Shopper Marketing magazine - December 2013

Vol. 26, No. 12 • December 2013

Safeway’s Aamir
Joins Coupons.com
MOUNTAIN VIEW, C ALIF. — Mir
Aamir, formerly president of
customer loyalty and digital
technologies at Safeway Inc.,
has joined Coupons.com Inc.
as chief financial officer and
chief operating
officer. In addition to overseeing all financial
and accounting
functions, Aamir will lead the
company’s operations and the
international business. A 2013
Path to Purchase Institute/Shopper Marketing Hall of Fame inductee, Aamir helped establish
and lead Safeway’s “Just for U”
digital marketing platform,
which takes advantage of the
retailer’s loyalty-card data to
deliver personalized offers. His
prior experience includes time
with A.T. Kearney and Procter
& Gamble.

Lewis Moves to J&J
NEW B RUNSWICK ,
N.J. — Joh n son & Johnson
has lured Alison
Lewis, formerly
SVP, marketing,
North America,
at the Coca-Cola Co., to be
global chief marketing officer of
its consumer companies.

Truvia Renews
Focus on Trial

SEE PAGE 12

Integrated campaign moves past
education to sampling, coupons
and a money-back guarantee
By Dan Ochwat

WAYZATA, MINN. — Having already run several campaigns to educate consumers about its Truvia natural
sweetener, Cargill launched a new effort in September that pushes consumers to experience the product. The campaign is supported by a money-back
guarantee and Truvia’s largest in-store push to date.
Mark Brooks, global business director for Truvia
Consumer Products, says this new campaign, which
will run through the second quarter of 2014, required a heavier push at the shelf. “We have probably
doubled the weight of our marketing media mix at
store vs. previous years.”
Truvia was introduced in 2008, and early marketing focused mainly on the stevia plant (of which Truvia is made). But ongoing consumer panel research
and shopalongs helped show that the sugar/sugar
substitute category is very “low involvement,” Brooks
says, often housed in the low-involvement baking
aisle. “So we’ll really be pushing shopper marketing
through,” he says. “When you get to the aisle, there
will be many more retail demos than we’ve ever done

PEOPLE

toWATCH
toWATCH
WA

See Truvia, Page 8

Meyer Corp. Bakes
With the ‘Cake Boss’

New product line leverages celebrity,
brings excitement to conservative category

INSIDE
Retail Intimacy, Part 5
The series finale focuses
on successful CPG initiatives
at Dollar General.

By Michael Applebaum

VALLEJO, CALIF. — Through a licensing agreement with
Discovery Communications, cookware manufacturer Meyer Corp. recently launched a bakeware
line that leverages the popularity of TLC reality series
“Cake Boss.” The Cake Boss-branded products are being sold at craft stores, department stores and mass retailers nationwide, including Michaels and Walmart.
According to TLC research, “Cake Boss” viewers
are more likely than the average female consumer to
bake for fun. Given that insight, Meyer (which also
licenses Rachael Ray and Paula Deen products) saw
an opportunity to bring some excitement to the typically conservative bakeware category. “Cake Boss”
star Buddy Valastro worked closely with Meyer on

PAGE 18

Big Data, Part 2
A two-part series examining
how data can translate into
shopper success.

PAGE 26

Design of the Times
The spotlight shines on the
contest’s Platinum and Best of
the Times winners.

PAGE 28

See Cake Boss, Page 10
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Editorial Director Bill Schober, (773) 992-4430
Executive Editor Tim Binder, (773) 992-4437
Managing Editor Anne Downes, (773) 992-4432
Art Director/Production Manager Sonja Lundquist, (773) 992-4419

CONTENTS

Contributing Editors Peter Breen, Emily Hatton, Rob Mahoney,
Patrycja Malinowska, Samantha Nelson, Rebecca Susmarski
Contributing Writers Dan Alaimo, Michael Applebaum, Joe Bush,
Ed Finkel, Erika Flynn, Chris Gelbach, Sharon Goldman, Laura Heller, Dawn
Klingensmith, April Miller, Dan Ochwat

Best of the Times, Page 28

Publisher Chuck Bolkcom, (773) 992-4420; cbolkcom@p2pi.org
Associate Publisher Craig Hitchcock, (773) 992-4422;
chitchcock@p2pi.org
ADVERTISING SALES
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Serving the Eastern United States, Canada, International
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Serving the Western United States
Need help finding a supplier? We may be able to help. Send your email to shoppermarketing
@p2pi.org and be sure to include a daytime phone number.
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logos does not imply sponsorship or endorsement by the companies identified by those logos, unless
specifically noted as such.

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6 Toys in the Spotlight

Sesame Workshop implements a
packaging refresh for all of its licensed
Sesame Street consumer products.

SPECIAL REPORTS

12 People to Watch

6 Solution Provider News
6 The View from OASIS
8 Expo Keynote

18 Retail Intimacy, Part 5

10 Expo Keynote

26 Big Data, Part 2

OfficeMax’s Kim Feil, IN Marketing
Services’ Lisa Klauser and Arc Worldwide’s
April Carlisle discuss how to strengthen
manufacturer-retailer collaboration.

Family Dollar’s Jocelyn Wong and Coca-Cola’s
Alison Lewis explain how their companies
have allied to compare insights, develop
strategies and achieve shared objectives.

22 Global Case Study

A Unilever campaign from Turkey is
featured in a case study pulled from the
Path to Purchase Institute’s “Global Perspectives
on Shopper Marketing,” which published in
October.

24 So-Lo-Mo

A roundup of social, local and mobile
marketing activity at retail from:
• Snipp Interactive
• Instacart
• CVS/pharmacy
• Ibotta
• MappedIn
• GroundCntrl

Our annual report singles out up-and-coming individuals
from Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Del Monte, Hillshire
Brands, Procter & Gamble and Walmart.

This five-part series examines best practices for shopper marketing collaboration. In the finale, we examine
successful CPG initiatives at Dollar General, a chain that
maintains an unwavering focus on its customers across a
diverse slate of programs.

The second article in this two-part series examines how
translating the promise of big data into shopper marketing success remains a tricky proposition. The industry is
only in the early stages of being able to harness the data.

32 Products:

Popdesign.com

33 Personnel Appointments
34 Institute Strategist
Dollar General’s collaborative marketing
programs often involve either a NASCAR
sponsorship, a country music tie-in or
education advocacy.

28 Gallery: DOT Winners

The spotlight shines on the Best of the Times and
the Platinum winners of the Path to Purchase
Institute’s annual Design of the Times contest.

30 Ricci at Retail

Joe finds that large displays offer variety:
• Glade
• Rayovac
• Energizer
• Duracell
SnippCheck at Walmart, Page 24

4

SHOPPER MARKETING DECEMBER 2013

EDITORIAL

Happy New Normal!
Y
ou’ll see a lot of dollar store coverage
(pages 10, 18 and 34) in this issue, which
brings to mind one of those big questions
that often get asked at conferences: Just how
enduring are the penny-pinching behaviors
of shoppers that became so evident during
“The Great Recession” of 2007-2009? It’s a
tricky question because some suspect that
these behaviors were there and quite pervasive all along, but simply missed by CPG marketers who viewed things through an uppermiddle-class perspective. We know of at least
one CEO who actually scolded his marketing
army for this sort of myopia.
IRI’s MarketPulse survey suggests that
consumers have indeed settled into a “new
normal” when it comes to CPG (primarily grocery) shopping. In this “conservative” mindset:
■
■

■
■

budgeting is now routine;
more decisions get locked in before leaving
the home;
interest in coupons remains high;
comparison shopping via circulars, store
checks and/or retailer websites remains high.

Certain store-based tactics have become
more influential in determining brand decisions as well:
■
■
■
■

Shopper loyalty card discounts: 48%
In-store circulars: 44%
Signs/displays in store: 28%
In-store kiosks: 10%

IRI’s “Shopper Sentiment Index” is on the
upswing, which sounds like good news except that its analysts caution that “there are

so many balls in the fiscal air that consumer
sentiment could easily be tracked not only
daily but hourly.” I suspect that the real “new
normal” is that nobody really knows.
One barometer of shopper sentiment that I’ve
kept an eye on is private-label/store-brand unit
sales relative to national brands. Sure, private
labels are not a perfect proxy for price-consciousness – they’re no longer the “generics” of
years past given the proliferation of premium
store brands at places like Trader Joe’s and
Costco. But historically, there’s been a correlation between private-label sales growth and
hard times. According to the Private Label
Manufacturers Association (PLMA), private labels rose to 15% of unit sales during the 198082 recession but fell back to 12% during the
recovery; in the 1990-91 downturn, it went
to 20%; in the 2001 recession, it grew to 21%.
In 2009, in the throes of the most recent
slump, there was a big debate, with one side
asserting that private labels were on a permanent upswing, had a share somewhere in
the mid-20s already, and might be headed

p2pi.org

DISTINGUISHED FACULTY
• Christopher Brace, Owner,
Shopper Intelligence
• Rich Butwinick, President,
MarketingLab
• April Carlisle, SVP, Director of
Strategy for Global Shopper
Marketing, Arc Worldwide
• Alison Chaltas, EVP, Shopper & Retail
Strategy, GfK
• Craig Elston, SVP, Insight & Strategy,
The Integer Group

