Column: Introductions Are in Order
We also introduce you to 13 must-know practitioners whose efforts in helping their companies respond to the pandemic of 2020 made them worthy of recognition as the Institute’s first-ever Industry Innovators. We also recognize Kroger as our first Retail Innovator of the Year – but you already know the nation’s largest grocer.
Elsewhere, we introduce you to our latest proprietary research, a deep dive into the current state of the shopper marketing function within manufacturer organizations, a few pretty unique shopper-facing augmented reality activations, and one particularly experiential supermarket.
But I’d like to use some space here to introduce everyone to a couple of new initiatives that the Path to Purchase Institute will be rolling out this month. We hope you’ll be as excited about participating in them as we are about bringing them to our industry.
Introducing the OmniShoper Awards
We’re going to continue our efforts to celebrate innovation this year by launching the OmniShopper Awards, the first and only recognition program designed to honor excellence in shopper engagement across the entire path to purchase, and conducted by the only business intelligence source that actually covers the entire path to purchase.
The OmniShopper Awards will, naturally, shine a spotlight on in-store marketing in all its forms, much like the Institute’s Design of the Times Awards has done for the last 26 years. (We will, however, be retiring the DOTs as a stand-alone program.)
But the program will also reward effective activation across all other shopper touchpoints, both separately as distinct tactical executions and as part of more comprehensive campaigns that were designed to reach shoppers at multiple stages of their purchase journeys.
To that end, awards categories will cover everything from in-store displays and on-shelf signage to social media and retail media networks. And while we’ll single out the critically important need for strong brand-retailer collaboration – still the foundation of most best-practice shopper marketing – we’ll enter new territory by covering efforts driving direct-to-consumer sales for brands as well. Visit OmniShopperAwards.com/2021 for more information.
And what’s even more exciting about the first-ever OmniShopper Awards is that we’ll be announcing the winners at …
Introducing Path to Purchase Live
… the first-ever Path to Purchase Live event, which will be held Nov. 1-3 in Orlando, Florida.
Yes, that does say “in” Orlando. Based on the supportive feedback we’ve received from numerous members of the Institute community, and given the overall reopening of public venues across the U.S., we’re going to host our first post-pandemic in-person event this fall.
We’re currently working on the agenda, but the plan is to build a schedule that not only will give attendees all the conference-style learning they’ve come to expect from our events over the years, but also to offer a wealth of opportunities to meet face-to-face with industry leaders, potential business partners, and each other to further the education in personal ways that aren’t so easily replicated through virtual experiences.
You’ll be hearing plenty about the OmniShopper Awards and Path to Purchase Live over the next few months. Visit P2PI.org and PathtoPurchaseIQ.com to stay up to date. We’ve got a lot more introductions to make this summer.