial methods of data sharing between manufacturers and retailers, there is still a lot of work to be done, the panel concluded. But the ongoing implementation of AI tools should have a dramatic impact in both areas – provided the human side of the industry is ready for change.

Navigating the Marriage of Machine and Human Learning Romain Apert, VP, CIO, Mars Wrigley Confectionery The consumer goods industry’s traditional value equation model is failing because “it required that the world remain stable and predictable,” noted Apert. Today, companies must adopt a “deep and empathetic consumer centricity” to find the real problems that must be solved.

But while machine learning will have a dramatic impact on the industry’s

With the rise of digital and omnichannel shopping, Kroger’s contact center has become rich with unused shopper data, or “micro data” as Lancaster calls the roughly 25,000 customer contacts it receives per day (via phone calls, emails and even snail-mail). It is useful data, nonetheless, that can be used to address specific local issues but also, in the aggregate, to educate and potentially influence Kroger’s store operations and other business activities. “What we lack in macro-level quantity of data, we make up for in micro-level quality of data,” he said.

One hypothetical use: Being able to trigger product recalls much faster internally based on customer contacts rather than reacting to information from outside the company.

Improving Cross-Functional Collaboration Across the Supply Chain Pradipta Saha, associate director, supply chain/ finance, HR analytics, Mondelez International; Steve Sigrist, VP, customer services & customer supply chain, Newell Brands Among the industry practitioners who are less enthused by the idea of more data is Sigrist. “Anything that we do in supply chain needs to follow a basic formula, and the basic formula is Return = Margin x Velocity,” Sigrist said, adding that he spends much of his time focusing on the velocity side.

It’s critical for companies to build tools that can effectively reduce the number of supply chain issues that arise and quickly address the ones that do because “the best

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The Hot Air Balloon Ride A man became lost one day while riding in a hot air balloon. He spotted a pedestrian below, lowered his altitude and asked where he was.

The pedestrian replied, “You are in a hot air balloon 25 feet above the ground, between 42 and 43 degrees north latitude and 60 and 61 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be a data scientist,” said the balloonist. “How did you know?” asked the pedestrian. “Because everything you told me is technically accurate, but it does not help solve my problem. I am still lost, and you have been no help,” the balloonist replied.

“And you must be in management,” said the pedestrian. “How did you know?” asked the balloonist. “Because you don’t know where you are, you expect people beneath you to solve your problems and, even though you have the same problem you had before we met, it’s now my fault.”

customer service is no customer service,” which implies that there are no problems to solve, Sigrist said. Advanced analytics can help smaller manufacturers that aren’t category leaders earn a seat at the table with retailers by driving mutually beneficial insights. “You’ve got to earn the right to solve those problems,” he said.

Keeping Pace with the Ever-Evolving Consumer Fiona Swerdlow, VP, research director, Forrester Though only about 14% of total U.S. sales are transacted directly online, more than half are influenced by digital in some way, according to Swerdlow, who noted that “the store is evolving and matters hugely, still.”

However, digital now unlocks opportunities to directly target and influence individual shoppers wherever they are, and helps marketers (as well as Forrester) see consumers from a different vantage point: their behavior, rather than their demographics. The five key retail technology implementations that Forrester is tracking are: omnichannel, personalization, analytics, digitization and AI. Rise

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Photos by Chris Cone June 2019

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HALL OF FAME Q&A

Jody Kalmbach Vice President, Digital Experience, Kroger

IF YOU’VE EVER BEEN ANNOYED by perplexing app interfaces, irrelevant buying suggestions or illogical e-commerce policies, take heart. Jody Kalmbach is listening.

Officially, as vice president, digital experience for Kroger, Kalmbach has a complex array of management, design, analytics and strategy-setting responsibilities across the enterprise. Boil it all down, though, and she’s basically shaping how millions of shoppers transact digitally every day – and mostly likely, tomorrow as well.

While a product development expert, Kalmbach nonetheless feels our pain as shoppers, is fluent in engineer-speak and can translate it in ways that actually simplify the path to purchase for

Tell us a little about your background.

KALMBACH: My dad was a lifelong AT&T employee, so we moved many times while growing up. When you show up [to school] in September and don’t know anyone, you learn a lot of lessons about adaptability in whatever situation you are put in.

What was your first job?

KALMBACH: My first job was at a Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop; I became extremely popular because everybody wanted a free scoop. But after freshman year, I had serious summer jobs all through college via the intern program at AT&T. I filled my days at AT&T by focusing on consumer marketing and quickly realized I was fascinated with understanding customer needs and was eager to find ways to serve them. After I graduated from college with a degree in psychology, my first job out of school, not surprisingly, was with AT&T. What were your responsibilities at AT&T?

KALMBACH: At the start, I was focused on customer retention, but then shifted to partnership marketing, where I worked with companies such as Disney, Williams-Sonoma and United Airlines. In 1993, I helped pull together AT&T’s first marketing campaign targeted to the gay and lesbian community.

At that time, many big companies did not know how to engage with that community in a personalized way, so it was a great experience to be at the tip of the spear developing the marketing roadmap for engaging diverse audiences.

What attracted you to working at your next company, The North Face?

KALMBACH: AT&T was great from a foundational perspective, but I was ready for a change and wanted to more closely align my personal and professional interests. I love the outdoors – hiking, trail running, snowboarding – so The North Face was an exciting next opportunity and a natural fit. At that point, The North Face was evolving its customer base. It been a hardcore outdoor company focused on the “two percenters” but needed to gain

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shoppers. All of which helps explain how Kroger has vaulted from being almost nowhere digitally five years ago to the envy of the industry today.

In May, Kalmbach – along with April Carlisle, VP, shopper marketing, Coca-Cola Co.; and Peter McGuinness, chief marketing & commercial officer, Chobani – was honored at the Path to Purchase Institute’s 26th Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The event was part of the Path to Purchase Summit.

In March, Bill Schober, Peter Breen and P2PI president Terese Herbig interviewed Kalmbach at Kroger’s offices in Cincinnati.

awareness and adoption within the mass market. Maintaining the principles that built the company – “expedition proven” and “athlete tested” – was critical while engaging new customer segments. We had world-class rock climbers, mountain climbers, skiers and ultra-marathoners that helped ensure we stayed true to the passion, authenticity and quality that built the company.

For example, instead of a traditional approach to TV and radio, we created a television series on NBC called “The North Face Expeditions,” hosted by Sting that documented incredible accomplishments

by The North Face athletes on expedition.

We were trying to find unique ways to bring the brand’s authenticity to life. It was also great to work with people who believed enough in my team to say, “Sure, let’s take a risk.”

In May 2000, you left to join Amazon.

Why? KALMBACH: In 2000, Amazon was in the early years of its growth journey.

I joined as director of marketing for

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HALL OF FAME Q&A Jody Kalmbach, Vice President, Digital Experience, Kroger Today, like Google, Kroger’s digital organization operates in product pods and against OKRs [objectives and key results]. It’s really very simple: “What’s the problem we’re trying to solve and what outcome will we use to measure the result?” It works. The benefits are not only to the business and the customer experience, but to the team as well. They have the autonomy to say, “Just give us some room to go figure out the right way to make it happen.” You end up with much higher job satisfaction when people are clear on the contribution that they can make. We’re really seeing it take off and work.

Jody Kalmbach and Kroger EVP and chief information officer Yael Cosset

Amazon’s toy business. Within a few months, I flexed to lead their product management team. Our mission was to build capabilities to support third party sellers and other large retailers who wanted to leverage the platform.

In addition to supporting small to midsize sellers on the platform, I led the product development and general management for Target.com on the Amazon platform with my technology partner [former Amazon colleague] Neil Roseman.

Last year, Casey Carl, the former chief strategy and innovation officer at Target, said, “If there’s one company to blame for Amazon’s success as it relates to merchandising, it’s Target.”

Is he right?

KALMBACH: I hadn’t heard that quote, but what I will say is this: It was a really good example of two companies coming together with different expertise and leveraging those two strengths to do something really unique. Building it was a massive initiative for Amazon with many, many people involved.

The experience was foundational for me, personally. I learned the importance

of building scalable products and, running Target.com at the time, I came to really understand end-to-end parts of a digital business. I built out the platform from a product development perspective, and after launching, I partnered with Target to run the site. That experience really amplified my skills in ways that directly tie to my role at Kroger today.

With a background in psychology, marketing and some art history, how did you become a product development leader?

KALMBACH: That’s the amazing thing: I was not a technologist when I walked in the door at Amazon, but when I left I was leading product development teams. It all starts with understanding the customer and then organizing product development in a way that brings product management, product design and engineering together.

The whole idea of giant projects is, in many ways, very dated thinking now. It’s all about putting together small teams that operate against specific customer or business missions, have a key business result that they measure and continue to optimize against, and then just letting them go.

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Do you still follow Amazon today?

KALMBACH: You always want to keep a pulse on what’s happening. Walmart is reinventing and doing interesting things, too. The uniqueness about what’s happening here at Kroger, and I say this to the team all the time, is that we’re putting food and our customers at the center.

This is about grocery … this is about food.

None of those other companies have the passion around food that this 136-yearold company has. It’s different than selling a book or a TV. Everyone needs to buy food; it’s about inspiration, it’s about how we come together as a family. It is about enabling customers to engage based on what is most important to them; health, budget, dietary preference. To be really, really successful in this space, you have to have the passion that a company like Kroger has.

Kroger has an incredible, invaluable legacy, and I think the role of its brand is implied trust. When you start asking customers to let us pick your groceries for you, to prepare a meal for you, or fill your prescriptions, or see your child when they have the flu, trust is at the center of it. What we are doing with “Zero Hunger | Zero Waste” also ladders back to the values and brand, too because as a society, people are starting to take their wallets to companies they believe are on the mission that they represent.

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The Oracle family extends its heartfelt congratulations to Jody Kalmbach, VP Digital Experience, on her induction into the Path to Purchase Institute Hall of Fame!

Jody Kalmbach VP Digital Experience Kroger Thank you for your tireless commitment to making delicious, natural, nutritious food more readily available to people nationwide. Your contributions to consumers and the food industry as a whole are unparalleled.

Copyright Š 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

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HALL OF FAME Q&A Jody Kalmbach, Vice President, Digital Experience, Kroger

After Amazon, you switched gears to manage some smaller businesses.

Why? KALMBACH: I’d moved to Florida to be closer to family and one of the other leaders that I’d worked with at Amazon became CEO of a company called EZPrints. It was a fun, small B2B company, and I was like an elder showing the way to a very young team.

I also worked for a health and wellness e-commerce business called Vitacost. com, which in August 2014 merged with Kroger. Pretty soon, I was spending about 50% of my time up in Cincinnati. In September 2015, I moved here to become VP, digital experience.

In 2014, every retailer seemed to be moving online and yet Kroger did almost nothing. Fast forward five years and now everyone’s talking about Kroger digital. What happened?

KALMBACH: It’s been quite a journey.

We have moved very quickly over the past 4-5 years to meet customers as

Top row (left to right): Hayden Huber, associate product manager; Becky Sroufe, senior user experience designer; Drew Whiting, digital strategy & planning; Erin Bunner, senior product manager, e-commerce; Steffan Howey, group product manager. Bottom row (left to right): Jody Kalmbach, VP, digital experience; Elizabeth Erby, senior e-commerce assortment manager; Jeff Hock, senior product manager, e-commerce.

their needs have evolved. In this short period of time, I am proud to say we have hit approximately a $5 billion run rate.

Early on, digital was more of a separate, stand-alone effort known as ClickList.

The thinking was: “We know we’ve got to be there … we can’t disrupt brick-andmortar ... we’ll leverage the experience with Vitacost and Harris Teeter … then we’ll build out our capabilities and talent.” When we merged Kroger.com and ClickList.com into one website in 2017, the customers just got it. This was the beginning of our “Seamless” experience.

It’s been a great climb over the past four years and we hit an important pivot point two years ago from an incrementality perspective. We were starting to win share from other retailers, and the mindset just changed. Across the organization, everyone realized that digital isn’t just about picking up orders via ClickList; it’s about how people

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engage. Digital isn’t a separate thing; it’s the enabler and the accelerator of the overall business. Digital amplifies the in-store experience, pickup, delivery, ship-to-home – any touchpoint where a customer is engaging.

Some in the industry felt Kroger was coming late to the party. Did you sit back until the customer was ready for change?

KALMBACH: Kroger is such a customercentric and data-driven culture. As soon as we dug in saw how customers were responding, it was suddenly, “Look at what’s happening!” The combination of customer insights and data very clearly told us what we needed to do. Being an organization that’s focused on making decisions with data really pushed us to accelerate.

Another key thing that happened was

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19SU

Congratulations to the 2019 Hall of Fame Inductees!

April Carlisle

VP, Shopper Marketing, National Retail Sales

From everyone at the

Jody Kalmbach VP, Digital Experience

Peter McGuinness

Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer

Event at:

19SUM_ADV_Rise05_hof.indd 32-41-RISE_HOF.indd 37 1

Produced by:

3/29/19 1:36 5/20/19 3:38 PM

HALL OF FAME Q&A Jody Kalmbach, Vice President, Digital Experience, Kroger a shift away from a “Do it all on our own” mindset. We’re creating an ecosystem where we lock arms with other companies, like the [UK-based online supermarket] Ocado deal, the merger with [meal delivery service] Home Chef, or the partnership with Walgreens. By letting ourselves be open to these opportunities and building an ecosystem, we can meet more of our customer’s needs sooner.

Could you tell us a little about your team size and responsibilities today?

KALMBACH: There are really two big pieces to digital: digital experience, which I lead, and digital technology led

by Sriram Samu, vice president, digital technology. Our teams collaborate very closely to meet the always-evolving needs of our customers. My team is around 250 people and covers these specific functions: Site experience, which creates and optimizes engaging, inspiring digital experiences including specialty shops, seasonal shops and department pages.

Product management, which sits between the business and technology and decides what customer and business problems we need to solve and the best

ways to solve them.

Product design, which some people call UX (user experience) and others call UI (user interface), designs the experiences. Engineering sits within those product pods as well.

Digital analytics & business intelligence, which enables our continuous optimization by surfacing data and insights. When you launch something, you need to listen, look at the data and then optimize as quickly as you can. We launch updates to our app and to the web weekly. The only way we can do that is by having a steady stream of actionable analytics.

