As seen in

Our third annual report recognizes the CPG brand and retail executives who are making significant progress in their ongoing efforts to better engage the digitally connected shopper through innovative work in the areas of digital shopper marketing, e-commerce, social media and mobile marketing.

IN DIGITAL SHOPPER MARKETING& E-COMMERCE

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7-ELEVENn Lena Huang, Senior Manager, Digital

Guest ExperienceHuang is responsible for demand genera-tion, new-user acquisition and retention through loyalty marketing, including development across Web, mobile, app and localized marketing. She has led and implemented digital innovation initiatives, specifically digital in-store technology to foster 7-Eleven’s digital footprint and competitiveness.

AACCO BRANDS n Randal Moss, Digital

Marketing Manager Moss oversees the digital marketing and advertising efforts for a portfolio of brands for ACCO, manag-ing the websites, social media platforms, digital collateral production and online collaborations with partner retailers.

AHOLD USAn Jason Kunick, Director of

E-Commerce

ALBERTSONS SAFEWAYn Mike McCready, Vice

President, E-Commerce McCready joined Albert-sons as head of e-com-merce when the company acquired Safeway in early 2015.

ALCONn Jeremy Brown, Senior

Shopper Marketing Manager, OTC Brown leads digital shop-per marketing, strategic planning and execution for Alcon’s OTC portfolio. In addition, he leads annual coupon strategy, planning and execution for the portfolio as well as shopper marketing strategy and execu-tion within the food and drug channels.

AMAZON.COMn Ramer Holtan, Head of Marketing,

Digital Musicn Andrew Morrison, Product

Management, Digital Products

ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEVn Vanessa Ivette Rosado, Global

Director of Digital CapabilitiesRosado is responsible for the implemen-tation of best practices for the manage-ment of digital activations and measure-ment of digital performance.

BBAYER CONSUMER HEALTHCAREn Alana Joy Feldman,

Digital Shopper Marketing Specialist Feldman leads the explora-tion of innovative digital opportunities for retail and guides the development of e-commerce strategy. She is also a key resource for Bayer’s retail activation teams, providing strategic guidance for digital marketing within omnichannel trade programs for all brands.

BEAM SUNTORYn Andrea Javor, Senior Director,

Global Digital & MediaAs an expert for Beam’s customer teams, Javor provides thought leadership on me-dia and digital as they relate to partner-ships and best approaches.

BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.n Bobby Chin, Manager, Advanced and

Emerging TechnologiesChin’s duties include developing and integrating emerging technologies into consumer experiences.

BOZZUTO’Sn Steve Methvin, Vice President,

E-Commerce/Retail TechnologyMethvin’s group delivers customer-facing, data-driven experiences by providing critical information in mobile formats, reinventing the shopping experience with touch technologies and “seeing” the customer through social and big data analytic engines.

BROWN-FORMAN n Travis Smith, Director, Digital

Marketing COESmith oversees the selection and man-agement of digital marketing vendors used across the company’s global portfo-lio of brands.

BURT’S BEESn Lynnette Montgomery,

Associate Director of Global E-Commerce and Digital Marketing Montgomery leads the strategy and develop-ment of e-commerce, mobile, CRM and digital media for Burt’s Bees, focusing on consumer engagement, brand awareness and building capabilities.

CTHE CLOROX CO.n Katie Frink, E-Commerce Team

LeaderFrink creates strategy and vision for Clo-rox business at Amazon.com (Amazon Fresh, Pantry, Quidsi) and other strategic e-tailers.

n Kristin Wonzen, Global Director of E-Commerce Wonzen oversees e-com-merce digital marketing, product management, international e-commerce, capability de-velopment, direct-to-consumer websites and the Amazon marketing team/agency. Priority e-commerce brands for Clorox include Burt’s Bees, Brita and Glad.

THE COCA-COLA CO.n Ashish Arya, Director,

E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Arya is responsible for developing and executing the e-commerce market-ing strategy for the portfolio of Coca-Cola brands. He is focused on leveraging digi-tal shopper marketing capabilities to drive revenue and build strong brands.

n Julie Bowerman, Vice President, E-CommerceBowerman leads the brand’s e-commerce business by managing a long-term strate-gic partnership model with Amazon and other online partners.

n Jen Brevick, Director of E-Commerce Capability Brevick manages capability growth and development in the e-commerce chan-nel for Coca-Cola.

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Lori O’Neal remembers what it was like to work with a catalog promotional strategy team to send out Target’s first guest-fac-ing emails, and having discussions about contact strategy and content. It was the turn of the 21st century. “That seems like a lifetime ago,” she says. “It is amazing how much has changed since that first email.”

That catalog role, her first with Target, morphed into posi-tions in online promotional strategy and digital guest acquisi-tion to build the Target database and better understand guest (i.e., shopper) preferences. When she was asked to analyze how guests use traditional media and digital media, O’Neal began her shopper marketing education.

“I remember thinking, ‘I’ll really dig in so I can get through these weeds and get back to the fun stuff,’” she says. “To my surprise, I absolutely loved this valuable work and developed a much deeper understanding of our guests and their behav-iors – which is critical to be a successful marketer.”

