09Apr2011

Stream of Unconsciousness

Can’t believe I suckered IRI into letting me come to this conference again as “press.” Why does everyone look so young? Cops began looking young years ago, but now category managers and exec vps?

Club store growth will slow from today’s 5%-6% down to 1%. Supers won’t do great. Dollar and drug are doing best. Loyalty cards work okay if you’re Kroger and put a lot of effort into it, but most of us don’t know much about our shoppers.

Did I turn my cell phone off?

Promo spending hasn’t paid off; we oughta be spending more on building brand value, and less on deep discounts, which aren’t productive. There’s a disconnect between FSIs, Catalina, and in-store merchandising. It all seems kinda random, with duplicate spending.

Is that blueberry muffin still in my briefcase?

Shoppers, in a recent poll, said a price increase would impact spending, but their level of negativity wasn’t much affected by whether the increase was 5% or 15%. So, go for it. There are an average of 360 items in consumers’ pantries today, 10% less than four years ago. Stores with around 4,000 SKUs are doing well now; you got too many SKUs?

The camera that shows the speaker also shows people in the front row, up on this big screen. Wonder who that balding guy is, off to the left. Oh, my God…

Only 1% of 150,000 new items wind up doing $7.5 million a year. Shoppers care about products that improve their lives, that their families will love, that will save time and provide good value. We launch too many SKUs. Better off adding 25,000 new items, and maybe 10% or 15% will do $7.5 million.

Gosh, this guy is smart. Shoppers aren’t responding to loyalty programs as well anymore, cuz they’re just disguised discounts — nothing like Amazon’s suggestions for you and all that. Got to break down the silos in our organizations and make sure everyone talks to each other. Retailers and manufacturers have to communicate better.

THINGS DON’T CHANGE
Gee, I wrote about that 30 years ago. Some things don’t change.

Whoa! Some guy from Walmart is saying that 52% of population growth in the U.S. over the next five years will be Hispanic. And this lady from Univision is saying that one in four babies born in the U.S. is Hispanic. Lots of similar data. Message: don’t consider Hispanics as a segment, but as part of the overall consumer basis; include them in your marketing plan, don’t just tack them on at the end.

How can I write stories about all this when I go to the printer tomorrow? I know! I’ll just blog it, in print….