As seen in

Scores of consumer product manufacturers

and retailers are represented in this year’s list

of noteworthy merchandising professionals,

all of whom are developing in-store solutions

that stand up to the challenges of today’s

dynamic retail environment.

IN MERCHANDISING

THE HERSHEY CO.: RICK PRICE, Senior Manager, Merchandising Center of Excellence

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ick Price loved Reese’s peanut butter cups as a kid, but little did he know that he would spend his career market-ing his favorite brand. Fresh out of college, the marketing major joined The Hershey Co. in 1982 and has since held

a wide variety of roles, from research, sales and marketing to ad-vertising, merchandising and center-store evolution before taking on his current role, which he assumed two years ago.

“There’s always been that psychology of the consumer/shop-per that I love and trying to dig deep into how can we solve her problems – that’s where I am today,” he says, adding that he sees himself more as a consultant to retailers, trying to help solve shoppers’ problems and frustrations. The Merchandising Center of Excellence team was designed to do just that – solve shopper and retailer problems, with a focus on creating convenient, fun and engaging shopper experiences to re-energize the center store. As senior manager, Price oversees this group.

Knowing that trips to the store are declining, his team is work-ing with retailers to find solutions that will make shopping more convenient and help build bigger baskets. The perfect example is the company’s gold standard – s’mores one-stop-shop solu-tion centers that merchandise Hershey bars, marshmallows and graham crackers. “Shoppers are time-starved, so when these are merchandised together, it’s a win-win-win,” Price says. “Retailers build bigger baskets, the shopper experience is enhanced and the

items featured all produce sales growth.”He says it’s critical that both his team and their retailer partners

understand the problem to be solved going into any project. “We then align upfront on the key deliverables and scorecard perfor-mance against aligned KPIs. It’s just about solving problems,” he reiterates. “If everyone doesn’t know the objectives up front, we’re going to have a hard time solving it and aligning on success metrics. And if we try to do it after the fact, we’ll be in trouble.”

Price says a POPAI study conducted in 2014 showed that while consumers have a love and passion for confection like no other category, there is a major disconnect. Shoppers reported their frustration in shopping for candy and rated it the worst in terms of shoppability and findability and very low in terms of inspira-tion. Since those insights were uncovered, Price’s team set out to change that and has found some recent successes.

With regard to organization structure, Price says the Merchan-dising Center of Excellence team represents the “voice of the shopper” and works collaboratively with the company’s shopper insights team to help solve shopper problems with a focus on creating an immersive and engaging shopper experience.

Collaboration with retailers will continue to be a key focus. Leveraging case study results that are grounded in shopper in-sights, the team has built a menu of proven in-store solutions and capabilities, he says.

Photo by Jennifer Stumbaugh

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Career achievementIn partnership with Winn-Dixie, The Hershey Co. created its Hershey’s Candy Ex-perience in late 2014 (see image on page 1). The concept replaced the traditional candy aisle at Winn-Dixie’s newly renovated store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The key focus, says Price, was to solve a shopper’s problem and retailer’s opportunity. “Seventy-six percent of shoppers aren’t happy with clutter in the candy aisle result-ing in 25% of shoppers walking away without any confection in their basket,” Price says. “Our reimagined candy aisle addresses these challenges and makes candy shopping convenient and memorable.” This design moved the entire 24 feet of the candy aisle out of center store and into a more shoppable, convenient and visu-ally appealing area that commands 27 by 27 feet of space. The permanent candy section proved successful, garnering positive consumer feedback and posting a 25% lift in confection category sales at this Winn-Dixie location. The solution is showcased in Hershey’s Customer Innovation Center and Price says retailers are lining up to consider this for their stores. “We’re seeing fantastic results from this, and it’s only just begun.”

Recent achievementFor retailers that don’t have adequate space to create a Candy Experience desti-nation, Price says the company’s Branded Experience Pods can get them in the game. “This is the next evolution,” he says. “We talked to shoppers and we know they will pay full margin revenue for their favorite brands if we can help them find what they’re looking for and give them something more experiential.” Price says his primary interaction is with the shopper and working with the company’s shop-per engagement team to find a solution for the particular retailer. These branded pods are not the full experience, he says. “Candy is a fun category and Hershey has fantastic iconic brands – the Reese’s, Kisses and Hershey’s brands have strong emo-tional connections. We’re always working to develop solutions leveraging these insights to surprise and delight the brand lovers. These branded pods bring that experience to life in the retail environment.”

