Shop! ANZ held its Retail Marketing in 2021 Online Conference this week.
Presented over two mornings, the conference offered learnings, insights and inspiration from seven local and international experts.
Day one
To kick off day one, Norelle Goldring, a specialist in consumer and shopper behaviour and commercial and marketing strategy in the FMCG space, presented the exclusive findings of the tri-annual State of Retail Marketing study.
Ms Goldring says retail marketing is now a mature, accepted discipline, resulting in more planning and insights.
Today, the discipline also goes beyond the store, with post-purchase interaction increasing in importance. Ms Goldring, however, believes this is an underutilised opportunity that can offer repeat purchases and loyalty.
Among other challenges and opportunities, Ms Goldring noted sustainability and supporting local.
This was followed by a case study on Brazilian retailer WINE. The company’s Marketing Director Laura Barros along with Fabio Utahara, Head of Design at Equipa Group, discussed WINE’s journey from being an online wine subscription service to recently branching out into physical retail stores.
Next up was Simplot Australia General Manager of Marketing Katie Saunders. She presented on the ‘Birds Eye Switchers’ and how Simplot created a “healthy, easy and delicious” switching strategy from data. Birds Eye leveraged a new “health innovation” platform to reframe the frozen vegetable offer to target new occasions and attract new shoppers.
Closing the morning was Coles Business Category Manager Debra Galle, who discussed how the retailer transformed the health food and cereal aisles using customer insights to create a differentiated offer, grow its customer base and generate greater shopper retention and loyalty. Ms Galle emphasised the role that suppliers and brands played in shaping the strategy, and key learnings in landing the “biggest ever” aisle reset in grocery at Coles.
Day two
The second day started with a presentation from Bryan Meszaros, the CEO of US-based experience design agency, Open Eye Global. He provided a number of international case studies addressing in-store engagement via “purposeful” solutions.
Next, Shop! ANZ General Manager Carla Bridge offered a Covid-friendly trip around the world to look at the best POP and retail marketing activations from the Shop! and POPAI network over the past 12 months. Trends worth watching, she noted, include:
- Iconic stands
- Making it personal
- Pop up brands
- Sensory experiences
- Tech experience
- Creating moments
Concluding the conference was a presentation from Wunderman Thompson Intelligence APAC Director Chen May Yee, exploring emerging trends and innovations that have taken hold in China. These included the rise of Chinese-style e-commerce livestreaming, the integration of physical and digital retail models, how brands are getting in on China’s gaming boom through collaborations, and why seniors are the new Gen Z.
The presentation took a look at the readiness of local markets to embrace these trends through survey data from more than 10,000 consumers in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and importantly Australia.
