POI Pulse: June 8, 2015

Six Digital Marketing Traps CMOs Should Avoid
Source: Knowledge@Wharton (June 4, 2015)

Digital media is evolving rapidly and requires more than traditional marketing. In this opinion piece, Suzie Reider, Google’s managing director for brand solutions, and Gopi Kallayil, Google’s chief evangelist for brand solutions, highlight six common traps that new-age marketers must avoid.Learn more

How A-B InBev Is Using Food in Its Beer Marketing
Source: (Ad Age June 6, 2015)

The goal is to create “snackable content” that is “very easy to access and digest, especially through your mobile phone,” said Ricardo Marques, VP of high-end marketing for A-B InBev, which gives him responsibility over premium brands. Stella’s sales surged 13.7% in the 52 weeks ending April 19 to $234.5 million, according to IRI, which does not include bar and restaurant sales.Learn more

Join 300+ of Your Peers at POI Summit in Dallas!
Your next opportunity to learn, network, and advance at the POI Fall Summit is November, 4-6 in Dallas, TX. The agenda will once again be advanced, so make your plans now to attend, as the POI April 2015 Summit was sold out!

More than 300 CPG Manufacturers and Retailers will join us –
Teams taking advantage of early registration include:

JBSS, AAFES, DairyPure, Mondelez, Mars, PepsiCo, McCormick, Starbucks, Pinnacle Foods,Coca-Cola, Food Lion, Starbucks, Pinnacle Foods, Nestle, Kimberly Clark, Red Gold, DPSG, Johnson & Johnson, Perfetti Van Melle, Kraft Foods, Pictsweet, Hormel, Clorox, Tyson, Kellogg’s, Dannon, 7-Eleven, JM Smucker, Church & Dwight, Busch Bros.,Topco, Keurig Green Mountain, Hillshire Brands, Giant Eagle, Jarden, Hormel, Musco Family Olive, ConAgra, Windsor Foods, Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, Del Monte, Rich Products, Mckee Foods, Borden Dairy, SC Johnson, and many others. By now you should have received your invitation. If not, reach me today at mkantor@p-o-i.org

McMillon: Investments ‘a Turning Point’ for Walmart
Source: (Supermarket News June 8, 2015)

They highlighted effects of a new attention to detail around merchandising and service, pledging stores would be “clean, fast, friendly and in-stock” by the start of the holiday shopping season in October.Learn more

Lone Star State Shines Bright for Retail

Source: (Grocery HQ June, 2015)

More “high-end” grocery supermarkets are becoming the top destinations for these and other unique offerings. National specialty chain Trader Joe’s has created a niche across the state, however local chains are finding ways to connect with loyal residents. Learn more

More CCM Candidates w/ POI SJU
Source: (Orientation is June 10-11, 2015)

CCM graduates and candidates included sales, marketing and merchandising executives from Starbucks, Ahold USA, Walgreens, Norseland, Inc., Pinnacle Foods, 7-Eleven, ESM Ferolie, Hormel, Delhaize America, Keurig Green Mountain, Wakefern, Campbell Soup, Mondelez, Continental Mills, and others. Learn more

Mondelez Launches ‘Shopper Futures’ Program
Source: (Progressive Grocer, June 3, 2015)

“Through Shopper Futures, we’re collaborating with the brightest minds in the industry and startup world to shape the future of retail, both in-store and online. This time around, we’re focused on solving real shopper challenges in our snacking categories and unlocking new opportunities for growth.”Learn more

It Takes a Team to Win – New ConAgra CEO
Source: (Omaha.com June 3, 2015)

Sean Connolly says it will take both a renewed focus on what consumers want and the agility to respond to that to win in the highly competitive, slow-growing food business. He’s trying to rid the company of any hierarchy or cultural practices that get in the way of responding to consumers’ needs, and said it will take all 32,000 employees, contributing innovative ideas.Learn more

Walmart Using Robots for Grocery Pickup in UK
Source: (City Wire June 4, 2015)

Kieran Shanahan, VP of grocery home shopping at Walmart Global eCommerce, demonstrated how the new pickup model works at a media session as part of Wal-Mart shareholders week in Bentonville.

He said shoppers start their orders online either by phone or desktop devices. They pay online and select a convenient pick up time. They notify ASDA by alert when they start toward the destination. They scan a QR code into the kiosk upon arrival and their order is dispensed with seconds. The frozen food is bagged separately and kept cold. Fresh food is bagged together at the correct temperatures.Learn more

This week we celebrate returning Certified Collaborative Marketers, and new Candidates at Saint Joseph’s University. As such, I am reminded of an article by Mehran Mehregany, the Goodrich Professor of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, summarized here: “As the convergence of digital technologies drives unprecedented levels of change in global marketplaces, it is very much a reality that a company must, as Bill Gates put it, “innovate or die!” In the race for relevance to future customers, the greater a company’s innovation capacity, the greater its chance of success.

So how does a firm build its power and agility in innovation? The answer is simple and, to my mind, obvious – yet, it is not the direction in which most innovation-seeking firms seem to be channeling their efforts. Having designed and managed innovation programs in a variety of settings, I know that a company’s innovation capacity comes down to its talent pool, and its commitment to building knowledge and competencies one individual at a time.

I can see how this foundational requirement – good education and ongoing training of people – has been obscured. Innovation is emerging as an industry of its own; an ever increasing number of suppliers provide a wide range of products and services to help companies be more creative, collaborative, and inventive.

First, they need to ensure that the professionals they employ are current in their fields. Every discipline is experiencing accelerated development, and the rapid knowledge obsolescence that goes with it.
Second, organizations should give their people specific training in innovation.

As in any subject, developing innovation skills requires learning some fundamentals and mastering them through repetition. But fundamentals of innovation are not usually taught as part of science and technology training. It befalls organizations to train their talent pool accordingly.

Some mistaken beliefs on management’s part make it even harder to fuel innovation with education. It is a known human tendency that to overestimate our depth of knowledge and the strength of our abilities. I’ve often thought that this was why, in the first three years of pitching NineSigma to a wide range of companies (from 2000 to 2003), only one management team, Procter & Gamble’s, quickly grasped its value proposition and integrated it into its innovation strategy (which it called Connect & Develop).

Data from employee surveys consistently shows that a focus on talent development is a key factor in whether a firm ranks as a “best employer.” Talent recognizes that, while learning is hard work, and the value is not quantifiable, it is the only way to remain valuable in an economy that thrives on innovation. The more you invest in your people’s knowledge, the more innovation you can expect to reap. IBM’s Founder Thomas J. Watson, Sr. captured it well: “There is no saturation point in education.”Read the full article here

The output of this is experienced through the POI Certified Collaborative Marketer, Research, and global events. Reach me to discuss any or all of the above in detail at mkantor@p-o-i.org
Join today as a member of POI.

Have a sensational week!

Michael Kantor
CEO & Founder
Promotion Optimization Institute, LLC
mkantor@p-o-i.org

www.POInstitute.com