O’Neal recently took some time to answer the following questions about Target’s progress in digital:

There’s been a lot of change in the digital arena for Target the past 18 months; could you give us a brief update on the view from where you sit?O’NEAL: Over the past 18 months, Target has focused on digi-tal more than I have ever seen in my tenure. We have recruited amazing leadership with extensive backgrounds in digital in-novation, e-commerce, merchandising and analytics. We’re in the process of completely transforming how we work – and it’s extremely energizing.

We delivered our strongest Q4 ever in digital commerce. We are truly building great new capabilities and services that revolve around guest convenience – saving them time and money – with of-ferings like store pickup, subscriptions and Cartwheel. We’re working to be bold and take smart risks and do things differently so that we can continue to innovate and become a leader in digital.

Can you describe your role and the goals of your team?O’NEAL: I lead our DVM (digital vendor marketing) sales and plan-ning team. We’ve added great talent to our team to ensure we are leveraging individuals from a variety of backgrounds with strong digital and shopper marketing acumen. The entire DVM team fo-cuses on developing cutting-edge media products, creative services and insights for our brand partners to leverage. My team is tasked with partnering with brands and developing media strategies that amplify or complement their in-store activity. We work closely with our merchandising and marketing teams to ensure we have a cohe-sive plan that resonates with our guest. We then deliver insights on program performance and future recommendations.

In general, how effectively are CPG brands utilizing the digital touchpoints along the path to purchase?O’NEAL: CPG brands are very digitally savvy. I’ve been asking them for years about their spend in traditional versus digital media, and I would say now the tide has very much turned to digital. They under-stand the value of the media and now look at the retail channel as a media channel that is farther down the shopping funnel, making it a

great use of their marketing spend to drive their business.I have also seen some of our most progressive CPG shopper mar-

keting partners leverage national agency media spends to amplify or fill in the gaps of their shopper marketing plans. The right hand knows what the left is doing, and it’s paying off in a big way through increased guest response.

How can brands – in general – take better advantage of the opportunities in digital?O’NEAL: I have watched our shopper marketing partners grow in their sophistication of understanding digital media. This industry evolves so quickly that taking full advantage requires a desire to test, learn and adapt quickly. Brands have to be serious about being OK with failing sometimes. The goal hasn’t changed over the years – we still want to reach the relevant guest with the right content as close to real time as possible. The difference between now and a decade ago is that’s becoming a reality.

How much of an omnichannel shopper are you?O’NEAL: I am very much an omnichannel shopper. I am what Target calls the “demanding enthusiast” – I like to shop, I’m deal-conscious and I use technology. I purchased the majority of my holiday gifts online even though I still love visiting the stores on Black Friday. A few years ago, I used my iPad and phone more for research and my desktop to buy, but now I buy through all devices.

Photo by Chris Bohnhoff

“We have recruited amazing leadership with extensive backgrounds in digital innovation, e-commerce, merchandising and analytics. We’re in the process of completely transforming how we work – and it’s extremely energizing.”

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TARGET CORP.Lori O’Neal, Senior Group Manager, Digital Marketing

nLaura Houghton, Director, Digital Shopper Marketing Houghton is responsible for digital shopper market-ing strategy and capability building for Coca-Cola North America, which includes defining multi-year digital shopper strategies, building digital ca-pabilities and creating innovative digital shopper solutions to activate along the path to purchase.

n Courtney Mauer, Director, Connections PlanningMauer helps to ensure that Coca-Cola’s brand strategies build strong connections across owned, earned and paid, as well as into powerful shared programs with customers.

COLGATE-PALMOLIVEn Mindel Klein Lepore, Worldwide

Director, Global Digital Marketingn Dan Nosal, Team Leader,

U.S. E-Commerce Nosal leads strategy and development of Colgate’s U.S. e-commerce busi-ness for key pure-play and brick-and-mortar customers. He provides strategic guidance to the marketing, digital marketing and integrated marketing com-munications teams to ensure alignment with the demands and needs of this rela-tively new retail environment in CPG.

n Barry Roberts, Director, Retail Shopper Solutions, North America Roberts leads the retail shopper solutions team that consists of category management, shopper marketing and e-commerce.

CONAGRA FOODS INC.n Jill Kristle, Manager, Interactive

Marketingn John Shen, Senior

Director, Interactive Marketing & Consumer Promotions Shen leads digital and pro-motions initiatives across the organization, partnering with John Stichweh and shopper marketing teams to provide thought leadership, best prac-tices and approaches for retail activation in the digital and promotional space.

n John Stichweh, Director, Digital and Social Shopper Marketing, E-Commerce and CRM Stichweh leads a team that leverages enterprise re-sources including data, infrastructure and platforms such as ConAgra’s ReadySetEat recipe website to deliver the aligned ob-jectives and measure their impact along the way.

CONSTELLATION BRANDS n Karena Breslin,

Vice President of Digital Marketing Breslin manages digital strategy and execution for Constellation’s portfo-lio of wine and spirits brands. Her orga-nization is responsible for social media, digital advertising, content marketing and shopper activation, and she also leads marketing technology initiatives.

