Coke Launches ‘Shelf-Savvy Marketing’
To Boost Sales, Create Value at Shelf
By John Karolefski
Coca-Cola is rolling out a “shelf-savvy marketing” initiative that leverages the power of its special brand to evoke fond memories among consumers. The program aims to connect with all shoppers in the store – whether they are singles on a quick trip or families stocking up for the week.
Underlying the initiative is Coke’s notion of creating value through specialness and creating specialness through an experience. That’s the formula for selling more products at a
higher price.
“Shelf-savvy marketing is a new initiative that we’re trying to drive forward pretty aggressively,” said Darren Marshall, Vice President of Global Customer and Shopper Marketing at Coke. “At the end of the day, shelf-savvy marketing for us is all about blending and balancing love and value, fusing inspiring ideas with commercial disciplines, and bringing those two together to truly create value. That’s what shelf-savvy marketing is for the Coca Cola Company.”
He said Coke is thinking more holistically about its marketing in an effort to create value for shoppers, more of whom visit Walmart every week than watch the top ten TV shows.
“Shelf-savvy marketing is all about converting shoppers into buyers,” he said. “That’s how value is created, and we do that at the shelf. That’s where it all happens. So we’ve got to be able to make sure that we’re bringing that to life.
“As marketers, our role is to make this brand special – not just on the street, but also in the store, truly creating unique experiences,” he said in a presentation to retailers recently in New York at the 99th annual convention of the National Retail Federation (NRF).
Marshall said connecting with shoppers effectively calls for partnering with retailers to create value collaboratively. “What we don’t do enough of – and we’d love to be able to get your help with – is differentiating the packages, the price points, and the occasions within a retail store.”
He listed the seven habits of highly effective shelf-savvy marketers:
- Balance Create a balance between love and value. “It’s one thing to build a brand, but if you’re not making commercial value out of that as well there is really no need,” he said.
- Prioritize Decide among the many opportunities such as geographies, categories, occasions and shopping missions. “We’ve got to be strategic about what we’re doing, going after the things where we’ve got not only the biggest opportunity but the biggest set of capabilities to bring it to life.”
- Portfolio Think about how people are interacting with your portfolio, whether it’s a portfolio of brands, banners or store formats. “We have 450 brands across the world. We cannot cram 450 brands into every store in every geography. We’ve got to be able to make decisions and think about things in terms of what is going to be the best mix for those shoppers.”
- Segmentation Group shoppers into similar traits and behaviors. “As marketers, it’s our role to be able to understand what motivates people and how those motivations are different.”
- Differentiation Create distinct brands. “We differentiate brands. We’ve done it for a long time and we’ve created very distinct different brands.”
- Interruption Capture people in the store. “Only 30% of the people are going down the beverage aisles these days. As shopping patterns continue to evolve, that’s going to decrease even more because there are more {shoppers} who are very focused on going in and going out. We’ve got to be where they are, which means not just stacking high with big displays. It means being very strategic about where we’re placing things throughout the store.”
- Occasions Make the brands relevant when people are buying the product. “Whether it’s lunch at home with friends or it’s at a football game, bringing brands to life in a situational type of environment is really the magic of how brands truly live and breathe in our everyday lives.”
Marshall said it’s important to create “context” in the store because it creates demand. The in-store experience must be something different and special – maybe unique.
“It’s about making connections with our shoppers because we’ve got to be able to turn shoppers into buyers or else there’s no economic value created for anyone. If we forget that, then we’re lost,” he said.
Marshall gave the example of connecting with two different shoppers, each spending $3.50 to buy Coca-Cola. Maria buys the new 1.5-liter twin pack for her family, while Mike buys a chic, very cool aluminum bottle Coke.
“Think about the economics,” he said. “Maria is very price sensitive. It’s very important for her to get great value. Mike, not so much. The core lesson here is that one size does not fit all. The more differentiated that we can be, the more profitable that we can be as well. When we think about activating at retail, it’s all about being as differentiated as possible, as differentiated as our execution capabilities allow us to be.”
Market Watch
Sam's Club Rolls Out Demo Program
To Build Loyalty, Attract Shoppers
By Lynne Cooke
Sam’s Club has named Shopper Events, a third-party marketing company, to run its product sampling and demonstration program.
The new, enhanced demo program, called Tastes and Tips, aims to give Sam’s Club members the chance to discover new items and give store associates a fresh way to serve shoppers.
Shopper Events has an established record within Walmart, the parent company of Sam’s Club, where they manage the “Bright Ideas” in-store demos for Walmart U.S. The new “Tastes and Tips” demo program will include integrated demo stations, signage, uniforms and product selling. It will focus on presenting value and selection food and beverage, products for personal wellness and electronics.