INSTITUTE FACULTY
• Kristine Abrahamson, Senior
Director, Global Innovation, PepsiCo
• Keith Anderson, VP, Digital Advisory
Practice, RetailNet Group
• Rob Barrish, SVP, GfK Digital
Technology, GfK
• Valerie Bernstein, VP, Client Services,
IN Marketing Services
• Spencer M. Blaker, Global Director,
Retail Marketing, Burt’s Bees
• Blake Boulden, Director,
Shopper Marketing, Walmart,
Kimberly-Clark
• Evan Brody, Senior Manager,
Digital Guest Experience, 7-Eleven
• Suzie Brown, EVP, Sales & Marketing,
Valassis
• Sally Buckley, Manager, Shopper
Insights, Del Monte Foods Co.
• Douglas Busk, Mobile Brand Strategy,
Global Connections, The Coca-Cola Co.
• Erin Byron, AVP, Shopper Marketing,
The Coca-Cola Co.
• Steve Carlin, Senior Director, Shopper
Marketing & Insights, Ubisoft
• John Caron, VP, Marketing, Catalina
• Jeff Ceccarelli, Team Manager, Category
Adivsory Services, Burt’s Bees
• Anne Chambers, CEO, Capre Group
• Michael Chase, CMO,
St. Joseph Communications
• Will Clarke, Executive Creative
Director, The Integer Group
• Leslie Clifford, Executive Director,
Strategic Planning & Insights,
Geometry Global
• Brian Cohen, Director of Digital
Shopper Marketing, Catapult

• Patrick Fitzmaurice, Principal,
Capre Group
• David Sommer, Partnership Leader/
Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook
• Aidan Tracey, CEO, AMG – Acosta
Mosaic Group
• Rob Wallace, Managing Partner,
Strategy, Wallace Church Inc.
• Scott Young, President,
Perception Research Services
• Rachel Cohn, Global Customer
Marketing Strategist, Facebook
• Daniel Cooke, Director, Digital
Shopper Marketing, Kellogg Co.
• Liz Crawford VP, Strategy & Insight,
Match Drive
• Sandra Creamer, Strategy Director, CBX
• Marty Cregg, President, Chase Design
• Sean Dana, Creative Director,
Geometry Global
• Suchit Dash, Co-Founder, VP of
Product, IFeelGoods
• Agustin De Dios, Senior Director,
Global Syndicated Data & Analytics,
GlaxoSmithKline
• Jeff Dec, Senior Director, Beverage
Shopper Marketing, Mass and Club,
PepsiCo
• Michael Depanfilis, VP, Shopper
Marketing, The Hershey Co.
• Seth Diamond, EVP, Insights,
Catapult
• Ben DiSanti, Retail Evangelist,
The Marketing Store Worldwide LP
• Tim Dorgan, VP, Managing Director,
Peapod LLC
• Tracey Doucette, SVP, Customer
Strategy, Field & Shopper Marketing,
PepsiCo
• Walt Doyle, General Manager,
Paypal Media Network
• Elle Duncan, Head of Industry,
Home & Personal Care, Google Inc.
• Matthew Egol, VP, Consumer
Media & Digital Practice,
Booz & Company Inc.
• Aaron Elleman, Director, Shopper
Marketing, Walmart, Kellogg Co.
• Malcolm Faulds, SVP, Marketing,
BzzAgent Inc.

• Kim Feil, Chief Marketing Officer,
OfficeMax Inc.
• Michelle Fenstermaker, Executive
Director, Consumer Insights,
WD Partners
• Ken Fenyo, CEO, You Technology
• Scott Finlow, VP, Shopper Insights
North America Beverages, PepsiCo
• Nicole Flavin, Senior Director,
Drug/C&G/Dollar, PepsiCo
• Elizabeth Fogerty, SVP,
Strategic Planning and Insights,
• Nick Fotis, Director, Digital Strategy,
Arc Worldwide
• Karyn Froseth, Director,
Shopper Marketing Capability,
The Coca-Cola Co.
• Gian Fulgoni, Executive Chairman &
Co-Founder, comScore
• Doug Galen, Chief Revenue Officer,
Shopkick
• Monica Garaitonandia, AVP, Director
of New Product Development &
Multicultural Marketing,
Brown-Forman Corp.
• Katie Geraty, VP, Director of Insight &
Strategy, The Integer Group
• Mike Gervasio, VP, Category
Management, PepsiCo
• Sarah Gleason, SVP, Shopper & Retail
Strategy, GfK
• Alistair Goodman, CEO, Placecast
• Dr. Christopher Gray, VP, Shopper
Psychology, Saatchi & Saatchi X
• Elizabeth Harris, SVP,
Strategy Director, Arc Worldwide
• Jeff Hasen, CMO, Hipcricket
• John Hawkins, President & CEO,
Pathfinder Management
Consulting
• Henry Hendrix, Director, Shopper
Marketing & In-Store Merchandising,
Henkel North America
• Rob Holland, GM, DLX Consumer
Products, Datalogix Inc.
• Adam Holyk, Group VP, Insights and
Analytics, Walgreen Co.
• Steve Horowitz, Chief Technology
Officer, Coupons.com Inc.
• James House, CEO, 5one USA LLC
• Ron Hughes, Director, Shopper
Experience Innovation,
The Coca-Cola Co.
• Sterling Jackson, Senior Market Research
Manager, Hewlett-Packard Co.

toward European levels where private-label
shares can exceed 50%-60%. The other side
said, don’t worry – everything will settle down
“once this recession is over.” Neither was exactly prescient, it turns out. PLMA says that
private-label unit share in supermarkets was
just 23.1% last year. That surprises me. Just
from eyeballing store shelves, I would have
guessed that it was closer to 30% by now.
Since 2009, private-label sales in supermarkets have grown at a 2.6% annual rate compared to 0.9% for national brands, which is
significant, although no one looks like a Tesco
quite yet either.
This is our annual “People to Watch” issue (see
page 12) in which we profile some of the rising
stars of shopper marketing. Apparently, though,
it’s also our “People to Keep Track Of” issue as
a host of Institute contributors are on the move:
■

■

■

■

■

Alison Lewis, until recently an SVP at CocaCola (featured on page 10 of this issue) is
on the move to J&J, where she will serve
as global chief marketing officer of its consumer companies.
Mir Aamir, a 2013 Hall of Fame inductee at
Safeway, is joining Coupons.com as CFO/COO.
Mark Scott, a Hall of Famer with Kimberly-Clark
and most recently Acosta, is moving to Medline
Industries, best known for the Curad brand.
Laura Moser, who served as content developer on our newest book, “Global Perspectives on Shopper Marketing” (it’ll be available in January) is moving to Momentum as
a SVP and shopper marketing practice lead.
Other “Who’s Who” honorees on the move
include Dirk de Vos (to Heineken from

• Anne Jenkins, Director, Shopper
Marketing Strategic Specialty Retail/
Enterprise, Kimberly-Clark
• Becky Johnson, Account Executive,
Google Inc.
• Anne M. Jones, VP, Shopper
Marketing & Business Development,
Kimberly-Clark
• Bryan Jones, Senior Director,
Beverage Shopper Marketing,
Grocery, PepsiCo
• Ed Kaczmarek, Director of Innovation
& Emerging Technology,
Mondelez International
• Jason Katz, SVP, Digital,
AMG – Acosta Mosaic Group
• Jeremy Keenan, Director of Shopper
Marketing, Henkel, RockTenn
Merchandising Displays
• Erik Keptner, EVP, Marketing,
Ahold USA
• Donald King, Senior Associate
Consultant, Pathfinder
Management Consulting
• Lisa Klauser, President,
Consumer & Shopper Marketing,
• Gil Krakowsky, Principal,
A.T. Kearney Inc.
• Jon Kramer, CMO, RockTenn
Merchandising Displays
• Ken Krasnow, Senior Director,
Grocery, PepsiCo
• Dave Krause, SVP, Category
Management, Brookshire Grocery
Company
• Dave Kuhn, SVP, Research Director,
Leo Burnett
• Wendy Lanchin, Planning & Strategy
Director, The Marketing Store
Worldwide LP
• Brandon Leck, AVP, Shopper Marketing,
The Coca-Cola Co.
• Lily Lev-Glick, Founder & Chief Insights
Officer, ShopperSense
• Larry Levin, EVP & GM of Consumer
Insights, IRI
• Margaret Lewis, SVP, Catapult
• Wendy Liebmann, CEO & Chief
Shopper, WSL Strategic Retail
• Catherine Lindner,
Sagres Consulting LLC
• Jim Lucas, EVP, Global Insights and
Strategy, SGK
• Chuck Luckenbill, VP, Visual
Merchandising, OfficeMax Inc.

• Ken Madden, EVP, Head of Digital,
North America and Analytics,
Global at JWT/Ogilvy Action,
Geometry Global
• Ken Mantel, Senior Director,
Marketing, Walmart Stores Inc.
• Jennifer Marchant, VP, Customer
Marketing, Time/Warner Retail
Sales & Marketing
• Tony Marlow, Director, Strategic
Insights, Yahoo! Inc.
• Clint McClain, Senior Director of
Marketing, Walmart Stores Inc.
• Philip McGee, Director, CCID,
Beverages and Portfolio Analytics,
Campbell Soup/Pepperidge Farm
• Ann McGrath, Group Director,
Shopper2Buyer, Kinetic Worldwide
• Sheila McKay, Customer & Channel
Insights, Hewlett-Packard Co.
• Kathi McKenzie, SVP,
Decision Analyst Inc.
• Andrew McMillin, VP, GM Coca-Cola
Trademark, The Coca-Cola Co.
• Liz Mohr, Director of Shopper Insights
& Analytics, ConAgra Foods
• Johanna Mooney, Director,
Health & Beauty, Disney Consumer
Products
• Patrick Moorhead, VP, Mobile Sales,
Catalina
• Graham Mudd, Head of Measurement
Market Development, Facebook
• Angela Myers SVP, Retail Consulting,
Spire LLC
• Linda Nash, VP, Marketing,
POP Displays
• Lynn Neal, NA Retail Strategy Leader,
Procter & Gamble
• Alec Newcomb, CEO, indri
• Matt Nitzberg, EVP, Communications
& Media, dunnhumby USA
• Sarah Ortman, Senior Group
Manager, Consumer & Shopper
Promotions, The Clorox Co.
• Diane Oshin, Publisher, ALL YOU
• Matthew Parry, Project Director,
OxfordSM
• Allan Peretz,SVP, Client Service,
MARS Advertising Inc.
• William C. Pink, Senior Partner,
Client Solutions, Millward Brown
• Mary Jean Pogoda, Senior Manager,
Shopper Insights, Campbell Soup,
Campbell Soup/Pepperidge Farm
• Cheryl Policastro, Director,
Shopper Insights & Marketing,
Grocery Channel, Novartis

Diageo); Terrie Wendricks (to C+R Research
from Hillshire); and Janet Carter-Smith (to
Crossmark from GlaxoSmithKline). Crossmark,
by the way, has been shaking things up in
Chicagoland by acquiring both PromoWorks
and Marketing Werks in recent weeks.