Digital merchandising, which is an extension of our core merchandising organization. We bring our assortment to life online and “extend the aisle.” We might have three flavors of a certain potato chip on the shelf, but there are another 20 flavors we want to make available to customers.

We want to be the food authority for our customers and the digital merchandising team figures out the right categories to go after. We’ve extended the aisle, for example, around international foods, unique niche products, and bulk or bigger pack sizes.

How does your digital merchandising team interact and coordinate with Kroger’s traditional brick-and-mortar merchants?

KALMBACH: We have a lot of folks in merchandising with a history in brickand-mortar, but everyone is open to embracing the new ways. The digital merchandising team we’ve created is a blend of legacy Kroger folks and people from other e-commerce companies, and they are teaching each other.

It’s not about brick-and-mortar versus digital; it’s all about how those channels work together for a seamless experience.

We have to be nimble, and all of our “modalities” – pickup, delivery, ship and in-store – have to work in unison. You can’t point to many other retailers who’ve done that this seamlessly.

Are the buying teams separate?

KALMBACH: The buying teams are together, but there is an assortment that’s not getting bought by the core merchandising buying team because it involves new brands and new connections. Over time when you “extend the aisle,” eventually you’re talking about hundreds of thousands or even millions of items. When your offering that size of assortment, you can’t follow the same process you use when you’re handpicking items for a store. Technology-driven solutions for product set-up and

There are a lot of routine things that people buy every time they go to a store: paper towels, toilet paper, your favorite box of Cheerios. If those [transactions] can just happen, it takes the noise out of the customer’s mind, and the stores can pivot to being much more experiential.

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HALL OF FAME Q&A Jody Kalmbach, Vice President, Digital Experience, Kroger managing relationships are indispensable at that scale. It’s no longer just about your deep relationships with a thousand CPGs. You mentioned all the fulfillment “modalities.” Could you go into a little more detail on these?

KALMBACH: First, there’s the “In-Store Experience.” Digital does a lot to enhance our traditional brick-and-mortar experience. A great example of this is a new experience we’re rolling out within our mobile apps. When location services are turned on, we launch an “in-store mode” and a key set of features that are important to a customer inside a store – aisle location, digital coupons, shopping lists, Kroger Pay, and “Scan, Bag, Go” – come to the forefront of the experience and less relevant features become

Jody Kalmbach Title: Vice President, Digital Experience Company: The Kroger Co. Years in industry: 28 Years with current company: 4 Career path: AT&T, Brand & Product Management (1991-1997); The North Face, VP of Marketing (1997-2000); Amazon. com, Director of Product Management (2000-2006); EZPrints, VP of Product Development (2007-2012); Vitacost.com, SVP of Merchandising (2012-2015); Kroger, Vice President of Digital Experience (2015-present) Education: University of Rhode Island (bachelor’s) Community/industry activity: NRF Digital Council, Google Retail Advisory Council

secondary. The experiences we give our customers must always be relevant within the context of their day, where they are and what they need at that point in time. If a customer is at home, the app presents more of a traditional, transactional e-commerce experience.

“Pickup” (formerly known as ClickList), is placing an order online and choosing a time to come by the store where we’ll come out and put it in the car. You can see that each of these modalities will continue to evolve and expand over time. While Pickup historically has been just at Kroger stores, we’ve announced a pilot with Walgreens that offers our customers the same experience there.

“Delivery” is similar: You go online, place your order, choose a time and it gets delivered to your house, office or wherever.

We’ve done some interesting things to the model. The majority of our delivery business is delivered by Instacart, but we now have few other partners in the mix. We began testing autonomous vehicles with [selfdriving car company] Nuro in the Phoenix area and recently expanded our pilot to the Houston market. With Nuro, you place your order and the bot drives up to your house. When your order arrives, you get a text message with a code, the door opens and there’s your order. Who would have thought, four years ago, that Kroger would have autonomous delivery vehicles bringing you groceries?

The Ocado relationship also feeds into delivery. Right now, both Pickup and Delivery orders are picked from an individual Kroger store’s assortment. We’ve announced that we’re building “sheds” [customer fulfillment centers that use Ocado’s automated technologies] in the U.S., so that delivery products would be picked there instead of at the stores.

The last modality is “Ship,” which is the traditional e-commerce model where you have the extended aisle, order online and delivery in two or three days.

Those are the modalities we want to work seamlessly, which means that regardless of the device – laptop, phone, Google home, voice-activated assistant – they all deliver this one experience. For example, we’ve

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rolled out nationally with a Google Home experience. Imagine you’ve planned a pickup order and realize you forgot olive oil. “Hey Google; add olive oil to my Kroger order.” Now, because of Kroger’s personalization science, Google will ask, “Did you mean your Simple Truth Olive Oil?” Answer yes, and it gets added.

How soon before they’re all available to all customers?

KALMBACH: Right now, the in-store, pickup and delivery experiences are rolling out, as we speak, and by April will be available in most places. So, we are very far along. Ship, the last piece of the pie, is now available even in areas where we don’t have a footprint. You can move to New York or Boston and still get our [private label] products like Simple Truth. I think our ability to personalize with features like “Start My Cart” [which displays suggested products based on recent purchases] demonstrates that we know what’s important to customers. We are very far down that journey, and you can see that each of these modalities continues to evolve and expand over time.

Creating a seamless customer experience seems to be a priority.

How well is that going?

KALMBACH: Early on, we had to make some choices in order to accelerate.

One of the trade-offs we made was to launch a separate experience outside Kroger.com. A good example of this is Kroger Ship. We’re now at the point where consolidating our stand-alone experiences into a single seamless experience and our technology platform is a key focus. This year is going to be very important year for us from that standpoint. Beyond building the platform that will enable a great customer experience, we’re also taking all of the data that we have through [data analytics subsidiary] 84.51 and personalizing the shopping experience at the individual level. What’s important to one customer may not be relevant to another. When you factor in our curated

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specialty shops along with health and wellness, it’s a very interesting formula and I’m extremely excited about what we’re doing for customers.

How does “Restock Kroger” fit into your work?

KALMBACH: Restock Kroger is our three-year strategic plan as a company, and one of the four key drivers of the plan is redefining the grocery customer experience. That’s where digital really comes to life and is a key contributor.

What role has the digital team played in the overall health and wellness strategy?

KALMBACH: My team partnered with the health and wellness team to bring OptUP [a data-driven app that helps customers make more informed, healthier purchase decisions] to life. We leverage our data to do that and, when you look at it over time, you can see it become more and more helpful as it’s integrated into the seamless shopping experience. Our customers are making healthy living a priority and we need to serve that need.

Again, it’s about presenting the right content and assortment for customers – be it a “gluten-free” specialty shop or a non-GMO product attribute.

There’s talk about Kroger positioning its websites as media platforms for CPGs. How is that going?

KALMBACH: That is Kroger Precision Marketing, which enables CPGs to participate in the marketing platform in a very personalized, targeted way. We want to connect the right products with the right customers, and we have the data to do that. Rather than just put an ad up on a website and hope everybody’s going to see it, which may not be a very efficient spend, [KPM] is much more efficient and targeted for the CPGs. We are off to a great start, and I expect that will just continue to grow.

How much further do you have to go with personalization?

Digital isn’t a separate thing; it’s the enabler and the accelerator of the overall business. Digital amplifies the in-store experience, pickup, delivery, ship-to-home – any touchpoint where a customer is engaging.

KALMBACH: That’s a softball: You are never done with personalization.

Okay, but at the NRF Show your CEO was talking about telling the shopper what she should make for dinner tonight.

KALMBACH: There’s more that can be done from a discovery perspective and predictability. One shopper needs toothpaste every 14 days, and another needs it every 22 days. We know that, but how do we actually predict needs and make sure consumers never run out? Or if it’s 4 p.m. on a Friday, let’s make sure that when you open the Kroger app we are serving up the dinner options that can get delivered to your house. This is where the most progress needs to be made.

Is it possible that someday we won’t have to visit physical stores?

KALMBACH: There are a lot of routine things that people buy every time they go to a store: paper towels, toilet paper, your favorite box of Cheerios. If those [transactions] can just happen, it takes the noise out of the customer’s mind, and the stores can pivot to being much more experiential: Shopping on a Friday night with a glass of wine or sampling

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the local craft beers. It’s not that you won’t need to go to a physical store; you’ll go for a different reason. It’ll be much more inspiration-driven than functional.

What kind of help do you look for from product manufacturers and suppliers?

KALMBACH: The digital merchandising team is talking to CPGs all the time. We have great collaborative relationships with a core set of CPGs, and when we want to do new things online, they show up with ideas they’ve tested in some way and are willing to share their learnings.

Any advice for CPGs on how to approach you?

KALMBACH: If you’ve had a great business relationship from a brick-andmortar perspective, become a part of where the company is evolving to and lean in to that. I know that some folks may say, “If the majority of my business is in-store, I need to focus there.” No, it’s going to be omnichannel and connecting all of that seamlessly. Lean in to the new modalities that we are rolling out because they are getting tremendous traction. We want to win this together. Rise

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DTC SELLING STRATEGIES

DIRECT TO CONSUMER:

THE MEANS TO AN END

From investing in startups and acquiring disruptors to building new brands, consumer goods companies are expanding their DTC capabilities and offering hints at their ultimate strategies.

BY M I C H A E L A P P L E B A U M

Practically everything about Tyson Foods’ new Yappah line of protein crisps is different – starting with the contents of the can and unusual brand name.

The name Yappah, taken from the native South American Quechua term “yapah” (pronounced EE-pah) meaning tip or gift, is

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meant to convey the “little something extra” in Tyson’s shelf-stable protein snack made from chicken and reclaimed food ingredients such as leftover vegetable puree from juicing and spent malted barley, a byproduct of beer brewing. Yappah’s packaging is reminiscent of coffee or energy drinks, though perhaps more

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cheerful, with sleek 1.25-ounce cans draped in vibrant shades of orange, green and blue.

Most notably, Yappah represents an entirely new product category for Tyson and the company’s first major foray into the direct-to-consumer market.

“Our intention was to think differently not only about the product space and the business partnerships involved, but also how we test, commercialize and get the product in the hands of consumers,” says Tim Madigan, vice president of e-business at Tyson Foods. “We wanted to get in the game and learn how the [DTC] model works.”

Tyson is hardly alone. In recent years, the DTC model has spawned several hundred-million-dollar-plus companies and created household names out of brands such as Quip, Casper, Harry’s, Warby Parker and Hubble, to cite just a few.

That success is propelling nearly all major consumer goods companies to take more aggressive steps to expand their DTC capabilities – from investing in startups and incubator vehicles to acquiring disruptor competitors (think Unilever’s $1 billion purchase of Dollar Shave Club) to building new brands like Yappah from the ground up.

“The need for a DTC capability is accelerating across all industries, whether it’s a peripheral part of the business or an essential go-to-market strategy for a new brand,” says Chris Perry, vice president of global education at Edge By Ascential, a conglomeration of the former Brand View, Clavis Insight, One Click Retail and PlanetRetail RNG.

WHAT IS THE END GAME? Exactly what each individual company hopes to gain from its DTC strategy may depend on the category. For major marketers in apparel and electronics, DTC has often been a slam dunk in terms of driving sales. Nike, for example, generates nearly 30% of the company’s sales from its DTC division, Nike Direct, and

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expects the unit’s sales to grow 250% from $6.6 billion in 2015 to $16 billion in 2020.

CPG companies, by comparison, have come nowhere near those revenue levels – which may be beside the point. Industry experts argue that, at a time when consumers seem to mostly dictate the terms of brand engagement and have the power to determine when, where and how they shop, DTC may boil down to the marketer taking back some control of the customer experience.

“There is a gold mine in DTC if one is not solely occupied in selling goods, but in authentically understanding needs,” says Michael Forhez, global managing director of consumer markets at Oracle Industry Solutions Group. “If the right questions are being asked and real listening applied, DTC could very well become the core of a new foundation for creating customer intimacy and satisfaction for a 100-plus-year-old packaged goods industry.”

Yet challenges clearly remain. Traditional CPG companies continue to grapple with how to create a compelling value proposition for new DTC brands that does not detract from their existing portfolios (or cannibalize retail sales). “DTC remains a great starting point to launch a new packaged goods brand. It is less clear how a legacy brand can find a meaningful reason for the shopper to buy it from the manufacturer directly,” says Keith Anderson, senior vice president of strategy and insights at Profitero.

Increased consumption of good-for-you and environmentally friendly products may provide the opening that legacy brands need.

Companies like Kellogg and Procter & Gamble have been leveraging their DTC operations to carve out a distinctive space in health and wellness. P&G Ventures created skincare brand Meladerm as well as Pepper & Wits to help alleviate menopause symptoms, while Kellogg Co.’s “speed team” recently launched Joybol, a protein-packed smoothie bowl, and Happy Inside, a prebiotic and probiotic cereal.

P&G has also made significant strides into the natural deodorant category with its 2017 purchase of Native, which started as an onlineonly brand. The products are now among the top-selling deodorant

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DTC SELLING STRATEGIES lines at Target and recently began selling through Walmart.

“Native complements P&G’s position in the overall category.

There has been a significant consumer shift away from antiperspirants, and prior to Native, P&G [which also owns Secret and Old Spice] didn’t have any significant presence in that segment of the category,” says Native founder and CEO Moiz Ali. Anderson, a former retail/CPG industry executive, says the potential for initiatives like Native to damage relationships with retailers is less a factor today than it was five or 10 years ago.

“Amazon has thrown all the old rules out the window, and CPG companies that get involved with DTC today are unlikely to undercut themselves or retailers on price,” he says. As for the overall threat from DTC, he notes, “CPGs need to have both an offensive and defensive posture. They need to realize that this is not a freight train coming, but it could be death by a thousand cuts.”

WHAT TYSON REVEALS ABOUT CPG AND DTC Tyson’s 18-month-long journey with Yappah reveals a lot about how CPG marketers are now approaching DTC. After six months of development in Tyson’s Innovation Lab, Yappah first appeared on the crowd-sourcing platform Indiegogo in May 2018. The formal DTC phase was set to begin this May, when a buy button on the Yappah website would start letting consumers anywhere in the U.S. purchase the products directly from the manufacturer.

While DTC plays a central role in Yappah’s rollout, it is in many ways a means to an end for Tyson. For one thing, the company plans to significantly expand distribution (Yappah will be sold

“The need for a DTC capability is accelerating across all industries, whether it’s a peripheral part of the business or an essential go-to-market strategy for a new brand.”