COTY INC. n Kristen D’Arcy, Vice President of

Global Digital

CVS HEALTHn Kate Goodman, Senior Director,

Retail DigitalGoodman manages the development of strategies that support omnichannel cus-tomer acquisition and retention in both the online and offline channels.

n Brian Tilzer, Chief Digital Officer Tilzer oversees digital operations and omnichan-nel customer experience across CVS Health’s retail pharmacy, pharmacy benefits manage-ment and Minute Clinic businesses.

DDELL INC.n Lori Pennington,

Manager, Shopper Marketing Pennington has developed strong retailer relation-ships and continues to build best practices for Dell’s shopper marketing organization while driving U.S. retail marketing strategies using insights, analytics, marketing planning and devel-opment.

n Dan Seymour, Director, NA Retail/Shopper Marketing Seymour manages the U.S./Canada retail trade and shopper marketing functions at Dell. His team delivers shop-per insights-driven marketing plans, de-signed to deliver incremental share gains for their retail partners.

DR PEPPER SNAPPLE GROUP INC.n Stacey Schultz, Manager of

Integrated Content, Snapple and Motts

n Robert Stone, Director of Integrated and Emerging MediaStone is responsible for the strategic development of integrated media plans for brands including 7UP, Canada Dry, Motts and Snapple. He leads an internal team and agency partners in the development and execution of consumer and shopper programs.

EENERGIZER PERSONAL CAREn Chris Greene, Director, Club Channel

& E-Commerce Strategy

FFOOD LIONn Justin Baynton,

Manager of Digital and Interactive Marketing Baynton is in charge of strategic development and implementation of the digital marketing roadmap that en-compasses Web, mobile, social and cross-channel media platforms.

n Keith Nicks, Director of Customer Loyalty and Retail Marketing

GGENERAL MILLS INC.n Brian Kittelson,

Director of Integrated Shopper Marketing Kittelson leads a team tasked with building insights-based strategies designed to grow brands and categories.

n Matt Pierre, E-Commerce Director See profile on page 10.

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GEORGIA-PACIFICn Cindy Butler, Senior Manager,

Scale Digital MarketingButler specializes in digital and traditional brand marketing management in the franchise, cooperative and durable goods industries.

GSK CONSUMER HEALTHCAREn Jason Herman, Director,

Integrated Marketing Communications & Innovation Herman joined GSK through the manufactur-er’s acquisition of Novartis earlier this year. He manages operations and capability building throughout the marketing or-ganization, including digital, media, con-sumer promotions and agency relations.

n JoAnn McCormack, Senior Digital Strategy Manager

HHEINEKEN USAn Haley Rubin,

Digital Commercial Marketing Excellence

THE HERSHEY CO.n Denise Vivas, Director,

E-Commerce Vivas’ role is focused around developing the online demand creation model for the digitally con-nected consumer, developing a relevant portfolio for this consumer and building capabilities and knowledge required to win in this new frontier.

THE HOME DEPOTn Dave Abbott, Vice President,

Online Marketing

HORMEL FOODS CORP.n Scott M. Weisenbeck,

Marketing Director, Hormel Brand and Integrated Marketing Weisenbeck oversees mar-keting strategy and execu-tion for the Hormel brand and is responsi-ble for integrating and aligning marketing efforts for more than 15 Hormel-branded products across multiple divisions within Hormel Foods.

JJOHNSON & JOHNSONn Sri Rajagopalan, Vice

President, E-Commerce, Consumer Division Rajagopalan just arrived from Frito-Lay to take stra-tegic ownership of digital sales growth for J&J’s consumer division including merchandising and selling strat-egies to enable e-commerce customer collaboration and growth.

n Carl Wille, Senior Director, Sales OperationsWille leads four departments within sales ops, including data and analytics, com-munication and administration, training, development and entry-level recruiting, and traditional sales operations.

KKELLOGG CO.n Dan Cooke, Global

Lead, E-Commerce Cooke leads e-commerce and digital shopper activa-tion by setting the strategy and managing the P&L for the channel. His team also leads the development and curation of content for display on the digital shelf, designed to engage, motivate and convert shoppers for Kellogg’s vast portfolio of brands.

n Mark Lundquist, Manager, Digital Strategy Lundquist consults on digital strategy with both brand and shopper mar-keting within the Kellogg organization.

n Kevin Sidell, Senior Manager, Digital Strategy Sidell provides strategic guidance for brand and shopper marketing teams designed to motivate consumers and shoppers to select Kellogg brands along the path to purchase.

KIMBERLY-CLARK n Gabe Mattingly, Senior Brand

Manager, E-Commercen Meg Way Edgin, Global

Director, Integrated Media IQ and Platforms Edgin is responsible for raising the integrated me-dia IQ of Kimberly-Clark’s global brand builders, global social media and agile marketing lead. She is a leader in driving always-on capability and expe-rience across a consumer’s journey and path to purchase.

KRAFT FOODS GROUP INC.n Rashmi Patel, Director of Data and

Brand Strategyn Bob Rupczynski, Vice President,

Media, Data, CRM

THE KROGER CO.n Matt Thompson, Director,

Digital and E-Commerce

LLG ELECTRONICSn Chris Ray, Director, Digital Marketing

L’OREALn Vivianna Blanch, Vice

President E-Commerce, Marketing and Digital Strategy, Active Cosmetics Division Blanch is responsible for all e-commerce and e-tailer sales for the active cosmetics division at L’Oreal USA. In addi-tion, she leads all digital marketing, media, mobile and technology programs.

n Rachel Weiss, Vice President, Digital Innovation, Content & New Ventures

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Josh Wexelbaum and Dilini Fernando share the common task of improving the digital ventures for one of the world’s largest brew-ers, but they came to their management roles at MillerCoors on different paths.