Whenever we walk industry execs through
our annual “Trends Report” data, the response
is never anything less than, “Wow! Where do
you guys get this stuff?” Our next report will
be in our January 2014 issue, which will arrive
sometime during the Christmas/New Year’s
rush. Since I don’t want you to miss it, I’m
going to tease you with some of the intriguing
new questions we’ve posed this year:
■

■

■

■

■

If you had to choose only one tactic to make
your numbers – in-store or digital – which
would it be?
If you were forced to sell through just one
e-commerce site, which would it be?
Which retailers give manufacturers the most
useful data?
Which chains can’t activate based on the
insights manufacturers bring them?
Which chains are amenable to brand displays
these days?

And a whole bunch more. The info will
be in the magazine, on our website, and later
on in a special reprint courtesy, as always, of
Menasha Packaging.

Bill Schober is editorial director of the
Path to Purchase Institute. He can be
reached via e-mail: bschober@p2pi.org
or phone: (773) 992-4430.

• Brian Priest, SVP, Creative Services,
Creative Shopper Practice Lead,
Upshot Inc.
• Julie Quick, VP, Shopper Marketing,
Shoptology
• Joe Radabaugh, Divisional VP,
Category and Shopper Excellence,
Nestlé USA
• Alexis Rask, VP & GM, Brand
Partnerships, Shopkick
• Karuna Rawal, EVP, Retail Strategy
Director, Arc Worldwide
• Lauventria Robinson, VP,
Multicultural Marketing,
The Coca-Cola Co.
• Catherine Roe, CPG Client Partner,
Datalogix Inc.
• Tony Rogers, SVP, Marketing,
Walmart Stores Inc.
• Kristi Ross, Engagement Director,
Capre Group
• John Ross, President Decision
Analytics & EVP Inmar Corporate,
Inmar Inc.
• Masha Sajdeh, Chief Shopper
Strategist, SVP of Insights & Strategy,
Arc Worldwide
• Alexandra Samuel, VP Social Media,
Vision Critical
• Corrine Sandler, CEO,
Fresh Intelligence Research Corp.
• Mike Scriven, VP, Client Marketing,
Coupons.com Inc.
• Art Sebastian, Customer VP, Category
Leadership & Shopper Insights,
Kraft Foods Global Inc.
• Darren Seifer, Food & Beverage
Industry Analyst, NPD Group
• Brett Sengbusch, Director of Customer
Development, Kimberly-Clark
• David Sevitt, VP Consumer Insights,
Vision Critical
• Roberto Siewczynski, EVP,
Business Development & Strategy,
PanaVista Inc.
• Greg Silverman, CEO, Concentric
• Alicia Smestad, President
(Nsight Connect), Ryan Partnership
• James Sorensen, SVP, Retailer &
Shopper, TNS

■

• Daren Sorenson, Director,
Knowledge and Insights,
North America, The Coca-Cola Co.
• Dan Stanek, EVP, Big Red Rooster
• Paul Sternhell, General Manager,
OpenX
• John Stichweh, Director, Digital &
Social Shopper Marketing,
ConAgra Foods
• Doug Stovall, EVP, Sales & Services,
Hipcricket
• Julian Tan, Senior Manager,
Digital & Regimen Solutions,
Bayer HealthCare
• Janice Tennant, Director, Integrated
Marketing Planning Enterprise,
Kimberly-Clark
• Matthew Tullman, President,
Merchant Mechanics Inc.
• Elizabeth Ubell, VP, Strategy,
Customer and Marketing Services,
Newell Rubbermaid
• David VanderWaal, Director,
Brand Marketing, Home Appliances,
LG Electronics
• Bruce Vierck, VP, RTC
• Vince Voron, VP, Executive Creative
Director, Dolby Laboratories
• Wendy Warus, VP of Sales, Winning
In Store, Henkel North America
• Jeff Weidauer, VP, Marketing & Strategy,
Vestcom International Inc.
• Bryan Welsh, VP, Shopper Marketing,
PepsiCo
• Mark Weslar, CMO, Gizmo Beverages
• George Wishart, EVP & Chief
Commercial Officer,
Vestcom International Inc.
• Don Wortley, Digital Marketing
Manager, Best Buy Co. Inc.
• Robert Yau, Director of Product
Management & Social Commerce,
@WalmartLabs
• Donna Zambo, Manager, eCommerce
and Digital Innovation, Shoprite
• Stephen Zhawred, Group Account
Director, TracyLocke
• Mark Zwicker, VP, Business Development,
St. Joseph Communications

Distinguished Faculty and Institute Faculty are the
highest-rated speakers, based on a 4-point scale, by past attendees
of our various speaking engagements. Distinguished faculty have
consistently scored high at four or more events. Faculty have scored
high, presenting at least once.

, GA. All rig
hts reserved.
C, Norcross
Services, LL
-Tenn Shared
©2013 Rock

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6

PROGRAMS


SOLUTION PROVIDER
NEWS

Sesame Street Refreshes its Packaging
Research leads brand to employ a cleaner, simpler look for licensed products
By Erika Flynn

Henschel Steinau Tests with Food Lion

Henschel Steinau’s EZ Slide tray is in tests with Food
Lion stores. The merchandising tray organizes pouch
products on gondola shelving. The tray is sized to fit
round and square single-serve pouch packages for
brand and private-label items, such as baby food.
Chobani Picks Mars Advertising: Yogurt maker Chobani tapped Southfield, Mich.-based Mars Advertising
as its shopper marketing agency of record. Mars says
it will provide strategic planning, shopper insights and
creative development for the brand.
GNC Selects Dunnhumby: Health and wellness retailer GNC Holdings has contracted with dunnhumby,
Cincinnati, for customer engagement strategies. The
services cover GNC’s more than 6,000 retail outlets
and online retail at GNC.com, including personalized
communication to shoppers online and offline.
Crossmark Acquires PromoWorks: Plano, Texasbased Crossmark added to its in-store engagement
services by acquiring the assets of in-store sampling
and demonstration firm PromoWorks, Schaumburg, Ill.
Julie Beck will head PromoWorks as general manager.
Market Track Acquires Competitrack: Retail analytics firm Market Track, Chicago, has acquired New Yorkbased Competitrack, a provider of product and image
advertising data across media channels including online display, social and mobile advertising.
Mars Advertising Adds Digital Creative Services:
Mars Advertising has partnered with digital creative firm
Nomadic Agency, Scottsdale, Ariz., on shopper-oriented
digital services such as brand websites, advertising-focused games, mobile apps and touch installation.
Send your solution provider news – new projects
and programs with brands and retailers –
to adownes@p2pi.org.

NEW YORK — Sesame Workshop implemented a packaging refresh for all of its licensed Sesame Street consumer
products earlier this year. All packages across every product category now feature up-close images of the Muppets
characters’ faces, while educational and developmental
information has been moved to the back of the packaging.
Working with New York-based agency Parham Santana, Sesame Workshop used existing research and conducted “Coffee Conversations”
with moms to gain more insight
into what they really want and
need for their children. The
agency also met with several of
Sesame Workshop’s partners to
understand category-specific
concerns and challenges, including the need to bring forth the
educational component that lives within the brand.
Based on its learnings, Sesame Workshop now uses
the tagline “Let’s Grow!” on the back of most packaging.
“That is a setup to talk about the developmental, enrichment benefits of a particular product,” says John Parham,
president/director of branding, Parham Santana. “We put
it on the back because moms told us we didn’t need to
sledgehammer it on the front. They already know this.”
Moving the educational information to the back of the
packaging allowed for more white space on the front. “We
brought forward evidence that said white in other categories
is consumer code for ‘good for you’ and ‘wholesome,’” says
Parham. “Sesame Street has some of the most iconic assets on
the planet. We believed that if we removed excess copy, the
characters would shine. And research shows that consumers
want cleaner, simpler packaging. We wanted to present the
characters when they are at their furry, heartfelt best.”
Sesame Workshop’s Maura Regan, senior vice president and general manager, global consumer products,
says it had been nearly five years since the company had
refreshed its retail experience. “Every season on ‘Sesame
Street’ [the TV program] is all new, so we feel that the experience our consumers have with our brand off-air needs to
be as refreshed, up-to-date and as topical as possible.” She
says the new packaging can help the target market of parents of preschool-aged kids, tweens and teens, as well as
grandparents, navigate the aisles more quickly and easily.
Toys from Hasbro featuring the new packaging were
first to hit shelves last spring, followed by the rest of Sesame Street’s licensed products. “While we say packaging,
it’s the full retail experience – on-shelf and off-shelf,” Regan

says. “Everything going forward will be developed using
the iconography of the refresh.”
Regan is quick to point out that shoppers won’t notice a
drastic change in-aisle. “Because of the nature of retail, we
developed the program so two looks could live side by side,
complementing each other as this rolls out so the packaging doesn’t look disconnected,” she says. “We wanted to
make sure our retail narrative was constant and not broken
by a sharp redesign.”
Comprehensive packaging guidelines are now in place
for all Sesame Street products, unifying and streamlining
packaging and merchandising design for hundreds of
product types and partners – accommodating all markets
and languages.
Parham Santana handled all aspects of the global assignment, including the packaging, point-of-sale and merchandising for all licensed products in a variety of different categories, from toys and food products to health and beauty
aids, apparel and DVDs. “The emotional connection that
consumers have with the characters is very strong,” Parham
says. “Their faces are like beacons on the shelf.”
BRAND: Sesame Street
KEY INSIGHTS: Moms already know and understand the
developmental and enrichment benefits of Sesame Street
products. White space on packaging is consumer code for
“good for you” and “wholesome.”
NEW PACKAGING: Employ packaging that showcases
Muppets characters, without cluttering up the space with
too many details about the products’ educational aspects.