Chris Perry, Edge By Ascential on Amazon and at major national brick-and-mortar chains) later this year. By focusing its initial phase on DTC, Tyson thus far has been able to limit Yappah’s pilot programs to just two markets: a Chicago-area supermarket and in New York with Jet City Grocery, the fresh grocery delivery service from Walmart’s Jet.com. DTC, says Madigan, gives Tyson “an ability to build up interest and drive awareness and trial, so that when we do scale up the program we are more likely to have a successful launch.”

Tyson has high hopes for Yappah sales, based on the initial consumer response. But more broadly, the company views the program – particularly the DTC component – as a prime opportunity to build closer ties with customers and learn more about what makes them tick. Tyson’s new direct online sales

Q&A: Tim Madigan, Tyson Foods Yappah, a new line of chicken crisps, was a first for Tyson Foods on many levels – including being the company’s first major DTC push. Tim Madigan, vice president of e-business, shared his insights into the development of the program with Rise in April, a few weeks prior to the launch of the buy-now feature on Yappah.com.

Was Yappah always intended as a DTC play, or did the idea to incorporate DTC into your plans develop as you went along?

Madigan: The product seemed to be a good fit for DTC. We’d been talking as a company about the go-to-market successes of brands as they launch in DTC first and then scale up – RXBars being a good example. We saw it as a way to build brand traction as we prepared to launch in stores, and hopefully it leads to a higher chance of success.

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You said the primary reason for the retail pilots prior to the DTC phase was to test merchandising/display strategies. Was that because this is a new product category for Tyson?

Madigan: Yes. It is a new category for Tyson – new in most retail stores – and a premium product. So, we’re wanting to learn about shelving location, velocity expectations and in-store communication tools.

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platform at Yappah.com will allow the company to mine first-party data that can shed light on its customers’ shopping habits and taste preferences. Granted, Yappah enthusiasts may be a small sample of Tyson’s overall customer base. Nevertheless, Madigan says the critical feedback will help “set the table for new products and brand introductions across the company.”

Here again, Tyson is not alone. CPG manufacturers often struggle to fill gaps in their e-commerce shopping channel data left by opaque retailer websites (and, to a lesser degree, by Amazon). That at least partially explains the appeal of digitally native brands (including Native) to companies like P&G. “We have purchase and basket data through our e-commerce site that provides rich insight into people’s buying preferences and behaviors,” notes Ali. “For brands that are sold solely at brick-and-mortar stores, they don’t have direct access to this kind of data.”

Other CPG manufacturers are looking to expand their DTC and e-commerce capabilities for similar reasons. Hershey engages with customers directly through its digital portals (HersheyGifts.com and HersheyStore.com) in order to build on the customer experiences of its standalone retail stores. Doug Straton, chief digital commerce

For what did you use Indiegogo?

Madigan: We used Indiegogo as a way to test fast versus a traditional market test. We also wanted to test the concept by having people actually purchase the product versus checking a box indicating levels of interest to buy. We wanted to get product feedback and intent to repeat. We’ve been blown away by the interest, positive feedback and desire to buy more.

What about your decision to go with an outside fulfillment partner (CPGio)?

Madigan: The classic line is, we do trucks and cases, not “eaches.” Our plants and facilities are entirely built around pallets.

With e-commerce, there are so many efficiencies that we needed to either invest in a facility or retrofit a facility, or else find a partner that can deliver it for us. As our

very first foray, being able to partner with someone made a lot of sense for us. CPGio is a 3PL [third-party logistics] company based in Chicago. They offer front-end and back-end capabilities for manufacturers wanting to DTC or sell on marketplaces like Amazon. I used them when I was at SC Johnson, and they currently sell our Aidells Sausage brand DTC. Who else was involved with you for the Yappah launch?

Madigan: The Innovation Team led this initiative. They moved with agility and speed to create the concept and partnerships outside of the traditional stage-gate process we use for our core portfolio. The Tyson Innovation Lab led the process of creation, marketing testing and launch. Rizal Hamdallah built and leads that team. Santi Proano is the

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officer at The Hershey Co., considers its DTC plays more as “data acquisition vehicles” than a pure driver of sales.

“That’s where the real value comes out of DTC,” he says, noting that marketers can obtain “a more expansive view” of category management for in-store planning by using data obtained through digital shopping channels.

business lead. I advised and facilitated.

They built and led.

How will you ultimately determine whether Yappah has been a success?

Madigan: It was really important to set the right benchmarks. Generating awareness is key, but the DTC aspect [on Yappah. com] allows us to test different messages to see what resonates with different types of consumers, and be more focused and targeted with our marketing. As for sales, it’s a modest scale. Based on the Indiegogo experience, we think we’ll have no issues selling through those quantities – that’s one benchmark. We’re building different investment scenarios based on those scales. Most important, we’re excited about this new capability and creating a new way of thinking as a company.

— Michael Applebaum

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DTC SELLING STRATEGIES AN ATTITUDE SHIFT AFOOT? For years, while Nike and others were successfully building their DTC offerings, CPG manufacturers largely avoided making the DTC business model a top priority. A 2016 survey from Consumer Goods Technology found that just 53% of the large product manufacturers respondents were selling “some” products directly to the consumer and 38% were not selling any directly at all.

That same year, Shopper Marketing found that 75% of non-CPG manufacturers respondents were selling directly, versus just 18% of CPGs. Today, however, the industry’s resolve may be strengthening.

Over the past 18 months, Perry says, there has been a noticeable shift at companies (including PepsiCo and Coca-Cola) through which DTC functions are being assigned to dedicated teams within a Center of Excellence or other departments that operate separately from the rest of the company. “They’re hiring roles like e-commerce strategic finance specialists, which go beyond management into very specific and often complicated legal areas of content and authorized online resale and distribution,” he notes. “This suggests they’re blowing out that side of the business and laying the groundwork for a more robust DTC model in either consumer or business-to-business development.”

Another sign of a deepening commitment is coming from initiatives like Loop from TerraCycle. The so-called “circular shopping platform” is based on a subscription replenishment service that delivers recyclable and reusable packaging on a variety of consumer/household products from P&G, Unilever, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Nestle and Danone. “There is a question about just how sustainable this program is, but it is significant to see big brands coming together and cooperating in

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“When you think about how the DTC model could play out in food, it opens up a world of opportunity to personalize that just has not been attempted before.”

Keith Anderson, Profitero

a way that you don’t often see,” observes Anderson.

Of course, scores of smaller, independent companies have already made major inroads by offering a DTC value proposition based on convenience and sustainability. One such company is Dropps, the direct-to-consumer provider of eco-friendly laundry products and makers of the original detergent pod. “We do everything that a large company does,” says Dropps CEO Jonathan Propper. “We create our own formulations, buy our own ingredients, have them blended and made into pods at a nearby facility, and package them up and ship them out to consumers.

We’re not filling a gap; we’re creating a new category. We’ve shown that household products don’t have to have water in them or be packaged in plastics to still clean great.”

Looking ahead, industry observers see more potential on the horizon for customizable DTC programs that cater to individual health and medical needs, such as prescription drugs. Amazon’s reported $753 million purchase of PillPack in 2018 has paved the way for entrants like TakeCareOf. com, which uses information from consumer surveys to sort and deliver prepackaged shipments of vitamins, supplements and OTC allergy medications. In the food industry, Anderson says, these kinds of curated experiences could extend into areas like customizable meal kits that cater to Keto, Paleo and other popular diet regimens.

“The online grocery business is maturing to the point where people are starting to think a one-size-fits-all experience needs to be iterated in food and beverage the same way it is now in categories like eye care,” notes Anderson. “When you think about how the DTC model could play out in food, it opens up a world of opportunity to personalize that just has not been attempted before.” Rise

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DTC ROUNDUP: NOTEWORTHY EFFORTS The handles are produced at Gillette’s Boston facility using stereolithography, a technology developed by 3-D printing giant Formlabs, to hold either Mach3 or Fusion5 cartridges. They are sold via the dedicated Razor-Maker.com website and manufactured in limited quantities.

Loop Led by global recycling firm TerraCycle, the Loop platform allows consumers to order and refill products such as deodorant, ice cream and shampoo that arrive in durable, reusable or fully recyclable packaging.

Participating manufacturers include Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Unilever.

Loop began rolling out in May in Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, according to CBS News.

Gainful Gainful is a personalized protein powder subscription service. Once shoppers complete a quiz on Gainful.com, an algorithm tailors a protein powder blend to their unique body types, dietary restrictions and fitness goals.

An ingredient breakdown for each personalized blend is available through the website, where users also have access to a registered dietitian.

Huggies Made By You Kimberly-Clark’s Huggies Made by You is an online service that lets parents and gift givers create and buy personalized diapers.

Available in a variety of patterns, the madeto-order diapers can be customized with names and monograms. Marketed under a partnership with digital commerce solution provider BrandShop, they’re available exclusively at HuggiesMadeByYou.com.

Johnnie Walker The leading Scotch whiskey brand opened an experiential retail store in Madrid last year. Retail offerings include unusual single malts, seasonal products and limitededition, curated assortments that are exclusive to the store. The store also boasts virtual experiences, such as “Discover Scotland through Johnnie Walker,” which takes visitors on a tour of the four corners of the nation: the scenic Highlands, the Islands, the lush lowlands and Speyside, home to the Malt Whiskey Trail.

Razor Maker Procter & Gamble’s Gillette in 2018 introduced Razor Maker, an online assortment of products whose handles can be customized in a choice of various three-dimensional designs and colors.

Curology San Diego-based skincare startup Curology is a direct-to-consumer company that uses web-based technology and medical professionals to individually treat acne with a customized prescription formula containing three ingredients. The company initially specialized in once-a-day creams but also launched facial cleansers and moisturizers to offer a full skincare routine via Curology.com.

Function of Beauty Based in New York, Function of Beauty creates personalized hair-care SKUs based on a shopper’s hair type and goals. Consumers take a hair quiz on FunctionOfBeauty.com to create their bespoke shampoos and conditioners, and purchase them once or on a recurring basis.

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JustFoodForDogs JustFoodForDogs is a California-based company that offers fresh, humangrade dog food for purchase via JustFoodForDogs.com and exclusively at Petco stores across the U.S. Petco also partnered with the company to open the first-of-its-kind in-store pet food kitchen at the retailer’s flagship store in New York last month.

Myro Amassing a pre-launch 16,000-person waitlist, Myro is a plant-powered deodorant available as a subscription or one-time bulk purchase via MyMyro.com.

For more information on these DTC efforts, visit ConsumerGoods.com.

Rise’s website has a collection of articles, case studies and other information that can help consumer goods companies better evaluate their DTC sales and marketing capabilities.

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WHO’S WHO I N D I G ITA L M A R K E TI N G

Our seventh annual report recognizes more than 130 brand and retail executives who are making notable contributions in the area of digital marketing.

OFFICE DEPOT

CHRISTINE NESSEN Senior Director, Digital Marketing – Search & Content

Christine Nessen has led marketing teams in the financial services, education, automotive and retail sectors at Deutsche Bank and American Express, among other companies. She was leading B2B marketing for both the U.S. and the Canadian markets for Office Depot when her senior vice president moved her to her current role in e-commerce and digital marketing.

Q

What are your current responsibilities?

NESSEN: I lead the search and content team, which encompasses SEO, on-site search and navigation, site taxonomy and content marketing. Our team’s objective is to work in concert with stakeholders, such as our paid and social channels, brand marketing and product teams, to ensure that 1) we rank on page 1 in the search engines to drive traffic to the site and 2)

Photo by Benjamin Rusnak

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RECENT ACHIEVEMENT

NESSEN: For our back-to-school season, our content team conducted a photo shoot to create “shoppable galleries” – a series of vignettes featuring key products in dorm rooms, tween bedrooms and a teacher’s classroom. You zoom into a product in a room, click on it and are then presented more info before adding to cart. We built an interactive quiz to make the experience fun. We also created a series of holiday gift guides that drove awareness of products that people may not necessarily know that we carry. Both examples are ways that we’re attempting to evolve our site from a transactional one to one that is engaging and capitalizes on seasonal opportunities.

ICON KEY Institute member

7-Eleven REBECCA TROUTMAN, Director of E-Commerce, 7-Eleven Digital Team Troutman is currently responsible for building out the 7-Eleven e-commerce platform. Prior to this role she held positions in operations, training, field merchandising, merchandising, business development (last mile, alternative formats and delivery) and digital (7NOW) for the company.

JULIE WHITTLE, Director, Digital Merchandising

once people land on our site, we drive them further into the funnel to transact.

Q

What are the goals of your overall team?

NESSEN: To drive traffic, sales and conversion for our two websites. Each area under me then has goals specific to their function. For example, our SEO team is measured by our ranking and position for targeted words.

Our content marketing team is measured by engagement metrics, such as time on page and bounce rate.

Q

Where do you see digital marketing headed in the next few years?

NESSEN: Digital marketing is an ever-shifting landscape. AI and machine learning will continue to improve to personalize experiences. Distinctions between online and offline will blur. Everyone will have a completely tailored experience that will not be unlike that one

scene in the movie “Minority Report” where Tom Cruise’s character is served ads and recommendations, upon entering Gap, based on facial recognition!

Q

How can brands – in general – take better advantage of the opportunities in digital?

NESSEN: Investing in analytics and the right marketing tech stack is paramount. Digital marketing works best, when it’s powered using analytics in the right way. Personalization works best, when it’s powered by platforms that can leverage that data.

Q

What digital devices and services do you use most often, and how much of an omnichannel shopper are you?

NESSEN: I’m an Apple acolyte and early adopter. Then I come to regret my early adoption, when versions two through 10 are released a few months

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later. I scour Pinterest for home decor inspiration. Twitter is fun to scroll through when watching shows live (yes, I still do that). Lyft is my preferred ride-share. Evernote for jotting down thoughts. OpenTable for reservations, since we eat out constantly. As much as I shop online, I still love going to stores – there’s nothing like the tactile experience of touching and feeling products and interacting with real human beings.

Q

How do you keep an ear to the ground in such an ever-changing digital landscape?

NESSEN: Constantly reading – there are so many excellent, free resources. I find it important to vary what I read – I’ll read articles on Search Engine Journal but will then peruse The Atlantic, Slate, The Hollywood Reporter and Reddit, for example, as well. Digital marketers need to capitalize on the zeitgeist to capture demand and translate that into sales.

