Step-change your Shopper Marketing Capability

David Harker • March 8, 2021

BASE® Technologies, a leading Shopper Marketing solution provider for FMCG companies, is delighted to announce the launch of BASE® Training and Consultancy, a best-in-class service aimed specifically at developing Shopper Marketing capabilities to enable growth. 

Launching BASE® Training and Consultancy, specifically aimed at developing Shopper Marketing capabilities for FMCG companies to deliver effective, executable plans and drive growth. 

The world has changed

Shopper behaviour and the way we shop has changed dramatically over the last 10 years, trends that have accelerated in the last year during the pandemic. The UK now has up to 30% of retail sales coming from online, and the convenience channel has seen a fantastic resurgence in both shopper numbers and sales. 

This move to an omni-channel world, combined with other global macro trends such as sustainability, an increasing health agenda and convenience has driven enormous change. We have also seen a huge shift in media consumption driven by technology and more significantly by smartphone usage and digital communication.

In response, brands have innovated heavily in developing new products, with nimble new entrants and major brand extensions creating and exploding new categories. Innovation has also taken the form of new ways to reach and influence target consumers, with a plethora of new media channels, a whole host of data driven digital audience/engagement platforms and literally thousands more ways to spend valuable marketing budgets.  

There has never been a more exciting time for Shopper Marketing. Embracing these new challenges requires the right skills and the right organisational mind-set to put this commercial marketing function at the centre of any FMCG organisation.

The challenges keeping CPG leaders awake at night 
  • How do I ensure my target audience become aware of my brand and that it stands out from the crowd?
  • How do I win at the physical and digital shelf?
  • How do I leverage the full power of my organisation to deliver my brand and share objectives? 
  • Which touchpoints, executed when, with what message will encourage shoppers to try, buy and repeat?
  • How do I engage more effectively and sell more with less?  
  • How do I organise with fewer people and tighter budgets?
  • Which channels and customers do I target and partner with and at what time of year?
  • How do I remain agile and responsive from a planning and budgeting perspective?

The Solution … build capability in Shopper / Trade Marketing

We at BASE® Technologies firmly believe that today’s challenges can be addressed by building increased capability in Shopper and Trade Marketing.  

This is where the rubber hits the road, where brands come alive during the shopper journey and at the digital or physical point of purchase – it’s where new launches and innovation live or die.  

This Shopper or Trade Marketing space is complex and multifaceted … drawing on key disciplines of Brand, Digital and Category Marketing as well as Brand Activation, Revenue Management, Sales and Insights. It combines up-front shopper strategy work, platform and creative development, multi-channel planning and buying, customer engagement, effective activation and insights. 

Understanding how to create and execute effective integrated, multi-channel commercial marketing plans is not easy, but it is pivotal to delivering the organisation’s go-to-market strategy.  

BASE® Training and Consulting for Shopper Marketers

BASE® Training & Consulting will be led by one of the most experienced and widely regarded experts in this field, Jeannine Ferguson, who previously led Shopper Marketing across Europe for the Coca Cola Company, after playing leading roles for Coca Cola European Partners in the UK.  Following this, Jeannine set up and embedded the Commercial Marketing function in Johnson & Johnson across EMEA and more recently has been consulting with a range of businesses to help them embed the function and principles in their organisations.  

Jeannine has combined her expertise and real-world knowledge with proprietary insights and technology from BASE® to develop two uniquely powerful training courses and a proven consulting model to deliver transformational change and build Commercial Marketing capability.  We are thrilled to have Jeannine on board.

What do we do in BASE® Training?

The training courses are aimed at helping organisations to build simple yet effective ways to do Shopper Marketing - injecting passion, putting in place and embedding processes and structure, and evaluating as standard - so your teams increase their skills and do the best job possible.  One course is focused on activating brands in a bricks and mortar world and the other is built on the omni-channel world – connecting the dots up between digital and physical to deliver the best shopper experience.

We focus the training on the practical areas that matter; how to ensure the shopper is put at the heart of the brand and business planning cycle; how to build compelling campaigns that are executable at retail; how to generate and deliver a clear look of success; how to align your sales colleagues; and how to sell and deliver compelling plans with customers.  All of the material is built on insight and extensive industry knowledge.

What do we do in BASE® Consulting? 

We offer two forms of consulting:

Advisory: If you have a known business challenge that you are seeking to address, e.g. a new channel you want to move into, we help you to assess what you’re doing then work with you and your teams to devise the most effective strategy and execution plan.

Outsourcing: We offer an outsourced / interim shopper and commercial marketing solution to support permanent headcount with strategic initiatives such as creating specific brand and channel campaigns using our extensive insight and experience or supporting the launch of a specific piece of innovation.

Real world capability development from world class practitioners

Jeannine is supported at BASE® Training and Consulting by experienced industry practitioners, who bring best practice, knowledge and proven methodologies for success in winning at retail from a whole host of leading companies, countries, channels and categories. 

If you’d like to take advantage of our introductory offer of free consultancy and gap analysis on your Shopper Marketing capability, please contact hello@basetechnologies.co or visit our BASE® Training and Consulting page to learn more.

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