Share of Digital Ad Appearances

THE VIEW FROM
INSTITUTE ANALYSIS: In both the laundry and paper products categories,
OASIS captured approximately four times more ad appearances on
DollarGeneral.com than on Walmart.com from Jan. 1 through Oct. 14. Paper
products include paper towels, tissues, toilet paper and disposable tableware.
In the laundry category, Sun Products accounted for the majority of ad
appearances on DollarGeneral.com, promoting Wisk and Snuggle in addition
to All. Walmart and Family Dollar sites saw only All ads from Sun Products.
Three manufacturers – Georgia-Pacific, Kimberly-Clark and Procter &
Gamble – accounted for all the advertising in the paper products category on
these three sites. K-C advertised four different brands on Dollar General’s site:
Cottonelle, Kleenex, Scott and Viva. Walmart.com only advertised Cottonelle,
Kleenex and Scott, while FamilyDollar.com only Cottonelle and Scott.
On DollarGeneral.com in the spring,
an ad for the “Everyday Clean Savings”
sweepstakes brought the paper products
and laundry categories together. It featured
brands from Clorox Co., Sun Products and
Kimberly-Clark.

SHARE OF DIGITAL AD APPEARANCES
DollarGeneral.com
Laundry
5.47%
Paper products
5.29%

Sesame Street updated its packaging after surveying
moms about their toy-buying needs. The product itself
anchors the design of the package.

(January through October 14, 2013)

DOLLAR GENERAL.COM

LEADING CATEGORIES
Carbonated beverages
Corporate promotions
Pet care
Laundry
Candy
Paper products
Personal care
Juices
Drink mixes
Hair care

11%
10%
6%
5%
5%
5%
4%
4%
3%
3%

LAUNDRY
Sun Products
Procter & Gamble
Church & Dwight

66%
20%
14%

(Total captured ad appearances: 37,020)

PAPER PRODUCTS
Kimberly-Clark
Georgia-Pacific
Procter & Gamble

54%
25%
21%



FamilyDollar.com
0.27%
0.10%

Walmart.com
0.70%
0.72%

The Path to Purchase Institute’s Online Advertising Survey & Insights Service (OASIS) monitors
leading retailer websites to collect digital advertising content and organize it for competitive,
reporting and intelligence needs.

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8

PROGRAMS


Panelists Discuss How to Strengthen Collaboration
SHOPPER MARKETING EXPO
By Patrycja Malinowska

CHICAGO — The best collaboration between manufacturers
and retailers occurs when the partners are fully transparent and align their focus clearly on the shopper, posited a
trio of shopper marketing veterans during a panel discussion at the 2013 Shopper Marketing Expo.
“Much of the stuff that’s happening in the [shopper
marketing] industry could potentially be confused with
trade promotion,” said Lisa Klauser, president, consumer
& shopper marketing, IN Marketing Services. “We have
to think about how we evolve the relationship from this
tactical place and take it to a much more joint, demand
creation-focused conversation.”
Klauser shared the stage with Kim Feil, chief marketing
and strategy officer, OfficeMax; and April Carlisle, SVP,
director of strategy for global shopper marketing, Arc
Worldwide. Patrick Fitzmaurice, principal, The Capre
Group, moderated the discussion.
Klauser said that shopper marketing today is still very
much planned in isolation, disconnected from a lot of
other business drivers. “The old model would be the sales
teams who have the relationships with the buyers or with
whomever they happen to be working with,” she said. The
new model is about cross-functional teams working much
more in partnership.
Getting organizational alignment unlocks an ongoing
commitment of resources that lets partners build sustainable capabilities. “It’s really easy to see shopper marketers
come when it’s promotion season, but when they go away
in between, they’re not really engaging,” Feil said. Get
away from having a discussion that stems from a predefined budget and what can be done with it, she urged.
Rather, “Hey, let’s talk about the real growth opportunities of this business and figure out what the right level of

Truvia

Continued from Page 1

before – 4,000 this year. We will be giving away 1½ million
samples. We’re really trying to get that point of purchase,
even with the early-stage media, the awareness-driving
media, TV, digital, social media. When you’re in the aisle,
you have an opportunity to see the product.”
The campaign includes two 30-second TV spots and
two 15-second cut-downs. The ads end with a call to
action: “Love us or your money back,” referring to the
money-back guarantee that’s pushed hard in-store. Shelf
signage and every 40-count box of Truvia will call out the
money-back guarantee. The packages carry a sticker that
folds back with directions on how to
receive money back,
should the consumer go that route.
In addition to
the increased sampling and retailer
demonstrations using Truvia brand
ambassadors and
the retailer’s staff,
custom displays
will be placed at
top national retailers. Truvia will participate in existing
programs at retail,
such as Walmart’s
baking display, and
freestanding shippers will be customized to each retailer’s
needs. Co-branded
displays and shared
demos with the likes
of Folgers, Seattle’s

IN Marketing Services’
Lisa Klauser, OfficeMax’s
Kim Feil and Arc Worldwide’s April Carlisle, from
left to right, stress that
taking a shopper-centric
approach will strengthen
collaboration.

investment is to be able to do those together.”
Shared insights fuel innovation and allow for precise
targeting, Feil continued, holding up OfficeMax’s recently
launched “Services Center” for small-business owners as
an example. The offering marshals vendor partners such
as LoJack, Carbonite and MiMedia to offer a full kit of
solutions spanning marketing, promotion, technical and
Web service. The partners also provide content for the
retailer’s first-ever magazine for small businesses.
“What astounded me was what came out of it in the way
of joint creation with these vendors,” Feil said. “We asked
them how these services really work; what these customers really care about; who they target when they’re selling
these services. And we worked with them to shape our
messages, offering, deals, kickoff announcements … They

were involved in every single part of this.”
As retailers and manufacturers stretch their capabilities,
they need to agree on clear objectives and joint measures
that speak to all tactics. “I think it’s now the new frontier of
measurement,” said Carlisle, citing growing digital shopper marketing efforts that require measurement beyond
traditional sales and compliance metrics. “No tactic is a
good tactic if you can’t measure it.”
Feil concluded the discussion with a call to action:
“Pick one thing you’re going to do that is not tactical,
and one retailer you’re going to do that with this coming
year, and get on it right now. Get it in both the retailer’s
and your plans and hold it up as evidence of moving
yourself and your department one step further” toward
effective collaboration.

Best and Smuckers will complement the promotion.
Truvia’s social media effort includes Facebook, Twitter
and Pinterest. The impetus is user-generated content, with
coupons and samples as incentives. A #sweetswitch hashtag

will accompany posts. The brand will spread FSI coupons
along with digital coupons. Digital banner ads will support
the effort, along with video on sites such as Hulu. Behindthe-scenes footage of the commercials can be found on
YouTube and the Truvia website (the commercials use
stop-motion animation). Martha Stewart will have videos
featuring recipes for the holiday on the Truvia website.
Throughout the integrated campaign, there is a strong
sense of design, Brooks says. “The clean, negative white
space of the packaging runs throughout.” Truvia has a
75% unaided awareness rate with consumers, he says, so
the look and feel of the packaging and brand already communicates a lot.
Truvia felt confident offering the money-back guarantee
because panel research told them that once consumers
try Truvia, they love it. He knows not everyone will turn.
They like their coffee a very specific way, and on average it
takes 10 tries before a consumer may change, he says. But
this new campaign is engineered to get consumers to try.
“There’s much more generous couponing here than in
the past,” Brooks says. “There are so many choices ahead of
ours. How do we become a staple on the list? We think this
campaign will help encourage people to take that moment,
reconsider and then switch.”
Mars Advertising, Southfield, Mich., led the charge
in-store. Other campaign partners included: Creature,
Seattle; Universal McCann, New York; and Periscope,
Minneapolis.

Truvia supports the
campaign with a
variety of in-store
and online/social
media activity,
including videos
(below), shelf
talkers (right) and
digital coupons.

BRAND: Truvia
KEY INSIGHT: The sugar/sugar substitute category is low
involvement, and the product is often shelved in the lowvisibility baking aisle.
ACTIVATION: After focusing previous campaigns on education, use sampling and in-store demonstrations, as well
as a money-back guarantee and coupons, to get shoppers
to purchase the product. Support with a fully integrated
effort that includes social media.