Ahold Delhaize CARRIE BIENKOWSKI, Chief Marketing Officer, Peapod Bienkowski is a seasoned brand strategist with deep expertise in consumer packaged goods, e-commerce, user experience, digital marketing and retail. Prior to joining Peapod, she served as the head of buyer experience for eBay’s Fashion in Europe.

Earlier in her career, she spent nearly a decade at Procter & Gamble in North America and Europe.

JOHN GIAQUINTO, Director of Customer Loyalty, Hannaford Giaquinto is responsible for launching and running “My Hannaford Rewards,” a 100% digital supermarket loyalty program. Prior to this, he held loyalty positions at Shaw’s (Sainsbury/Albertson’s) and Symphony Retail AI on the Ahold, USA and Rite Aid accounts.

ROBERT WELSH, Director, Digital & E-Commerce, Giant Food Stores

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WHO’S WHO IN DIGITAL MARKETING Albertsons DAWN MACK, Director, Digital Marketing Applications & Optimization Mack operationally leads and supports crossfunctional teams to engage and drive customers digitally. Through organic search optimizations and hyper-localized store information, she works to give the customers the detailed and engaging digital experience they deserve.

KARL MEINHARDT, Vice President, Social & Digital Marketing

Allegiance Retail Services SUZANNE CECCHI, Senior Marketing & CRM Manager Cecchi is responsible for digital expansion efforts, providing strategic direction and goals that support company and member objectives. This includes digital platform development and optimization as well as channel activation including social, paid and email marketing.

CHRISTIE STARK, Digital Marketing Manager, E-Commerce Stark manages the company’s expanding e-commerce and digital marketing business. She also supports a variety of other integrated marketing efforts including brand building, vendor marketing and customer loyalty programs.

PATTY YOUCHOCK, Director, Advertising & Marketing Youchock is primarily responsible for setting the strategic vision for all of the company’s marketing platforms to promote the various banners to yield growth for the co-op and its members.

DONNA ZAMBO, Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer Zambo is charged with

oversight of IT, marketing, digital commerce and analytics. She has a passion for the consumer and is driven to arming the Allegiance members with best-in-class marketing tools and insights.

American Greetings CHRISTINE RICH, Director, Engagement Marketing Rich leads the engagement marketing team responsible for delivering integrated content marketing, social media, influencer marketing, SEO and email campaigns to drive awareness and consideration of American Greetings products and services.

Avocados from Mexico JORGE ALMEIDA, Senior Digital Marketing Manager See profile on page 53

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Bacardi USA LORRAN BROWN COSBY, Vice President, Digital Commerce, Bacardi North America Brown Cosby is focused on positively impacting long-range and annual plans for Bacardi North America with specific emphasis on accelerating digital commerce strategies and initiatives through D2C, B2B, distributor partnerships, e-retail and pureplay.

Bayer HealthCare ALANA JOY FELDMAN, Manager, E-Commerce Operations Feldman is responsible for designing processes and implementing new technologies to enable a world-class e-commerce organization.

CORA SZAPKA, E-Commerce Model and Platform Manager Szapka leads e-commerce strategy and innovation. She is responsible for enabling and executing new business models and platforms, allowing the organization to be proactive to changing consumer preferences.

Beam Suntory SHANNON EAGLE, National Account Manager, E-Commerce

Ben & Jerry’s MICHAEL HAYES, Global Head of Digital Marketing

Brown-Forman LYNETTE GREEN, Digital Marketing Manager, National Accounts An expert digital marketer, Green leads the strategy, design and implementation of digital shopper marketing and digital shelf solutions for Brown-Forman’s portfolio of premium spirit brands.

TRAVIS SMITH, Director, Digital Marketing COE

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Campbell Soup JAMES GILBERT, Director of Personalization Gilbert is responsible for driving Campbell’s digital transformation by ensuring Campbell brands can connect with all consumers in a more meaningful way through data and personalization at scale.

MATT PRITCHARD, Vice President, Digital Marketing Pritchard creates and leads the implementation of the digital marketing strategy for the company, focusing on driving its acceleration to be a leading modern marketing organization. Prior to joining Campbell’s, he led the digital marketing team at GSK Consumer Healthcare. He has been working in the digital arena since 1999.

STEPHANIE WOOD, Director, Digital Commerce Wood is accountable for setting the strategic direction and annual operations plan for Campbell’s omnichannel customer portfolio to ensure continued brand, category and customer leadership and share.

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Casey’s General Stores MIKE TEMPLETON, Director of Digital Marketing Templeton leads acquisition and engagement for Casey’s through digital channels and emerging technologies. His teams are responsible for growing e-commerce revenue across the chain’s 2,000-plus convenience stores.

LISA KELLER, Manager, Platform Activations

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MARY O’NEILL, E-Commerce Omnichannel Manager, Grocery/Pure Play O’Neill is part of the company’s e-commerce team that ensures execution of Bayer Consumer category and brand messaging, promotions and product content at key grocery retailers’ online platforms. She is focused on defining and delivering best-in-class goto-market strategies, new product launches, and ensures consistent delivery of the e-commerce sales and marketing fundamentals.

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WHO’S WHO IN DIGITAL MARKETING Central Garden & Pet

Coca-Cola

Conagra Brands

Dole Fresh Vegetables

JENNIFER PUNCOCHAR, Customer Marketing Manager Puncochar manages Lowe’s-specific shopper marketing initiatives, working collaboratively with brand teams and the Lowe’s business development team to drive sales of the company’s portfolio of premium lawn and garden brands both online and in stores.

MELISSA BOYER, Creative Activation Manager Boyer connects CocaCola brands to Sam’s Club omnishoppers by leveraging digital and social marketing tools and utilizing insights-driven, retail-specific and consumer-centric strategies.

JILL KRISTLE, Manager, Digital Marketing

MICHAEL CONTRERAS, Senior Digital Marketing Manager

Cost Plus World Market

Dollar General

DIANE BURNETT, Senior Director of Digital Marketing

RACHEL WHITE, Senior Director, Digital and Shopper Marketing

Coty U.S.

Dunkin’ Brands

SHANNA WEINBLATT, Senior Director, Global Digital

NICOLE BOUTWELL, Senior Manager of E-Commerce and Digital Marketing, Baskin-Robbins

AMANDA HURLEY, Customer Marketing Manager Hurley manages Home Depot-specific shopper marketing and e-commerce initiatives for Central Garden & Pet. She combines brand and retailer strategies to drive overall lawn and garden sales.

TRICIA WALKER, Digital Marketing Manager

Church & Dwight MEGHAN GORCZYNSKI, Manager – Sales Planning & Customer Digital/Shopper Marketing Gorczynski oversees all shopper marketing activity including strategy development and program execution. She established and owns the account-specific digital promotions process, and facilitates the execution of all account-specific digital promotions and incentives.

JOSHUA ROSEN, Digital Strategy Manager Rosen leads content strategy and digital marketing efforts with a focus on the e-commerce channel. He works collaboratively to synergize media and promotional efforts and ensure strong brand content across all touchpoints.

TAVIA JACKSON, Creative Activation Manager Jackson leads digital shopper programming for global and national retail customers. She’s focused on building digital equities that enhance omnichannel strategies. Her greatest accomplishment is developing a digital platform centered on millennials and media behavior.

KATIE MCCOY, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager NRS – Kroger McCoy champions the “phygital” shopping experiences leveraging shopper insights for a frictionless path to purchase. By optimizing the digital footprint and Coca-Cola SEO on Kroger.com and launching CocaCola’s first portfolio Brandstore, she enhanced its omnichannel influence delivering more than 300% ROI. DENNIS P.C. O’TOOLE, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager O’Toole supports and enhances customers’ digital, social and mobile marketing initiatives, driving increased shopper engagement, leveraging online impulse, and utilizing the company’s digital vendors to amplify its scale marketing programs to drive sales results for both enterprises.

Colgate-Palmolive KIM CANFIELD, Director, North American Media MINDEL KLEIN LEPORE, Worldwide Director, Global Digital Marketing

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CVS Health HEIDI RAYDEN, Senior Director, Omnichannel Digital SARAH REYNOLDS, Senior Director, Integrated Customer Experience Marketing ERIN ROSA, Senior Director, Omnichannel and Mobile Experience

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Danone North America TONY FUNG, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager Fung brings 12 years of experience in shopper marketing including traditional and digital. He currently leads the shopper marketing and strategic planning from an omnichannel standpoint on the Kroger business. He also has experience leading grocery and mass channel customers.

Dean Foods SHARON SPRINGBORN, Marketing Director

Del Monte Foods SARAH MORPHIS, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing Morphis is responsible for driving the strategic direction for achieving the company’s brand objectives in digital marketing and e-commerce. This includes developing digital capabilities and best practices, and partnering with the team on planning, analysis and optimizations.

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Ferrero USA JASON ADAMSKI, North American Consumer Connections Lead

Ferrara Candy Co. GINGER WILSON, Director of Shopper Marketing, Chocolate Wilson currently leads omnichannel marketing strategy and activation for the chocolate portfolio. She was instrumental in the recent re-launch of better Butterfinger utilizing an integrated approach, which has resulted in positive growth for the brand.

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General Mills ERIN ANDERSON, Digital Marketing Manager – Shopper Marketing CHRISTINE SCOTT, Assistant Manager – Shopper Marketing Scott leads digital innovation, focusing on the development of insight-based capabilities that drive value for shoppers, retailers and brands. She is currently leading the team creating a new mobile redemption experience for the company’s Box Tops for Education program.

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AVOCADOS FROM MEXICO

JORGE ALMEIDA Senior Digital Marketing Manager

Jorge Almeida was working at Anheuser-Busch as a senior brand manager when he decided to reach out to someone from his past. That someone was Ivonne Kinser, an old supervisor of his from when he started his advertising career at Richards/ Lerma. Kinser brought Almeida onboard at the start of this year to join her digital team at Avocados From Mexico.

Q

Tell us about your role.

ALMEIDA: I’m currently the lead on all social media for the company and I also help with content development and website management.

Q

How does your company promote digital innovation?

ALMEIDA: Digital innovation has been in the center of this

company almost since it started in 2013. Our CEO Alvaro Luque has always pushed the digital team to drive innovation by reinventing the ways we connect with consumers via technology. We’ve always known the importance of innovation because if one doesn’t innovate then one isn’t learning or growing. This has pushed us to never get comfortable with the way things are done but to always explore more dynamic and creative ways to do things.

Q

Where do you see digital marketing headed in the next few years?

ALMEIDA: Digital marketing is always evolving but the aspects that are becoming more and more prevalent each day are things like the use of influencers in daily campaigns, the adoption

RECENT ACHIEVEMENT

ALMEIDA: We executed a robust 360-degree digital activation around the theme of our Super Bowl TV spot that was created by our brand team. We were a top performer in the MERKLE Super Bowl report, a report that offers the most comprehensive evaluation of all the Super Bowl digital campaigns launched by brands with TV spots in the big game. We’re now the only brand whose Super Bowl digital campaigns have been among the top five in this report for five years in a row.

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of artificial intelligence, voice management, etc. We’re also entering an era where to break through on digital you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money. ... You can get a lot of buzz and virality while being resourceful if it’s done with strong coordination, good partners and timing.

Q

How can brands – in general – take better advantage of the opportunities in digital?

ALMEIDA: Brands need to be comfortable with change and be willing to try different things. I feel brands should set aside budget to try new partners and new tactics every quarter or so. Don’t just try the

big, shiny objects/trends that are becoming more popular.

Actually think about things that aren’t actually being considered in marketing plans regularly.

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What digital devices and services do you use most often, and how much of an omnichannel shopper are you?

ALMEIDA: Apart from my phone, I’m a huge fan of the Apple Watch as I’m an avid runner and I like the fact that I can be remote and take calls from my watch. I also like the fact that I can pay with the watch at Starbucks and at stores. The opportunities for marketing on a watch via push notifications or other ways is really interesting.

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WHO’S WHO IN DIGITAL MARKETING Georgia-Pacific MIKE FELDMAN, Retail Media – Team Lead Feldman is responsible for leading the retail media capability over Georgia-Pacific’s consumer business and innovation brands. His team oversees all search, media and other forms of digital marketing for retail initiatives from strategy to measurement.

GlaxoSmithKline CAROLYNE KLUG, Shopper Marketing Manager, Strategic Food AMY LABROO, Director of Digital Marketing & Omnichannel Labroo has more than 15 years of experience and expertise leading digital, e-commerce and omnichannel strategy for various industries. She leads digital for GSK’s U.S. Consumer Healthcare, focusing on mobile-first, consumer-obsessed, data-driven digital marketing.

KELLY MATTRAN, Shopper Marketing Manager – Walgreens Mattran has more than 18 years of retail marketing experience with 10 years specifically in shopper marketing with various companies including PepsiCo and Dell. She develops and implements shopper marketing strategies and programs for all GSK consumer health brands at Walgreens, focusing on bringing new and innovative digital/mobile marketing solutions, like influencer and social, to reach shoppers in relevant ways on their shopping journey.

JAKE OURADA, Shopper Marketing Manager – Target/ Dollar Ourada, a 15-year veteran in shopper marketing across grocery, beauty, consumer electronics and OTC, currently leads the Target Media Network partnership at Target across the full GSK portfolio.

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ASHWIN NATHAN, Vice President, Digital Strategy & Loyalty

CHRISTINE HOFFMAN, Consumer Engagement and Digital Center of Excellence Lead Hoffman currently leads consumer engagement and digital at the company. She has more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing, communications and e-commerce roles in CPG, financial services and retail. For the last eight years, she has grown the digital, marketing technology and consumer data capability at Smucker.

H-E-B

J.M. Smucker

SARAH NELSON, Director of Digital Strategy and Marketing

Honeywell DANE HARTZELL, Global Director of Digital Marketing

Hormel Foods SCOTT WEISENBECK, Marketing Director, SPAM Brand, Legacy Brands and Innovation

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Johnson & Johnson PAM BROWN, Senior Manager, Digital Strategy

Intel CYNDI BRIGHAM, Partner Engagement Specialist – Global Channel & Retail Marketing Brigham manages strategic co-marketing programs with partners to align on product launches and longer-term campaigns at retail. She identifies and implements strategies for effectively achieving Intel’s marketing objectives in a mutually beneficial way, based on the needs and interests of retailers.

She also drives creation of global co-marketing campaigns that include digital and in-store executions.

