MARKET WATCH
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One Speaking Slot Left for May 10 Virtual LEAD Marketing Conference

The agenda for the May 10 virtual LEAD Marketing Conference is nearly complete with only one sponsor/speaking slot remaining.

LEAD - which stands for Loyalty, Engagement, Analytics and Digital - is the opportunity for top solution providers to reach hundreds of manufacturers and retailers in supermarket, drug, mass, discount, convenience, and club channels. Speaker/ Sponsors can present the ways in which their sophisticated marketing strategies and new and emerging technologies engage shoppers, analyze their behavior, and enable trading partners to improve their operations.

Produced by the Shopper Technology Institute and CPGmatters.com, LEAD is an all-day, online event that allows 500 Industry Professionals to attend without spending time away from the office, and is the only Virtual Conference for Retailers and CPG Manufacturers covering all aspects of Loyalty, Engagement, Analytics & Digital Applications.

For more information, call 216-534-9933, visit the conference website, or write to Linda@CPGmatters.com


Shoppers Migrating to Digital Coupons over FSIs

Shoppers are showing increasing preference for digital promotions, says a new study. Analysis of 2016 coupon activity by Inmar reveals an ongoing “promotional transposition” with paperless, digital coupons beginning to overtake traditional paper coupons in popularity.

Inmar's analysis shows that, among the more than 2.2 billion coupons redeemed by shoppers last year, the share of redemption captured by offers that shoppers load directly to their retailer loyalty accounts (Load-to-Card) grew 20 percent between 2015 and 2016. In comparison, share of redemption for paper coupons found in the Sunday newspaper (Free-Standing Inserts) fell 10 percent over the same period.

Meanwhile, Inmar’s shopper behavior research finds shoppers reporting - for the first time ever - that they use Load-to-Card (L2C) offers more often than coupons found in Free-Standing Inserts (FSIs) or store circulars. Inmar says this activity is continuing confirmation that shopper behavior is irrevocably changing - with convenience becoming an increasingly important factor in determining whether shoppers engage with coupons.

The fact that L2C coupons reached a record redemption rate of 6.2 percent in 2016 demonstrates further how shoppers - demanding that marketers simplify their saving experience - are actively responding when brands and retailers provide easy-to-acquire and immediately relevant offers. Last year also marks the fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth in redemption share for L2C coupons.

“The marketplace is seeing change at an increasing rate,” says Inmar Chairman and CEO David Mounts. “Brands and retailers must reformulate their engagement strategies if they are to successfully motivate digitally driven shoppers. And the effort must be inclusive,” adds Mounts. “Promotions must be personalized and highly relevant. Content must be authentic and originate from sources that shoppers trust.”

Though still largely reliant on traditional promotion methods, marketers are beginning to ramp up their digital offers in response to growing shopper demand; distribution volume for L2C offers grew by 22 percent in 2016. In comparison, distribution volume for FSIs, which accounted for 90 percent of the 307 billion coupons distributed in 2016, was down 3.3 percent compared to 2015.

Marketers were also more conservative with their promotions in 2016 as the total volume of offers distributed in the marketplace decreased by 4.3 percent compared to 2015. At the same time, the average face value for coupons distributed was down 5.6 percent to $1.64. (That's about a dime less in savings per coupon than last year.) Still, shoppers were given the same amount of time, on average, to use their coupons with redemption periods holding steady at two months.

Regardless, coupons are still flowing through checkout. Even as low unemployment, a stable economy and less-rich offers helped pull down overall coupon redemption (-4.1 percent versus 2015), 89 percent of shoppers surveyed by Inmar reported using at least one coupon in the last three months of 2016.

Along with the savings benefit for shoppers, coupons are continuing to deliver real business benefit to their sponsors. Research for Inmar's latest Shopper Behavior Study found that among the 49 percent of shoppers who used coupons during their most recent shopping trip in the last three months of 2016, 31 percent said that coupons made them buy more of the promoted product. Twenty-nine percent of these shoppers said coupons accelerated their purchase of the product.

