based brand and finance teams approve every small investment decision .
Need to move a promotion from Q1 to Q2 because customer merchandising plans moved ? Good luck explaining to a bunch of people in the headquarters why it must be done ! Changed your mind and decided to try a new digital tactic instead of a print ad ? Go through fifteen emails and three conference calls to get a “ goahead ” from the brand manager .
Brands behave this way because they don ’ t know any better , and because they “ don ’ t see the forest for the trees .” Our problem was that there was a high degree of opacity and mistrust that drove all this unnecessary process . To end this madness , we officially cut the cord from the brand P & L by establishing a shopper marketing “ tax ” and pooling all funds into one large bucket for each key customer team .
In return , we established : a strong briefing process where brands informed us of the strategic imperatives , goals and new product plans ; a culture of extreme transparency by sharing program results with brands , both successes and especially failures ; and a rigorous ROI measurement process to demonstrate tangible contributions that our team made to the bottom-line .
When you consistently deliver better ROI than traditional Media or Trade , it ’ s easy to insist your team is not micromanaged .”
Mis-Aligning KPI ’ s With Key Constituents
“ When the shopper marketing function was first established , we wanted to create a set of metrics that were unique to shopper marketing , to help illustrate the results only we could claim . We considered household panel data , shopper card data , as well as softer , relationship-oriented metrics that were intended to capture the degree of strategic collaboration with our retail customers .
However , due to small household panel sample sizes , we couldn ’ t measure individual program impact across all customers . Due to the subjective nature of the relationship-based metrics , we abandoned them as well . We also noticed that our desire to set up a new set of metrics met with resistance from brands and sales who expected us to help them drive their agenda .
In the end , we borrowed some metrics from brands ( account-specific market share and brand equity scores ) and some from Sales ( account-specific net sales , points of distribution and profitability ) and aligned our performance measurement structure accordingly .
The change in the tone of the conversations between our teams was almost palpable , we knew we were winning our key partners ’ hearts and minds when we showed them how our shopper marketing agenda complements theirs . We had to learn to speak their language for us to be successful .”
Failing To Set Clear Spending Principles
“ My biggest challenge to overcome as a shopper marketer had been to manage internal expectations about what our budgets should , and even more so , should NOT be spent on . There was a lot of ambiguity around what shopper marketing really was , and how the budgets should be allocated across our marketing mix .
There was a lot perceived overlap with Traditional Media and Trade , and the lack of clear shopper marketing spending principles forced us to spend countless hours either arguing with Sales about not using shopper marketing funds as a Trade “ slush fund ” or with central Media Planning team about the need to buy retailer-specific media independently .
We were able to overcome this challenge only after senior sales , marketing and shopper marketing leaders aligned and documented formal “ spending principles ” that regulated overlapping grey areas . This document helped manage expectations and gave the shopper team “ air cover ” to continue focusing on the execution and less on turf protection and fingerpointing . I only wish we did it sooner .”
Not Standardizing Shopper Marketing Operations
“ I found myself promoted and leading a geographically-dispersed shopper marketing team that was really good at what they did . I had a lot of respect for them and didn ’ t intend to micromanage .
However , I quickly realized that , as a middle-manager , I was expected to know a lot about their work . My meetings with Brands and Finance were always very frustrating because I felt unprepared , uninformed and had to “ get back to them ” with the answers . Later , these follow-up questions would distract my team from their main jobs , and made me feel terrible about wasting their time .
A senior manager demanded a “ Playbook ” to keep him informed , and that request triggered a new work-stream to create a large PPT deck that someone had to update regularly .
This is not what I had in mind when I signed up to lead the shopper marketing function , so I had to find a better solution . I realized that my team had all the answers in their offline trackers , and because they were very experienced , they ran their business units independently and came up with own ways of tracking budgets and plans . Unfortunately , all of these tools looked different and were completely non-standard .
After a thorough audit of the essential operational data and standardization exercise , we were able to come up with one common way of planning and tracking our activities that rolled into a unified report . We needed a centralized dashboard that gave both me and my peers in headquarters the ability to monitor real time data .
Do not repeat my mistake by being a ‘ hands-off ’ manager . Accountability and transparency should be mandated , and there are ways to achieve them while empowering the team to make decisions and without micromanaging them .”
Olga Yurovski , the Founder & CEO of Shopperations , designs and sells Shopperations , a web-based , collaborative planning software for Marketers on both CPG and Retail sides , to enable transparency , accountability and stronger Shopper Marketing promotional analytics . You can reach her via mail at : Olga @ shopperations . com , visit the web : www . shopperations . com or blog . shopperations . com .