James Tenser

CPGmatters: Retail Commission Aims to Enhance Shopper Marketing

January 15, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
The goal of a new industry-wide initiative called the Retail Commission on Shopper Marketing is to come up with a retailer-driven model that will make shopper marketing effective for manufacturers and shoppers as well as retail chains. What are the main hurdles to improved in-store shopper marketing?      [more...]

The blending of shopper-focused efforts to drive sales with Category Management efforts to drive distribution should be a match made in heaven. But the devil's in the details.

"The Commission" has set a laudable agenda for itself--to identify best practices in Shopper Marketing and make the nascent discipline more standardized and transferable among professional organizations.

This is an opportune moment for retailers to take greater and wiser control over the shopper agenda within their stores. They should more actively define how manufacturers may employ this valuable channel to influence purchase behavior. This begins with identifying their own strategic goals for dealing with shoppers--a core activity that cannot be piece-mealed to vendors the way Category Management has been.