Past Events
- Date: 22nd November 2011
- Location: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, WC2H 9HQ
- Guest Speaker:Magz Fallon, European Head of Shopper Marketing
and Category Development at Coca-Cola Enterprises
Fact: 100% of FMCG revenue comes from Shopper
Fact: 60-70% of all purchase decisions are made in-store
Once you considered these facts it’s no wonder that Shopper Marketing is a hot topic with our clients right now, which was evident by the large turn-out at the event. In fact, a recent global survey* of senior marketing executives showed that 75% expect budgets in this area to increase significantly in the next year and 25% already allocate 10% of their total marketing budget to shopper.
Shopper Marketing is currently the greatest area of change in marketing, so as a business who works with leaders and leader teams who want to make change happen, it strikes right at the heart of the two areas that we work in: Change and Leadership.
Change
The rising importance of shopper is part of the natural evolution of marketing. Just as not so long ago consumers and their needs shot up the corporate agenda and businesses struggled to incorporate them into their way of thinking and working, now the shopper and their needs must take centre stage, and with good reason. But most organisations are struggling to work out what they need to do, who needs to do it and when.
Leadership
Big change needs leadership. Big change implies new ways or working and new organisational capabilities. These need to be understood and addressed at a top team level. The days of the shopper being an executional afterthought are behind us. Shopper Marketing needs to become a critical input into strategic and commercial thinking. This means that leaders and their teams need to understand and build their organisations' Shopper Marketing capability.
We were delighted to welcome Magz Fallon, European Director of Shopper Marketing and Category Development at Coca-Cola Enterprises, as guest speaker at our recent breakfast briefing. She shared her experiences from the two-year journey that CCE have been on to change the way their people think and talk about Shopper Marketing. Highlights of her talk included:
It’s a strategic capability not just a promotional activity
All departments need to think differently about Shopper Marketing as all revenue is realised in that shopper’s final choice. This makes it a critical strategic input.
This means understanding the shopper behavioural change you are trying to effect up front and developing your commercial strategy and plans accordingly.
There will always be promotions, there will always be a promotional calendar – but realising the potential of shopper and effectiveness of promotional activity can only be achieved when the shopper has a strategic role that sits at the heart of the commercial agenda.
This can only be achieved by a change in mind-set of both the leader and organisational culture.
Integration of insights, from sofa to shelf
Making shopper more strategic requires a fundamental change in the way insights are leveraged. Traditionally consumer and shopper insights are collected and owned in separate parts of the business. This perpetuates a disconnect between brand and trade activity.
To make sure it’s your product not your competitors' products that shoppers pick up you need to think about not only how you products are chosen and how they are used, but critically understand the impact of occasion on the purchasing decision. This can only be achieved by integrating consumer and shopper insights to get a clear sight of decisions from ‘sofa to shelf’.
Without integrated insights and clear strategic intent, promotional activity will continue to operate in a parallel world with no real understanding of it and how they are working.
Integration of insights shouldn’t just be an internal topic. The greatest category wins for CCE came when they integrated their consumer and shopper insights with those of one of their major retail partners. This collaborative way of working delivered winning results for the retailer, growth in the category and CCE growing their share too.
Culture before execution
Given that many departments perceive Shopper Marketing as having a purely executional role based around the promotional calendar and therefore not their concern, the challenge of putting the shopper at the heart of the commercial agenda and integrating insights is a tough one.
The world-class approach needs both Hi-Touch and Hi-Tech solutions.
The mistake that many companies make is to tool-up with lots of data, technology and a framework – tangible items that make them feel like they are making progress. These are critical enablers, but the place they should be starting is with the hearts and minds of their people.
It is only by engaging the whole organisation in understanding and embracing the importance of the shopper to the success of the organisation that progress can be made.
CCE have achieved this by imbedding shopper marketing training for all. From the boardroom to the sales rep, from supply chain to brand teams. Everybody now puts shopper at the heart of their thinking. Imbed the right mind-set and the rest will follow.
It’s a Leadership Mind-set
This mind-set shift has to start at the top – and this is perhaps the toughest challenge of all.
Only the leaders of the organisation can put shopper at the heart of the strategic agenda. Only the leadership can empower the organisational changes required.
There is no one size fits all, there is no silver bullet framework. The leadership team need to understand how and where the shopper fits and tailor their organisational response to the needs of their business. Companies who are realising the full commercial potential are those who treat Shopper Marketing as a leadership capability not just a function.
Engaging leaders and their teams to help them make change happen and ignite growth for their business, brands and people is what Cognosis does.