7-ELEVENnTom Burkemper,

Senior Director, Merchandising, Non-Alcohol Beverages Burkemper is the U.S. strategic business unit leader for 7-Eleven’s multibillion-dollar non-alcohol beverage portfolio. Categories include energy, soft drinks, waters, isotonics, juices, coffees, teas and functional beverages.

AACCO BRANDSnGary Lazicki, U.S.

Marketing, Retail Merchandising Manager Lazicki leads the strat-egy and implementa-tion of in-line catego-ry destinations as well as promotional product displays that incorporate shopper marketing and brand-based strategies for the school and office product portfolios.

nRyan Tesiero, Senior Leader, Visual Display & Merchandising

ACE HARDWAREnLorne Cohen,

Category Manager – International Cohen leads the category manage-ment strategy and execution across all categories for Ace International retail-ers. He is responsible for retail product recommendations, including optimal assortment, retail pricing and space management.

nElyse Sanneman, Category Strategy & Operations Manager

nAndy Voelker, Director of Category Management & Retail Development

Photo by Jennifer Stumbaugh

ACH FOOD COS.nPaul Rearick, R&D Packaging

Engineer

ADVANCE AUTO PARTSnKevin Conniff, Vice President,

Visual Merchandising, In-Market Assortment and Transportation

AHOLD USA nTonya Herring,

Senior Vice President, Merchandising, Non-Perishables Herring leads the merchandising teams to build programs that include optimal assortment, pricing strategies and space management.

ALCON LABORATORIES nAshley Olson,

Manager, Displays & Special Packs Olson is responsible for point-of-sale dis-plays and special packs from develop-ment to delivery to all key customers.

AMERICAN EXPRESSnSuzanne Burg, Senior Manager,

Marketing & CommunicationsBurg develops and launches merchant experiences that encourage point-of-purchase signage placement, improve merchant satisfaction and drive mer-chant and member engagement.

ASICS AMERICAnCasey Nolter,

Director of Retail Nolter is responsible for the strategic di-rection and tactical execution of retail for Asics in the Americas, including operations, real estate, mer-chandising, store design and talent.

AVERY PRODUCTSnKimberly True, Director,

Visual Merchandising (See profile on page 14)

BBAYER HEALTHCARE nPeter Davidson, Senior Manager,

Visual Merchandising

nJohn Pender, Director, In-Store Merchandising

nMichele Smith, Senior Manager, Visual MerchandisingSmith is responsible for the design and development of secondary-placement displays for mass, drug and club retail-ers. Brands include Claritin, Miralax, Coppertone and Afrin.

BEAM SUNTORY n Jeanette

Koklamanis, Senior Procurement Agent (POS) Koklamanis is respon-sible for strategic sourcing by using a collaborated approach to deliver the best products at the best value. Her fo-cus is on cost savings based on analysis and market intelligence.

BEHR PROCESS CORP.nSarah Furnari, Vice President of

Retail Experience

BEIERSDORFnKristine Koehler, Merchandising

Manager

BEST BUYnChris Brandewie,

Director of Store Design Brandewie leads the creative design team focusing on store layout, architecture, displays and fixturing.

nToni Engebretsen, Director, Visual Merchandising

BLUE BUFFALOn Craig Stankevich,

Senior Director, Channel Marketing Stankevich leads the marketing efforts for Blue Buffalo’s region-al and independent retail accounts within the pet specialty channel, supporting stores with chan-nel tools and merchandising solutions.

BOSE CORP.nJohn Devine, Senior Manager,

Merchandising

nEric Green, Global Display Category Manager

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BURT’S BEES nTheresa

Champaigne, Merchandising Manager Champaigne leads the development and implentation of all promotional merchandising for Burt’s Bees. She’s tasked with creating insights-based solutions that maximize brand impact at the point of decide.

nTiffany Pieja, Merchandising Manager

CCAMPBELL SOUP/PEPPERIDGE FARM nJustin Cerritelli, Senior Customer

Development Manager, InnovationCerritelli works with the breakthrough innovation brand team, acting as the single point of contact to ensure all customer development aspects are in-corporated into the commercialization process of Campbell’s new product launches.

nChris Cogan, Senior Manager, MerchandisingCogan’s team strives to deliver on point-of-sale, retail shelving and other customer-related orders.

CENTRAL GARDEN & PET nRoger Mosshart,

Vice President, Retail Sales and Service Mosshart heads a team of merchandis-ing professionals that works across diverse categories such as grass seed and nutrients with Pen-nington Seed, pet & wild birdfood led by the Kaytee brand, and a portfolio of brands in the weed and pest control category.