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10 PROGRAMS


Family Dollar, Coca-Cola Take Fresh Approach
SHOPPER MARKETING EXPO
By Samantha Nelson

CHICAGO — Brands were once true marketing powerhouses, since trips were largely driven by demand for their
products. But in recent years, says Family Dollar chief
marketing officer Jocelyn Wong, the industry has seen
a dynamic shift as retailers and shoppers become more
empowered. “No longer can CPGs come in with their big
national programs,” she said in October during a Shopper
Marketing Expo keynote presentation. “Retailers are starting to demand customization.”
Wong shared the stage with Alison Lewis, then-senior
vice president, Coca-Cola N.A., who explained how the
manufacturer has allied with the dollar store chain to
compare insights, develop strategies and achieve shared
objectives. “We think about the retailer, the brand and
the shopper, and it has to be a three-way win,” Lewis said.
Increasingly, retailers are becoming loyalty-inspiring
brands in their own right. Wong pointed out the success
of Whole Foods Market as an example. “They have created
such a brand, it’s almost a way of life,” she said. “Retailers
are now really trying to evolve themselves.”
While Family Dollar was founded more than 50 years
ago, Wong said most brands still don’t understand the
dollar store’s objectives and customer base. Wong played a
video introducing the Family Dollar shopper, who is price
conscious but still wants quality; feels good about getting
deals; and will clip and trade coupons and even attend
coupon classes despite working multiple jobs. “People tend
to think of her as poor,” Wong said. “You tend to feel sorry
for her. But when you actually get to know our customer,
you find that she’s tough, proud, smart and resilient.”
A Family Dollar study that looked at the efficacy of
various touchpoints at driving purchases found that the
retailer should ramp up its Twitter and Facebook activity
as well as radio and bus ads, but also that circulars, digital
activity, receipt offers, shelf signs and the retailer’s website
were still very important. Family Dollar shared all of these

Cake Boss
Continued from Page 1

the design of the items, which come imprinted with the
Cake Boss name.
“Anyone can do the kind of baking and decorating that
Buddy does in their own home – if they have the right
tools,” says Ingrid Ellerbrock, director of consumer and
shopper marketing at Meyer. For example, the line includes a cake-decorating kit that allows bakers to create a
miniature version of the “Groovy Girl” cake – one of Valastro’s signature items at Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, N.J.
Valastro promoted the products in September during a

insights with Coca-Cola to drive a recent campaign, which
Lewis said embodied their philosophy of “co-creation.”
The goal was to establish Family Dollar as a destination
for low-price Coke and national brand snacks. Coke is
an important trip driver for Family Dollar shoppers, who
often purchase it for their kids, but Family Dollar only
captures 3% of the brand’s share of wallet.
The campaign focused on getting people to the store
rather than increasing basket sizes. Coke used an email
blast and enlisted bloggers to raise awareness of its My
Coke Rewards loyalty program. The brand used bus shelter
ads for the same purpose, employing consumer data that
finds 25% of Family Dollar customers use public transit.
In stores, custom racks merchandised Coke with snacks

from Mondelez International, encouraging shoppers to
buy for an occasion: snack time while you’re relaxing at
home. Security wraps supported the effort. Coke used geofencing to message My Coke Rewards members near Family Dollar stores. Store receipts contained codes that shoppers could text to receive a reward. Twitter (#yestohappy
hashtag) and Facebook provided an outlet for consumers
to talk about their rewards.
Beyond the sharing of insights to develop a program, the
co-creation philosophy sees the retailer and brand working together to measure success and learn from it. In this
case, the partners collaborated to track traffic, conversion,
frequency, size of purchase and ROI for the campaign.
“Collaboration has to be foundational in what we do,”
Lewis concluded. “What we have to do going forward is
go for the win-win-win and do it every time we build or
co-create a shopper marketing program.”

Jocelyn Wong details
Family Dollar and CocaCola’s co-creation efforts.

book signing at the Texas State Fair. The event was part of a
Michaels 40th anniversary mobile tour. He also conducted
a workshop at the Carlo’s Bakery facility in Jersey City,
N.J., challenging attendees
with their icing skills at the
“Who’s Afraid of Fondant?”
promotional event. “The art
of decorating with fondant is
still somewhat intimidating

Meyer is leveraging “Cake Boss”
star Buddy Valastro online,
in-store and in person to
promote its new bakeware line.

to the U.S. consumer,” says Ellerbrock. “Buddy is a master
at fondant and makes it accessible to the home baker.”
The product hit Michaels stores in mid-September. The
retailer supported the launch with circular features while
also conducting in-store “Cake Roulette” demonstrations.
While learning more about the items, shoppers who spun
an interactive wheel received recipe cards and had a chance
to win prizes such as a Cake Boss cookie cutter.

Subsequent activation included a custom pallet display
at Walmart produced by Rogers, Ark.-based Corr Design,
and a wire spinning rack produced by Southern Imperial,
Rockford, Ill., that was available to participating
retailers including Target, Macy’s and Kohl’s.
Meyer used consumer data provided by Discovery Communications to develop a targeted
retailer activation schedule, Ellerbrock says.
“We had insights as to whether the ‘Cake Boss’
viewer is more likely to shop at a particular
retailer, bake for fun or cook for fun, and have
made recent bakeware purchases. The data has
supported the relevancy of the Cake Boss brand
to our customers and [each retailer’s] shoppers,
and also the potential for higher basket size and
category purchases.”
Meyer also tapped the digital space, working with Valastro to produce a series of instructional videos that are
housed on its Cakebossbaking.com website and brand
pages on retailer sites. Banner ads on retailer websites (via
Evolution Bureau, San Francisco) drove shoppers to stores.
Social media also provided a key awareness builder as the
combined Facebook communities of Meyer and “Cake Boss”
reach more than 6 million fans, per Ellerbrock. “When you
start to layer in the partnerships with Michaels, where they
post on their properties, it’s closer to 8 million,” she says.

BRAND: Cake Boss
KEY INSIGHT: “Cake Boss” cable reality show viewers are
more likely than the average female consumer to bake for
fun. Bakeware is typically a conservative category.
ACTIVATION: Partner with the show’s star, Buddy Valastro, to create and promote a line of bakeware. Support the
product launch at Michaels with in-store demonstrations,
social media activity and circular ads.

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Competition for their exemplary display of
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2013

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Created For: Nintendo of America
Submitted By: Frank Mayer and Associates Inc. and AGI In-Store
Category: Mass Merchandisers

Platinum Winners
Nabisco Brighten Your
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Created For: Mondelēz International
Submitted By: Eastwest Marketing Group
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Category: Supermarket/Grocery

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B Y

D E S I G N

12 PEOPLE TO WATCH


Photo by Edith Drew

PEOPLE

toWATCH
Six individuals represent this year’s
class of People to Watch. Nominated
by their colleagues and friends of
Shopper Marketing and the Path to
Purchase Institute, these rising stars
are making a name for themselves
by doing work for their brands and
categories that’s worthy of attention.

W

hen Edith Drew joined Hillshire Brands in
August 2012, she was charged with helping
to build out the shopper insights function
within a new organization. As a successor to
Sara Lee Corp.’s North American Business,
Hillshire began operating independently in
July of that year.
With an analytical background and a creative nature –
she also owns a photography business and photographed
herself for this feature – Drew was ready to take on a new
challenge. “The foundation was still being laid, and I was
being given the chance to impact that, which I saw as an
amazing opportunity,” she says.
Just months into her position, Drew helped develop
the underpinnings of a landmark study that ultimately
led to a deeper understanding of shopper behavior at the
shelf. Leveraging insights of a previous study, Hillshire
began the new study in April 2013. In conjunction with
the Smart Learning Center in Dallas, Drew led execution
and development of the study, which entailed talking to
and observing shoppers at the shelf, and carefully taking
a brand-agnostic view to help not only Hillshire’s brands,
but also retailers and the category in general.
“We leveraged insights from a piece of quantitative video
research to design and execute a shopper study to determine the optimal shopping experience and shelf execution,” she says. The Hillshire team installed 48 feet of
refrigeration, recruited more than 300 shoppers and had
more than 40 one-on-one conversations about the aisle
and their experience with it over a three-week period.
The results, she says, are helping lead new internal and
external strategies. “Many of the insights we uncovered

EDITH DREW

COMPANY: Hillshire Brands
TITLE: Shopper Insights Manager
AGE: 31

EDUCATION: DePaul University
(B.S., Commerce, Finance)

are extremely actionable and a perfect opportunity to help
drive what we’re going to be doing for the next year,” she
says. “It has given us a solid understanding of what shoppers are doing from a category level and how they react to
us at a brand level.”
While Drew thrives on contributing to Hillshire’s vision to be the most innovative meat-centric food company
in the U.S., she says there are a lot of questions yet to be
answered within shopper insights. “I’d love to be able to
answer every one, but strategically that can’t always happen,” she says. The team is building and maintaining a
library of secondary research. “So while I can’t do primary
research for every question that comes across my desk,
we can provide some level of guidance by leveraging the
secondary research we have.”
Her goal for her second year on the job is to ensure
that Hillshire Brands is seen as an insights leader for the
categories in which it plays. “We want to make sure we
continue to talk to our customers’ shoppers because every
retailer loves when we have grounded solutions,” Drew
says. “Shoppers are inherently different across retailers, so
we need to make sure we’re helping support what’s happening at each retailer.”

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Untitled-2 1

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10/31/13 4:01 PM

14 PEOPLE TO WATCH

ALESSANDRA
CASCINO

COMPANY: The Coca-Cola Co.

TITLE: Shopper Technology
Manager
AGE: 25

get the answers they needed to build a strategy.
Lui points to her work with the customer insights team
as a growth opportunity. She served as a “brand cop” for
a few months into her tenure, answering questions about
and providing approvals for store creative, signage, communications, etc. That gave her the chance to interact with
nearly every department in the organization.
She says that creating targeted messages is a challenge
considering the scope that Walmart has. The goal is to take
a mass approach while speaking to consumers in different
ways: She and her marketing counterparts touch all channels
in several languages, and determine the right places.
Lui says that a secret initiative is underway to increase
Walmart’s proof-of-price leadership. “I’ve transitioned to
working in an area of marketing that really focuses on that,”
she says. “There are some cool technologies coming to market
from my team next year, and I can’t wait for it to be launched.”

