Kimberly-Clark CEO: People Want Value, Innovation

ABC News and the Associated Press report that Kimberly-Clark Corp. CEO Thomas Falk did things most executives ran from during the recession: He plunged money into innovation and marketing, and raised prices. But just as Falk went against traditional means of running a large corporation during a recession, ABC reports that Falk's paid off.

Part of Falk's success lies in how he conveyed value to shoppers:

Q. You said that a lot of consumers are focusing on value right now. How do you convey the message of value to them?

A. I was in the Philippines not long ago, where we do some advertising to consumers on how a Huggies diaper would last 10 hours. A mom who was buying a very low-tier diaper in a market like that would know that a private-label or a low-tier brand wouldn’t last 10 hours. You communicate it that way as a perception of value.

If you look at marketers around the world across all categories, you see more marketing dialing up value messaging. We are all trying to communicate to the consumer that we are a good value relative to their other alternatives.

For more of Falk's interview, please click here.

Shoppers look at more than just price in recession

Daniel Palmer of Australian Food News writes that shoppers are not simply looking at price tags when stretching their food dollars. Palmer writes that the initial findings of a shopper marketing study released by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), Booz & Company and SheSpeaks, titledShopper Marketing 3.0: Unleashing the Next Wave of Value, concludes that price is not the only focus of consumers and also looks into the effectiveness of in-store promotions.

“This research shows us that even in a recession, more often than not, shoppers are making purchase decisions based on factors other than price,” said Brian Lynch, director of sales and sales promotion for GMA. “This key finding reinforces the notion that there is significant opportunity to influence shopper behaviour by having the right messages in place along the entire path to purchase.”

For more information, please click on the link below.

New research shows grocery shoppers still looking beyond price

Shopper Marketing Fusion Speaker: James Damian, Best Buy

James Damian
SVP, Experience Design Group
Best Buy, Inc.

As senior vice president of the experience development group at Best Buy, James Damian is responsible for reinventing the experience of shopping in a big-box retail store. He is, in his own words, a “right-brain ambassador for the value of design within the left-brain world of consumer electronics.”

In 2004, Damian led the design of Best Buy’s first concept stores—Studio D and Escape in Chicago—and developed the company’s “new store experience” R&D capability. He continues to lead optimization of the big-box design for a shopping experience that not only answers, but anticipates changing customer desires. He names legendary Tiffany’s window designer Gene Moore as his primary source of inspiration.

Prior to joining Best Buy in 1998, Damian held positions with Howard Sant Partnerships, a London architectural firm; Harvey Nichols, a London-based luxury retailer; B. Altman & Co. and R.H. Macy & Co. department stores in New York; and Hindsgaul Mannequins Worldwide of Copenhagen, New York, and Paris. He also served as president of Damian Randd (Resources Advancing New Design Directions).

In 2005, he received the Markopoulos Award for his many contributions to the design industry; in 2006, DDI recognized him as one of the Design Influencers of the Year. He also recently received Best Buy’s Culture of Innovation Award in recognition of his leadership in concept development and execution. A graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) in New York City, Damian holds a degree in retail store design, exhibition design and corporate identity.

Damian is a member of the board of directors of NADI, NASFM's visual merchandising division, and serves on the advisory board for DDI magazine. He is also a member of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and the Minnesota Orchestra Board of Directors. At Best Buy, he is executive sponsor of the employee resource group P.R.I.D.E. (People Respecting Individual Differences Equally).

Biography courtesy of A.R.E.

Shopper Marketing Fusion Company TracyLocke Talks with Brandweek

TracyLocke will be represented at this year's Shopper Marketing Fusion Event by Al Wittemen, Managing Director for Retail Strategy. Alan's colleague, Dorothy Allan, SVP, Retail Strategy for TracyLocke, was recently interviewed by Brandweek editor, Todd Wasserman. In the interview, Allan discusses how she has helped packaged goods enhance their ROI from shopper marketing. As she notes, CPGs have to communicate value quickly in-store or they lose out. And that's too bad, because consumers aren't only motivated by price.

Here are a few highlights from their discussion.

BW: What are some lessons you've learned in shopper marketing? (Granular
stuff, like "red doesn't work")?
DA: I’ve learned a lot about the human mind in this role. We all make decisions in basically the same way. We classify and sort information based on pattern recognition over the course of our lives. We deselect before we select. Our minds are designed to remove extraneous pieces of information to get to a decision, which is why shopper insights are so important. It gets to the very heart of what’s getting in the way of making a choice. On the granular side, there are principles of how human beings process information that need to be followed to achieve success. For example, if you want to be able to read anything from 10 feet away, you need to use a font that is at least three inches. If the store is dark, you need to use light colors for contrast. Color has meaning: Red is an action color; pink used to mean “girl” and now it stands for breast cancer; green equals the environment, etc. The first thing and last thing you read, you will remember twice as long as the lines in between, and the last line you will remember two times longer than the first. What’s the last piece of information on almost every Walmart point-of-sale unit? – “Save money. Live better.” I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

BW: How has shopper marketing reacted to the economy?
DA: This year, there has been a lot of information that really makes a case for the entire path to purchase and a cohesive approach. The In-Store Marketing Institute conference, as well as IRI and A.C. Nielsen, have begun to illustrate that the point of decision has crept out of the store. Clean store policies are forcing brands to use their leverage outside the store, and thankfully for the first time in 10 years, consumers and shoppers are reading. That is a good thing for brands. If you group shoppers into segments, you’ll find that the shopaholic is “out” and the mission-minded, pragmatic shopper is “in.” Value is the new darling, and brands have to find ways to quickly communicate their benefits to differentiate – or shoppers will default to comparing prices. Shoppers are looking to brands to help them make better value decisions. It’s not always about price, but price does have influence.


For the interview in its entirety, please click here.

Why Pink Means 'Cancer' at Retail

Al Witteman, will be speaking on Friday October 16 at the Shopper Marketing Fusion Event. Don't miss his presentation, "Solutions Without Walls" with John Dranow, SMARTREVENUE

Target Mirrors Wal-Mart, Recession Relief in the Grocery Aisle

According to the Wall Street Journal, Target is set to add more mini-groceries to its stores in an effort to compete with Wal-Mart during the economic downturn. Known for skewing up market, the Minneapolis based retailer now needs to compete with many upwardly mobile shoppers who find themselves heading to Wal-Mart to save money.

According to the article, Target has tried to emphasize food previously. In 1995, it opened the first of 245 SuperTargets, which include a full array of groceries. But it has been reluctant to rapidly add to those 175,000-square-foot stores, unable to find enough profitable locations. Its sales last year of groceries, including pharmacy and beauty products, accounted for 37% of revenue compared with 59% of Wal-Mart's U.S. department-store sales.

The new minigroceries inside existing discount department stores have increased food sales 50% at test stores, and lifted sales of other items as well, Mr. Steinhafel said during a tour of a Target store in Sun Prairie, Wis., late last month. The grocery section there sported signs proclaiming, "Eat Well. Pay Less." in a nod to its "Expect More. Pay Less." marketing slogan.

Will there be an upswing in profits as Target expands their grocery offerings? We'd like to hear your thoughts.