CLOROX CO.nTim Roberts, National Retail

Operations Manager

COCA-COLA CO.nPamela Basciani,

Group Director, Channel Planning and Development Basciani leads a team in driving the com-mercial strategy for the large store channel, identifying highest leverage opportunities for cat-egory growth and delivering shopper solutions for key consumption occa-sions and missions.

nKaryn Froseth, Vice President, Channel Planning and Development, SM Capability

nOliver Merino, Group Director, Channel Planning and Development Merino leads the team responsible for developing commer-cial strategy and planning for conve-nience, drug and dollar stores channels across the Coca-Cola North America business unit.

nMark Rohde, Group Director, Equipment & Commercialization Rohde leads a team responsible for the development and commercialization of Coca-Cola North America’s cold drink equipment port-folio including cold drink equipment commercial strategy, equipment devel-opment/design, graphics and features that engage shoppers.

nRichard Staten, Director, NRS Merchandising Solutions, Channel Planning & Development Staten leads Coca-Cola North America’s U.S. retail mer-chandising team with responsibilities for supporting commercial strategies across brands, channels, franchise part-ners and key customers as well as ad-vancing a future state shopper-focused merchandising strategy.

CONAGRA FOODSnRene Brignac,

Director of Retail Innovation Brignac leads the re-tail innovation team that drives ConAgra’s in-store strategy in-cluding innovation agenda and display execution at retail.

nTim Brogan, Manager – Retail Innovation

nJamie Hall, Manager – Retail Innovation

COTY U.S.nDimitri Foutres, Senior Director,

Wall Strategy and Logistics Group

nDana Ocampo, Manager, Visual Merchandising/Space Planning

andall Rodriguez believes that as senior merchandising manager he has to “make every store visit count,” so it’s no surprise that he has made every one of his 16 years with Mars count. He has learned nearly all aspects of the

business in his roles in IT, finance, sales, supply chain, research & development and marketing. And he now draws from those varied assignments in guiding the in-store presence of Mars Chocolate North America.

“These experiences have given me a broad perspective of our business and what it takes to enable cross-functional groups to work toward a common goal and be successful,” says Rodriguez. “With my foundation being in technology, I was able to learn and master project and business process management principles.

“My experiences in supply expanded that foundation to in-clude lean thinking and Six Sigma skills that serve me every day. After leading various critical programs for Mars Chocolate from supply chain transformation to improving product freshness, I developed a passion for our customers, brands and in-store conditions.”

Rodriguez emphasizes each store visit’s value because mod-ern technology’s effects on shopping behavior and the future of brick-and-mortar stores is not to be feared, he says. The number of consumers visiting physical locations is still sizable enough to make in-store influences important. The rise in online shopping has also led to a rise in store pickups.

“Retailers will use their stores as distribution centers and con-tinue to drive traffic to their stores,” he says. “This provides an additional option for shoppers getting merchandise faster.”

Once shoppers visit, it’s up to the magic of merchandising to sway them. Rodriguez says nothing online replaces in-person thought provocation. “Whether through creating nostalgia, inter-activity or simply a pleasant shopping experience, retailers will find ways to reinvent themselves and create reasons for shoppers to want to physically interact with products before purchasing them. Given this, in an impulse category such as chocolate, we need to make every visit count.”

Rodriguez says merchandising has changed because shoppers’ attention is divided by mobile devices in the store. An intriguing display in the right place is no longer enough, he says. “Another critical trend is reinventing the aisle to create a store within a store,” says Rodriguez. “Only one in five shoppers ever travel down the candy aisle, and creating an inviting environment that connects with them becomes that much more important.”

Creating eye-catching and effective displays takes a team work-ing with other teams, Rodriguez says, and input from Mars’ cus-tomers is crucial to effective merchandising. He says the status of Mars Chocolate North America means it has invaluable consum-er insight to share with retailers to maximize sales and velocity.

“We put our customers, the retailers, at the heart of everything we do,” he says. “Our goal is to drive growth not just for Mars but the retailer and the entire chocolate category. Transparency and trust are the most important characteristics to make a mutually

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MARS CHOCOLATE NORTH AMERICA: RANDALL RODRIGUEZ, Senior Merchandising Manager

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beneficial relationship. For the manufacturer, it can mean being a steward of the category and being able to make decisions beyond your sole business objectives if it’s the right thing to do for the retailer and their shoppers.”