IAN FREITAS, Head of Global Retail and Channel Marketing Programs & Enablement Freitas provides leadership of a highperforming global team responsible for developing, enabling, tracking and iterating shopper-centric programs for e-commerce and brickand-mortar stores for retailers and channel partners across the globe with a focus on driving sales and revenue increases.

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NICOLE DOIRON, Shopper Marketing & Consumer Promotions Manager MOLLY GARRIS, Senior Manager, Digital Strategy, U.S. Beauty Garris oversees digital marketing efforts across Neutrogena and Clean & Clear, harmonizing national plans with insight-led, retailer-specific shopper solutions, from virtual makeup try-on tools to hypertargeted offer activation.

CHAD MIZEE, Director, Digital Marketing Strategy Mizee leads digital strategy for 18 Johnson & Johnson consumer brands, including Johnson’s Baby, Listerine, Band-Aid, Tylenol, Zyrtec and Lactaid. He is responsible for digital media, content, analytics, data strategy, e-commerce and consumer experience.

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experience planning lead for Kellogg’s U.S. cereal brands and related promotional and shopper marketing events.

Keurig Dr Pepper MATT COLBY, Digital Marketing Director JORDAN STE. MARIE, Senior Director, Digital Center of Excellence & Data Science Ste. Marie is leading a newly formed team focused on identifying and enabling emerging digital technology and social best practices. Additionally, his team is elevating advanced analytical capabilities within the company’s marketing organization.

Kimberly-Clark GREG KEARNS, Brand Manager, Shopper Marketing See profile on page 58 VICTORIA TYLINSKI, Director of E-Commerce With more than 10 years of experience in areas of brand management and e-commerce, Tylinski leads Kimberly-Clark’s e-commerce IQ team. The team is responsible for digital content standards, as well as identification and development of capabilities and tools to drive digital marketing and e-commerce growth.

Kraft Heinz KENT DECESARE, Lead Digital Marketing/CRM DeCesare leads the development of global digital marketing properties and e-commerce for CRM, recipe websites and more than 80 iconic brands including Kraft Cheese, Heinz Ketchup and Jell-O. He also is responsible for building digital marketing expertise, establishing thought leadership and best practices to drive digital innovation.

KEVIN SIDELL, Director, Experience Planning Sidell is the

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Unveiling Innovation with Applied Solutions October 14-16, 2019 • Marriott Boston consumergoods.com/sales-marketing-summit An official event of:

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WHO’S WHO IN DIGITAL MARKETING

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L’Oreal VIVIANNA BLANCH, Vice President, Integrated Consumer Communications, L’Oreal Paris MARNIE LEVAN, Vice President, Integrated Consumer Communications, Maybelline New York RACHEL WEISS, Vice President, Digital Innovation & Entrepreneurship

LALA U.S. VANESSA CARLSON BUENO, Senior Director of Marketing See profile on page 57 LAURA DICKEY, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager With the expansion of digital marketing technology, Dickey’s role continues to evolve along with shopper marketing as a discipline. She partners with the brand teams to create effective customer-specific programs that target shoppers in new, efficient ways.

LG Electronics ANGEL GRANT, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing Grant’s role within LG’s U.S. mobile division includes oversight of paid digital marketing campaigns, content deployment and optimization within owned channels, and digital-centric consultation for carrier/retail programs, as well as overall digital marketing coordination across other functions (database, email and analytics). His role also involves ongoing support within LG’s U.S. Digital Marketing Center of Excellence.

Lowe’s GIHAD JAWHAR, Vice President, Digital – Head of Product Management for Stores

MICHAEL RYAN, Director, Digital Marketing & CRM

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Mars Wrigley Confectionery HEIDI MACKEY, Shopper Marketing Manager Mackey is responsible for the development of digital shopper marketing strategy and activation of digital shopper marketing tactics for pure-play accounts with the goal of driving conversion.

HANNAH MCKEE, Shopper Marketing Manager McKee is the shopper marketing manager supporting the entire grocery channel. She is responsible for collaborating with retailers to create and execute shopper marketing programs that drive incremental volume as well as driving awareness, trial and product velocities.

AMANDA ZAKY, Senior Manager, Digital Media

MASCO TANUJA SINGEETHAM, Vice President, Digital Marketing Singeetham leads the digital marketing, social media, CRM, promotions and e-commerce initiatives for the Behr and Kilz paint and primer brands.

Mast-Jagermeister US ROBERT BROWN, Director of Digital & Social Marketing Brown leads digital transformation for Mast-Jagermeister in the U.S., including content development, performance media, search, e-commerce, CRM, data strategy, and marketing processes and tools.

DANIELLE TROPSA, Digital Marketing Manager

Mattel

MillerCoors

HADI ABRISHAMCHIAN, Director, Digital Customer Marketing Abrishamchian leads a high-performing team delivering brand activation and customer marketing excellence across Amazon, Walmart, and Target digital retail channels.

BRIAN POKORNY, Precision and Digital Marketing Pokorny leads a team focused on digital marketing, including data strategy, programmatic media, marketing analytics and optimization, and digital production and development, building brands and capabilities in beer for MillerCoors in the U.S.

Meijer MICHAEL ROSS, Vice President, Marketing Ross leads the strategy and vision for deepening customer engagement, personalization, loyalty and advancing digital for the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based chain.

Meredith SHIRLEY KLOSE, Senior Brand Manager NANCY KUNZ-MERRY, Vice President, Innovation & Retail Analytics JAKE SEMMEL, Marketing Director

Michaels Stores THOMAS HOEHN, Vice President, Digital Marketing Hoehn leads Michaels’ digital marketing efforts including social, search, app, affiliate, and elements of the website.

Microsoft RYAN MALLETT, Digital Marketing Manager, U.S. Retail As digital marketing manager, Mallett oversees online strategy and execution for the Office and Windows categories across key U.S. retail partner accounts, including Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, Costco and more. His focus is on setting and steering strategy while creating bestin-class digital experiences through marketing programs and dot-com initiatives.

JOSH WEXELBAUM, Marketing Director, Economy Brands

Moet Hennessy USA ISABELA GABALDON, E-Retail Manager, Southeast Region KERRI LACAPRA, E-Retail Manager, National Accounts LaCapra is at the leading edge of the national accounts team’s digital commercial strategy, internal literacy and business development. She is ultimately responsible for growing the MHUSA online footprint and visibility, digitally engaging shoppers and growing region sales in this high-potential channel.

Mondelez International CHRIS BUTLER, Head of E-Commerce, North America STEVE MCGOWAN, Regional Vice President, Shopper & Consumer Activation WESLEY SARACENI, Associate Director, E-Commerce USA

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NBC Universal Studios JOSEPH EIBERT, Vice President, Global Digital Marketing

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Office Depot CHRISTINE NESSEN, Senior Director, Digital Marketing, Search & Content See profile on page 48 continued on page 60

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LALA U.S

VANESSA CARLSON BUENO Senior Director of Marketing After 15 years in marketing at PepsiCo, Vanessa Carlson Bueno was seeking a career change. An opening at LALA U.S. was intriguing to her because she had the opportunity to start the shopper marketing department from scratch. She applied on LinkedIn, flew to Dallas to interview and the rest is history.

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What are your current responsibilities?

BUENO: We have seen the convergence of brand and shopper marketing and have moved past those traditional roles. When we realized it was converging I was put in a position to lead both teams.

Between brand and shopper I lead: digital media, brand strategy, shopper strategy, agency relationships/contracts, CPG partnerships, social media, e-commerce, analytics, IRI and annual planning.

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How does your company promote digital innovation?

BUENO: We have a unique philosophy on how we think

of digital because of the convergence. The digital space allows us the opportunity to see what works for the retailer, shopper and consumer and merge it together. We test, learn, and deploy various platforms.

Testing new platforms on a smaller scale has minimal risk.

We strive to be innovative by making small bets on new digital programs that allow us to manage risk to deliver the most effective digital strategy.

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What’s the future of digital marketing?

BUENO: AI to some might seem futuristic, but it’s here. Machine learning will inform us on how shoppers behave and how to respond with digital activation/ media. Grocery delivery and pick-up will continue to evolve how grocers go to market and there will be less focus on brickand-mortar with more focus on the shopping experience.

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How can brands – in general – take better advantage of the opportunities in digital?

RECENT ACHIEVEMENT

BUENO: We have a digital media optimization strategy that includes three key pillars. Due to our approach with brand and shopper, we see how it all works in tandem. Our teams work closely together to ensure that we are optimizing our digital media spend by not working in silos, which ensures cost efficiencies. Brand invests in media and the “calls to action” are driven by shopper activity at our priority retailers. We utilize some retailer platforms and dial it up with brand.

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BUENO: Be open to change and willing to try new things.

Constantly innovate and do not be afraid to fail. What they say is true – you learn more from your failures than your successes. I am always in search of innovative digital options that allow us to be disruptive and gain attention from the consumer driving to trial.

Q

What digital devices and services do you use most often, and how much of an omnichannel shopper are you?

BUENO: My iPhone and laptop keep me connected – it’s the nature of my job. The digital services include Netflix, Hulu, Ibotta and Birchbox. I am most definitely an omnichannel

shopper and am constantly in shopping mode and very curious. I purchase groceries online via Shipt, Walmart OGP, and Amazon. I am obsessed with Facebook Marketplace because I upcycle vintage furniture and I love finding great deals.

Q

How do you keep an ear to the ground in an ever-changing digital landscape?

BUENO: I attend most Path to Purchase Institute events – the Path to Purchase Summit, League of Leaders and its E-Commerce and Digital council meetings. In between events I also network with peers, read online articles, and my digital agency (Aletheia Marketing & Media) helps keep me informed.

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KIMBERLY-CLARK

GREG KEARNS Brand Manager, Shopper Marketing Greg Kearns came from the agency world, starting in more traditional advertising with Hill Holliday in Boston and mostly with financial services clients.

He saw shopper marketing as a growing discipline in the ad industry and was lucky enough to land with JWT Action (Geometry Global). It was a more natural transition to KimberlyClark from there working with a few different customer teams to get to where he is now.

continues to work with the North American organization to build our baseline understanding of the technologies that are available. This includes excellent training to help us further push our boundaries and understand the key areas to explore for growth.

Q

What is the future of digital marketing?

KEARNS: I cover shopper marketing strategy and execution for the drug channel, across all Kimberly-Clark brands.

KEARNS: In the next few years, I see our shoppers becoming much more aware of how valuable their data is and start demanding equal value in return. It will challenge all brands to be more shoppercentric and create marketing that is truly enhancing the shopping experience.

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Q

Q

Please describe your current role and responsibilities.

How does your company promote digital innovation?

KEARNS: Digital competency is a priority for us and for our industry. Kimberly-Clark

How can brands – in general – take better advantage of the opportunities in digital?

KEARNS: First is using digital to give our shoppers a more

RECENT ACHIEVEMENT

KEARNS: I really love the work we do for Huggies around our No Baby Unhugged campaign. We are in the third year of the program and it keeps on growing. All of the elements of great shopper marketing are there. It is about working hand-in-hand with our customer, leveraging digital capabilities to target our crucial markets and the philanthropic aspect resonating with our shoppers to build brand equity for Huggies and our customer alike. Using social amplification and targeted digital marketing in tandem has been key in driving the success that makes this program viable year after year. At the end of the day it is not only supporting a great cause, but driving sales as well.

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personalized experience and more reasons to engage with our brands. The technology now enables us to find the right shoppers and show them how our products can meet their specific needs. Since digital programs are so much easier to turn on and off than traditional shopper marketing and provide better performance metrics, it allows for much more rapid growth in efficiency and effectiveness.

Q

What digital devices and services do you use most often, and how much of an omnichannel shopper are you?

KEARNS: For me it all starts with my phone and the Dunkin app. For everything else it is a

good mix of online and in-store shopping. I frequently use the Walgreens and CVS apps for discounts and loyalty when shopping those stores and Amazon for reviews and price comparison in mass outlets.

Grocery shopping for my family is still all about the in-person experience.

Q

How do you keep an ear to the ground in such an ever-changing digital landscape?

KEARNS: Aside from keeping up to date with the trade publications, I find that meeting with current and new vendors has helped the most at keeping a pulse on the landscape.

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PepsiCo RISA ANDERSEN, Senior Director, North America Consumer Data Strategy & Shopper Media Andersen is focused on transforming PepsiCo’s capability to build dynamic, 1:1 relationships with its most valuable shoppers. She also leads shopper media, building organizational digital shopper marketing expertise, and driving digital innovation for PepsiCo’s portfolio in retail.

ELENA PARLATORE, Senior Director, Consumer Relations and Digital Innovation Parlatore champions digital innovation, data and technology to create a frictionless experience for consumers of PepsiCo’s brands.

STEPHANIE PEGLER, Associate Manager, Digital Media – Shopper Insights & Activation

PetSmart BRENT COOKE, Vice President of Loyalty, CRM & Marketing Insights

Pfizer BRYAN CHUPP, Director of Digital Capabilities Chupp directs the digital marketing team that is responsible for creating and executing digital strategies for each Pfizer Consumer Healthcare brand and launching capabilities, technologies and best practices that lift performance of all the brands.

Procter & Gamble JORDAN DENTON, Shopper Insights Leader, P&G Amazon Team Denton uncovers and activates powerful shopper and user experience insights that

drive strategy, deliver breakthrough shopping experiences and optimize initiatives for CPG at the largest e-commerce retailers in the industry.

ASHLEY DIAMOND, P&G Walmart Team Associate Director – Omnichannel Business BRUCE LUX, Global Digital & E-Commerce Marketing Leader

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RYAN SAGHIR, Director of Integrated Marketing Saghir leads integrated marketing at Sabra (a PepsiCo-Strauss joint venture) where he drives marketing communications across digital, social media, PR, influencers and experiential to ensure the seamless delivery of the Sabra brand story.

DAVID PETERSON, Vice President, Target Media Network

Saputo Cheese USA

Tyson Foods

NICOLE AUSTIN, Manager, Social & Digital Media See profile on page 61

Reynolds Consumer Products

SC Johnson & Son

BRANDI PITTS, Vice President, Marketing & E-Commerce Pitts is responsible for the e-commerce vision and growth strategy for the Reynolds Wrap and Hefty brand portfolios. She leads the organization’s online retail strategy, digital marketing, content development and innovation roadmap.