“We spend a lot of time talking to and listening to today’s consumers and our own Club Members,” said President and CEO Brian Cornell in an internal memo to Sam’s Club associates. “We have found that in-club demos, or product sampling, is one of the things they love most about the Club experience. Our demos can be a competitive advantage and we want to take this Member experience to the next level.”
Shopper Events will be replacing the approximately 10,000 demo associates, most of whom are part-time. Cornell noted that the third-party marketing company will be staffing up for the work at Sam’s Club. Current Club demo associates will have the opportunity to apply for the new positions, he said.
Sunflower Pushes Nutrition
Sunflower Farmers Market in Boulder, Colo. is educating its shoppers about nutrition with two new programs – at-shelf nutrition tags and a nutrition microsite on the Web.
The independent grocer’s “Smart Tags Program” is an easy-to-read, color-coded nutrition labeling program formulated by Sunflower’s registered dietician, Maya. The retailer has also created a nutrition-themed microsite designed to help customers to start and stick to a nutrition plan in 2010
For the shelf tags, Maya combined the American Dietetic Association’s dietary recommendations with her personal passion for real food to create criteria for tagging in four areas: orange Smart Celiac tags; red Smart Heart tags; blue Smart Carb tags; and purple Smart Weight tags. For Smart Tag criteria, visit ww.sfmarkets.com/nutrition/smart-tags.
Nutrition Info at Farm Fresh
Shoppers at the 45 stores operated by Farm Fresh, a Supervalu banner, have way to
make more informed food choices at the store shelf via “nutrition iQ,” a nutrition information program.
Nutrition iQ employs color-coded shelf tags, conspicuously hung just below an item’s price tag, to help shoppers quickly identify better-for-you food options. First unveiled by Supervalu in early 2009, the program was developed in collaboration with Joslin Clinic, part of an academic medical center affiliated with Boston’s Harvard Medical School.
JANUARY 2010
Research by Kraft
Leads Creative Meal Solutions
By Jack Grant
The economic downturn has spawned new shopping behavior by consumers. Most of them
now realize that selecting groceries and developing meals can never be the same. They are getting down to basics by buying more private label goods and looking for value among
branded products.
The major food marketers are quickly figuring out how to respond to these needs. For example, Kraft Foods has doubled its investment in shopper marketing in the last year and is mining shopper insights to develop new meal solutions in stores. It is helping retail partners by co-developing differentiated in-store programs that provide value to shoppers during the recession.
“This economic cloud has a sliver lining,” said Diane Tielbur, senior director, CIS, KNA at Kraft.
She referred to insights that Kraft has gleaned from recent research, which trace how consumers have changed their attitudes for the better. She outlined these stages in a presentation in Chicago at a private label conference hosted by the Institute for International Research (IIR).
According to Tielbur, consumers have been on a four-part journey during the current recession:
- Awareness Life has changed. This stage took root when home values began to decline and unemployment inched up. The changes around the country became personal.
- Anxiety Money is not going as far as before. Low-level panic began to set in as hard choices had to be made. Retirements and major purchases were being postponed. Plummeting investments fueled this stage.
- Retrenchment Limits on spending have caused lifestyle changes. Dining out declined as cooking more at home became the obvious alternative. Trade-offs became trendy. For example, pizza delivery gave way to bringing home a frozen pizza from the grocery store.
- Bright Siding Look for the bright side in bad situations. This current stage of resourcefulness has consumers discovering new priorities and advantages from living a simpler life.
According to Kraft research, six of ten consumers (61%) say the recession has permanently changed their attitudes, while seven of ten (72%) plan to use their new shopping strategies even when the economy improves.
Consumers are more resourceful, according to Tielbur. For example, they are eating at restaurants less and even “eating down” by using what’s already in the pantry rather than buying replacement products before current stock is depleted.
Kraft knew that it needed to keep track of the stages that consumers would be going through because of the recession. This enabled the company to modify its marketing programs to suit the new environment.
Tielbur told CPGmatters that results of the research led to a new collaboration between Kraft and certain major retailers already promoting their house brands to recession-hardened shoppers trying to stretch their grocery dollars. She referenced co-marketing with Wegmans in its weekly circular.
In addition, CPGmatters has learned that Kraft has developed customized programs with such major customers as Publix, Safeway, HEB, Meijer, and others. The programs range from simple meal solutions such as Meijer’s Lunch Spot which group everything needed to make a really great meal with a sandwich. Kraft offers recipes and dinner suggestions via links between retailers’ online communities and Kraft.com.