Fernando is a 2003 graduate of Brown University, where she pur-sued interests in science, psychology, entrepreneurship, business and organizational behavior management. She was a disc jockey at a college radio station, then used that skill at two different sta-tions in the years between Brown and her MillerCoors internship in 2010.

Fernando also founded and ran a musician-centric business in Taunton, Massachusetts, as well as an independent record label for two years before earning an MBA at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. She took a year after her internship to help four other Booth students with a mobile payment start-up through Booth’s New Venture Challenge program. She rejoined MillerCoors as an associate brand manager in 2011, and assumed her present position two years later.

Fernando says her experience with digital in her entrepreneur-ial projects has inspired her work at MillerCoors. She now guides the MillerCoors digital incubator, a laboratory of sorts to test new tools, tactics and technologies with the goal of increasing sales and creating scalable solutions for the organization. “Digital was such an amazing way to reach a broad audience on a limited bud-get,” she says. “I love its nimble and dynamic nature.”

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Photo by Brian Morrison

Wexelbaum took a more straightforward route to his position as senior manager of digital marketing. Unsure of a major at the University of Texas, he discovered a passion for advertising in a 101 course, seizing on the ideas of Ogilvie, Burnett and Bernbach to spark his choice to earn an advertising degree.

He rose to associate media director in seven years at Starcom MediaVest Group, joining MillerCoors in 2006 as media manager. Wexelbaum was a brand manager for retail marketing for two years, then brand manager for Miller Lite before taking on his pres-ent role in April 2014.

He says working in digital is perfect for his out-of-the-box think-ing that began as a kid. “I never really was too big on using estab-lished solutions to solve problems,” he says. “I wanted to create a solution on my own, to try something different, to experiment. Operating in the digital space is a great opportunity to continue that process. To experiment, to try, to fail, find the things that work that we can actually scale.”

Fernando and Wexelbaum recently took time out to answer the following questions about their digital work at MillerCoors:

How do shopper and digital marketing intersect at MillerCoors?WEXELBAUM: Digital marketing as a standalone or even as a bolt-on practice no longer makes sense. Right now we’re living in a world where nearly everything our shopper experiences from a communications perspective can be and, I would argue, increas-

MILLERCOORSJosh Wexelbaum, Senior Manager, Digital MarketingDilini Fernando, Digital Innovation & Marketing Manager

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ingly is delivered digitally. I don’t believe it’s about digital market-ing per se but rather how do we market in an age when everything is digital?

Once you understand it’s about marketing in a digital age, to me digital’s role in shopper marketing becomes more obvious. It’s to take us further down the purchase model than we’ve traditionally been in a way that better engages our consumers by providing real value to them.

How does the organization promote digital innovation?FERNANDO: As part of developing best practices, in 2014 we started the digital incubator, which is meant to be essentially a pipeline of ideas that incubate the next level of digital marketing, where we test, learn, fail and ultimately scale. I oversee the execution and the internal and retailer education of the digital incu-bator tests for the organization.

Anything in particular you are working on?FERNANDO: In 2014 we supported about 20 different digital in-cubator tests. There was a lot of exciting work with mobile order on-premise, proximity messaging, driving traffic and engagement and, more recently, with beer delivery.

Many marketers believe that digital is helping to narrow the gap that has traditionally existed between CPG brands and retailers. Agree or disagree, and why?WEXELBAUM: I generally agree. As CPG marketers, I think we have to acknowledge that our capabilities in the digital space lag those of our direct marketing counterparts, but in that gap between di-

rect marketers and consumer package goods I do see a world of opportunity for CPG companies and retailers to partner and drive new solutions that can influence and affect our shoppers. We can’t directly sell our beer to anyone like a direct marketer can. In us-ing delivery services to spur new occasions are ways that we can grow the category for ourselves and our retailers while overcom-ing some of the inability-to-sell-direct challenges that we face.

What does omnichannel mean to you as a marketer and a shopper?FERNANDO: For me it’s about creating an enjoyable retail experi-ence. I’m probably like most online shoppers, where I feel com-fortable navigating between digital and physical. Where can I get information, where can I get inspiration? If there’s an impulse to buy, how is that enabled? Is that in-store, online? I feel comfortable with both.WEXELBAUM: A friend of mine who works in sports event market-ing used to say, “Be sure to go so you know,” in reference to event activation. I feel that same sentiment applies to digital, and om-nichannel as an aspect of digital. To me our shoppers are doing it and more so every day, so I better be doing it myself if I ever really hope to understand and be able to capitalize on that experience.

“Our shoppers are doing [omnichannel], so I better be doing it myself if I ever really hope to understand and be able to capitalize on that experience.”

Josh Wexelbaum

LOWE’Sn Thomas McMillan Jr., Commerce

Director, LowesForPros.comMcMillan holds an e-commerce gen-eral management role leading online merchandising, digital marketing, online promotions, search and taxonomy, opera-tions, production and product ownership.