Robert Bosch SONESH SHAH, Vice President, Brand Marketing & Digital Shah is responsible for all Bosch brand marketing activities and digital transformation including IoT. His role allows him to be at the intersection of customer experience, brand building and technology. He previously held roles in e-commerce, sales, digital marketing, digital product development, and managed an international brand marketing team.

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ANDREW FRAILING, Director, Shopper Marketing, North America

Scotts Miracle-Gro ENRICK GARCIA, Shopper Marketing Manager – National Accounts BILL LITFIN, Digital and Content Director, Global Marketing Services ANNE VILLARREAL, Shopper Marketing Manager A firm believer in insight-driven selling, Villarreal is diligent about mapping a shopper’s journey as a necessary first step in an effective digital plan for above-average results.

Sherwin-Williams MEGHAN VICKERS, Senior Director, E-Business

Smithfield Foods ERIC GIBSON, Senior Manager, Marketing & E-Commerce

Stanley Black & Decker

Sabra Dipping Company

ROBERT ROSS, Vice President, Digital Strategy, Artificial Intelligence and User Experience

KERRY POWERS, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager

BRENT ROSSO, Vice President, Digital Media and Search MONICA TELESE, Director of Marketing –Target Media Network

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KAREN DOAN, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager For the past 10 years, Doan has worked on the company’s shopper marketing team with varied accounts. She has most recently managed Walmart and Sam’s for Tyson. She enjoys the digital part of the job as it is always changing and something new to learn.

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Ubisoft PAUL AUDINO, Senior Manager, Partner Marketing

Unilever EMILY SMITH, Associate Brand Manager

W

Wakefern Food KAREN GOZZI, Vice President, Social Media, Digital Advertising & Content Creation Gozzi leads a team of 23 professionals who develop original content for social media for local and corporate pages, and paid digital advertising. Her team was selected as Social Media Team of the year in 2017 by PR News Digital Awards.

Target LORI O’NEAL, Senior Director, Target Media Network Sales & Strategy

continued on page 62 June 2019

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WHO’S WHO I N D I G I TA L M A R K E T I N G

SAPUTO CHEESE USA

NICOLE AUSTIN Manager, Social and Digital Media Nicole Austin has been with Saputo Cheese USA for 25 years.

She started in marketing in 1995, holding the roles of sales and marketing coordinator and then manager, marketing events, before becoming manager, social and digital media.

Q

What are your job duties?

AUSTIN: I am responsible for all our social and digital media across our retail dairy cheese brands - Frigo Cheese Heads, Treasure Cave, Frigo and Dragone. For each brand, we have Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube channels that I manage. On the digital side, I execute our national digital coupon plans as well as all digital media for our brand promotions including banner

ads and email campaigns. Finally, I’m responsible for our “always on” Google search/Adword campaigns we run throughout the year.

Q

How does your company promote digital innovation?

AUSTIN: We’ve continued to educate our sales team and upper management on the importance of digital media through sponsored lunch and learns and various presentations throughout the year. The added education specifically for the sales team has in turn supported our customerspecific shopper marketing efforts. Retailers understand the importance of digital media as well and value all tactics that are targeted to their shoppers, including social content that we

Photo by Brian Morrison

provide in the form of recipes and photography.

Q

What’s the future of digital marketing?

AUSTIN: I think digital marketing

RECENT ACHIEVEMENT

AUSTIN: In 2018, we partnered with Disney Pixar’s “Incredibles 2” movie for a summer and back-to-school consumer promotion for our Frigo Cheese Heads brand. An online instant-win game and other digital tactics were supported by dedicated packaging and in-store marketing. Print media in targeted consumer publications drove awareness and a national FSI during back-to-school season drove additional traffic to the store. We also executed multiple customer-specific elements to tie in with our national program. From a category and competitive perspective, Frigo Cheese Heads achieved a significant sales lift as a result. On paid social, this campaign delivered a brand average CPM far lower than prior Facebook and Instagram promotions.

Engagement on the instant win microsite outperformed the brand’s last promotion by 165% with more than 1 million consumers engaging in the promotion. The promotion exceeded awareness KPIs important for growth.

The brand achieved exposure to new audiences, serving messaging and visual cues that reinforced the brand’s evolved all-family positioning on a mass level without the cost of traditional media. Delivering more than 419 million impressions over eight weeks meant the brand reached its target via multiple touchpoints and screens throughout the day on a scale that the brand had never experienced before.

will again grow within the next few years. Mobile is already a big part of the way consumers engage with media, but I believe targeting will become much more sophisticated. Shopper behavior continues to be tracked but details on shopper behavior will get much more granular, allowing manufacturers the ability to easily serve the right content to the right audience at the right time. Social will also continue to play a key role in marketing efforts. The more consumers look to social channels such as Instagram and Pinterest for recipe inspiration and recommendations, the more important it will be for brands to be present in those consumers’ feeds providing relevant content. continued on next page

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WHO’S WHO SAPUTO CHEESE USA

Q

How can brands – in general – take better advantage of the opportunities in digital?

AUSTIN: If brands are not using digital as part of their marketing efforts they are missing out, especially with how we know our shoppers are using digital media throughout their shopping experience. I think it first starts with great partners. Every supplier will come with the next best way to execute your digital marketing plan but it’s about being selective and taking it slow. Just because digital moves fast doesn’t mean you need to make fast decisions. Figure out the best channels and media that work for your brand.

Q

How do you keep an ear to the ground in such an everchanging digital landscape?

AUSTIN: Partnering with the Path to Purchase Institute and working closely has been very helpful for us. We try to make it to the seminars, the Path to Purchase Expo and the Path to Purchase Summit as much as we can to learn from the Institute and our other colleagues who are trying to do the same thing as us – keep up with digital media. We also partner with brands when we can for the same reason. My products are sold in dairy, so why not partner with someone whose products are somewhere else in the store? Given the amount of cross-category shopping going on, the more opportunities brands have to partner together for special deals or meal solutions, the better.

WHO’S WHO | DIGITAL MARKETING continued from page 60 STEVE HENIG, Vice President, Digital Commerce & Analytics Henig’s career at Wakefern has included positions in the dairy, deli, grocery marketing, corporate merchandising and marketing divisions.

Walgreens JAY HUBER, Senior Director, Digital & Marketing STEFANIE KRUSE CURLEY, Vice President, Digital Commerce Kruse Curley heads digital and omnichannel retail for Walgreens. Her responsibilities include both e-commerce sales and digitally influenced sales in-store.

Walmart KAITLIN CICHY, Senior Digital Marketing Manager ANDREW FLOYD, Senior Director, Digital Marketing MELISSA HILL, Director, Digital Marketing KELLY THOMPSON, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, samsclub.com

Wonderful Co. JORDAN BASS, Senior Director, E-Commerce Marketing – Fiji Water With his team, Bass drives the strategy and execution of e-commerce marketing, account management and fulfillment.

Solving Big Problems, Inspiring Bold Ideas EnsembleIQ is a premier business intelligence resource that believes in Solving Big Problems and Inspiring Bold Ideas. Our brands work in harmony to inform, connect, and provide predictive analysis for retailers, consumer goods manufacturers, technology vendors, marketing agencies and service providers.

Magazines

Events

Digital Media Solutions

June 2019

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Research

Custom Content

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19P2

Your Confidence in Chaos

We give the consumer goods industry the confidence to make smarter business decisions, faster, to unlock growth in today’s disruptive retail environment.

JO I N US!

consumergoods.com/membership

B E P R E PA R E D • B E C O N N E C T E D • B E C O N F I D E N T 48-63-RISE_whosWHO.indd 63 19P2P_ADV_Rise05_member.indd 1

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Activation Gallery.

In-Store Product Reviews Rise’s editors found that while Amazon’s brick-and-mortar locations are aggressively leveraging product reviews, other retailers and brands seem to be only dabbling with the tactic in stores. Whether they are touting their products’ star ratings, directing shoppers online to read reviews or presenting the actual reviews on displays or signage, these primarily at-shelf displays are leveraging positive consumer sentiment to lure in-store shoppers.

Known for its wealth of digital customer reviews, Amazon has brought ratings to its brick-and-mortar shopping experiences. The company’s first push into physical retail, Amazon Books, enables discoverability by displaying merchandise face-out and accompanied by a small placard that communicates the books’ star rating and a short customer review.

At Sephora, a display for Lancome concealer from L’Oreal USA presents reviews from the retailer’s loyalty program members. Anyone who signs up is a Beauty Insider, with VIB status earned with $350 in total spending in a calendar year.

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In the fall of 2018, Amazon debuted a concept dubbed Amazon 4-Star that is dedicated to items that are rated four stars or above, are top sellers, or are new and trending on its website. Digital e-ink price tags display the Prime price and list price, as well as a product’s average star rating and the number of reviews it is based on. Placards accompanying many of the items share a customer review.

Amazon brings reviews to the forefront for select products – namely, books – at its latest popup concept: presented by Amazon, where the company merchandises themed collections of product (most recently for Mattel’s celebration of Barbie’s 60th birthday and, separately, Marvel licensed items) that change out periodically.

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Activation Gallery.

With a SmartSource shelf talker at Albertsons Cos.’ Vons, GlaxoSmithKline’s Sensodyne encourages shoppers to scan a QR code to view Pronamel product reviews on the Pronamel.us website.

GlaxoSmithKline has helped Walmart shoppers choose the right toothpaste with a custom “Oral Advisor” mobile tool delivered in stores. Shelf strips accompanying symptomthemed trays invite shoppers to search for @OralAdvisor via Facebook Messenger to get personalized toothpaste recommendations, access educational content and read consumer reviews.

At Sam’s Club, Serta leveraged customer reviews by plugging the mattress brand’s 4.5-star rating on a banner while also directing shoppers to SamsClub.com to view cumulative member reviews through Nov. 12, 2018. Serta’s product pages online highlight the “most helpful” and “most critical” customer reviews as well as comments, average ratings and a rating snapshot.

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T H E

A R T

O F

M E R C H A N D I S I N G

®

COMPETIT IV NO

E

N

On an endcap at Target, Procter & Gamble touts its Native brand’s more than 5,000 five-star reviews.

Since

V

Walmart, working with Digimarc, has integrated an augmented reality scanner into its iOS mobile application that can be used to pan across shelves and retrieve pricing and customer rating details on the products it encounters. When shoppers with an iPhone 6 or newer Apple device launch the barcode scanner within Walmart’s app, pointing at items on the shelf and moving among them, a product tile on the screen is updated with the product name, price and star rating (plus how many reviews that is based on), as well as a link to related products.

O R STAT

U

FRAME HOLDERS

LABEL HOLDERS

DISPLAY HOOKS

HEAVY-DUTY HOOKS

BAR TRAYS

ENDLESS BASKETS

TrionOnline.com | 800.444.4665 © 2019 Trion Industries, Inc.

Rise_0619_Trion AOM_Sport_2.3.indd 1

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ND

S

1965

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Activation Gallery.

Be Best Buy incorporates customer reviews on its price labels – both print and digital labels – through a star rating while also communicating the number of reviews on BestBuy.com and the date those numbers were pulled. Additionally, QR codes direct shoppers online, where reviews are accessible.

The review information appears similarly on the digital price labels, though it is updated nightly.

prepared Delivering the nuanced insights and proprietary shopper research needed to thrive in today’s CPG and Retail industries.

DISCOVER WHAT YOU’VE BEEN MISSING. June 2019

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www.ensembleiq.com/BePrepared

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www.ensembleiq.com/BePrepared

5/20/19 1:41 PM

Caetlyn Roberts Giant Food

Great companies need great women

E

ntry and mid-level women are leaving our industry at nearly twice the rate of men — senior-level women are leaving at nearly four times the rate of men.* NEW provides solutions that retain and develop great women leaders. Our learning programs, career development, conferences and local events help tens of thousands of women advance each year. Our insights, best practices and advocacy help transform organizations and create a better industry workplace for all. Join our movement today at newonline.org. * Download our report

The Female Leadership Crisis Why women are leaving (and what we can do about it) newonline.org/crisis

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Advancing all women. It’s just good business.

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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.

Navigation app Waze, owned by Google, has collaborated with the WPP agency to develop better ways for brands to advertise to consumers in cars. The goal is to create better types of ads seen on Waze inside the car and better messaging that will influence drivers to stop at retail locations.

The partners will test in-car messaging and ads in Canada, France, Italy, the UK and the U.S. Waze has more than 100 million people actively using its app and navigation services.

Pinterest unveiled new, robust shoppable features for the social platform, starting with a dedicated selling section for retailers. The feature is essentially a digital catalog. Shoppers on Pinterest will see a “more from” link below the Product Pins on posted items. That link sends them to a page boasting items for purchase. Another feature is a “more ideas” tag that will be seen on style, home, beauty and DIY boards. A user clicks on the tag to receive personalized, curated shopping items based on what that user has been saving and looking at. Other new tools include a way for brands to upload a full catalog of products and make them shoppable across the platform, an improved search capability, and shopping ads that can be controlled by businesses.

Dan Ochwat, a P2PI contributor for nearly two decades, has been on the lookout for digital path to purchase tools since 2011. Send comments and P2P Toolkit inquiries to danochwat@gmail.com.

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Last year, Bose launched sunglasses that have built-in speakers to play music, take phone calls and be a prototype for its foray into “audio AR.” At a recent augmented reality conference, Bose discussed the technology further. Apple is testing audio AR inside a special pair of ear buds. The idea of audio AR, as Bose sees it, is through glasses that don’t use lenses to overlay images for a consumer but uses sensors embedded into the glasses that know what a user is looking at to deliver pertinent audio information.

The sensors detect head movement and adjust how the sound should play as well as provide information such as directions.

Another example is a consumer could be on a sightseeing tour and receive information on landmarks based on what he sees. Users control the eyewear with voice, head gestures and finger taps.

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A leader in 3-D simulation for virtual store settings, InContext Solutions launched an enhanced, second-generation version of its ShopperMX platform. The platform now boasts upgrades in its infrastructure for better content management, international accessibility, security and more capabilities for specialty retailers. The platform also has an improved user experience and stronger ability to integrate shopper analytics, machine learning and capabilities with its partners as well as internally.

In London, New Balance opened The Runaway, a physical pub that pours beers and drinks for runners who earned the beverages after accumulating points based on running challenges they completed.

The Runaway bar serves drinks only to runners using New Balance’s “Runaway Card” that is added to an Apple or Google mobile phone wallet. No other type of transaction is eligible at the pub.

Runners with a synced up Runaway Card in their mobile wallet use the Strava app to track their running miles, which then get translated into points that are exchanged for pints.

