CoLabs are shaping POPAI’s new paths

On February 10, 2021, at 2 pm Hungarian time, the online Town Hall was held by the parent organization of POPAI Hungary, Shop! new management. At the end of last year, the management of the Chicago-Hollywood Florida-based international organisation for Marketing at Retail was transferred to Kellen Company, one of the world’s largest management services companies. The Hungarian POPAI organization operates in its unchanged form, as a Shop! member.

Changing names, promising content

Bruce Barteldt, Board Chair of Shop! said in his introduction, that he took over the baton at a challenging time at the end of last year. The pandemic will last much longer and affect the FMCG industry much more deeply than anyone had hoped. Retailers, brands, instore and POP designers and suppliers can only move forward together, along common values ​​and relevance. POPAI organizations have always sought to bring the industry together. The next step is to create common values, common contents and directions in the post-covid period.

Paul Hagar, the new Executive Director of the Shop! citing Shop!’s own survey in North America, he showed that 100% of the companies surveyed will only virtually host their events scheduled from January to June. 70% said the same, staying online with their events until December. Based on all this, the Shop! events will also remain virtual until the end of 2021. The first personal meeting may take place in February 2022.

Shop! CoLabs starts

Brad Stewart Vice Chair said that after a number of brainstorming, research, and professional discussions, it was concluded that CoLabs idea generator incubator events would be created to fill online events with real content. The idea came from his 13-year-old son, who cited the Minecraft video game as an example of how to collaborate excitingly online, solve problems together. The virtual workshops, planned for half a day, are planned to start with a joint problem-solving, an inspiration presentation, and then the participants will continue to think together in guided small groups. At the end, the group leaders summarize and present the ideas, suggestions, solutions. At the end of 2020, the RetailChallenge group competition, organized within the framework of the ShopX virtual conference, was organized in a similar way, with two Hungarian participants. By 2021, three CoLabs events are planned to shape the Shop! Marketplace virtual event scenario, which will replace the GlobalShop trade show and scheduled for the fourth quarter. The goal is to create a memorable, innovative, meaningful event using the latest techniques and communication options. They would also like to interpret the new dimension of networking, targeted relationship building.

The Global Awards remain

The competition of the winners of national POP competition, the Global Awards are organised since 2010, is also known as the Triumph of Nations, an Oscar for the POP profession. The winners of the Hungarian POPAI Awards also enter every year and so far they have proved the world-class creativity of the Hungarian point-of-purchase marketing sector with two industry and two student trophies.

There will be a virtual gala ceremony on April 29 this year. Last year’s event was a real show. The winner of last year’s Student Design category, Boldizsár Rajkai’s Zewa windmill display, was also included in the slide describing this year’s round. Entries can be submitted by applicants in the usual way, but on a renewed website.

Energizing near future

The new way to the board, the full-time Shop! staff and advisory and decision-making groups made up of members of the organization. Sheila Lee, the Shop! general manager stressed that she was waiting for the delegates of the member companies to join the council and advisory groups in order to bring clear goals, a follow-up strategy and successful events under the roof. In addition to the creative, global, producer, retail&brand and service provider councils, awards&competitions, education&research, events&happenings, emerging professionals, growth&outreach advisory groups and women’s league are also looking to shape the future and recruiting new members.

The first CoLab event will be on April 22, with an exclusive store visit, an inspiring presentation by Alan Fine and a workshop in small groups.