*Updated* Keynote: Shopper Marketing Strategies in a Challenging Economy

Video clip Below

Diane Wallace, SVP, Shopper Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company

Diane Wallace comes with a bevy of shopper marketing knowledge as she walks us through key strategies of shopper marketing. From making a look of success at the store to recreating the family meal by increasing awareness of the value that Coke can bring to the family meal, Diane offered great insights in what we can do in this current environment to make sure that we create as much efficiency and productivity with the shopper.

Below are a few highlights from Diane’s presentation:

What does shopper marketing mean for the Coca-Cola Company?

The Coca-Cola Company believes that they have been doing shopper marketing for over 100 years, in that they connect with their customers on personal level. Knowing your shopper and creating an irresistible experience is key to successful shopper marketing .

Shopper marketing strategies in a challenging economy:

“How can we sell our products and connect with shoppers, when those shoppers are under a lot of pressure?” Execs at The Coca-Cola Company.
Are the changes that we’re seeing with shoppers temporary or will they last? We know that trips are changing from grocery to dollar stores, people are looking for private label—we believe that these pressures are real and they will not change instantly when the economy picks up.
What are we hearing from our customers?

Retailers are asking Coca-Cola to look at these points to create relevance and return to the bottom line:
• Maximize shopper relevance
• Create easy-to-shop environments
• Provide shopper solutions
• Create efficiencies

The Coca-Cola Company, being a global giant, has seen economic roller coasters with other markets. Its an advantage for Coca-Cola as they are able to study from these countries and apply working strategies to the US market.

Coca-Cola’s Shopper Marketing Strategies

It is critical that we go back to basics of foundational and time tested strategies during this economic environment.

Creating irresistible shopper experiences through our (Coca-Cola’s)Leading Beverage Portfolio: Create & Grow leadership brands in each beverage segment. Enhance consumer relevance and trade sales and profit via product and package innovation…to drive profitable growth and value for our customers.
Distinctive Shopper Solutions
Enhance portfolio relevance & performance via distinctive shopper services. Drive excellence in commercial execution to maximized joint value creation.

Leadership Brands & Shopper Solutions
Diane briefly covered different solutions that Coca-Cola utilizes when they work with retailers and shopper marketing.
1. Occasion Based Approach
Focusing on relevant occasions to drive shopper & consumer connections by segmenting consumer drinking occasion—the two largest for Coca-Cola are “Chilling Out/Watching TV’ and “Family Home Meals”
2. Segmented merchandising
Each store serves a different mix of shoppers, occasions & needs. It’s the store’s “shopper DNA”. We know that we have to figure out a way to get the right brands, the right occasion messaging and the right price within the store.
Instead of creating one solution for millions of shoppers, develop smaller shopper segments and tailor solutions to these segments.
3. Shopper bundles
Bundle for shoppers to create convenience, minimize shopping time and increase value.
4. Packaging solutions
Matching packages, occasions and shopper/retail value.
All elements come together to create a look of success.

Case Study: Family Home Meals
Family home meals are one of the largest beverage drinking occasions in the USA. Family home meals include the quality of life for family members, coke and meals make for a catalyst of social interaction and nothing beats the taste of Coke with meals.
Coke has driving incidence and frequency of Coke brands with Mom.
Coke is now working to create television ads that embrace the experience of the family meal, the home meal by making Coke an integral part of the family meal—showing it to be a member of the family.

Three key takeaways:
“Looking at the shopper’s DNA as one of the first steps in this process is critically important”
“There is so much science before figuring out the DNA, but we want to make sure that is transparent to the shopper and make sure that its done is a simple way”
“Shoppers do not shop at random, they shop within occasions”

Updated

Shopper Insights in Action 2009 Speaker: Diane C. Wallace

Diane C. Wallace
Vice President, Shopper Marketing
The Coca-Cola Company

Diane leads the Shopper Marketing organization and the Shopper Marketing center of excellence for Coca-Cola North America. Diane assumed the role of Vice President in 2007 based on the leadership role she played in the transition of the organization from Retail Marketing to Shopper Centric Retail Marketing. Diane joined Coca-Cola in 2003 as Director, Retail Customer Marketing. She was promoted to Group Director, Shopper Marketing, in 2006.

During her six years at Coca-Cola, Diane has been instrumental in leading: the increased engagement with retailers in the areas of shopper insights, the increased shopper insights and shopper marketing capabilities within Coca-Cola North America; and the development and execution of idea driven, brand centric, shopper relevant merchandising approach at retail. Her team is responsible for the development of the retail channel strategies, marketing plans and in store merchandising looks of success, as well as the ownership o f the shopper insights and marketing relationships with retailers.
Prior to joining Coca-Cola, Diane spent four years with The Eastman Kodak Company. She was recruited to Kodak in 1999 as the Group Director, Customer Marketing and Category Management. After two years, she was promoted to Vice President, Sales Strategy, Planning and Execution. During her tenure at Kodak, Diane instrumental in leading: the creation and transition to customer centric brand planning; increased headquarter and field based customer marketing and category management capability; and, increased customer execution results of national brand initiatives.

Diane began her professional career at The Quaker Oats Company. During her ten plus year career at Quaker, Diane held numerous headquarter and field based brand marketing, sales and sales planning positions.

Diane holds a B.S. degree in Marketing from The University of Tennessee. She resides in Atlanta with her husband and two young children. She is active in a variety of community and non-profit interests.

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Shopper Insights in Action 2009 Chair Heads Up Coca-Cola Sponsored Commission on Shopper Marketing

According to Promomagazine.com, Coca-Cola North America is sponsoring the creation of a commission dedicated to shopper marketing. Diane Wallace, Vice President, Shopper Marketing, said, “Our strategy is to provide leadership to our retail customers in the area of shopper insight-driven shopper merchandising and marketing solutions in store,” Diane Wallace, vice president of shopper marketing, Coca-Cola North America, said. “Our objective is to drive more beverage sell through to shoppers, and to do this by connecting with shoppers in store through relevant shopper insight-driven ideas and solutions that include our brands.”

Diane Wallace is speaking at our upcoming Shopper Insights in Action 2009 conference this July in Chicago. For more information about the conference and about Diane, please visit our Shopper Insights in Action 2009 event page.