He says his company defines success in terms beyond sales. It takes its role as category captain seriously; Rodriguez’s display and equipment team is organized to work with customers of large outlets and small outlets, focusing on semi-permanent displays, seasonal displays and national promotional point-of-sale materi-als.

Their efforts include pre-packed displays and customer-specific shopper marketing programs. Close collaboration ensures con-sistent in-store messaging all year, and the insights group helps display strategy by refining where and when displays are most effective, he says.

“The goal is to match mental and physical availability to bring smiles and moments of joy to shoppers and consumers,” says Rodriguez. “We are successful when we can make the connection with shoppers on the role of chocolate in specific moments or traditions. If we are able to properly make those moments come to life at retail and lift not only Mars Chocolate but the entire category, then we know we have been successful.”

Photo by Steve Hockstein

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Career achievementRodriguez “borrowed” this display from his European colleagues. The color mix concept uses clear cylinders to show the colors and graphics of the packaging of several brands. “Given the success we had seen in Europe, I made this program a top priority for my team,” says Rodriguez. “We partnered with various account teams and delivered great successes in the mass, grocery and drug channels. The results have been significant, with sustained double- and triple-digit unit sales in-creases.”

CRAYOLAnBeth Ondush,

Manager, Merchandising Ondush manages the development and execution of point-of-purchase activity, both permanent and temporary, across key accounts and channels.

nRick Stringer, Vice President of Customer Solutions (See profile on page 10)

DDICK’S SPORTING GOODSn Rick Neira, Director, Visual

Presentation & Store Environments

EEDGEWELL PERSONAL CAREnNatalie Mallone,

Merchandising & Display Manager, Wet Shave Mallone leads Edgewell’s U.S. wet shave in-store merchandising and display initiatives across all classes of trade.

nDavi Tash, Merchandising & Display Manager, Sun Care

FFOOD LIONnKaren Fernald,

VP of Fresh Category, Merchandising & Pricing

Recent achievementRodriguez says the creation and deployment of the 2015 Halloween point-of-sale materials is the most successful merchandising project he’s been involved with. There was a 10% to 20% better sell-through in stores with the Halloween display than those without. “My role was to drive my team’s collaboration with our mar-keting team, our dis-play partner and our graphics partner,” he says. “My team man-aged the program’s execution to ensure our retail teams had all the materials they needed. I knew we had a success on our hands the day I walked into a retailer and saw multiple people tak-ing pictures with our displays.”

FOOT LOCKER nBrian Landman, Director,

Visual Merchandising, In-Store ExperienceLandman is responsible for the creative strategy for the Foot Locker and Kids Foot Locker brands.

GGARMIN INTERNATIONALn Ronnie

Lamendola, Senior Manager, Retail Marketing Lamendola oversees a retail marketing team that touches unique and custom retail merchandis-ing initiatives from in-store and online merchandising in the USA and glob-ally. He also leads Garmin’s Miami and Chicago storefronts merchandising activities.

GENERAL MILLSnBob Myers, Director In-Store

Design/Special Pack

GLAXOSMITHKLINE nMargaret Farrell, Displays Manager

nStephen Kamp, Associate Director, Displays/Special Packs

GODIVA CHOCOLATIER nJose Padron, Director of Visual

Merchandising

GOPRO nGabriel Mendez, Senior Manager,

Global P-O-P Operations

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HEINEKEN USA nSusan

Mastrogiacomo, Commercial Marketing Services Director Mastrogiacomo leads a team that is respon-sible for identifying and developing channel-relevant merchandise and displays in order to maximize brand impact at point of purchase.

HERSHEY CO.nScott Dunkley, Director,

Merchandising Center of Excellence

nRick Price, Senior Manager, Merchandising Center of Excellence (See profile on page 2)

nFrank Sheehe, Global Retail & Merchandise Manager

HUNTER DOUGLASnMaureen Marrone,

Director of Visual Merchandising

JJACK LINK’S nKent Oakland, Packaging

Engineering Manager

JOCKEY INTERNATIONAL nMark Fedyk, Chief Merchandising

Officer

JOHNSON & JOHNSON nSteven Hecht, Director, In-Store

Strategy & Innovation

KKELLOGG CO.nJeanne Figo Comar, Director,

Packaging and Merchandising Design and Commercialization

nMegan Phelan, Senior Manager, Merchandising & Print Services

KEURIG GREEN MOUNTAIN nDon Collins,

Director, Merchandising & Retail Innovation Collins leads the in-store visual mer-chandising team and strategy across all U.S. channels, which includes creative and industrial design, brand shop innovation, secondary dis-plays, POS and retail activation.

