Walgreens making changes to be customer centric

In a new interview at the In Store Marketing Institute, three Walgreens executives discuss their efforts to become more customer-centric, with their new focus on "customer centric retailing".

Shopper Marketing: What is the new CCR initiative?

Bryan Pugh: We are working to elevate purchasing into a merchandising business, putting the customer at the center of everything we do. Our first change is all of the adjacencies. Instead of laying out the store by how buyers buy the store, we lay it out by how a customer shops. We began rolling out 40 new departments in mid-March.

Read the full interview here.

New Shopper Insights Council at Advertiser Research Foundation

It was recently announced that the Advertiser Research Foundation is launching a Shopper Insights Council. The members of the new group include ad agencies, media companies, and market research firms. Peter Hoyt, executive director of the In-Store Marketing Institute and one of the co-chairs of the group's first meeting made these comments about the first meeting:

"The whole idea of retail and shopper insights is exploding and, while explosive growth is exciting, it also brings with it the very real likelihood of unqualified practitioners and shoddy work appearing on the scene."

Find out more at Brand Week.