How to Bring National Campaign Power to Regional Retailers
If you work in omnichannel or shopper marketing, you already know the uncomfortable truth: Regional and local retailers often punch way above their weight but rarely get the support they deserve.
These retailer customers can represent 20%-30% of a brand's business, often totaling more than $100 million for an average CPG. They also can deliver higher margins than national chains. Yet when they do receive marketing support, it's often with thinner budgets, leaner teams and far less visibility than national accounts.
But here's the opportunity: Regional retailers move faster, collaborate more openly and consistently deliver strong ROI. When national brand strategies are thoughtfully adapted to regional retail, the incremental impact can be substantial.
Why Regional Retailers Are Worth the Effort
Regional customers bring advantages that even the largest national chains often can't match:
- Deeply loyal shopper bases
- Flexible store formats and merchandising approaches
- A strong partnership mindset
- Greater risk/reward tolerance
- A hunger for innovation
- Increasingly advanced retail media capabilities (apps, CRM, loyalty platforms, owned media)
For CPGs, this means the ability to test, learn and scale smarter, often generating better returns than programs limited to top‑tier accounts.
Building the Right Plan (Without Reinventing the Wheel)
Extending national campaigns to regional retailers doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs structure. It starts with an honest investment assessment:
- What dollars are truly available?
- What resources are in place to support execution?
- What level of ROI is realistic?
- Where can we test and learn without overspending?
From there, plans must balance three core inputs:
- Brand strategic priorities
- Retailer and category goals
- What we know about the shopper
At HMT, we apply our Four Lens Insight Formula to identify the shopper and omnichannel strategy that works for both the brand and the retailer. From there, we evaluate the full tactical toolbox (media, in‑store and digital) to determine which activations truly influence behavior and drive conversion.
Once the plan is built, alignment is critical. Brand, omnichannel/shopper, field sales and retailer teams all need clarity on priorities, funding and execution expectations before activation begins.
The Playbook: Making Scaled Activation Actually Scalable
One of the biggest challenges for brands today is activating beyond the top 10 retailers without straining teams or budgets. That challenge is exactly what led to the creation of The Playbook. It's a turnkey resource that translates brand priorities into scalable, insight‑driven omnichannel programs that work across the full retail landscape. The Playbook is structured around brand tentpole moments, key consumption occasions and strategic partnerships.
The playbook strategy can deliver value at every level. Brand/HQ teams can protect brand equity and amplify national strategies. Omnichannel/shopper team extend reach and frequency, maximize spend efficiency and do more with fewer resources. Finally, field/sales teams gain simple, sell‑in‑ready tools, elevate retailer conversations and drive faster, more consistent activation.
A Real-World Proof Point: 10+ Years with Mondelez International
Our long-standing partnership with Mondelez International illustrates how powerful this approach can be. While their top 10 customers are critical, Tier 2 and Tier 3 retailers represent 30–40% of total sales, a massive and often underleveraged growth opportunity.
Through The Playbook, Mondelēz has been able to strengthen brand equity, build efficient, high‑ROI programs, drive incremental sales, and support retail traffic and category growth.
"With the sheer volume of assets and the need to execute from a true omnichannel perspective, the Playbook brings a level of consistency and organization that's incredibly helpful even with our largest retailers," said Taylor Jackson, associate manager, omnichannel strategy at Mondelez. "What is especially powerful though, is that it also provides the resources to bring the same priorities to regional customers, where having that kind of framework makes it possible to activate at scale."
Because the programs are turnkey and adaptable, they scale across grocery, mass and convenience, while remaining rooted in insights and modern shopper behavior.
"The Playbook developed by HMT has enabled Mondelez International to deliver strategic omni/shopper programming to a greater breadth of customers and therefore reaching more shoppers across every retail channel," said Steve McGowan, Mondelez senior director of U.S. consumer experience at Mondelez and P2PI Hall of Famer. "The Playbook tool has provided the Mondelez teams with the ability to streamline activation, strategically partner locally, all while being efficient in money and time across our retail sales organization. The Playbook has really been a fantastic tool for Mondelez International because it has been a key driver for broadening program reach and retailer partnerships."
Together, these perspectives highlight the Playbook’s dual impact: enabling strategic alignment at scale while simplifying execution across the organization.
What Makes This Work
Across our experience, three principles consistently drive success:
1. Get everyone aligned early. Brand, omnichannel/shopper and field sales teams must be rowing in the same direction with shared objectives and clear funding parameters.
2. Make sure the retailer wins too. Programs can't just extend national messaging. They must deliver shopper value: basket builders, seasonal relevance, stock‑up moments, and solutions that meet local needs.
3. Keep activation flexible. Retail media capabilities vary widely. Identify shared platform strengths and prioritize scalable tactics to ensure efficiency and reach.
About the Author
Joe Conti is the managing partner — client and revenue, at HMT Associates Inc. He and his team lead HMT’s partnership with Mondelez International in omnichannel commerce, which includes driving planning initiatives with headquarters across more than 25 grocery brand and scale programs and 12 convenience-store programs. Beyond planning, his team serves as the omnichannel activation partner for the field sales organization, bringing programming to more than 30 regional and local grocery customers such as Hy-Vee, Giant Eagle, UNFI, Lowes Foods and Southeastern Grocers.