ATIMA LUI

COMPANY: Walmart Stores Inc.
TITLE: Assistant Marketing Manager – Brand
AGE: 23

EDUCATION: Washington University (B.S.B.A.,
International Business, Marketing, Spanish)

A

lessandra Cascino began her career at Coca-Cola
just weeks after earning her college diploma – a
rarity at Coca-Cola. She attributes much of her
early success to time spent studying abroad at the
University of Oxford in England, an experience
that gave her “great insight into better reading
and researching.”
Cascino started as a contractor for the beverage giant’s
commercial execution team three years ago. She says she’s
had several mentors and the opportunity to work with
different teams, which has expanded her knowledge base.
With a budding passion for looking through a shopper
lens, Cascino has focused on the path to purchase, specifically considering teens and young adults.
Photo by Todd McQueen

EDUCATION: University of
Georgia (B.A., Journalism)

Photo by James Keltner

W

anting to dive right into a career in marketing, Atima Lui in August 2012 accepted a job
at the world’s largest retailer: Walmart. Her
resume includes summer internship experience at Google and YouTube, as well as owning her own business while in college.
Lui’s current work centers on Walmart’s “Save Money.
Live Better” positioning. She helps create consumer messaging that “drives total box traffic to Walmart stores” and
manages brand compliance.
The environment in which she works every day is similar to what she experienced at Google. “It was so fastpaced and entrepreneurial, and the retail environment at
Walmart feels very much like that,” Lui says. “We move
very quickly here, just like they do in Silicon Valley. We’re
always thinking ahead and trying to do something bigger
and better than last year.”
She also sees similarities to how Google focused on the user
and making sure consumers get the best user experience.
“The customer is No. 1 at Walmart,” she says. “We’re customer-centric in our marketing, especially on the innovation side.”
Her work at Google was very analytical and data-focused,
which pairs well with the massive amount of data that
Walmart has. “We made decisions based on data at Google,”
she says, “and Walmart is definitely no different.” She thrives
when being able to mix analytics and strategy with creativity.
In her first year at Walmart, Lui identified a need for the
retailer to speak to its Millennial customer base and spearheaded the launch of the retailer’s Instagram account, working with a colleague on the social media team. With little secondary information available, she developed and presented a
strategy to Walmart’s marketing executives that was largely
informed by a quantitative research study she commissioned
as well as a competitive review of other brands and retailers
currently on Instagram. “Since this is a fairly new channel,
there’s not a lot of insight out there, and no one has demographic data,” Lui says. “We had to do our own research,
which was somewhat groundbreaking and proprietary.” That
included quantitative studies in partnership with Walmart’s
insights team that focused on asking the right questions to


She eventually moved into the emerging shopper technologies group. Today, as shopper technology manager, Cascino
focuses on how Coca-Cola is using technology along the path
to purchase to drive incremental transactions. “We’re testing a
wide variety of technologies to solve our key business needs,”
she says. “We try to find proven solutions and technologies,
and then work across the globe to scale out those learnings.”
Cascino works with many technology startups to advance the company’s efforts in digital shopper marketing.
“We work most closely with North America since that’s
where many of these startups and applications are taking
place, but also with our counterparts in Northwest Europe
and the United Kingdom,” she says. She also interacts with
other corporate teams, such as the global connections
team, which concentrates more on pure mobile marketing.
Earlier this year, Cascino honed her skills at a conference
for startups. “We worked with these companies to help
think about how we drive some of our key business metrics,” she says. “They have a nimbleness and quickness that
sometimes a large company like Coca-Cola might not have.
We’re constantly being pushed to innovate, and one way we
look at new innovation is through the startup space.”
Cascino is a Gen Y employee among many Gen Xers and
Baby Boomers. “A lot of the work we do is targeted around
demographics,” she says. “I’m a digital native, having grown
up immersed in technology and now learning how to pepper in shopping with that. That’s different from a digital
immigrant, who has always known how to shop and now is
learning how to integrate technology into that shop. When
both parties coalesce and come together around an idea, it
usually brings forth the most business traction for us.”
She recently returned from the One Young World Summit
in Johannesburg, South Africa, a conference for global youth
leadership with 1,300 delegates from 190 countries. One of
only seven Coca-Cola representatives to attend this event,
Cascino says discussions centered on important world issues.

PEOPLE TO WATCH 15

DECEMBER 2013 SHOPPER MARKETING

STEPHANIE HEADLEY
COMPANY: Procter & Gamble

TITLE: Associate Director, Shopper Marketing & Scale
AGE: 37
EDUCATION: University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Kenan-Flagler Business School (MBA); University of
Richmond (B.A., Mathematics)

S

tephanie Headley is working her
way up at Procter & Gamble. She
began as an intern, and then held
assistant brand manager positions
with Febreze Fabric Refresher and
Febreze Air Effects. She became
a Family Dollar customer team marketing
manager in 2006 and then served as an
emerging channels marketing leader. She
also was a global brand manager for Herbal
Essences before assuming her current role
as associate director, shopper marketing
and scale.
Headley credits the shopper marketing
lessons she learned early in her career for
her success. She learned the fundamentals
of brand management and developed an
understanding of how retailers can accelerate brand results. As Family Dollar customer team marketing manager, Headley
learned the importance of shopper marketing in building equities for P&G brands.
“Still one of my favorite assignments, I
gained an understanding of shoppers, particularly ethnic shoppers, and how P&G’s
brands, innovation and scale can deliver
on the retailer’s needs to drive category
growth,” she says.
When she returned to P&G’s Cincinnati
headquarters in 2010 as the Herbal Essences global design manager, she worked on
renewing the brand fundamentals, including equity and innovation strategy. “My
ability to effectively deliver results for Herbal Essences was directly impacted by my
experiences with customers and in shopper
marketing,” she says.
Headley is particularly proud of her work
with Family Dollar on marketing Luvs diapers. She used the recognizable Luvs brand
name to “improve shopper quality and purchase intent of Family Dollar’s high-margin
baby accessories, and to secure incremental
merchandising and support for the Luvs
diapers business,” she says.
“This is an example of how shopper
marketing can uniquely create joint value that benefits retailers, consumers and
the company. In this case, Family Dollar
gained profitable sales growth behind a
differentiated solution that built shopper
loyalty. For P&G, not only did we grow the
Luvs business, but we also learned how our
brands can play a broader role with retailers beyond only our SKU assortment. And
for consumers, we delivered value for Luvs
moms who want trusted brands to care for
her baby.”

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LAURA HASLEE

COMPANY: Del Monte Foods

TITLE: Shopper Marketing &
Activation Manager
AGE: 31

PATRICK ARMINIO
COMPANY: Anheuser-Busch

TITLE: Shopper Insights Manager

partners and quickly move on emerging trends.”
In nearly four years, Arminio has worked his way from
intern to contractor to staff. He is one of six shopper insights managers. Simply put, he uses the data the company
has mined to suggest marketing messages.
The focus, he says, is on today’s new path to purchase,
which includes social and mobile media. With new modes
of reaching shoppers at the point of purchase, there are
various ways to talk to shoppers “closer to the moment of
truth, which ultimately leads to better insights.”

AGE: 28
EDUCATION: Saint Louis
University, John Cook School
of Business (MBA; B.S., Business
Administration)

L

aura Haslee pursued an MBA so she could change
careers. She chose a CPG career after six years
working for a global mobility consulting firm that
investigates expatriate compensation.
During her time with that company, she traveled internationally and spent a lot of time in grocery stores researching prices. “It was during those trips
and seeing so many brands in a variety of contexts that
I first considered applying to business school,” she says.
“I experienced what brand management was like during
an internship and would’ve focused my efforts there, but
Photo by Tim Shonnard

EDUCATION: Thunderbird
School of Global Management
(MBA); Wellesley College (B.A.,
International Relations)

Photo by Whitney Curtis

P

atrick Arminio’s role at Anheuser-Busch includes
discovering how digital and mobile technology
can assist with research and sales. A recent example is the use of a mobile crowdsourcing application to run store audits and determine the
out-of-stock rate within a retail channel. Consumers with the app visit assigned stores to answer survey
questions and take pictures of specific brands or promotions. The data is then linked with potential lost sales to
spur corrective measures.
“Eliminating out-of-stocks presents an opportunity for
any retailer to increase sales,” says Arminio. “In this particular study, we were able to quantify the percentage of
out-of-stocks in a significant number of stores. The mobile
portion of the study provided a quick survey with visual
evidence of the out-of-stocks. From there we were able
to partner with the retailer and identify an action plan to
lower that number.”
Arminio calls his job fascinating and challenging because
it’s a marriage of cold, hard facts and humanity. “The beer
category is one that has a lot of emotion around it, and a lot
of opinions that go with the emotions,” he says. “I love being able to listen to shoppers and translate that into strategy.
The hardest part of my job is translating research results to
show the business implications and ultimately drive action.
“Often, researchers love to talk about methodology,
statistical significance, etcetera, but it is becoming increasingly important to step out of the research role and clearly
communicate what the numbers mean, painting a clear
picture that allows for action to be taken.”
Arminio sees no slowing of the pace of new technology
in research, and the insight possibilities that provides.
“Continuing to discover how technology is changing the
research landscape is going to be a huge task,” Arminio
says. “The role of digital-mobile research changes quickly. I
believe, to remain relevant in research, A-B is going to have
to be on the forefront of this type of research. Successfully
doing so will allow A-B to provide relevant insights to retail

there was something about the dynamic role of shopper
marketing that piqued my interest.”
She experienced further change when her shopper activation team at Del Monte moved into the company’s
Market Development Organization.
Recently, when Del Monte launched new packaging for
its flagship brands, Haslee led a merchandising program
to support the initiative. Del Monte used full- and halfpallets to communicate “New Look, Same Garden Quality”
messaging.
Haslee says the big change to an iconic brand made it
essential to reach shoppers in-store, grab their attention
during routine shopping trips and help facilitate the transition. “Pallets were an obvious choice as a disruptive vehicle
in-store while also providing ample area for equity messaging,” she says. “Additionally, the pallets carried multiple
product lines, which gave us the opportunity to let consumers know this was a change across our entire brand.
While the in-store aspects were foundational, we created a
plan that reached consumers along the entire path to purchase with elements such as digital coupons, social recipe
dissemination and email blasts – to name a few.”
Haslee works across Del Monte’s consumer products
portfolio brands within the grocery, mass and dollar channels. In 2014, she will lead the shopper marketing and
activation activities at Kroger and Family Dollar as well as
all executions for the Contadina and College Inn brands.
There are four people on her team, which Haslee says
“strives to find unique and relevant ways to engage with
shoppers and provide them with solutions to everyday
concerns.
“One of the most common problems is centered on the
age-old question, ‘What’s for dinner?’” Haslee says. “As a result, we will be focusing our efforts around recipe inspiration and meal solutions. Shoppers are open to engagement
if it connects with their motivation. In this way, we hope
to reinforce the conversations with our consumers when
they most want to hear from us.”

