In some organizations, the terms "campaign," "program" and "platform" have very distinct and precise meanings; in others, they're used interchangeably.
“Most shopper marketing organizations grew organically out of customer marketing,” says Gil Krakowsky, principal at A.T. Kearney. “And that made sense: You’d learn about a need from a retailer through the customer teams, so it grew up in sales and was customer focused.
The 2011 A.T. Kearney "Shopper Marketing Organization" survey was conducted in the late spring over a list of marketing executives, director-level and up, created by the Path to Purchase Institute. A total of 26 executives were interviewed.
"While short-term, one-off promotions still dominate, the best organizations are moving toward strategic, multi-execution programs and platforms," says Gil Krakowsky, principal at A.T. Kearney.
"The issue here is whether shopper marketing organizations can build campaigns that reach across the entire corporate portfolio, either across brands within a category or preferably across categories," says Gil Krakowsky, principal at A.T. Kearney.
"The companies with more mature shopper marketing organizations [defined as older than three years] are more open to giving their sales and brand executives the option of doing a rotation through shopper marketing," says Gil Krakowsky, principal at A.T. Kearney.
"The fact that search and in-store digital ranked lower on this list is not surprising since we consider those to be 'next wave' technologies," says Gil Krakowsky, principal at A.T. Kearney.
"Typically at a CPG manufacturer, the individual brands get together with their agency partners and internal centers of excellence to define a brand strategy for the year," says Gil Krakowsky, principal at A.T. Kearney.
Are shopper marketers being home grown, transferring in from customer teams, or just rotating through from sales and brand? Which way should shopper marketing teams be oriented: customers or brands? And at the end of the day, who really holds the budgetary authority?
With online sales growth continuing to outpace overall retail sales, it is not surprising that retailers and manufacturers are carefully evaluating their use of valuable website space and media mix for promotions.
