2015 RL/CMA Best Practices Awards
The 2015 Retail Leader/Category Management Association Best Practices Awards were created to honor best practices in collaboration across various categories. Award winners were honored at the CMA Leadership Meeting, Sept. 29, in Orlando, Fla.
"Retail Leader worked with the Category Management Association to develop this platform to shine a light on the key retailers, suppliers and service providers that work together to enhance our industry and help drive better efficiencies to be more competitive." says Jeffrey Friedman, VP/Brand Director, Stagnito Business Information.
Category Management Association president Blaine Ross says, "We are proud to recognize these industry leaders for individual and team accomplishments at our 2015 Category Management Conference. These manufacturers, retailers and solution providers exemplify the spirit and goals of the association as we work to share information and best practices within the category management community."
Collaborative Business Planning
Great American Milk Drive
Winners: MilkPep and Hyvee Milk is among the most-requested items at the nation's food banks, but when it comes to helping fight hunger, people rarely think of it. Winners launched The Great American Milk Drive, a national program that enables shoppers to donate milk to families in their own communities year-round via an innovative donation system that collects monetary donations from shoppers to fund vouchers for free milk–redeemable for any brand of milk, at any retailer across the country. This way, local food banks are able to provide the free milk in voucher form instead of having to store physical gallons onsite.
Project Guts
Winners: Johnson & Johnson, ShopRite, and Gladson
Johnson & Johnson partnered with retailer ShopRite to transform ShopRite's gastrointestinal (GI) category to help alleviate the confusion shoppers face when searching for digestive health products. The results? ShopRite's total GI category was up 13 percent in the impacted stores within the first 52 weeks of program rollout. When the digital promotions were promoting ShopRite exclusively, its GI category was up 20 percent, with a 23% increase in new shoppers to the ShopRite website
LED Innovative Display
Winners: Wrigley, Mars, and Jewel
Recognizing a need to increase shoppers' awareness of impulse products in the front end of the store, Wrigley and its parent company, Mars, developed an innovative LED display solution that was easy for retailers to integrate into their store plans and effective at increasing sales in the gum and mints category.
Custom Assortment
New Level of Localization
Winners: Hallmark and Walgreens
Walgreen's Castro store is located in a San Francisco neighborhood where 55-95 percent of customers identify as LGBT– a rate higher than anywhere else in the country. When Hallmark learned this store would renovate this summer, it created a localized solution–targeting the store's demographic with the existing product model line as well as some new greeting card captions and a fresh approach to visuals and language used on the cards.
Localized Solution in Bagged Candy
Winner: Cloetta Sweden
Candy manufacturers were fighting the perception that there was no growth left in bagged candy and that retailers should focus on healthier categories. This project sought to maximize category sales and find the optimal size of assortment for the category, the segments and the brands at each individual retailer.
Shopper Insights
Tide Pods and Downy Scents
Winner: Procter & Gamble
Tide Pods laundry detergent packs started with the insight that consumers want a powerful, more convenient way to do laundry and a product that is easy to use. A technically innovative three-chamber design delivers superior cleaning, stain-fighting, and brightening in one convenient pack. Downy Unstopables In-Wash Scent Booster beads were inspired by consumers' desire to customize their laundry process with fragranced laundry products. Both Tide Pods and Unstopables confirm that the value equation can be altered in favor of premium products when the product delivers on a key consumer need.
Simple Inspirations Bake Strategy
Winner: Pinnacle Foods
Consumer insights work uncovered the underlying causes of the baking category's decline, then drove a three-part strategy to reduce the complexity, frustration and lack of motivation many home bakers feel in store.
Shopper Marketing
2014 Mondelez International Pass The Love Soccer
Winners: Mondelez and Meijer
Promotional campaign designed to engage soccer fans via Mondelez brands like Ritz, Oreo and Chips Ahoy! and social media outreach. Each program was collaboratively developed with more than 40 retailers. A 15.3 percent Mondelez sales lift contributed 102 percent to category growth over six weeks (Cookie/Cracker Category +6.4 percent).
Stop and Play with Oreo
Winners: Nabisco and Albertsons
A custom program launched at Albertsons and other retailers features exclusive recipes developed specifically for the unique traits of their audience. The aim was to transform Oreos in the minds of shoppers from a product into an ingredient in a recipe. Albertsons saw its cookie category increase by 14.1 percent.
For more information on the awards, please visit www.retailleader.com or www.2015categorymanagementconference.com