LEAD Marketing Conference
Co-Locates with GHQ Connections
By Lynne Cooke
The LEAD Marketing Conference and GHQ Connections have agreed to co-locate their events at the Westin O’Hare in Rosemont (Chicago), Ill. October 10-13.
The agreement will allow consumer packaged goods companies and retailers the opportunity
to both engage in face-to-face meetings and to attend a conference where they will learn how to enhance their business with customer marketing and shopper engagement strategies,
social media, virtual shopping platforms, analysis of paths to purchase, and assorted
shopper technology.
The LEAD Marketing Conference is the industry’s most comprehensive event focusing on
all aspects of Loyalty, Engagement, Analytics and Digital Marketing applications.
GHQ Connections is focused on private one-to-one meetings with consumer packaged goods suppliers and top insights and consumer engagement providers. Executives are able to meet in a setting that allows them to quickly and efficiently determine if any fit exists between their two companies. The schedule is vetted to ensure that each meeting is on target and has value to each organization. For more information on GHQ Connections, contact Jeffrey D. Friedman at jfriedman@macfad.com or call 212 979-4873.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to offer suppliers and retailers two shows in one setting,” said Friedman, Executive Director of Brand Development for Macfadden Communications, which hosts GHQ Connections. “It’s a win-win for everyone, especially those time-constrained retailers and suppliers who now get a chance to meet with so many industry officials in just two and a half days.”
The LEAD Marketing Conference is the first collaborative conference to focus on understanding and leveraging the many effective and emerging technologies which are crucial to attracting
and maintaining shoppers, as well as providing much-needed differentiation in today’s competitive marketplace.
The event is geared to all channels of retailing including Supermarkets, Drug, Dollar Store, Mass and Discount, Convenience Stores, Specialty Stores and Department Stores.
The educational agenda will consist of general sessions, two tracks (one for Loyalty and Analytics and the other for Engagement and Digital), and table-top exhibits. Networking receptions and dinners will bring together retailers, manufacturers, and vendors. The second annual LEADER awards, sponsored by IBM, will be presented as part of the conference.
According to the conference producers, engaging and satisfying today’s consumer has never been more challenging given today’s tough economic times. Leading-edge retailers are using advanced analytics to segment shoppers, improve store loyalty, and increase basket size. They are taking CRM to a new level with enhanced behavioral targeting.
New solutions are now available to retailers and are often deployed in partnership with CPG manufacturers. This high-tech array includes in-store messaging via digital signage, kiosks, advertising networks, interactive shopping carts, paperless coupons, mobile coupons and TV and radio broadcasting.
JUNE 2010
Leading Innovations Recognized,
Awards Program Underway
By Rose Anthony
Highlights in loyalty marketing relating to CPG and retail were on the list of the leading loyalty innovations of the past two decades. Selections were made by Colloquy, a global provider of research, education and publications.
Among the major milestones in the evolution of loyalty marketing were:
1992 The rise of two-tier pricing – a watershed moment for grocers– takes place when Vons supermarkets offer in-store savings to club card members.
2001 America’s first coalition program to gain national attention arrives through Upromise, which partners with corporate giants to help students plan, save and pay for college.
2006 Word of Mouth is harnessed by loyalty marketers in order to transform consumers
into brand ambassadors after the broad acceptance of social platforms such as Facebook
and LinkedIn.
2009 Smartphones promise loyalty marketers new ways to engage with on-the-go consumers and enable real-time options for mobile rewards, payments and commerce.
Colloquy Partner Kelly Hlavinka singled out as significant “the emergence of ‘Enterprise Loyalty’ in which companies began to use customer data from their loyalty program to transform their customer experience, product mix, pricing strategies and other operational efforts.”
Meanwhile, Colloquy also announced that it will honor the most customer-focused loyalty initiatives in the industry with its inaugural loyalty awards. The program will recognize the best loyalty innovations in the United States and Canada.
The awards, the only such honors determined by members of the loyalty industry itself, are the centerpiece of a yearlong celebration of the 20th anniversary of Colloquy, a LoyaltyOne company. The winners will be presented at a gala event on Sept. 16 during the 8th Annual Colloquy Summit in Phoenix.
“As leader in the art and science of building customer loyalty, Colloquy is launching these awards to address a need in the market – recognizing and celebrating the most innovative and proven enterprise loyalty initiatives,” said Hlavinka. “And they are the only awards chosen by the industry itself, through Colloquy’s 38,000 subscribers – loyalty marketing executives representing more than a half dozen different industry sectors.”
The awards go beyond the boundaries of traditional frequency programs. They will honor accomplishments in loyalty marketing, loyalty technology and loyalty analytics. All of the awards will be a tribute to the best Enterprise Loyalty initiatives – those groundbreaking efforts in customer-centric marketing communications that also transform customer experiences through analytical insights.
In all, the loyalty awards will salute initiatives in seven categories. Six of the awards will recognize Enterprise Loyalty initiatives by industry sector and by function. The seventh will honor the “Master of Enterprise Loyalty.”
Judging for the awards takes place in two rounds and will ultimately be decided by members of the loyalty industry. First, a jury of ten senior loyalty experts in academia and business (below) will select three finalists in each category. Colloquy subscribers, voting online, will determine the winners who will be honored before their peers at the Sept. 16 ceremony.
