2025 OmniShopper Awards: In-Store Marketing
In-Store Marketing
Digital Activation (Non-Retail Media)
Campaign: InMarket x Welch’s x Flywheel Digital: Sparkling Spring
Brand: Welch’s
Agency/Solution Provider: InMarket and Flywheel Digital
Today’s demand for non-alcoholic beverages shows no sign of slowing down. It is a competitive market in which Welch’s was well-positioned to grow its line of non-alcoholic sparkling juices, including a new Passion Fruit Mango flavor. In the spring, Welch’s partnered with Flywheel Digital and InMarket to drive engagement and sales of the products through a “Sparkle all spring” campaign that reached shoppers at critical moments along their journeys.
Multiple executions of vibrant, animated experiences featured the sparkling juice bottles popping onto the screen with a “Shop Now” call to action. InMarket’s proprietary data and unique audience segments helped Welch’s to target consumers across multiple dimensions, including “who” (based on visitation, cross shopping and demographics), “what” (past purchase behavior) and “why” (based on seasonality and predictive analysis/AI).
Throughout the campaign, Welch’s was able to engage all major segments of the market (i.e., alcohol purchasers, category buyers, lapsed buyers, non-alcoholic beverage purchasers and home entertainers) with its real-time, high-impact ads delivered across the entire shopping journey. That included pre-shop — 24 to 48 hours before their next shopping trip — and at the precise moment of purchase in the store.
With an emphasis on innovative flavors and vibrant seasonal branding, the Welch’s program won over consumers in a crowded market. Welch’s achieved a click-through rate of more than 2.5 times the industry average and drove $1.5 million in incremental sales across its total brand portfolio, a 2.1% sales lift, and an iROAS of $8.68.
Product Display (Long term)
Campaign: Tonies Target 3-Module Push Button Demo & Accompanying Floorstand
Brand: Tonies
Retail Partner: Target
Agency/Solution Provider: The Royal Group
Tonies is a children’s audio player that enables learning, imaginative play and storytelling in a screen-free experience. The brand was seeking a custom retail display at Target for its three major Toniebox categories — Content, Clever and Creative — that would elevate the shopper experience and drive sales through informed, in-store decision-making.
The merchandising teams developed an interactive on-shelf demo unit paired with a complementary floorstand featuring new character figurines. A prototype featured a “try me” button that played sample audio clips, vacuum-formed base modules in custom colors and an integrated computer board to manage the electronics and ensure smooth audio playback.
The audio clips containing stories, songs and educational content were triggered by activation (i.e., when a figurine is placed on top). Strategic placement of the computer board lowers on the store shelf to allow for a child’s interaction with the display, thereby encouraging deeper engagement and longer dwell times.
The floorstand, made of flexo-printed corrugate and equipped with 46 pegs, showcased 42 Tonies figurines and two-figurine bags. The display’s overall look balanced color alignment between Tonies and Target, using bold red accents to emphasize both brand identities and highlight SKUs exclusive to Target. It shipped fully assembled to maximize in-store execution and ensure consistent rollout.
This was the brand’s largest-ever temporary display at retail. This milestone marked a key retail achievement for Tonies and set the stage for ongoing success. Tonies planned to refresh the displays every 60 to 90 days throughout 2025.
Product Display (Temporary)
Campaign: NYX Professional Makeup Duck Plump Target PPK
Brand: NYX Professional Makeup (L’Oreal)
Retail Partner: Target
Agency/Solution Provider: Smurfit WestRock
Duck Plump, a lip plumping gloss by L’Oréal’s NYX Professional Makeup brand, is an ideal brand for Target with its blend of humor, boldness and selfie-worthy appeal. The Duck Plump campaign launch was designed to stir buzz, drive trial and translate viral moments online into in-store action among the brand’s core audience of Gen Z and younger Millennial consumers.
Fresh off a viral NFL Super Bowl ad featuring Cardi B (whose racy original version aired only on Univision and in the Los Angeles and New York markets), NYX wanted to extend this cultural moment with a bold display made with fully recyclable materials that required minimal store setup labor. NYX engineered a fully assembled endcap that simulated the gloss’s bold, cylindrical packaging and sensory “tingle and plump” experience of the product. The die-cut pop-off header and zigzag shelving design guided the eye and amplified shelf impact.
NYX’s TikTok channel garnered millions of views of its 15 “Cherry Spice” posts (the flavor Cardi B featured in the ad), and 12 “Big Game” posts to complement the broadcast. A host of creators across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram posted videos of themselves trying out the product and remarking on the “spicy” tingling sensation of ginger, a key ingredient, and its high-gloss look.
