The topic of the 3rd year of the Conference Retail in Detail/ Shopper Marketing was mot chosen accidentally. It responds to the ever-deepening crisis in retail trade, when companies attempt to solve it using the tools that are unwittingly leading them into discount traps. It seems that the Czech retail market needs to return to strategies based on high-quality analysis of the market and shoppers needs and the use of all components of the marketing mix, not only the price. More than 120 marketing and category managers and other specialists in shopper marketing came to discuss the issues of liberating or binding data to hotel Olympik Artemis in Prague.
The first block called Data in the shopper marketing services introduced three main speakers. Vangelis Matthaiopulos, Head of the Retail Shopper Insights, GFK, has accented the importance of customer preferences of shopping sites, including details of the atmosphere and arrangement: "Shopping should be intuitive, fast and fun, and by no means stressful". Manita Khuller, Strategy Development Director Ogilvy Action, focused on the types of data that will help retailers and suppliers in the marketing decision making. Data is usually more than we need, therefore, one of the most important recommendations for the shopper marketers is to realize what our strategy is, what we want to achieve and what customers we are targeting. Much attention was in the past devoted to behaviour of consumers, who, of course, are not automatically the shoppers. Marcel Schmidt, Marketing Manager, Office Depot, introduced a change in sales strategy of B2B office supplies. He showed the successful model of how Office Depot has coped with the consequences of the crisis by introducing various sales channels for different types of B2B customers. He commented the brave decision to start web shop by the words: "if it should be a matter of cannibalisation, let it rather be cannibals from our family!" He stressed that the introduction of eShop cannot be communicated only on-line, the successful interoperability of all sales channels must be assisted also by strong telemarketing and better work specifications to the sales representatives.
The second block How to use modern technologies brought the four case studies. Frank Schulz from INCOMA GFK and Martina Malcová, head of marketing at SPAR had introduced the common project of mapping the movement of customers within a shop by RFID technology. The SPAR company discovered on the basis of the survey, why is the value of the shopping basket decreasing and introduced the targeted and effective changes in the location of individual assortment groups in the store. Juergen Bluhm, of Tobii Technology and Fredrik Blomquist, Rolling Optics contributed with a piece of new technology 3D labels and case studies of their positive customer perception, which led to an increase in sales of the category of cosmetic products by 35%.
The contribution Effectiveness of mobile marketing in practice, presented by Martin Dolejš, Telefónica O2, was devoted to the use of modern methods of targeted customer solicitation using SMS and MMS messages. Practical case study confirmed the success of mobile marketing for a company selling fresh drinks Mangaloo and 1 + 1 Action at Music Festival. The block was ended up by Herich Sikela, STORE MEDIA and Ján Brácha, MAKRO who presented experiences with the use of in store TV and radio advertising in Metro/Makro Slovakia.
The last block Efficient Shopper Marketing was opened by the funny contribution of Tomas Bartl from Ogilvy Action, who attempted to create and introduce the "average" visitor of the Conference Shopper Marketing through averaging data about them available on the LinkedIn network. The presentation was followed by a case study of Milana Bazanac Kadlčíková of Nestlé based on the two-year project of Nestlé and Tesco, which led to the reorganization of cashier zones and an increase in the sale of certain products by up to 60%.
David Vejtruba, the new Marketing Director p.k. Solvent, impressed the audience by an example of re-branding the drugstores Schlecker, to Teta drugstore. Since May of this year there were 142 stores rebranded, which is undoubtedly the largest and fastest rebranding action in the Czech Republic in recent years. David also inspired participants by a personal approach and deployment. It will be very interesting to look at the merger of brands Schlecker and Teta after some time and to test purchasing behaviour of both new and existing customers in the longer term.
The discussion conclusion then summed up the main recommendations for effective work with data – if it is possible to use a maximum of mergers of internal and external data and, above all, to specify very exactly the objectives of shopper marketing. "One of the main differences between retail chains in the market is how they can work with their data," an opinion came from the auditorium.
The organizers welcome suggestions and inspiration, how to improve the Conference Retail in Detail/Shopper Marketing until next year.
For more information on the conference contact:
Barbora Krásná, Partner, Blue Events
Tel.: +420 222 749 850, e-mail: barbora.krasna@blueevents.eu
Media contact:
Denisa Vlčková, Blue Events
Tel.: +420 222 749 841, e-mail: denisa.vlckova@blueevents.eu