MMARS CHOCOLATEn Amanda Zaky, Senior Manager,

InteractiveZaky leads the six U.S. chocolate brands’ digital media and social marketing strate-gies, providing thought leadership, lever-aging consumer insights, media research and overall integrated marketing plan-ning process, in alignment with local and global business objectives.

MATTEL INC.n Hadi Abrishamchian,

Manager, Global E-Commerce Sales Activation Abrishamchian is respon-sible for multi-channel global sales activation for Mattel and Fisher-Price brands, utilizing innovative thought and results leadership coupled with a growth-hacker approach to am-plify programs, scale across the globe and unlock new capabilities.

MEIJER INC.n Renee Appert, Director

of Brand Development Appert guides business-changing brand and creative strategy into cam-paign integration across online, offline and in-store media.

n Brad Hileman, Director of Digital, Creative and Brand DevelopmentHileman leads strategy, content and creative across social media, Web, e-mail, mobile, search and other digital touch-points, driving alignment across multiple business areas and digital programs to ensure consistent brand and user experi-ence.

MEYER CORP.n Jason Marrone, Senior

Director of E-Business Marrone leads Meyer’s e-commerce strategy and tactical execution. His teams are focused on the retailer’s brand sites, as well as analyzing product placement, brand portfolio and content integrity across its network of online retailers in order to build and pro-tect brand equity and accelerate online and offline sales.

MILLERCOORSn Sherry Courtney, Digital Marketing

Managern Dilini Fernando, Digital Innovation &

Marketing Manager See profile on page 6.

n Brian Pokorny, Senior Manager, Digital and Media

n Emily Smith, Digital and Social Marketing Manager

n Brittany Tall, Manager, Media and Digital

n Josh Wexelbaum, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing See profile on page 6.

MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL n B. Bonin Bough,

Vice President, Global Media & Consumer Engagement Bough oversees the manu-facturer’s digital, print, TV and out-of-home media globally.

MOTOROLA MOBILITYn Barbara Liss, Senior Director,

Social Media

NNBC UNIVERSAL STUDIOSn Joe Eibert, Vice President,

Digital Marketing

NESTLE PURINAn Linda Hervatin,

Director, Shopper Marketing Hervatin leads a team fo-cused on understanding emerging shopper trends and technology and identifying new op-portunities to influence the pet shopper’s behavior.

n Tanner Hobin, Digital Shopper Marketing Manager Leads the digital shopper landscape assessment, research and identification of key insights necessary to inform retail digital strategies and initiatives.

NESTLE USAn Linsey Walker, Shopper Engagement

Strategist See profile on page 9.

NEWELL RUBBERMAIDn Eric Long, Director, Global

E-Commerce Experience & OperationsLong leads a team of 30-plus members who are collectively responsible for e-commerce product management, front-end product design and development, and operations.

PPEPSICOn Ashwin Nathan, Senior Director,

Digital, E-Commerce and D3 StudiosNathan leads digital, CRM, e-commerce and the in-house digital agency for Frito-Lay.

n Elena Parlatore, Senior Manager, Quaker Digital & SocialParlatore leads Quaker’s strategy and planning across paid, owned and earned digital platforms including display, video, social, website, mobile, e-commerce, CRM and measurement.

n Marisa Perez, Senior Director, Shopper Marketing, Digital Conversion & Program Activation

n Jason Thalappillil, Director, Digital Engagement Group, Digital Strategy & Content

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While singing and performing have been passions of hers since early childhood, Linsey Walker set aside any plans to study music in college and focused instead on business administration with a concentration in marketing. And while her love of music has stayed with her – she even belonged to the Nestle choir when she worked at the company’s Glendale, California, headquarters – it never went beyond a beloved hobby.

Yet she does see correlations between her love of music and her work today, particularly in terms of channeling her creativity and telling a story. Throughout her 15-year career at Nestle USA, Walker has had experience in account management, business develop-ment, and retail sales and management.

When Nestle started developing its shopper marketing organiza-tion, Walker became the first shopper marketer in the field for one of the manufacturer’s national retailers. The retailer was executing a number of progressive digital activations, enabling her to experi-ence effective digital shopper marketing programs firsthand.

Walker moved into her current role as shopper engagement strat-egist three years ago, immediately tasked with focusing on digital, and specifically on how Nestle USA can utilize digital to engage with its shoppers. She recently answered the following questions about her journey in this field:

How has the shopper marketing discipline evolved at Nestle USA?WALKER: Before we had specific shopper marketing roles, many were already partnering with retailers to execute effective pre-store and in-store marketing activations. About six years ago, the discipline really started to develop. We now have a large shopper community with resources across the country. Our shopper market-ers focus on building our brands by effectively engaging shoppers along the path to purchase, using digital as a key way to drive the engagement and ultimately trigger purchase. We challenge our shopper marketers to be the digital shopper experts for their re-spective brands and retailer partners.

