The Hub Top 10: Shopper Marketing

Few would argue that one of the most important lynchpins in the process of planning and implementing Shopper Marketing initiatives is the relationship between the brand marketer and its agencies. To be "best practice," both must walk in lockstep and each must be capable of filling the voids where the other is weak until the weaknesses are addressed.Shopper Marketing has raised the bar on the client/agency relationship dramatically. From the standpoint of brand marketers pursuing a Shopper Marketing strategy, it is no longer sufficient for the agency to come up with a brilliant "big idea." What Shopper Marketing practitioners need are initiatives that evolve naturally from an understanding of the needs of shoppers and the stores where they shop.These are game-changing requirements for many agencies, especially those that have built their businesses on the premise that "creative" should drive the agenda. This is not to say that brilliant creative is not wanted or welcome when it comes to Shopper Marketing -- only that the starting point must be a strategic understanding of what a brand is attempting to accomplish with a particular retailer and perhaps even within a particular segment of that retailer.Once understood, the art of the possible is not just to develop brilliant creative but brilliant creative that fits in a box -- the retail store.The other game-changing requirement for agencies wishing to become proficient at Shopper Marketing is to focus on the strategic underpinnings of what a brand is attempting to accomplish. To do this, agencies must learn to sidestep the temptation of immediately jumping to tactical solutions as the answer to every challenge.As Rob Holston, practice leader for Shopper Marketing at Deloitte Consulting and previously director of global shopper marketing for Coca-Cola told Advertising Age: "Having a series of one-off programs does not build sustainable organization capability; doing so treats campaigns as nothing more than an attempt to ride the latest fad."Shopper Marketing is also gradually changing the role of shopper-focused agencies when dealing with their clients. Whereas formerly the agency's role was one of exceeding client expectations on every event, the advent of Shopper Marketing has created the opportunity for agencies to add value via a consulting role to those clients who are beginning to experiment with the concept.By leveraging their experience with other clients whose Shopper Marketing programs are relatively advanced, shopper-focused agencies can perform an invaluable service to new adopters. In addition, this presents the opportunity for higher-level contacts and significantly closer relationships on a strategic basis.There is little doubt that for many agencies, making these adjustments is not an easy task. This becomes particularly difficult when a client has gotten off on the wrong foot and positioned Shopper Marketing as a bolt-on as opposed to a top priority corporate strategy.Common problems resulting from this approach include: 1) No top down commitment; 2) Lack of a clear-cut definition and vision across the organization; 3) No integration -- differing expectations throughout the organization often resulting in a lack of universal satisfaction with results; 4) Inadequate funding -- mostly all ad hoc based on an opportunistic approach; and 5) Inconsistent application and cooperation, because one cannot effectively "sell" Shopper Marketing internally from the "middle up."Unfortunately, as the recent Deloitte/GMA study on Shopper Marketing points out, 45 percent of manufacturers who have launched a Shopper Marketing initiative have structured this function to report to their Sales Departments, thereby not only widening the gap between Marketing and Sales, but also making cross-company vision and integration all but impossible.In other words, agencies can hardly be expected to perform well for clients who don't "get it" themselves and yet expect their agencies to deliver on a par with results achieved by those brand marketers who do get it.To cut through this, The Hub partnered with Hoyt & Company and the Promotion Marketing Association (PMA) to conduct the first Hub Top 10 of Shopper Marketing Excellence. During the months of March and April 2008, subscribers of The Hub and Reveries.com's Cool News of the Day newsletter as well as members of the PMA were invited to participate in an online survey designed by Hoyt & Company.In this survey, agencies were asked to rank brand marketers on each of 10 performance criteria important to agencies when collaborating with brand marketers on Shopper Marketing. Conversely, brand marketers were asked to do the same thing with respect to agencies. The survey objectives were to:Develop a "Top 10" report that brand marketers could use as a pre-screening device when looking for agencies with Shopper Marketing expertise. Because of the way in which this survey was constructed, results are based not on editorial opinion but on real-world peer-to-peer evaluations. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of both manufacturers and agencies in planning, implementing and collaborating on the various aspects of Shopper Marketing that are important to each group respectively, for the purpose of bringing deficiencies to light and thereby gradually improving industry performance overall.Establish a statistical basis against which to benchmark both performance and progress in future surveys. Importantly, this survey was not designed to identify who produces the best Shopper Marketing initiatives, but rather to identify who has the best underpinnings in place.Space does not permit us to outline here the methodology that was used to collect and clean the responses to this survey, nor to examine the individual rankings results for each of the performance areas for the 10 brand marketers and 10 agencies.Suffice to say that our overarching objective throughout this survey was to ensure credibility and integrity, which meant uniform application of all rules to all respondents.These details, plus all ranking results (and brand marketer and agency "comments"), are spelled out in a full Hub Top 10 of Shopper Marketing Excellence hard-copy report which The Hub is providing gratis to all of those who completed the survey and which will be available for purchase on the Reveries.com and HubMagazine.com websites.In addition to the survey's results, this report also includes a mini-primer on best practices in Shopper Marketing for those wishing to understand how the "best of the best" actually plan, organize for and implement Shopper Marketing strategies.Agency RankingsOverall, the agencies mentioned in this survey scored highest in "Best Understanding of the Shopper Marketing Concept" and lowest in "Best Shopper Marketing Strategic Planning" and "Best Understanding of Shopper Motivations."Based on these data, there is a 34-point spread between the area in which shopper-focused brand marketers think agencies perform best and those areas in which -- presumably -- agencies could focus on improvement. Specifically, these latter areas are defined as follows:"Best Shopper Marketing Strategic Planning" (events planned within a tailored strategic framework for each retailer as opposed to a disconnected series of tactically-based one-offs)."Best Understanding of Shopper Motivations" (e.g., need states, why they shop where they shop, expectations and activation triggers, etc.). In the opinion of the brand marketers who responded to this survey, the "best of the best" in terms of overall performance against all of these criteria is Mars Advertising, followed by Saatchi & Saatchi X. TracyLocke, Ryan Partnership and Catapult Marketing were all grouped closely for third.However, because more than 60 agencies received mention in this survey, congratulations are due to all of the agencies who made The Hub's Top 10 of Shopper Marketing Excellence.Brand Marketer RankingsIn total, the brand marketers mentioned in this survey scored highest in "Best Uniformity of Shopper Marketing Vision Across the Organization" and lowest in "Best at Feedback and Constructive Criticism" and "Best Approvals Process."Based on these data, there is a 34-38 point spread between the area in which agencies think brand marketers perform best and those areas in which, presumably, brand marketers could focus on improvement. Specifically, these latter areas are defined as follows:"Best at Feedback and Constructive Criticism" (regular reviews, avoids nit-picking, always enables agency to know what is important and where it stands)"Best Approvals Process" (quick, easy, reliable timeframe) In the opinion of the agencies that responded to this survey, the "best of the best" in terms of its overall performance against these criteria is clearly Procter & Gamble, followed by Unilever N.A. and a tie between Clorox and Nestle for third place.That Clorox scored high on this list is significant because it is less than half the size of the next smallest company on this list and proves that one does not have to be a mega-giant to achieve excellence in Shopper Marketing.Again, congratulations to everyone who made either list. Recognizing that Shopper Marketing is still an evolving discipline for all parties, we look forward to benchmarking the industry's progress against these criteria between now and this time next year.

The Hub Top 10: Shopper Marketing

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