CPG brands can now run sponsored ads on AmazonFresh, Amazon’s online grocery platform for Prime members.

As long as the products are available on AmazonFresh, brands can run sponsored ads – and advertisers pay based on a perclick basis. Ads show up to users during AmazonFresh search results and on product pages. AmazonFresh is available in major cities and mostly in states on the East Coast, offering same-day delivery.

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P2P Toolkit.

Running retailer Fleet Feet launched a mobile app with a deep, localized rewards program. The app provides a traditional reward system of buy enough product and get free money to spend online or in-store. However, the new app goes beyond to incentivize runners to run and to be involved in the community, including via social.

Users earn points – or what they call “Miles” – that can be traded in for unique rewards such as entries into races, branded apparel, gear, running trips and more. Users of the app integrate their accounts with the GPS trackers Strava or Garmin to total how many miles they run or walk, which can be accrued for Miles. They also earn Miles by engaging over social media channels and attending in-store events. Users of the app connect to their local Fleet Feet store and are given access to local events and offers at that specific store.

Fleet Feet has 176 stores in 37 states across the U.S.

London-based Location Sciences, a third-party data intelligence company that verifies the accuracy of location data for digital ads, announced it is expanding its proprietary platform to work with brands and agencies in Canada and the U.S. The firm fights to detect ad-fraud and discover fraudulent location data that can impede digital and location-based ad programs. The Location Based Marketing Association claims that nearly 65% of brand marketers are concerned with the quality and accuracy of location data available. Location Sciences calls its solution Verify, aiming to give brands and agencies more transparency to find suspect digital signal sources.

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Shoppers at participating Albertsons Cos. stores can now get real-time status notifications on their online delivery orders. Albertsons teamed with e-commerce platform Glympse to power the updates over email or text.

After ordering, shoppers will be notified with a link to a live map of the delivery route and time of delivery. In the spring, Glympse also powered a buy-online-andpick-up-at-the-store feature for the chain.

Using location data, the notifications communicate where and when the order will be brought out to the car.

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NEW Horizons.

The Invisible Woman Women are out of sight, out of mind of senior executives

BY S A R A H A LT E R

Sarah Alter is president and CEO of the Network of Executive Women, a learning and leadership community representing 12,400 members in 22 regional groups in the United States and Canada. Learn more at newonline.org.

With the growing realization that flexible work arrangements – a shift in work hours, working remotely or job sharing – are key to attracting, keeping and advancing talented women at all points in their careers, discussion around the relative importance of face time in the office vs. results is heating up.

Many managers are hanging on to outdated views about face time as a full measure of an employee’s value to an organization and are losing outstanding employees as a result.

Still, one type of face time is key to advancing a career – face time with senior leaders. Employees who interact regularly with their company’s senior leaders are more likely to ask for and receive promotions, according to McKinsey & Co.’s Women in the Workplace 2018 report. They’re also more likely to stay with their companies and aim to be leaders themselves.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Makes sense. The problem is 33% of the women surveyed for Women in the Workplace said they’d never had a significant discussion with a senior leader about their work (compared to 27% of men surveyed). For some women of color, access is even more limited. Forty percent

of black women reported never having a substantive work-related conversation with a senior leader.

Women are also less likely than men to socialize with their managers or other executives outside the workplace. Nearly half of women surveyed said they have never had an informal interaction with a senior leader, compared to 40% of men. Again, many women of color have even less face time with the men and women who create opportunities and open doors. Fifty-four percent of Latinas and nearly 60% of black women said they’ve never had an informal interaction with a senior leader.

At all points in their careers, women have fewer opportunities to demonstrate their skills, show off their work results or make strategic connections with their company’s career-opportunity gatekeepers. The result: When managers are considering candidates for stretch assignments, leadership development or promotions, they’re more likely to choose a man because it’s more likely a man is on their radar. A known employee always has an advantage over an unknown employee.

SEEKING SPONSORS One way to level the playing field is to encourage senior leaders to sponsor women.

A full 70% of the 70 organizations named 2019 Top Companies for Executive Women by the National Association for Female Executives have sponsorship initiatives.

Companies can support more sponsorship with these five actions put forth by Working Mother magazine: • Expose senior leaders to high-potential

The Path to Purchase Institute partners with the Network of Executive Women (NEW) to present the annual Women of Excellence Awards at the Path to Purchase Expo, which takes place Nov. 12-14 in Chicago. For more information, visit Path2PurchaseExpo.com.

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talents from different groups, especially underrepresented populations.

• Link sponsorship to senior executives’ goals, performance reviews and compensation.

• Have clear objectives for sponsorship and communicate to everyone involved.

• Use employee resource groups to find high-potential women worthy of sponsorship.

• Measure promotion and retention rates of those who are sponsored versus people not sponsored in similar roles.

The NEW Blueprint for Gender Equality, which NEW is sharing now with our corporate partners, lays out best practices for companies who are working to create a gender diverse and inclusive workplace. While developing this action plan, we found a number of forward-thinking companies that are disrupting the status quo with other practices that promote women’s visibility with senior leaders.

One of our corporate partners, for example, is piloting a program that pairs individuals who are ready to move up to the next role with members of its leadership team for development discussions. “It’s very straightforward,” the company’s vice president of human resources told us. “Women who may not have a sponsor already are getting that attention.”

The J.P. Morgan Women on the Move initiative’s 30-5-1 campaign brings women and men together for 36 minutes each week to support women’s growth and development. Participants commit to spending 30 minutes having coffee with a talented up-and-coming woman, five minutes congratulating a female colleague on a win or success, and one minute talking up the woman who had that win with other colleagues.

Formal, structured development programs that support face time with senior leaders benefit talented women and men, but especially those who may otherwise be unseen – or overlooked. Rise

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Shopping with Steve.

Home Improvement

Channel Steve Says:

A recent ranking by Morning Consult of the “most loved brands in America” (based on analysis of more than 400,000 consumer/shopper interviews) revealed The Home Depot as No. 5 and Lowe’s as No. 11, joining Hershey’s, Disney, Amazon and Google in the top 25. (Other retailers on the top 25 include Walmart, Target, Walgreens and Dollar Tree).

Consider that Home Depot has 1,980 stores in the U.S., while Lowe’s has 1,723. Compare that to Walmart’s 4,761 and Ace Hardware’s 4,418. In my mind, experiential retail and digital transformation have not been at the forefront of these home improvement chain’s strategies, but we are now seeing considerable movement. Here, I’m outlining some of the changes I’m observing. It appears to me that Home Depot is moving more quickly with digital, while Lowe’s is taking the lead with in-store experience.

Home Depot offers an innovative digital effort with its Appliance Finder kiosk.

In today’s world, e-commerce provides you with endless options. For such a considered purchase, many of the brands and features have already been identified. But with a store only having fewer than 10% of the items on display, shoppers might see another model or want to double check specifications. The Appliance Finder lets shoppers find the exact match for their needs.

Steve Frenda, executive advisor for EnsembleIQ and the Path to Purchase Institute, has been a passionate retail watcher for more than four decades.

Having worked as a retailer, for a brand manufacturer and in the infotech world, he is an authority on the entire path to purchase and its changing face.

Contact Steve at sfrenda@ensembleiq.com

Lowe’s really turned up the heat on its Pro Customers initiative in 2019. This vertical is only 30% of Lowe’s’ current revenue, and the feeling is that percentage needs to increase dramatically.

Bigger transactions than DIY and additional loyalty are key goals.

There are special reception areas and reserved parking for the Pros, as well as specially trained managers and designated loaders for heavy loads.

At Lowe’s in April, grills and smokers led the way on the retailer’s app and home page as well as in-store. The cooperative efforts with brands are more prominent in stores, with Weber products leading the way in this case.

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What would a home improvement store be without a display for connected home products? In Lowe’s stores that don’t have the smart home showroom, there are a number of branded displays that feature the smart products from Nest, Ring, Google and others. This is a big and growing category.

In late April, the “thrill of the Grill” theme was front and center on Home Depot’s Facebook page and was hard to miss as I walked into the store.

The theme was supported by a number of displays, including several with Traeger wood fired grills.

On the mobile app front, Home Depot is blazing a trail. My store is geo-located, and the ability to scan, verbally request or type in an item is there and extremely intuitive. Notice in the exhibits, the store, aisle and number of items in inventory are readily visible. Additionally, by clicking on “See In-Store Map,” an interactive map delivers flawless results. While Walmart’s app has a similar functionality, Home Depot’s functionality is world class.

You might be aware that Stanley Black & Decker is continuing to build a bigger retail footprint for its Craftsman brand, and Craftsman products seem to have found a terrific home at Lowe’s. The displays are impactful and powerful.

Home Depot’s Pick Up In Store option is prominently displayed in two ways: automated lockers in the outside lobby, as well as a prominent vault at the service desk. Home Depot touts twohour pickup for items available in-store and two-day delivery to stores for more than a million items.

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Rise Solutions Guide.

Digital Incentive

Platforms The following is a comparison chart of 24 companies providing various solutions and services that help brands deliver digital incentives and other calls to action to target consumers. For more information about these and other digital incentive providers, visit consumergoods.com.

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

*Aki Technologies www.a.ki

Catalina Marketing www.catalina.com

Checkout51

(News America Marketing) www.checkout51.com

*Conversant

www.conversantmedia.com

P R O D U CT

K E Y C L I E N TS

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

Katana

• Colgate-Palmolive • Nestle • Whirlpool

Aki helps brands connect with mobile consumers during the most receptive and relevant moments. Its artificial intelligence-powered “moment marketing science” platform, Katana, uses a proprietary mobile data set to predict receptivity to mobile ads throughout the path to purchase, driving stronger engagement, foot traffic and sales.

Catalina Omnichannel Media Platform

Did not provide

Backed by an extensive shopper database, Catalina’s intelligence unlocks each shopper’s unique DNA. The media platform delivers buyer understanding, precise personalization and omnichannel media that converts shoppers into buyers and buyers into loyal fans.

Checkout51

• Kellogg Co. • Mondelez International • Procter & Gamble

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

Not available

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

Conversant

* Information compiled by Rise editors

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

P R O D U CT

K E Y C L I E N TS

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

*Fandango Rewards

Fandango Rewards

• Coca-Cola Co. • General Mills • Walmart

Promotional codes from Fandango Rewards enable consumer product and services brands to offer consumers or employees incentives not only for movie tickets, but also for digital downloads, e-gift cards or Visa Rewards Virtual Accounts accepted at millions of locations and online e-commerce sites nationwide.

Fetch Rewards

• Kraft Heinz • MillerCoors • Unilever

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

Flipp

• Bayer • McCormick & Co. • Procter & Gamble

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

Freedom

• Chobani • Kraft Heinz • Unilever

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

GroundTruth

• Dr Pepper Snapple Group • MillerCoors • Unilever

GroundTruth drives offline trips and sales by leveraging location as the primary source of intent. Through real-time location targeting and location-based audience targeting, the company influences purchase consideration and increases frequency of real customers.

Human Loyalty

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

HelloWorld provides a powerful combination of native platform technology and marketing strategy. Working with more than 100 global and national brands, its solutions include promotions to spark interest, loyalty programs to retain/reward, and agency services to architect consumer engagement strategies.

Did not provide

Ibotta is a leading cash-back rewards platform, paying its users over $210 million in 2018. With more than 1,500 CPG brand and retail partnerships, Ibotta’s pay-per-sale marketing solutions deliver incrementality at scale while providing real-time shopper insights through privacy-compliant purchase data.

Not available

Inmar’s platform provides a single, strategic resource for brands and retailers to create, execute and assess holistic omnichannel promotions. The company helps clients grow share, foster meaningful shopper relationships and drive revenue by delivering targeted, equity-building content matched with motivating offers across methods, devices and channels.

PCH/Media

Not available

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

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

PrizeLogic

• Hershey Co. • Samsung • T-Mobile

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

www.fandangorewards.com

Fetch Rewards

www.fetchrewards.com

*Flipp Interactive www.flipp.com

Freedom

(News America Marketing) www.getfreedomapi.com

*GroundTruth

www.groundtruth.com

HelloWorld, A Merkle Company helloworld.com

Ibotta

cpg.ibotta.com

*Inmar

www.inmar.com

*PCH/Media

media.pch.com

*PrizeLogic

www.prizelogic.com

Ibotta

Inmar

* Information compiled by Rise editors

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

*PromotionPod

www.promotionpod.com

Quotient Technology www.quotient.com

*Retail Solutions Inc. www.ansainside.com

*RevTrax

www.revtrax.com

*SavingStar (Quotient) www.savingstar.com

*Shopkick

www.shopkick.com

ShopperBridge Inc.

www.shopperbridge.com

*SKUlocal

www.skulocal.com

TPG Rewards Inc.

www.tpgrewards.com

*Valassis Digital

www.valassisdigital.com

K E Y C L I E N TS

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

PromotionPod

Not available

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

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

Quotient Promotions Cloud

• Clorox Co. • General Mills • Procter & Gamble

Quotient is a leading provider of digital coupons, including national, retailer-specific, loyalty rewards, targeted offers and digital circulars.

Promotions are amplified with the Quotient Media Cloud. The company also has exclusive and non-exclusive relationships with grocery, drug, mass and dollar retailers across the U.S.

Ansa

Not available

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

RevTrax OMP (Offer Management Platform)

• Clorox Co. • Kimberly-Clark • Sherwin-Williams

The RevTrax platform integrates across any marketing channel (email, website, search, social, affiliate, display, video, direct mail) to connect online behaviors to any conversion. The technology ensures that only targeted consumers can access offers.

• Bertolli, • General Mills • Henkel

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

Shopkick

Not available

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

ShopperBridge

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

ShopperBridge uses precise latitude/longitude targeting to deliver product ads to shoppers on their mobile phones while they are in the store, before checkout, at the moments closest to product selection to drive sales and positive return-on-ad-spend shopper marketing programs. The platform can reach up to 80% of the shoppers of any given retailer.

Savings.com

• Conagra Brands • SC Johnson • Tyson

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

TAP Mobile Technology

• GlaxoSmithKline • Kellogg Co. • PepsiCo

TPG’s leading technology engages with consumers and drives purchase at retail. Integrated on POS and product packaging. With a single “tap” of a consumer’s smartphone, the technology provides everything from compliance to dynamic targeted content.