And how have digital shopper marketing and e-commerce become increasingly important parts of the solution?WALKER: Our shoppers live in a digital world. It’s not just about “dig-ital shopper marketing,” but how we best market to our shoppers in this evolving, digital era. Shoppers are still influenced both offline and online. Whether someone is shopping online or in a brick-and-mortar store, we’ve seen firsthand how we market to them digitally can drive purchase and sales, whether through digital ads and digi-tal coupons or through our e-commerce product information, re-views and content. As a result, executing effective digital shopper programs and e-commerce content has become a key part of our shopper marketing discipline.

Please describe your current role and a little bit about Nestle’s digital initiative.WALKER: I’m the shopper engagement strategist in our category and shopper center of excellence (COE) that provides thought lead-ership, best practices and enablers that drive effective activation in the marketplace. My role helps drive effective shopper activation for Nestle USA’s 30-plus brands, and there’s an element of digital in all

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my areas of focus. The organization looks to our COE and my role to be a resource for driving digital capabilities (in relation to our shop-pers and retailers) and effective digital shopper activation.

At our Nestle S.A. headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland, we have a digital acceleration team focused on the fast-evolving digital and social world. We have a Silicon Valley innovation outpost engag-ing with major technology corporations and looking for pioneers among the thousands of small technology startups, and we also have a digital center of excellence focused on digital brand strategy and consumer engagement.

What digital devices do you use most often, and how much of an omnichannel shopper are you?WALKER: As a working mom, I use my iPhone to connect, plan, organize and shop. I’m definitely an omnichannel shopper. I shop more and buy more when there’s a connected, easy and personal-ized shopping experience. But it’s important to go beyond our own experiences. Engage with the digital tools and aids your shoppers are utilizing and try shopping at the retailers where they shop. We need to put ourselves in our shoppers’ shoes because understand-ing what they will experience is one of the quickest ways to assess what digital tools and aids may be most effective.

“We challenge our shopper marketers to be the digital shopper experts for their respective brands and retailer partners.”

Photo by Chris Bohnhoff

NESTLE USALinsey Walker, Shopper Engagement Strategist

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Matt Pierre started his career at General Mills going down his intend-ed path of finance. A few years into his now 25-year tenure, though, the opportunity arose for him to take a cross-functional broadening assignment in marketing.

That was in the mid-1990s, and he’s never looked back.Following several years in brand management and then taking a

brief hiatus to earn his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Pierre returned to the company to continue his work in marketing. That morphed into channel development work, a five-year stint in shopper marketing and to where he sits today, leading the manufacturer’s e-commerce team for the past three years.

Pierre says his strong analytical skills have proved their worth on the brand side as well as on the e-commerce side of the business. He says developing a large CPG company’s e-commerce capabilities re-quires him to wear many hats. “It’s not a bolt-on capability but more about reimagining how you’re going to go to market across your cus-tomer base, and it’s starting to shift the entire organization,” he says.

Pierre recently took time out to discuss what he’s doing on the e-commerce front and answer the following questions:

How was e-commerce introduced at General Mills and how has it developed throughout the organization?PIERRE: Our e-commerce centralized development team was for-mally created about two and a half years ago. Just like the space, we’ve moved quickly by dramatically accelerating the size of the team and the scope in terms of the customer teams we’re partner-ing with as well as building out our capabilities. But we have a long way to go.

It’s less about us selling products directly to consumers and more about partnering with our retailer counterparts to help optimize our business with them. A big part of how we want to add value into this ecosystem with retailers is on the category management front. We’ve spent a lot of time building insights, learnings and capabili-ties on that end to help partner with retailers.

Please explain your specific role and the function of your team.PIERRE: I lead our e-commerce development team, which is re-sponsible for driving the company’s overall e-commerce strategy, building out our digital shelf/category management expertise and partnership with customers as well as our understanding of e-commerce-enabled shopper marketing, and then working on all the corresponding capabilities that need to come with doing all of those things well. We’re kind of the center of excellence to build learning plans and help consult our customer-level shopper market-ing teams. As their customers move online, we help pinpoint areas they need to think about to build a plan that works as well in-store as it does online.

Can you share a recent example of the e-commerce team’s work that stands out?PIERRE: The big area we’ve been able to gain a lot of traction in is in partnering across a wide number of retailers and helping influence them as they set up their digital shelves. How retailers set up cate-gorization and subcategorization in these categories is really going to influence shoppers’ experiences. We see that as a key emerging discipline and need on the category management front.

In a relatively new area such as this, are the misses in some ways almost as valuable to the overall mission as the big hits?PIERRE: Our philosophy is this is such a new and uncharted territory that if we’re not making mistakes, we’re not moving fast enough. There are a lot of shiny shopper marketing tools in this area and you have to be insightful as to what the shopper path to purchase looks like and which of these tools are going to enable us to have the right conversation with that shopper. The biggest hardship in all of this is trying to integrate it across our teams and across the retailer. E-commerce is a team sport and it requires an awful lot of coordina-tion across silos in order to get things done in a meaningful, well-connected way.

What digital devices do you use most often, and how much of an omnichannel shopper are you?PIERRE: I’m always connected, whether on my smartphone, a tablet or my laptop. Probably 50% of all of my family’s purchases are online now. Not everything is perfect yet, so there are some compensating behaviors that as a consumer or shopper you have to overcome, but once you get comfortable with it, you see the convenience in it and at times the ability to not only save money but also find things to which we wouldn’t normally have access.