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18


RETAIL INTIMACY

Part 5:

Winning at

Dollar
General

In collaboration with:

By Michael Applebaum

This is the final installment in a five-part series examining best
practices for shopper marketing collaboration. This month, we
look at how Dollar General maintains an unwavering focus on
its customers across a diverse slate of programs.

T

hese are heady times for Dollar
General. The company has posted
several consecutive quarters of
strong sales and earnings growth while
rapidly expanding its retail footprint.
In fiscal 2013, Dollar General opened
about 650 new U.S. stores, including its
11,000th outlet in Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
and remodeled several hundred of its older locations. Already boasting a loyal customer base, the retailer has been attracting new shoppers with highly competitive
prices, cleaner and more modern-looking
stores, and a wider product assortment
in the household and grocery categories.
Dollar General reinforces its value proposition through a diverse slate of shopper
marketing programs. Its corporate calendar
features seasonal and co-op events (e.g.,
Super Bowl, back to school); cause-related
tie-ins (the company does a considerable
amount of outreach through its Literacy

Series Schedule
Part 1: Target (July)
Part 2: CVS/pharmacy
(August )
Part 3: Kroger (September)
Part 4: Walmart (October)
Part 5: Dollar General
(this issue)

Foundation, for example, which awards
grants to schools, public libraries and
nonprofit organizations to assist young
students with reading deficiencies); and
original programming with many leading
CPG companies including Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo,
ConAgra Foods, Nestlé-Purina and Mars.
“I don’t think I’ve ever worked with a
retailer that’s so in tune with its shoppers,” says Kelly Mattran, shopper marketing manager at PepsiCo. “One of the
things that has often come out of our
conversations with Dollar General is that
they insist on being dependable for their
shoppers. Part of that is knowing you
can go into any of their stores and find
the products you’re looking for.”
Dustin Lehner, shopper marketing team
lead at Mars Petcare, says that Dollar General not only “knows its shoppers,” but it
does not waver in laying out a customercentric strategy for shopper programs
with clearly defined objectives. “I always
know going in what they are trying to
achieve,” says Lehner. “They’ve been
extremely collaborative and opened the
door for our marketing, digital and other
groups to expand our pet programs.”
Colby Swan, Dollar General’s director
of marketing, says that the chain is also
open to doing “outside-the-box” programs as long as they are tailored specifically for its shoppers: “Dollar General is
constantly evaluating new ways to partner with vendors through innovative and

fresh concepts. Through continual customer feedback, we are able to provide
the products customers want at the value
they expect. This is a key component of
our success since our product selection
and business success is built on providing
customers the products they use most
often while helping them save money.”

Mountain Dew Has Much
in ‘Store’
One of the most successful shoppermarketing initiatives at Dollar General in
recent years has been The Dew General
Store. This PepsiCo/Mountain Dew rewards program has grown in scope each
year since its 2011 launch and is set for a
refresh in 2014. Notably, it has increased
Mountain Dew’s share of wallet at Dollar
General without relying on any additional promotional discounts, says PepsiCo’s
Mattran. “We’re creating value for shoppers beyond price,” she says.
“The rewards enable customers to buy the products they
want at the stores they want,
and have that extra badge to
carry with them. It’s an incentive to buy a little bit more of
their Mountain Dew products
at Dollar General.”
This year, Mountain Dew leveraged its NASCAR sponsorship and its partnership with
country music singer Brantley
Gilbert to deliver branded merchandise to customers who
redeemed their points online
at TheDewGeneralStore.com.
Custom displays included a sixweek summer endcap featur-

ing NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and a
front-of-store U-boat display, running September through November, with country
music imagery. Shoppers collected points
from purchases of participating Mountain
Dew products and were rewarded with
Dew-branded clothing, Trek bikes, Weber
grills and beach accessories (for the summer promotion), as well as Beats headphones, iPhone covers, an acoustic guitar,
and tickets to a NASCAR race in Charlotte,
N.C., with a chance to ride three laps
around the track in Earnhardt’s No. 88 car.
Based on a post-purchase analysis, Mattran says the program has drawn a significant number of male customers while still
resonating with Dollar General’s core female, baby boomer shopper. “Mountain
Dew’s typical millennial-male buyer is obviously a very different shopper,” she says.
“But many women are in the store and
buying Mountain Dew for their husbands

SPECIAL REPORT

20

or sons. She’s thinking of him, wanting to
make sure everyone in her home is taken
care of.” For 2014, Mountain Dew is looking to add a complementary partner to
the program – potentially a snack brand
– and find a permanent merchandising location at Dollar General stores.
Mattran attributes PepsiCo’s success at
Dollar General to the open lines of communication that exist between the two
companies’ respective marketing and
sales organizations. “This is one of the

DOLLAR GENERAL
RECEPTIVITY TO
IN-STORE TACTICS
A-boards

rarely

Aisle Violators/Fins/blades

often

Balloons

sometimes

Base Wrap

rarely

Ceiling banners/signage

often

Checkout Ads

rarely

Checkout dividers/separators

rarely

Circular rack ads

often

Counter cards

rarely

Demonstration/Sampling kits

rarely

Digital signage ads

rarely

Employee apparel

rarely

Endcap signage kits

often

Floor Decals

rarely

Header Cards

often

At-shelf product demo/sample

rarely

In-line/category headers

rarely

In-store radio

rarely

Inflatables

sometimes

Outdoor signage

sometimes

Neckhangers

sometimes

New item showcases
Pole toppers

rarely
sometimes

Printed materials/handouts

rarely

Placeholders, on-shelf

rarely

Price-label messaging

sometimes

Security pedestal ads

rarely

Shelf Blockers

sometimes

Shelf Strips

sometimes

Shelf Talkers

often

Shelf Danglers/Wobblers

rarely

Shopping Cart Ads

rarely

Side Panels

often

Standees

often

Take-one dispensers

rarely

Tearpads

sometimes

T-stand posters/stanchion signs
Wall banners

rarely
sometimes

Window clings

rarely

Window posters

often

Endcap Displays

rarely

Shelf trays/PDQs

often

Pallets

sometimes

Floorstands/shippers

often

Dump bins

rarely

Power wings/sidekicks

often

Category management
systems

rarely

Spectaculars/lobby displays

rarely

Source: Path to Purchase Institute Analysis, May 2013.

tightest relationships we have with any
of our retail customers,” she says. “Their
marketing team is looped into their buying desk and has a fair amount of influence about what happens in stores.
They’re very direct in what they’re looking for. If there’s something that they
don’t like, they’ll tell us right off the bat.”
She cautions marketers for whom securing display is a priority that there are
limited opportunities within an approximate space of 7,200 square feet. Thus,
she says, you can’t win over Dollar General 100% of the time. “Sometimes we
have access to [assets] that don’t fit in
with their objectives in that specific time
frame,” says Mattran. “But nine out of
10 times, they’ll work with us if it’s [a]
compelling enough [property].”

Kimberly-Clark, ConAgra
Forge New Territory
Across the CPG spectrum, new opportunities are arising as more consumers are
flocking to the dollar channel for their
fill-in trip needs. Kimberly-Clark, for example, worked with Dollar General on
a 2013 program for its Huggies brand
(“Little Hands, Big Plans”) that centered
on an essay-writing contest in which
consumers described how the $5,000
grand prize would allow them to achieve
the educational dreams they have for
their children. The program included FSIs,
shelf talkers, digital/social media support
and additional promotional activity involving Huggies’ new SureFit waistband
and moisture absorption technology.
The concept was developed in strategy
sessions between Kimberly-Clark’s shopper marketing team (which then included
Jennifer Carter, now senior brand manager for shopper marketing and family
care) and agency of record, Geometry
Global. The idea was seen as a way to
drive awareness in the underpenetrated
baby category while addressing the challenges of low-income shoppers. It also
dovetailed nicely with the retailer’s Literacy Foundation mission, explains Stephanie Wieczorek, shopper marketing manager at Kimberly-Clark.
“Dollar General shoppers do everything
they can to care for their family within
their means. This includes supporting their
children’s education, which is often a big
expense,” Wieczoreck says. “Dollar General uses a variety of ways besides reading
advancement to connect to their Literacy
Foundation, including promoting continued education, so this was a nice alignment with their corporate objectives.”
Food represents another sizable opportunity at Dollar General. In the past
few years, the retailer has expanded its
grocery section, for example, by bringing
in additional coolers near the front of its
stores to house convenience items like
frozen sausages, waffles and pizza. Thus,
marketers like ConAgra have stepped in
to capitalize on the growing segment
with targeted solutions. “ConAgra has
had a lot of success in executing programs that provide shoppers with a quick
and easy meal solution while still giving

them the value they are looking for,” says
Abbey Greer, account executive and Dollar General team member at Catapult.
As an example, ConAgra developed
a recipe for an egg, bread and sausage
casserole as part of a breakfast meal
solution for its Banquet Brown ’N Serve
frozen sausages. The program, which ran
throughout September, featured shelf
talkers with recipe tear pads that included a coupon for a free loaf of Dollar General’s private-label Clover Valley white
bread with purchase of a box of Brown
’N Serve and a carton of one dozen eggs.
While the program focused on creating
a strong value component, convenience
was also a building block of the solution,
says Mike Esposito, shopper marketing
manager at ConAgra. “The basic idea
was: How we can feed a family of four
and get the Dollar General shopper to
quickly see the value in the offer? It had to
be simple enough so that shoppers didn’t
feel like they had to treasure hunt for the
recipe ingredients,” Esposito says. “We
also wanted to have additional communication points outside frozen. The bread
aisle is typically one of the first you see, so
there was an opportunity to drive shoppers to multiple points across the store.”
With its sheer size and portfolio of
products, ConAgra has the luxury of
being able to segment programs using


value brands like Banquet and Chef Boyardee to target different subsets of dollar store shoppers. “We have flexibility as
to how we market [those products] and
go after varying income levels of shoppers,” Esposito says. “At the same time,
we’re cognizant of Dollar General’s promotional calendar and what their merchandisers are focused on in any given
month. We look for ways to integrate
shopper or promotional activity that ties
into the relevant season or time of year.”