The Duck Plump endcap display was a key driver of the product launch’s success at Target. The display was set up at 100% of participating locations and remained in place for the full promotional period. Boosted by the viral marketing campaign, the product frequently sold out during the promotion, with many stores requiring restocking.
Product Display (Temporary)
Campaign: C4 Energy x Jolly Rancher
Brand: C4 Energy
Agency/Solution Provider: Buckeye Corrugated
Innovation is imperative to stand out in the crowded energy drink category, whose main cohort of 18- to 34-year-old consumers is constantly being bombarded with new products and messages. For this reason, C4 continues to look for breakthrough partnerships and marketing platforms with complementary brands like Jolly Rancher.
As part of a recent licensing partnership for the C4 performance energy drink brand, C4 saw the Jolly Rancher's lineup of juicy watermelon, sour green candy apple and tart blue raspberry candy flavors as a mouthwatering opportunity to make a splash at retail. The main goal was to use flavor-forward hero creative to make the launch the most successful licensing initiative in C4 history and hit the top 10 energy drink launches nationally.
The program’s central creative theme of “Energy Unwrapped” was executed across social, PR, media, shopper and retail touchpoints, including large- and small-format stores. Messaging came to life best via a 40-case shipper dress kit with a 3D-wrapped can, which was also featured as a pallet topper for larger footprint stores. Both were used successfully to disrupt the shopper at the point of purchase and drive trial through taste appeal and borrowed equity of Jolly Rancher.
Jolly Rancher was C4’s most successful partnership to date, outperforming benchmarks for 2025 with six months left in the year. Additionally, 64% of C4 Jolly Rancher buyers were new to the C4 brand, and 10% were new to the energy drink category.
Product Display (Temporary)
Campaign: Case of the Mondays
Brand: Coors Light (Molson Coors Beverage Co.)
Agency/Solution Provider: Arc Worldwide
Americans consume a staggering 325.5 million gallons of beer on Super Bowl Sunday, and an estimated 18.8 million U.S. employees miss work the next day. Wanting consumers to enjoy the occasion without all of the next-day regrets, Coors Light crafted a splashy campaign to encourage shoppers to head to the stores for a case of the “Monday’s Light.”
But there was a catch: The lynchpin of the campaign — a Super Bowl ad with teaser spot — was being held under wraps. The challenge for Coors Light was to drive incremental sales by securing additional retail display space for a stealth campaign requiring last-minute execution, all while maintaining secrecy under tight timelines with limited floor space.
Coors Light bet on a series of well-orchestrated reveals that shared just enough information to ensure buy-in for the displays, without giving away the entire playbook. Behind-the-scenes webinars let distributors and retailer partners in on exclusive previews, while one-on-one conversations with key stakeholders bolstered support for the campaign.
Once retailers were hooked, Coors Light sent out “Case of the Mondays” displays filled with special Monday Light packages for the moment the Super Bowl spot dropped. The design concept literally turned retail fixtures into oversized cases, creating an immersive brand world where shoppers couldn’t tell where display began and packaging ended.
The incremental retail floor space delivered exactly what Coors Light needed in its battle against Mexican imports and premium competitors. For the six weeks ending Feb. 9, 2025, Coors Light Case of the Mondays was the No.1 most displayed beer brand and sold 1.8 million cases.
Store/Aisle Reinvention
Campaign: Elevate & Serve: Dollar General's In-Store Enhancements
Retailer: Dollar General
Dollar General continues to update store formats and product mixes to meet the unique needs of shoppers in underserved parts of the country. In December 2024, the retailer rolled out two remodel programs, Project Renovate and Project Elevate, at stores that together comprise about 20% of the chain. Earlier in the fall, it launched a “surprise and delight” initiative to promote new celebrity and national home essentials brands.
Project Elevate was aimed at bolstering functionality and performance at stores not yet mature enough to be part of the full remodel pipeline. It spans partial remodels of around 2,250 stores with a strong focus on reflowing planograms and optimizing categories of highly consumable products. The changes — impacting approximately 80% of the total store — include customer-driven improvements, such as a full store reoptimization focused on pet, health and beauty, stationery and food, as well as physical asset investments that address key customer-facing elements.
Dollar General is also evolving the product mix and marketing in its non-consumables division, which includes brands like Dolly Parton’s Hearth and Home Collection, as well as Kathy Ireland’s Simply Belle by Simply Southern and Betseyville. As part of its promotion, DG is partnering with Southern Living to create and share content on the publisher’s various media platforms.
In Q1 2025, DG completed 668 Project Elevate stores and 559 Project Renovate remodels. As of Q1 2025, the company’s goal is to drive first-year annualized comp sales lifts in the range of 6% to 8% for Project Renovate stores and 3% to 5% for Project Elevate stores.