Inmar will be publishing details on these findings and reporting out on overall 2016 coupon activity in its annual Promotion Industry Analysis, scheduled for distribution in April. The analysis will be available for purchase online at the Inmar Insights Marketplace.


Gartner Recognizes Relational Solutions in Market Guide

Relational Solution, Inc. (RSI), a Mindtree company, has been named as a representative vendor in the Market Guide for Trade Promotion Management and Optimization published by Gartner in February 2017.

“Consumer goods manufacturers continue to spend a significant portion of their budgets managing promotions and price reductions as a part of collaborative efforts with retail partners,” stated the Garner report. ‘The availability of advanced analytics solutions has introduced varied levels of algorithmic sophistication.

TradeSmart, Mindtee’s analytics-as-a-service solution for the CPG industry offers better revenue management for companies that have invested in TPM solutions. Designed for post-promotion automation and analysis, TradeSmart is designed to improve joint business planning sessions by leveraging COGS, POS, shipments, plan data and syndicated data to provide accurate trade spend ROI.
 
“CPG companies spend 15-25 percent of revenue on trade. Most are managing their trade promotions already,” said Janet Dorenkott, AVP, Relational Solutions. “By helping them optimize trade, we can increase coverage get them faster access to more reliable information and save them millions of dollars that go directly toward their bottom line.”

 
IRI Partners with Experian to Help Brands Identify Most Valuable Purchasers

A strategic collaboration between IRI and Experian aims to help marketers engage and identify customers with more relevant media to drive a better return on advertising spend and improve shopping experiences.

The joint effort enables marketers to leverage IRI ProScores, an audience targeting solution built from household purchase data that predicts the likelihood of consumers to purchase specific consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and categories. As part of the agreement, Experian’s clients will have direct access to IRI ProScores.

IRI ProScores is an advanced, purchase-based, predictive shopper insights solution. It leverages demographic and other consumer data from Experian’s ConsumerView database and integrates it with IRI’s consumer purchase data to identify the most valuable purchasers. Marketers can use the information to determine consumers who have the propensity to purchase products within a specific category, subcategory or brand and deliver targeted communications with significantly enhanced relevancy to individual shoppers.

Many IRI clients have reportedly experienced more than a 200 percent lift in product sales for ad campaigns using IRI ProScores as a targeting element.


L’Oreal Canada Launches First Dual-Language SmartLabels

L’Oreal Canada is the first company to launch a SmartLabel page in Canada, and the first launched outside the United States. It is also the first ever launch of a dual-language SmartLabel page, serving up either English or French language pages based on user preferences.
Label Insight’s partnership with L’Oreal Garnier Haircare has enabled this expansion of the brand’s commitment to SmartLabel into the Canadian market. Product packaging will direct consumers via QR code to the dual-language SmartLabel pages, ultimately aiding to answer demands of transparency-driven consumers.


Katsiroubas Bros. Adopts Food Safety Compliance Management Solution

Katsiroubas Bros. has adopted ReposiTrak’s Compliance Management System to manage records from their upstream suppliers. Family-operated since 1914, Katsiroubas Bros. is one of New England’s premier wholesalers of high quality produce, cheese and dairy products, as well as specialty foods, supplying restaurants, hotels, hospitals and assisted living facilities throughout Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

“We were looking for an automated system to help us manage our growing list of required business and food safety records,” said Paul Whalen, General Manager for Katsiroubas Bros. “Since we are SQF-certified and already using ReposiTrak to manage our SQF audits, it just made sense to expand our use of ReposiTrak in order to keep all of our audit and business documentation in one place.”

ReposiTrak, a wholly owned subsidiary of Park City Group, helps manage regulatory, financial and brand risk associated with issues of safety in the global food, pharma and dietary supply chains. Powered by Park City Group’s technology, the platform consists of two systems:  Compliance Management, which not only receives, stores and shares documentation, but also manages compliance through dashboards and alerts for missing or expired documents; and Track & Trace, which quickly identifies product ingredients and their supply chain path in the unfortunate event of a product recall. It can reduce the risk in the supply chain by identifying backward chaining sources and forward chaining recipients of products in near real time.


















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