Not available

Valassis Digital is an advertising and marketing intelligence company with a fully owned platform devoted to exceeding client goals. The company’s engineers design innovative technology that transforms consumer choices into predictive intelligence, resulting in a multichannel solution that drives consumers to act.

P R O D U CT

SavingStar

Valassis

* Information compiled by Rise editors

June 2019

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Solution Provider News.

Walmart Reduces Waste with Digimarc Walmart is obtaining multiple benefits from changing how fresh food products are barcoded. The retailer is leveraging Beaverton, Oregon-based Digimarc’s Barcode for Fresh Product Labels to automate many aspects of inventory management for packaged fresh food.

The solution repeats data across the entire surface of any thermal-printed label to help improve operational efficiencies.

As a result, Walmart can more reliably scan fresh product labels. This enables the retailer to automate markdowns, improving throughput and reducing the amount of fresh products that expire before they are sold.

In addition, Walmart can now accurately read fresh product labels which are crinkled, smudged, wrapped around edges, or fraudulently altered, cutting product shrinkage and increasing inventory accuracy. This all produces a better customer experience in the fresh product department.

Nestle Looks to Improve Demand Planning via SAS Nestle has embedded SAS Analytics into key business processes that will help it sense demand for its consumer goods more accurately and reliably on a global basis. Improved demand accuracy is an important factor for producing the right products in the right quantities at the

right time to avoid excessive stock holding.

“SAS is the engine for demand planning at Nestle,” Vineet Khanna, Nestle senior vice president of corporate supply chain, said in a media release. “SAS is widely used for predictive analytics at Nestle. We have trained 450 users at Nestle worldwide to help make better demand-planning decisions. Our ability to implement SAS in various complex environments led us to expand our use of SAS beyond demand planning and supply chain and embrace the latest SAS technologies.”

Bay Cities Wins Gold for Best P-O-P Display Bay Cities, Pico River, California, won gold for Best P-O-P Display at the 2019 Promax Games Awards for its Fortnite Battle Bus display. The display was recognized for the creative structural and graphics design.

The Fortnite Battle Bus was developed and executed to hold toys, games, game cards, apparel and Funko collectors’ items. The structure reflected the Battle Bus vehicle featured in the Fortnite game. The display was a multi-brand collaboration and hit Walmart stores nationwide in time for an in-store event called the Fortnite Party where shoppers could receive an exclusive, free in-game code.

POP Displays Expands Facilities POP Displays is expanding its facilities by moving its headquarters from Yonkers, New York, to nearby Rye Brook. Manufacturing

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will also move from the Yonkers facility.

Manufacturing in New York and the Northeast will continue through strategic partners and new partners will be added in additional U.S locations.

Operations also will expand to a new facility in Atlanta. Key talent will move, enabling the company to keep these team members.

In the new location, investments are being made for the model shop, state-of-the-art 3-D printers and new manufacturing equipment. More than a year of rigorous planning has been underway to ensure a smooth transition.

The move will increase capacity, create more efficient transit options and drive speed to market, both domestically and globally, which benefits their clients.

WestRock Acquires UBS Printing Group Atlanta-based WestRock Co. expanded its capabilities to support the beauty and personal care, nutraceutical and media industries with the acquisition of UBS Printing Group, Corona, California. The acquisition further extends the company’s geographical footprint on the West Coast and will become a part of WestRock’s Multi Packaging Solutions business.

UBS is a specialty printing and packaging company that manufactures high-impact cartons, as well as related literature products. The acquisition of UBS fits with the company’s strategy to expand its capabilities and footprint to reflect customer needs.

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Solution Provider News.

Stibo Systems and Tenovos Join Forces New York-based Tenovos and Stibo Systems, Aarhus, Denmark, partnered to deliver higher levels of quality, efficiency and visibility for organizations managing vast volumes of digital content and complex product data for diverse distribution channels. The companies combined a cloud-native digital content platform with a fully scalable master data management solution capable of managing thousands of attributes, hundreds of relationships and millions of records spread across disparate systems.

Through the use of web-scale and AI technologies, the resulting joint solution enables organizations to monitor digital asset lifecycles across the enterprise and deliver high-quality, trusted product data efficiently across numerous channels.

This ensures consistent reliable access for internal stakeholders and automated syndication to customers, vendors, suppliers and value chain partners.

substrates up to 2 inches thick, including PVC sheets, foamboard, corrugated board, papers and more.

This equipment also provides additional capacity, speed and versatility to Innomark’s already robust and high-quality digital printing operation. With three sets of CMYK and white ink channels, this press can run up to 9,600 square feet per hour. It also includes several features that offer quick setup, as well as color and quality controls.

This purchase is part of Innomark’s long-term initiative to invest in continuous improvement and advanced digital printing technology. The Inca X3 will join 10 other digital output and cutting devices, including a new Inca Onset X2 with CMYK, orange, white, light cyan and light magenta. This equipment further differentiates Innomark’s visual marketing and retail experience solutions by adding versatility and capacity to its unique strategy, design, engineering, diverse printing and production capabilities.

for growth. The award was presented at the 2019 Velocity Conference in Orlando.

To succeed, the Tillamook team established a strong foundation for digital supply chain planning and growth: a robust planning platform with expanded visibility and analytics to monitor KPIs and make proactive adjustments as needed.

The supply chain team developed new processes, instituted advanced education and training for the stakeholders, and implemented Logility Voyager Solutions as a platform for digital supply chain optimization.

Tillamook manufactures in multiple locations with many distribution points, which requires precise visibility into demand, supply and inventory.

Enve Teams with Concept Designs

Innomark Adds Inca Onset X3 Flatbed Press Innomark Communications, a full-service visual marketing provider with facilities in Southwest Ohio, Indiana and California, has added an Inca Onset X3 flatbed press to its digital printing facility in Miamisburg, Ohio.

The Inca X3 can process long runs of high-quality print with superb consistency and reliability. It also is wellsuited for display components, short-run packaging and retail signage up to 63 by 126 inches. Material capabilities include

Tillamook Earns Velocity Award for Supply Chain Transformation Logility, a provider of collaborative supply chain optimization and advanced retail planning solutions, announced that the Tillamook County Creamery Association has received the 2019 Velocity Award for its supply chain transformation work.

The Velocity Award highlights a company that has demonstrated exceptional innovation in its effort to implement a digital supply chain initiative that significantly improves operations and creates a platform

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Enve Composites, Ogden, Utah, partnered with Concept Designs, Palo Alto, California, to create a family of displays to present Enve’s carbon fiber bicycle wheels and components at retail. The tri-fold portfolio/selection guide holds rim crosssections and color samples. Side panels flank a center pocket that holds product brochures. Custom foam cutouts hold the rim samples securely but still allow them to be removed for inspection by shoppers.

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

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Personnel Appointments.

BRAND MARKETERS Kraft Heinz Co., Chicago ABInBev veteran Miguel Patricio was named Kraft Heinz CEO effective July 1.

He succeeds Bernarndo Hees and joins Kraft Heinz after a 20-year career with AB InBev, including a six-year stint from 2012 to 2018 as global chief marketing officer. Patricio has also worked at consumer companies such as Philip Morris, The Coca-Cola Co. and Johnson & Johnson.

RETAILERS Bass Pro Shops, Springfield, Missouri Jamie Sohosky, former Walmart U.S. vice president of marketing, customer experience, was named Bass Pro Shops chief marketing officer for the Great Outdoors Group of companies.

Sohosky leads the marketing engine, overseeing omnichannel customer engagement, digital, paid and social media, promotions, events, sponsorships, partnerships, and more.

This includes supporting all divisions of the multifaceted group of outdoor companies comprised of Bass Pro Shops,

CORIE BARRY

MATTHEW DACEY

Cabela’s, White River Marine Group and Big Cedar Lodge.

Best Buy, Richfield, Minnesota Chief financial and strategic transformation officer Corie Barry succeeded Hubert Joly as CEO while Joly moved into the newly created role of executive chairman of the board. Barry joined the company in 1999 and has held a number of financial and operational roles including chief strategic growth officer and senior vice president of domestic finance.

SOLUTION PROVIDERS Marketsmith, Cedar Knolls, New Jersey Former ID Media/Orion Worldwide senior vice president, managing director, Norman Lane was named Marketsmith executive

MIGUEL PATRICIO

JAMIE SOHOSKY

vice president, media investment. Lane joins Marketsmith as the growing agency heads into its 20th year of operations.

He takes the role as head of the media department, filling the position vacated

by Rob Bochicchio due to his recent promotion to president.

TripAdvisor, Needham, Massachusetts Matthew Dacey, former CVS Health vice president of loyalty and personalization, was named TripAdvisor vice president of membership and growth. Reporting into Lindsay Nelson, president of TripAdvisor’s Core Experience business unit, Dacey will be responsible for leading a team dedicated to growing, engaging, satisfying and monetizing TripAdvisor’s millions of members.

Editorial Index.

7-Eleven.....................................18

Chobani....................................... 6

ISM Connect............................... 8

Ahold Delhaize........................66

Coca Cola Co., The.................... 6

Kimberly-Clark.................... 8, 58

Albertsons Cos..................66, 72

Concept Designs.....................80

Kroger.................................... 6, 32

Amazon.com..............33, 64, 71

Digimarc.............................67, 79

LALA US.....................................57

Avocados From Mexico........53

Enve.............................................80

Location Sciences...................72

Bay Cities...................................79

Fleet Feet...................................72

Logility........................................80

Georgia-Pacific........................10

L’Oreal.........................................64

GlaxoSmithKline.....................66

Lowe’s ........................................74

Glympse.....................................72

Madison Reed..........................14

RB ................................................20

Google........................................70

Mattel .........................................82

Ripple Street.............................14

Hello Bello.................................18

MillerCoors................................12

Saputo Cheese USA...............61

Walgreens..........................20, 68

Home Depot, The ..................74

Minor League Baseball........... 8

SAS...............................................79

Walmart........13, 18, 66, 67, 79, 82

Bush Brothers & Co.................. 8

InContext Solutions...............71

Mondelez International.......14

Sephora......................................64

WestRock...................................79

Campari America....................22

Innomark...................................80

Nestle..........................................79

Serta............................................66

WPP.............................................70

Best Buy..............................20, 68 Bimbo Bakeries USA................ 8 BodyArmor...............................18 Bose.............................................70 Brown-Forman Corp..............12 Brand Activation Maximizer.................................... 8

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Network of Executive Women...................73 New Balance ............................71 Office Depot.............................48 Para’Kito.....................................10 Pinckney-Hugo Group............ 8 Pinterest.....................................70 POP Displays............................79 Procter & Gamble............16, 67

Southeastern Mills................... 8 Stanley Black & Decker.........75 Stibo Systems...........................80 Target............................14, 16, 67 Tenovos......................................80 Tillamook Creamery Association...............................80 Twitter........................................70 UBS Printing.............................79 Ulta..............................................14

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Retailer Intelligence.

Barbie Tours Walmart with Role Models

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

Mattel’s Barbie is staging major retailtainment events in Walmart’s parking lots as one account-specific piece of a global marketing campaign celebrating the brand’s anniversary and incorporating its purpose of inspiring the limitless potential in all girls.

The Barbie “Be Anything” tour launched on Barbie’s actual birthday, March 9, with a key kickoff event in Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, and will hit more than 30 total markets across the country as it continues through October.

Each event includes a number of different activations spanning arts and crafts, photo opportunities inside a lifesized Barbie doll box, a museum-style exhibit showcasing some of Barbie’s most iconic career dolls, a dress-up area, the chance for parents to enter their kids into a sweepstakes awarding cash, as well as the

latest dolls and playsets available for play.

“We set out to create a really fresh, unique and interactive experience that we could actually bring to Walmart stores across the country,” says Mattel’s Christina Cullimore, Walmart account lead – customer marketing manager. “One other unique activation that we have is a virtual ‘You Can Be Anything’ career wall where girls are able to enter in their name, age and dream career, and that information is captured on this virtual motion-activated wall. It’s a really cool interactive experience and something unique that we haven’t really seen [before].”

For the past few years, Barbie has increasingly built its marketing efforts around its original brand purpose: focusing on what the doll enables rather than what she looks like, Cullimore says. This year, that includes tour appearances by real-life, local role models sharing their inspiring stories, including country music star Kelsea Ballerini, Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin, teenage founder and chief executive officer of Me & the Bees Lemonade Mikaila Ulmer, contemporary jazz artist Robin Barnes, and the youngest female figure skaters to win a national title, Tara Lipinski and Alysa Liu. “At each market, we’ve selected a role model that has broken a boundary within a particular career and also has a tie to that specific market,” Cullimore says. While the role models are all female, the tour engages the entire family.

“We try not to pigeonhole ourselves into this being a ‘girl activation’ because really the entire family is getting involved. … It really is something that’s touching more people than we even expected,” Cullimore says.

Attendance at the events has numbered in

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the thousands and sales are up across the entire market, with triple-digit growth at the event stores.

Online support includes a promotional showcase on Walmart.com and social media activity across the retailer’s local and corporate channels. The brand also earns prime secondary merchandising space at more than 3,000 stores with cross-category, eight-foot pallet trains as well as trend pods – front-facing short endcaps with two side-facing merchandising areas specific to the retailer’s toy department.

Each market additionally benefits from localized PR outreach.

A number of different elements helped Barbie sell Walmart on the program, including the brand’s relationships with the retailer’s buyers and vice president of toy sales Anne Marie Kehoe, who challenged the brand to do something big for its anniversary. It also helped that Mattel ran a successful “Legends Tour” to celebrate Hot Wheels’ 50th anniversary at the chain the year prior.

“That we could actually bring something to life as big as the Legends Tour within a parking lot was far beyond what Walmart had ever imagined so I think that definitely set a foundation for us,” Cullimore says. “… Shoppers are yearning for these experiential events and it’s been a key strategy for Walmart to basically create unique activations within their stores.”

Walmart brought back the Legends Tour for a second run this year, and Barbie will likewise be returning for its own follow-up next year.

“They are asking for more, given the success of the event,” Cullimore says.

“We’re in our early stages of planning for 2020 so we’ll see what comes out of it but I think that this has elevated what Walmart sees as a retailtainment experience.”

Agency partners include Walmart retailtainment partners Advantage Solutions and Eventus; Toronto-based T1 Agency for managing the role models; Bentonville-based Mojo Marketing to build the tour stop assets; Mitchell Communications Group for local media outreach; and Bay Cities Packaging and Design for the corrugate displays. Rise

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