“A big part of how we want to add value into this ecosystem with retailers is on the category management front.”

GENERAL MILLSMatt Pierre, Director of E-Commerce

Photo by Chris Bohnhoff

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PERNOD RICARD n Tim Murphy, Vice President,

Marketing, Absolut Vodka, Beefeater Gin, Plymouth Gin, Fris VodkaMurphy oversees advertising, media, product innovation, insights, online mar-keting, public relations, consumer promo-tions, multi-cultural activity and customer marketing for the U.S. market.

PFIZER CONSUMER HEALTHCAREn Bryan Chupp, Director

of Digital Marketing Chupp leads the manufac-turer’s U.S. digital market-ing team that builds and executes digital strategies and tactics for Pfizer consumer brands. The team is also responsible for digital capabilities that cut across the brand portfolio.

PRICE CHOPPERn Heidi Reale, Director

of Shopper and Digital Marketing Reale collaborates with the retailer’s business intel-ligence, merchandising, loyalty marketing and CPG partners to identify emerging shopper trends and opportunities to drive the development of programs.

PROCTER & GAMBLEn Kristen Haun, Associate Director,

E-Commerce Marketingn David Mullaly, P&G

Marketing Manager, Walmart and Walmart.com Mullaly manages market-ing across the manufac-turer’s full portfolio of brands at Walmart.com. His responsibilities include media, CRM, content and omnichannel activa-tions.

RRB n Sam Gagliardi, Vice

President, E-Commerce Gagliardi manages a team responsible for creating new growth opportunities for RB by leading a more integrated shopping experience online and across channels.

n Taryn Mitchell, Global Vice President, Sales, Digital Channel Mitchell’s duties include creating strategy and driving execution to flow shoppers through the path to purchase with conversion at the most convenient point for each individual.

n Tyler Sheriff, Team Leader, Amazon.com

S

SC JOHNSON & SON n Nicole Abramson,

Shopper Marketing Manager Abramson, a member of the manufacturer’s e-commerce project team last year, oversees shopper marketing for all SC Johnson brands at Target, as well as Mrs. Meyers and Caldrea brands at Whole Foods and the naturals channel.

SEVENTH GENERATIONn Reid Greenberg,

Director, Consumer Engagement & Direct-to-Consumer Greenberg heads up the manufacturer’s consumer, creative, PR and digital teams, leading the development of strategy and execution for digital marketing and operations and overseeing the brand’s consumer con-versation and engagement ecosystem, social media, direct-response programs, e-commerce mobile initiatives, creative team and the consumer care program.

STARBUCKSn Kristina Salcido Roach,

Shopper Marketing Manager Salcido Roach is respon-sible for developing and executing insights-based strategies and shopper-centric programs to drive meaningful sales for Starbucks brands at Albertsons Safeway. Her role includes joint-business planning, partner-ship development with retailer and affin-ity brands, budget ownership and agency management.

TTARGET CORP.n Lori O’Neal, Senior Group Manager,

Digital Marketing See profile on page 3.

n David Peterson, Director, Digital Vendor Marketing Peterson’s team col-laborates with vendor and brand partners to design, plan, execute and measure digital and omnichannel marketing/ad campaigns across all of Target’s digital channels.

TIME INC.n Christine Austin, Director,

Customer Marketing

TYSON FOODSn Susan Wassel, Director, Digital

Engagement See profile on page 13.

UUBISOFTn Paul Audino, Senior Shopper

Marketing Managern Cathy Ellis, Senior Sales Strategy

and Integration Manager, Digital and OnlineEllis’ role for the video game manufac-turer is focused on defining strategies and developing programs, partnerships and capabilities along the digital path to purchase.

UNILEVER n Doug Straton, Digital

E-Commerce, NA Center of Excellence, Marketing to Shoppers Straton manages a team tasked with implement-ing Unilever’s global and North American e-commerce pure play and brick-and-mortar multi-channel strategy.

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WWAKEFERN FOOD CORP.n Donna Zambo, Director,

Digital Commerce & Innovation Zambo oversees Wake-fern’s e-commerce, mobile and digital initiatives, in-cluding the Price Plus insights program.

WALGREENSn Meghna Agarwal, Digital Marketing

Manager, Retailn Mark Angeloni, Senior

Manager, Digital Promotional Planning Angeloni and his team manage promotional strategy, planning, execu-tion and analytics for Walgreens’ digital properties.

n Adam Garcia, Director of Digital Marketing

n Adam Kmiec, Senior Director, Mobile, Social and Content Marketing Kmiec leads the enterprise strategy for how the retail-er connects with custom-ers across mobile and social by making the content more personal, relevant and precise.

n Cherise Ordlock, Senior Director, Digital Planning and Analysis Ordlock develops and drives short-, medium- and long-term digital initiatives for the retail, omnichannel and photo dig-ital businesses across all functional areas – from developing strategies to forecasting and assessing financial impact, to manag-ing day-to-day execution, promotional planning and analysis.

n Zach West, Manager, Mobile, Social and Content Marketing

WALMART STORES INC.n Andrea Cadelli, Senior Manager,

Digital Marketing and MRM, Sam’s Club

n Dawn Deal, Senior Director, Marketing, Media

n Mark Williamson, Director, Digital Activation & Online Media Program

WD-40 CO.n Paige Perdue, Director,

Digital MarketingPerdue is responsible for developing and executing social media strategy, including evaluating, planning, organizing, manag-ing, monitoring, measuring and contribut-ing to all social media channels.

