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Not Investing In Shopper Insights Capability

“ For the first couple of years of doing shopper marketing , we were treading the waters and could not figure out a way to elevate our relationship from a transactional to a strategic one because it was hard for us to differentiate from other CPGs . All we brought to the retailer ’ s table was some money and a product portfolio . It was getting harder by the day to impress retailers even with data since they have access to their own , robust data sets . At some point , we realized that to make our retail partners pay attention , we had to show them something they didn ’ t already know .

So , we commissioned ethnographic studies that went deep into aspirations and attitudes around meal preparation and helped us come up with a new shopper marketing framework for how meal planning and shopping for food feeds into family dynamic . That research revealed what problems shoppers faced when deciding on , shopping for and preparing family meals , how retailers could help and what messaging would resonate with them . This research was a hit with retailers , it fuelled multiple top-to-top conversations and numerous retail executions because insight like this cannot be gleaned from the point-of-sale data alone .”

“ I come from Consumer Promotions background . In my early shopper marketing days , I came up with this awesome tailgating promotion I thought would be a massive success because it was grounded in shopper insights , supported by a multi-touchpoint national campaign , had awesome recipe content and was packaged in a glorious selling deck . What else would a sales team need to make it happen ?

Well , what I learned is that the timing of my proposed campaign conflicted with the retailers ’ promotional themes at our two top accounts . The featured products in all of my key visuals had less than 60 % distribution in three out of top five accounts , making the digital assets and recipes we prepared useless . We spent a

lot of time reworking and re-packaging the program and ended up being late to present to several retail accounts that had longer sell-in lead times . This experience taught me to get my field teams involved in initial planning conversations and not to “ fully bake ” the ideas until they are presented for retail customer input . That means starting planning waaay earlier .”

Taking On Too Much

“ Early in my career , I tried to please everyone . I wouldn ’ t even push back when a tiny brand wanted me to develop detailed shopper marketing plan or nonpriority customer teams called for help with executing their tactical programs . Our team ended up being seen as a “ catch-all ” for all the extra marketing work at anyone needed to do , so we were assigned digital & social media , content creation and e-commerce capabilities ... all vastly different disciplines that required specialized skill sets .

Our team was too small and overextended . We didn ’ t accomplish any major breakthroughs in either of these areas until we learned how to prioritize and cut back on the number of people we needed to please . Determining and sticking to our top 5 key accounts and top 3 priority brands made a world of difference and helped us achieve some serious wins .”

Waiting For The Brand Plans To Finalize

“ In a perfect world , brands release their marketing plans to the field early in order to enable effective program sell-in . I was a young , ( read naïve ) newly appointed shopper marketing team lead , and I had the ambition to make this dream a reality . I went about it by insisting that the integrated marketing planning process started sooner and the timelines were compressed .

I quickly learned the process was complex for a reason ; that this monstrous machine could not be sped up ( at least not with my level of authority ), therefore my demands were not accommodated . For many months , I felt resentful and victimized until one day I had the proverbial light bulb moment . I was meeting with a consultant who suggested that instead of demanding the information , I should proactively share it . His theory was that by initiating the conversation in a giving way , I was in a better position to build trust and influence the brand plans . His wisdom completely shifted how I thought about my role in enacting change .

I tasked my account-facing teams to develop a short list of high-level , strategic customer insights and recommendations to each priority brand , which we then presented prior to the planning season . We had incredibly fulfilling , strategic conversations with the brands because we didn ’ t come asking for money . Turned out , they craved this early input about key customer strategies and partnership opportunities .

We were able to convince at least a couple of big brands not to wait till plans were final to share “ work in progress ” with us and our customers . That year , plans were finalized no sooner than in the past , but they brought no surprises , and we could see our own and our customers ’ fingerprints all over them . Some call it ‘ store-back planning ,’ I call it ‘ trust and common sense .’”

Not Addressing Brand Over- Reach

“ One of the mistakes I made ( and I see my industry peers repeating ) is operating not like a strategic function , but rather like a tactical extension of the brand in retail , thus allowing my team to be micromanaged to death . Instead of relying on the customer experts and empowering my team to make investment decisions on the fly , based on the quickly changing retail landscape , I watched headquarter-

30 MAL23 / 18 ISSUE