Is your Field Marketing agency delivering cutting edge shopper insight?

The leading Shopper Marketing Agencies have reinvented themselves and are now providing brand owners with strategic insight-led advice on shoppers and consumers that is driving real sales growth and improved ROI even in the downturn. In a very real sense they have become their client’s strategic partners and catalysts for transformational marketing solutions with obvious benefits for both.

Many would argue (and not just practitioners) that shopper marketing is the most important element of the marketing mix commanding, as it does, a large share of the total marketing budget. However, like almost all aspects of modern business life, shopper marketing is undergoing profound change driven by a number of complex issues and client needs.  Clients are under tremendous pressure to cut costs and reduce margins and understandably expect “more for less” from their own suppliers. There is the difficult and deteriorating economic situation and the massive bun fight for share of shoppers’ wallets. Finally, huge changes are being driven by unprecedented technological developments. (Arguably, this latter issue is having the most profound effect; more about this below.)

Given this background, just about every Field Marketing Agency claims it is “Shopper –led”

and provides clients with strategic services. The reality is far different:  almost all Field Marketing Agencies are little more than body shops undertaking merchandising and a few other basic services. That is not to denigrate those services which, no doubt, provide benefits to clients.  Some of these agencies, to be fair,  even have long term client contracts but simply having a contract  to supply full or part time people on a long  term basis does not equate to a strategic relationship. This, of course, begs the question: what constitutes a strategic client /agency relationship in the shopper marketing space. What does it look like and what should clients expect from their strategic partner.

Gary MacManus has been in the business for over 30 years and is now MD of the market-leading agency, Reach. He is, as you would expect, in no doubt of the essential requirements.  “To be a client’s strategic, transformational partner, an agency must understand all aspects of the marketing mix, including branding and consumer communications, and not just the shopper marketing element.  It must be able to provide relevant, robust advice on strategy and planning, the establishment of campaign objectives, long and short term and the KPIs that should be used for measuring success. All this must be backed up by world class implementation of the plan by dedicated and knowledgeable personnel.

“Above all, however, agencies that aspire to the delivery of transformational marketing solutions to clients must be able to utilise the massive technological changes of the past few years to convert huge amounts of raw data into relevant, strategic insights of customer, consumer and, above all, shoppers’ behaviour that can then be used to drive sales growth and ROI” A rather tall order.

Ben Taylor, Head of Trade Marketing Nintendo UK supports this view. He says: “Since the mid to late 70s massive amounts of data have been available but converting the data into meaningful l information that  drives objective shopper marketing campaigns was simply beyond our capability. This is no longer the case. Nowadays, we expect our Agency, utilising its in-depth expertise and cutting edge technology, to convert the data into strategic insights of customer and shopper behaviour. If they can’t, they simply cannot provide us with the 360 degree service that we require and we would certainly not regard them as strategic partners”

Predictive Modelling lowers campaign costs and drives bigger market share

The leading insight-led Agencies are using their technological edge to develop predictive models that are providing clients with highly reliable information at the very beginning of the campaign planning process. In effect, the models inform clients of what will need to be in the plan to achieve the desired outcomes.

Reach, for instance, has developed an in-house real time system called Global Connect which enables it to provide clients with specific market content, shopper insight, category optimisation and bespoke campaign solutions. Of course, no predictive model can totally derisk a shopper marketing campaign but Reach’s system has been shown to assist in the development of much more sophisticated and cost effective campaigns. Moreover, once the model has been developed for a client campaign and appropriate KPI’s agreed Reach says it is often prepared to agree to a proportion of its fees being paid only if the agreed performance criteria have been achieved. The MD, Gary MacManus, says with only just the hint of a smile “Our clients love us for being prepared to put our money where our mouth is!”

The development of sophisticated technology systems, overlaid on a background of very tough trading conditions and fierce competition for market share is undoubtedly changing the face of the Shopper Marketing industry. It is a given that all the good agencies can deliver execution services and nothing less is expected by clients.  But only a small handful of leading-edge companies, such as Reach, have the in-depth knowledge, expertise and world-class technology to deliver the insight-led approaches which allow them to deliver real added value to clients. This in turn is leading increasingly to strategic transformational relationships between clients and their agencies that are equally beneficial to both.

Printed in the Grocer magazine, 17th December edition.