WHIRLPOOL CORP.n Colette Matthews, Global Marketing

Director, Connectivity and Smart HomeIn a role she began in March, Matthews is responsible for consumer experience for connected appliances, product and “Internet of Things” strategy, and analytics and data-value creation.

WHITEWAVE FOODSn Erin Anderson, Shopper Marketing

Managern Jon Searle, Marketing Manager

WORLD KITCHEN n Ken Bausch, Vice

President, Global Digital Marketing Bausch leads an interactive team focused on driving digital engagement, digi-tal sales and integrated marketing for all World Kitchen brands.

n Andy Wang, Digital Marketing Manager Wang heads up digital content strategy for six major brands including Corelle, Pyrex and Corn-ingWare. He and his team implemented a global e-commerce and content platform integrated across eight websites deliver-ing best-in-class digital engagement, social and editorial content.

WRIGLEY n Amber Arnold, National Account

Manager, E-CommerceArnold is national account manager for Amazon.com, Peapod and Drugstore.com, advising on omnichannel strategies and promotional activity.

© Copyright 2015. Path to Purchase Institute, Inc., Chicago, Illinois U.S.A. All rights reserved under both international and Pan-American copyright conventions. No reproduction of any part of this material may be made without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. Any copyright infringement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

1313

Susan Wassel has always been a writer, starting with her middle school newspapers and continu-ing through college, where she earned a journalism degree. Those core competencies of a journalist – natural curiosity, dogged inquisitiveness, competi-tive spirit – all closely relate to her current role.

“When you think about the burst of digital in the early 2000s, it really took a keen eye for companies that were early adopters in this space to recognize where that might be headed,” says Wassel, Tyson Foods’ new director of digital engagement. “To take hold of it and deliver it to the organization to ultimately build out as a practice – those skills played a role in my ability to do that.”

She joined Tyson shortly after last year’s $8.55 billion acquisition of Hillshire Brands. Prior to that, Wassel spent eight years with Newell Rubbermaid, where she says the claim to fame in digital was the Sharpie brand. “Sharpie in the social space grew to have quite a fan presence, and it was sort of the beginning of my foray into digital,” she says. “That expanded beyond the social realm into digital strategy and more.”

Now just a few months into her current role, Wassel and her team support Tyson’s shopper marketing group as part of a shared-services model. “We work closely with them in terms of de-veloping not only the broad digital strategies and campaigns for the brands, but also helping deliver shopper strategy and activation as part of the customer relationships,” she says.

Wassel recently took time out to answer the following questions about her work in the digital sphere:

With the organizational flux following the merger, where does digital at Tyson stand today?WASSEL: As is the nature with all things digital, change is very rapid and in order to be first-movers in digital, we need to better enable an infrastructure that’s going to make that possible. The digital prac-tice prior to my arrival didn’t exist; it was more of a brand marketing career capability. We now have a digital stake in the ground and are building out a team to help drive focus within the organization. That said, Tyson has had some wins in the digital space and learnings we’ll build from, but our ultimate goal is to create an infrastructure that will enable us to lead with a digital-first mindset.

How are you establishing that mindset?WASSEL: My approach to digital is putting the consumer first. From the very early stages of digital, I saw first-hand the benefit of mak-ing connections with the people who buy your brands. That’s the mindset I bring to the Tyson table and something I want to elevate as we move into digital strategic planning.

Describe some of the specific goals of your team.WASSEL: My team’s goal is to serve up more personalized, contextu-ally relevant messages and experiences. The ability to speak to peo-ple almost on a one-to-one basis has become increasingly possible.

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Photo by Brian Morrison

“Our ultimate goal is to create an infrastructure that will enable us to lead with a digital-first mindset.”

TYSON FOODSSusan Wassel, Director of Digital Engagement

We’re moving aggressively to make sure we have what we need to do that. We’re also working to further develop Big Data modeling and what that means to us in terms of delivering engaging, relevant and meaningful experiences.

Another focus is on content strategy to create both effective and efficient content at scale and, finally, forging new opportunities with people who shop our brands through mobile. We know it’s a big opportunity and we’re aggressively moving in that direction – and shifting dollars to reflect that.

How can CPG brands better engage consumers along the digital path to purchase?WASSEL: As we shift from the idea of the consumer decision journey to a consumer engagement journey, the focus then shifts from this idea of transaction to the relationship. Engagement is another key strategic pillar that I’m delivering and putting forward for Tyson. While I don’t have any examples to share just yet, we’re moving quickly into the summer and back-to-school season, when you’ll see program-ming from Tyson that elevates engagement in an innovative way.

How does your previous digital experience apply to what you’re trying to achieve at Tyson?WASSEL: It’s sort of an aggregate of having a seat at the marketing table for many years and influencing not only digital in silo, but digi-tal as part of the full ecosystem that crosses multiple touchpoints. A lot of companies think of digital as a unique area of focus. That’s important now as more companies are shifting focus, but ultimately digital permeates all communication and needs to be thought of holistically.