Updating the Dollar Store
Image
Dollar General today continues to benefit
from the seeds of revitalization it planted
during the 2008 recession. “Their timing
was a bit of a fortunate accident,” says
Mike Paglia, principal analyst at Bostonbased Kantar Retail. “They were just starting to remodel stores and ramp up assortment when the economy went south,
and having shoppers suddenly give them
a second look provided a lot of momentum. But their efforts in stores have been
very focused, deliberate and measured.”
Now, more affluent shoppers are beginning to give Dollar General that second look. In fact, the fastest growing
segment within the dollar channel are
shoppers who earn more than $75K per
year. At Dollar General specifically, this

DECEMBER 2013 SHOPPER MARKETING

SPECIAL REPORT

General shopper, it has a chance to move
forward,” says Mars Petcare’s Lehner. He
cites a holiday 2012 program in which
Mars featured a bundled savings offer to
cross-promote the candy and pet food
categories, “something that would be
a big hurdle for many other retailers.”
Custom shippers provided secondary display at the front of the store, using the
tagline, “A treat for you, and a treat for
them.”
Lehner explains: “Shoppers think of
their pets as family, so when they are
shopping for stocking stuffers, why not

group comprised a healthy 7% of shoppers, as of Kantar’s June 2013 survey.
Two-thirds of Dollar General shoppers
remain in the $50K or under group, per
the study. In addition to becoming more
affluent, the overall demographic is increasingly skewing younger and more
Hispanic, Paglia notes.
Dollar General is reinforcing its spiffier
image by blanketing stores with its trademark black-and-yellow signage that contains a clear message for shoppers: We’re
not your typical dollar store. Alongside
one sign that reads, “Expect Low Prices.
Every Day” is another that says, “Being
affordable doesn’t mean being cheap
here” and another: “We deliver top
brands at bargain prices.”
The retailer has also shown a willingness to pursue unconventional tactics.
“Very rarely do they shoot something
down just because it’s different or unique.
As long as the idea is rooted in research
and credible insights specific to the Dollar

21

remind them their pets need treats too?
We talked about the idea internally, presented it to them and they loved it.”
Going forward, Dollar General is supporting Mars’ efforts to become more
strategic, vs. promotional, in its petcare
programs. “They’ve done a great job in
building awareness for the pet category through tie-ins with Mars’ Pedigree
brand and the Country Music Awards,”
notes Amy Sorensen, account supervisor
at Catapult. “Shoppers now know that
Dollar General carries quality national
petcare brands.”

According to Paglia, this is all part of
a larger strategy to solidify Dollar General as a “complementary mission” to the
stock-up trip. “A shopper goes to Kroger
or Walmart for two-thirds of their basket and stops by a Dollar General store
on their way home because they know
they can get their favorite deodorant or
shampoo at the lowest price,” says Paglia. “Dollar General is perfectly OK with
that. They’re not trying to steal trips from
other retailers.”
And yet, as many would argue, that’s
exactly what they are doing.

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About the Author
Michael Applebaum is a freelance writer
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editorships at Brandweek, Photo District
News and Spy magazine.
Catapult is today the merger of two powerful agency brands – Catapult and RPM
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22 GLOBAL CASE STUDY


GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
on Shopper Marketing

TURKEY: Coming Clean in Supermarkets
Campaign Name: “Cleaning Experts”
Company: Unilever
Agency: In-House
Region: Middle East
Program Type: Channel-Speciﬁc Marketing

BUSINESS LANDSCAPE:
In Turkey, the supermarket channel is the fastest growing for
consumer packaged goods, with
a reported annual growth rate
of 19%. Therefore, the channel
presents a huge opportunity for
Unilever home care products such
as laundry detergent and household cleaners, which currently are
growing at better than 30%.
This growth is being driven primarily by smaller, local supermarkets that offer Turkish shoppers a
convenient place to buy groceries
near their homes or workplaces.
The importance of these local retailers within the grocery market
has been rising steadily.
These local supermarkets are
renowned for offering cheaper
prices and a simplified shopping
experience. They’re also perceived
as homey, with environments that
make it conducive for shoppers to build relationships with
the store owners and develop trust not only for the store
but also for the authenticity of the products on its shelves.
Many of these local storeowners are members of the
Turkey Local Retailers Confederation, a trade body actively
supported by Unilever.
OBJECTIVES:
■ Communicate the effectiveness of Unilever brands to
shoppers.
■ Educate shoppers about the benefits of new products
such as liquid detergents and concentrates.
■ Create a homey ambience in stores to make an emotional connection between the purchase and usage
occasions.
■ Ensure that participating retailers “own” the platform
by involving them in every phase of the project to
develop tailored executions.
■ Establish permanent visibility for Unilever’s home care
products in supermarkets, where additional display
opportunities have been limited.
INSIGHTS:
Multiple-SKU purchases within the home care category
are high. For example, fabric conditioner and laundry
detergent are found together in 30% to 40% of category
baskets.
However, a key barrier to purchase is that shoppers often

believe that they have a sufficient supply of cleaning products at home and therefore decide to delay the purchase
until a subsequent trip. Attractive displays that educate
shoppers about new products and improved benefits, as
well as more prominent promotions, might help to overcome this barrier.
Turkish shoppers use supermarkets to fulfill their regular, daily needs. Between 70% and 80% of channel shoppers are focused on planned, daily purchases such as fresh
vegetables, bulk cereals and charcuterie/meat products. However,
Unilever has a chance to drive the
impulse purchase of detergents
and home care products among
these shoppers by improving their
visibility in stores.
In addition, qualitative research obtained through the use
of eye-tracking technology revealed that shoppers in checkout
lines often scan the store to find
new products or reassure themselves that they haven’t forgotten
anything. Prominent displays,
compelling in-store advertising
and product demonstrations all
could catch the attention of these
shoppers.
STRATEGY:
The “Cleaning Experts” program
that Unilever devised had two
main levers.
The first was a new merchandising area that would co-locate laundry and household
cleaning products together to trigger cross-purchase within the broader home care category. This would be achieved
through secondary displays that would deliver the added
benefit of ensuring against out-of-stocks – which is always
a risk given the limited shelf space available in local supermarkets.
The second was to develop tailored solutions for participating retailers, which would strengthen Unilever’s
relationships with these increasingly important accounts.
EXECUTION:
Unilever created a display that presented all of its home
care brands together as “Expert Cleaning Products.” The
program was implemented at 11 local supermarket retailers that collectively operated 253 stores in 13 cities.
Within the company, brand marketing, trade marketing
and the account teams worked collaboratively to ensure
that the campaign was executed through a full 360-degree
activity plan.
To ensure full support and smooth execution, the retailers were invited to Unilever’s “Customer Collaboration
Centre” to discuss all aspects of the campaign during the
planning stages.
A campaign logo was designed for use on all the special
product co-packs and promotional materials that would be
produced. The logo also was employed to ensure ownership
and uniqueness for each participating retailer. In addition,

This is one of 31 case studies presented in the Path to
Purchase Institute’s “Global Perspectives on Shopper
Marketing,” which was published in October in conjunction
with Coca-Cola, Unilever and Geometry Global. The book
will be available on Amazon.com in January.

each retailer received tailored promotional activity over the
course of the campaign.
Ensuring that the store managers and staff were engaged with the campaign was also important, since it’s the
in-store personnel who really help drive great execution.
Once all the targets and components had been planned
with the account teams, Unilever visited each account to
present the program to local staffers.
The first step in the multifaceted effort was to design a
differentiated double-pack exclusively for the participants.
This was the first time Unilever had created an exclusive
SKU for local supermarkets.
The next step was to secure the permanent displays,
which were a mixture of secondary and in-line fixtures
negotiated on a store-by-store basis. The goal was to gain
annual agreements with each customer – a difficult task
given the size of these stores.
Thirdly, Unilever worked to bring the brands to life onshelf through visuals that created a “just like home” environment. In addition, the manufacturer dispatched brand
ambassadors to explain the products in the top 25 stores.
Finally, Unilever tapped into various in-store events to
ensure that the “Cleaning Expert” effort would be promoted periodically throughout the year.
These events included customer-initiated campaigns
and 49 store grand openings in the first 12 months. Unilever also staged a three-day “Cleaning Experts Carnival” in
the top stores of each retailer during the year. Ultimately,
more than 20,000 total product samples were distributed.
SUCCESS MEASURES:
■ With successful execution at all 11 customers (and all
253 stores), Unilever got the program into more than
half of all local supermarkets in Turkey.
■ Participating stores posted sales growth that was two to
three times better than non-participating stores.
■ Almost 50,000 of these special co-packs were sold over
the course of the year.
■ Unilever was appointed category captain for bath &
kitchen and fabric cleaning at all 11 accounts.
Unilever leveraged the success of the “Cleaning Experts”
program to make stronger, sustainable connections with
key accounts in an increasingly important retailer channel. After the initial flight in 2012, an updated version of
the campaign ran in 2013 and a third incarnation is being
prepared for 2014.

WHY IT MATTERS:

Fostering collaborative relationships with local
supermarket operators helped Unilever ﬁnd a
permanent in-store residence for its full array of
home care products.

KEY LESSON:

Cross-category solutions let manufacturers
provide key retailers with sustainable, behaviorchanging programs that grow relationships as
well as sales.

MADE POSSIBLE BY:

Unilever
Vaseline
Spray & Go
Launch
Floorstand
National/
Regional
In-Store
Campaign

2013 Gold Award

2013 Design
of the Times
Gold Award
Recipient

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Shopper Marketing magazine - December 2013

Shopper Marketing magazine - December 2013

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