Driving GROWTH THROUGH 3-WAY INSIGHT

V360°, in conjunction with ECR, ran the 2nd of their 2018 Shopper Symposium Series ‘Preparing for the future while thriving in the Now’, at The Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Blanchardstown, on Friday 22nd June.

The symposium is an opportunity for friendly, collegial discussion around the future direction of retail in Ireland.

The theme for this session was ‘Driving growth through 3-way Insight’. The first presentation was delivered by Stephen Rust, joint MD at V360°, followed by Olga Mulvey, category controller at Kerry Foods.

V360° is a multidisciplinary shopper agency that provides a full service from insight to execution. Our mission is to help clients solve business challenges through creating positive enduring change in shopper behaviour.

Kerry Foods is one of the leading suppliers of added-value branded and customer branded chilled food products supplying UK, Ireland and selected international markets. Included in the Kerry Foods portfolio are brands such as Denny, Galtee, Dairygold, Low Low, Cheestrings, Charleville, Richmond, Walls, Shaws, Golden Olive and Easi Singles.

Contents of the morning

Profitable Growth in FMCG is Hard

Achieving significant profitable growth, or even protecting current sales and profits, has become increasingly challenging in the FMCG market, globally and especially in Ireland.

As Nielsen outlined, in a study of over 60,000 SKUs and 12,000 new product launches, 76% of new products failed within the first year of trading. Our associates, engage consultants, have also identified through their global analysis, that 70% of trade and promotion activity fails to achieve a positive ROI for suppliers.

To add to the challenges above Kantar Worldpanel recently highlighted that the Irish grocery market is one of the most competitive and concentrated retail grocery markets in Europe, with the top 5 retailers accounting for 89% of grocery sales in Ireland. This percentage is far above our European neighbours, where the average figure when you add in UK, France and Spain combined is only at 74%. This high level of concentration in a relatively small market only lowers the chances of achieving significant growth.

Deeper 3-way Insight will Help Unlock More Profitable Growth

The challenges above emphasise that a deeper understanding of consumer, shopper and retailer is now essential for suppliers and retailers to achieve profitable growth. V360° develop this 3-way rounded insight to support our clients in building a foundation of understanding for growing brands and categories. Typically, the fundamental questions we help better understand are…

1 Consumer – who is the consumer, or potential consumer, of the relevant brands or categories, and what is the consumer’s needs, occasions and perceptions?

2 Shopper – is the shopper buying for themselves only, everyone in the household or for others, and what is the shopping behaviour we need to influence?

3 Retailer – what are the needs and perspective of the retailers, and any other relevant operators, along the supply chain to shopper?

Establishing this rounded understanding is an iterative process, often requiring a hybrid of research methodologies. However, the benefit of deeper rounded insight is that it can lead to better consumption or usage experiences, driving value with shoppers, increased trade support, enhanced ROI on marketing activity, and improvements in brand equity and preference.

A Case Example

As part of the 2nd shopper symposium session, V360° and Kerry Foods presented how together they established deeper 3-way insight into the deli meats category, and how they have embedded these insight as a foundation for a significant re-growth strategy, and are beginning to experience a turn in results.

3-way research was conducted by V360° including consumer groups, accompanied shops, in-store research and retailer in-depth interviews. The learnings from this research helped identify four platforms to increase future long-term consumption and spend in the category.

Along with identifying how to develop more consumption and spend for the category, a better understanding of shopper behaviour was also able to establish five components that will help engage and motivate more shoppers to purchase and increase conversion levels for the category in-store.

Workstreams have been formed to capitalise on these insights, and ensure there is effective execution in the trade, and a lot of these insights and tools to drive growth can be viewed on Kerry’s newly formed website www.deliexperts.ie.

The process so far has led to a positive cycle of benefits in terms of…

-Increased rate of sale for deli counters where changes identified from the insights are implemented in-store.
-Increased orders for a product range solution that is relevant to retailers, shoppers and consumers.
-A relevant and effective insight-led tool for field sales team.
-Positive endorsements coming back from store managers and owners.
-A growing website hit rate after only three months of being live as both retailers and the internal field sales team access the tool to help grow the category.

Overall the symposium provided a guide, case example and rich discussion on what insight is needed to drive growth in today’s market, along with the learnings in the execution of the insights.

The 3rd session of the V360° and ECR Shopper Symposium is on the 24th August in Airfield Estate Dundrum from 07:30-09:00. It will focus on ‘Winning at the Moment of Choice’ and will be presented by V360° and Unilever.