Waiting patiently

Waiting is one of the hardest things to do in the business sector. It doesn’t matter whether you are waiting for the decision on a grant application you submitted, the latest sales results or launching a new project…and now everyone is waiting for the year-long crisis situation to end. No one wants to wait for anything anymore, everybody have lost their patience and feel frustrated.

Feeling helpless makes one angry but at the same time also teaches acceptance, as there is nothing we can do but wait patiently. Wait for the vaccination jab, the rebooting of the economy and for finding the colleagues that we lost touch with, finally leaving the crisis and the all-the-time-online world behind.

At the same time everybody knows that spring is around the corner, it is under our feet and in the air. Easter is approaching too, but the FMCG market is already preparing for the summer – and not only in theory. Product launches, promotion campaigns and price negotiations…everything must go on, as life can’t stop and waiting only isn’t an option.

In the spirit of this the present issue of Trade magazin we faced the challenge once again and forced ourselves to overcome our own thoughts and feelings – we are writing about festivals on several pages. Probably the festival market won’t explode in May and it is rather likely that Sziget Festival won’t break new records yet, on the contrary…But while waiting patiently, we are preparing both mentally and physically for the world getting back on its feet, even if it does it differently than before or if it first happens elsewhere…Until then everything that the FMCG market has to offer is needed and people are shopping and ordering online, they are curious about new innovations and haven’t stopped buying consciously, plus they don’t compromise on matters of environmental protection and sustainability either. They want CSR programmes from their favourite brands and are still a little doubtful about uninterrupted product supply, so from time to time they stockpile goods.

Our magazine has decided to keep going forward and in the next couple of issues we are going to present you the best innovations, the most successful promotions, the symbols of sustainability and the star stores which cans serve as role models to others from the last year. We are busy organising trade events, planning them as not online but physical events, and they will take place in this form as soon as the pandemic situation lets it. In mid-April we will be welcoming you at a never-before-seen free Trade Marketing Club meeting (see page 127), at the end of April we will be hosting the award ceremony and trade conference day of the Promotion Competition (see page 19), at the end of May we will be waiting for you at the Business Dinner (see page 5) and the Inno d’Or – Innovation of the Year award ceremony, then early June will bring another Trade Marketing Club meeting and grill party, before the Business Days conference in Hotel Pelion starts at the end of September (see page 1).

We are looking forward to meeting you, the plans are ready to finally go offline!

Zsuzsanna Hermann, Editor in Chief