In solo promotions, Kraft published “50 Great Ways to Save Money, Time and Energy” in its Food and Family magazine. Its “One Bag, Five Dinners” program showed shoppers how to make five dinners with one bag of groceries. Kraft urges shoppers to visit Kraft.com and as well as dabbling in apps on the i-Phone and i-Food.
Kraft’s new focus on shopper marketing has coincided with this new wave of frugality in the last 18 months. The marketer has in place promotions with top customers in 2010 that leverage larger events like major sporting events, Back-To-School and national holidays, as well as platforms such as convenient meals and simple sandwiches. Kraft continues to tie into a retailer’s Frozen Food Month and Dairy Month promotions.
While Kraft has been focusing on solutions with its top customers, the marketer welcomes working with retailers of all sizes. This collaborative approach is paying off with improved trade relations as both partners aim to provide meal solutions to a common customer. Kraft aims to customize its programs so they are differentiated.
Market Watch
NuVal Nutritional Scoring
Partners with United Supermarkets
By Rose Anthony
NuVal’s campaign to help people eat better through their easy-to-understand food scoring system is poised to expand into Texas via a partnership with Lubbock-based United Supermarkets. The grocery chain operates 50 stores under the United Supermarkets, Market Street, and Amigos United banners.
The scoring system applies foods with a numeric rating from 1 to 100 (the higher the score, the more nutrition it provides). Scores are provided on the supermarket shelf, making it easy for consumers to compare – at a glance – the overall nutrition of the foods they buy.
United Supermarkets plans to launch NuVal in six of its Market Street stores in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in March 2010, then roll it out to the remainder of its stores later in the year. Once deployed in Texas, the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System will be available in more than 575 supermarkets in 19 states across the U.S., with more installations scheduled this year.
In addition to United, NuVal Scores are currently available in Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, and
Meijer supermarkets.
After the NuVal launch in United stores, shoppers will see thousands of trademark NuVal blue hexagons, which contain NuVal Scores, on shelf tags throughout the store. Scored categories include salty snacks, milk, yogurt, vegetables (fresh, frozen and canned), cereal, bread, cookies, soft drinks, crackers, meat, seafood, poultry, among others. Ultimately, NuVal will cover all food categories.
Using the NuVal system, United customers can:
- Easily discover the more nutritious products in a store. Consumers wanting to know what cereals (or crackers or cookies) have more nutrition only need to take a look at the NuVal scores and choose the product with the higher number.
- Be able to “act like an expert,” using the knowledge and research of more than a dozen of the country’s best nutrition experts, who spent two years creating the ONQI (Overall Nutritional Quality Index), the scientific engine used to determine NuVal scores.
- Get more nutrition for their budget, as they can now compare items side-to-side and determine which product offers the better value, not just in price, but in nutrition as well. For instance, consumers may find that some varieties of frozen or canned vegetables score the same as fresh produce on the NuVal scale.
- Be able to compare name brand to store brand products better. In many instances, consumers will learn that a store’s private label item is just as nutritious as the more expensive national one.
In-Store Trumps Ads
In-store marketing is more effective than traditional ads, according to a study conducted by the National Research Network on behalf of Miller Zell. One of three shoppers (32%) of the 999 polled online agreed that in-store marketing is very effective, while about one of four (27%) felt the same about advertising via other methods.
Nearly a third (32%) of the 999 shoppers polled online in March said in-store marketing is very effective. Only 27% said the same about ads living outside of the store. The most engaging in-store marketing were end-aisle displays (70%), merchandising displays (62%) and department signage (58%). The least engaging were ceiling banners and overhead mobiles.
Check Out Categories
Confectionery, magazines and soft drinks are the top categories purchased frequently by the most shoppers on an impulse basis, according to a Front-End Focus consumer study.
Nine of ten respondents (90%) told researcher Dechert-Hampe & Co. they occasionally purchase items from the checkout, which makes up more than one percent of total store sales. The firm advises retailers to merchandise confectionery on both sides of every aisle to influence impulse buyers
The study, sponsored by Mars Chocolate North America, The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.,
The Coca-Cola Co. and Time-Warner Retail Sales & Marketing, shows shoppers tend
not to switch lanes or shop across lanes. Almost 30% of consumers surveyed said if the front-end item they were looking for was not available, they would not buy anything else on that shopping trip.
Whole Foods Goes Mobile
Shoppers at Whole Foods can now enjoy the features of wholefoodmarket.com while on the go. The natural foods grocer has launched a website optimized for web-enable mobile devices. Users can access Whole Foods Market's selection of over 2,000 recipes, store information including hours, driving directions, store specials and a calendar of events for their local store.
The mobile site also features a store locator where customers can use a ZIP code search to find the nearest Whole Foods Market store. It is available at http://m.wholefoodsmarket.com.
