Magazine: Creativity in trade marketing

This year’s ‘Trade marketing, my love’ conference – organised by the Trade Marketing Club – focused on the theme of creativity and how it can be used in everyday life. One of the club’s founders, Zsuzsanna Hermann welcomed participants.

The morning session’s moderator was Ágnes Csiby, director of In-Store Team and president of POPAI Hungary. Mathematician and psychologist László Mérő was the first speaker, who talked about the relationship between intelligence and creativity. He told that both the average person and a superintelligent one can be creative. He added that one is born creative to 30 percent, the environment’s influence is 20 percent and the role of interactions weighs 50 percent. Péter Hellner, Walt Disney Company’s country manager introduced the Disney empire with its television channels, movies, theme parks, cruise liners and websites – and of course the consumer goods bearing Disney characters. Those who become licence partners can enjoy the benefits of the full Disney portfolio. Disney’s own designer team help manufacturers with the artwork and communication. Customers get emotionally attached to Disney characters and this protects manufacturers from the negative effects of price-sensitivity. Joao Catalao, the vice president of POPAI Portugal and the owner of the BusinessUp group explained that for today’s shoppers it isn’t enough to experience things rationally, they want emotions too. In his view last year’s best promotion was the campaign for Gourmet Gold cat food, which was based on the fact that women are crazy about shoes and was implemented very efficiently at the level of POS tools too. László Benedek, director of commerce with Kaiser Food said: very often the obvious sales supporting solutions are right there in front of our eyes, but we need to be creative to see them. His example was the system of identifying stamps placed under the cap of beer kegs, with the help of which breweries could measure how much beer was sold in Horeca units. He told that for managers the biggest challenge is to elicit creative solutions from their team. Chris Baker is the general manager of TerraCycle in Europe. He revealed that consumers are increasingly protective of the environment, they like to buy products which are produced sustainably. What is more, a growing number of retailers incorporate sustainability elements into their business and promotional strategies. TerraCycle is present in 21 countries, doing projects like the one in Hungary: Chio made lasting shopping bags from returned crisp bags. During the lunch break participants had the opportunity to check out ArtMatch Kft.’s POP tools in the lobby, where managing director Attila Kolonics was answering their questions. POPAI Hungary Association general secretary Ildikó Kátai was the moderator of the afternoon session, where the first speaker was Gyula Kisantal, creative director of D’Arcy Avenue Advertising Agency. He told that brands should stop communicating as if consumes were 6 years old. They should build their own personality instead as more and more consumers are paying attention to in-store communication. Nikoletta Bene, marketing manager with Spar Hungary highlighted that their objective is to turn customers who now do their shopping in 3-4 places into loyal Spar-goers. The chain’s HUF 500 coupon for each HUF 5,000 spent was a great success, just like the 4×20 percent discount stickers for products chosen by the customer. Ms Bene also talked about the Mountain Mania leg of the Garfield loyalty building promotion, and about how it supported climber Dávid Klein. Writer István Vörös teaches creative writing at Pázmány University. Students have the chance to learn all forms of written communication, understanding creativity with the help of creative reading and writing. He asked participants to write a haiku about the conference – 11 of them did and the best was the one written by Brigitta Kalló (D’Arcy): ‘What is my brand? I control you like snowfall does it, with a city.’ Ildikó Kátai and István Réti, research director of ETresearch presented the results of POPAI North America’s shopper engagement study, based on which POPAI Hungary conducted its own research. In Hungary POPAI did 902 entry and exit interviews and 226 eye tracking recordings. At the 3 locations where eye tracking was done they also observed shopper behaviour and the efficiency of POS tools, studying the in-store behaviour of 21,722 shoppers. The results of the study can be bought through POPAI Hungary. The conference ended with the usual award ceremony: Trade Marketing Team 2014 – Nestlé Hungária Kft.’s 15-member CCSD team; the prize was accepted by Krisztina Antal, Tímea Feka, Tünde Laurinyecz and Melinda Vass. Mr. Trade Marketing 2014 – Krisztián Király, PICK Szeged Zrt.; he accepted the prize with colleagues Erzsébet Pap and Eszter Bartos-Kovács. The ceremony ended with a champagne reception. Twelve conference participants and organisers closed the day with a tour of hip ruin pubs (Fekete kutya, Szimplakert, Liebling, Mazel Tov) with László Benedek as their guide.