People to Watch 2014: Krystina Robinson, Heineken USA

Eight individuals represent this year’s class of People to Watch. Nominated by their colleagues and friends of Shopper Marketing and the Path to Purchase Institute, these rising stars are making a name for themselves by doing work for the brands and their categories that’s worthy of attention.Krystina Robinson graduated from Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, a city she says afforded her plenty of advertising agency internship opportunities. She began post-college life in advertising, and began working on alcohol accounts from the start with G2 Worldwide. Then a year at Gyro included work on another spirits brand. She joined Heineken in 2012.Much of her career has been spent in shopper marketing, digital and CRM. She says her current role “is the crucial link between marketing and sales functions,” and that she strives to deliver impactful programming for shoppers and on- and off-premise customers.Robinson is commercial marketing manager for Heineken’s Dutch brands – Heineken, Heineken Light and Amstel Light. She is coming off a recent triumph: the “Open Your Summer” TV and digital promotion. “We had an excellent summer, with the last three months flat for Heineken Lager, which is fantastic in a declining market,” she says. “We even outpaced the overall market by nearly a full percentage point.”That effort piggybacked on a winter holiday promotion that involved a partnership with a sparkling wine company and was successful enough to repeat this year, says Robinson. The partnership originated from research that showed that beer and wine can co-exist at holiday gatherings without cannibalizing each other.In a recent interview with Shopper Marketing, Robinson answered some industry-related questions:What role do you foresee the physical store playing in the future?Robinson: Even with the proliferation of legal regulations by state for beer, e-commerce is a hot topic. Our retailers are facing decisions about their e-commerce versus brick-and-mortar business every day. I think the brands that figure out how to leverage both channels in the right way for their shoppers will see success.I love seeing an online brand go to brick-and-mortar, as I saw Amazon do for a pop-up event, and a traditional brick-and-mortar category become more e-commerce focused, such as with companies like FreshDirect or SeamlessWeb. It goes back to the omnichannel thinking.I would also like to see the physical stores create as much excitement as they can – remove the mundane ‘task’ of shopping and replace it with something special. Psychology tells us that memory is highly correlated with emotion. Create a positive emotional connection, no matter the channel, and shoppers will respond to your brand.What are the biggest challenges facing the discipline of shopper marketing?Robinson: The biggest challenge is also the biggest opportunity – the digital revolution in retail. From the iBeacons of the world to geo-targeted media buys, the question is always, “How do we help our retailers wade through a sea of innovation and partner with the right technologies that actually drive results?” Within Heineken USA, we have an entire team dedicated to developing digital shopper marketing strategies for every brand we own.How does your organization think about and address omnichannel shopping/marketing?Robinson: You hear that term thrown around a lot lately. We develop programs in a path-to-purchase style that often seems a bit linear so that we can easily explain the journey on a PowerPoint slide, but the truth is that our shoppers and consumers don’t live on a linear path. We work closely with our brand and customer teams to identify where the synergies are between awareness and conversion in driving initiatives. We do this to create messaging and engagements from offline to online, allowing an individual to really engage with a brand in the way they want to across various channels.

People to Watch 2014: Krystina Robinson, Heineken USA

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