KIMBERLY-CLARK nDayton Henderson, Senior Director,

Global Design

KRAFT HEINZ CO. nJohn Jaffke,

Senior Director, Sales Operations

nDiane Rogers, In-Store Merchandising Strategy Lead

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LL’OREAL USAnMichael Arecchi, Vice President of

Merchandising

nLaurie Houlihan, Vice President, Promotional Development & Procurement, Consumer Products Division

nChristina P. Ragazzini, Director, Retail Innovation & Promotional Development

LG ELECTRONICS nRachel Olson, Shopper Marketing

and Merchandising ManagerOlson is responsible for developing and implementing insights-based, breakthrough in-store experiences and solutions.

LOGITECH nCynthia Bowens, Retail Marketing

Manager

MMARS CHOCOLATE U.S.nAdrienne Mattar,

Merchandising Manager, Merchandising Center of Excellence Mattar’s group is responsible for de-veloping and executing pre-pack mer-chandising vehicles by collaborating with brands, sales associates and cus-tomers to identify and address display penetration barriers.

nRandall Rodriguez, Senior Merchandising Manager (See profile on page 6)

MEIJERnDave Clark, Vice President,

Brand & Product Development

nShelly Huisken, Director, Merchandise Presentation

nNicole Laughlin, Vice President of Brand Development & Marketing

nDoug Robertson, Director, Merchandise Presentation

nAdam Whitney, Vice President, Merchandise Presentation and Pricing

MICROSOFT CORP.nJason Floyd,

Director of Retail Digital Marketing and Visual Merchandising

nTimi Mafua, Acting Group Manager, Visual Merchandising

n Dwain (Jake) Jacobsen, Senior Retail Demo Manager

MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL nKelly O’Brien, Manager,

Merchandising Materials, In-Store Merchandising Center of Excellence

nRobyn Petroski, Senior Merchandising Manager, Shopper Merchandising Solutions Petroski leads a mer-chandising team responsible for the design, development and execution of temporary displays and POS.

nSteve Zoellner, Director, Shopper Merchandising Solutions Zoellner leads the strategic merchandis-ing function, and his team is responsible for all designing and producing of Mondelez display material as well as all aisle-reinvention projects.

NNBC UNIVERSAL STUDIOS nMary Khachikyan,

Director of New Release Planning Khachikyan is respon-sible for the new release procurement and production plan-ning for Universal Pictures Home Enter-tainment.

NESTLE PURINA n Bill Kambol, Senior

Merchandising Display Specialist Kambol works direct-ly with the marketing group to design, de-velop and implement in-store marketing solutions in the form of displays and special packs.

hen Rick Stringer walks into a store during back-to-school or any holiday season and sees a Crayola pallet train or new planogram, he typically thinks back to the testing that went into it and how it was

determined that a particular product is where it is on the shelf. “Occasionally I’ll harken back to a mom who maybe made a com-ment that drove that,” he says. “That’s the really fun stuff and the exciting part of the job.”

As Crayola’s vice president of customer solutions, Stringer has four groups that report to him: merchandising, business intel-ligence, category management and strategic planning. “We’re responsible for triangulating consumer, shopper and trade mar-keting insights into actionable recommendations that meet our customers’ strategic objectives for the category,” he says.

The customer solutions group was newly formed when he as-sumed his role last spring. Having started his career in sales at Schering-Plough and moving through a variety of functions from account management to product marketing, Stringer says his passion has always been in consumer packaged goods. He’s held many positions within Crayola, starting as a trade promotion manager and then moving into education marketing, where his team was constantly finding ways to nurture the relationship the company has with teachers and helping them use its products as well as visual arts as a cross-curricular resource. He served as the general manager of the company’s European business for two years after that, then headed customer leadership, worked in regional sales management and led the sales group prior to assuming his current post.

Stringer thrives on working collaboratively and cross-func-tionally with Crayola’s creative, engineering and procurement groups. The group also works very closely with the market re-search department on identifying learning objectives specific to shopper, to channel and to customers. “Our category is interest-ing in that it’s really driven by occasion,” he says. “There are so many solutions in children’s art and stationery that we provide mom based on those different occasions, and understanding that really has been a major area of focus for us. We’re taking those insights and moving them into customer-specific solutions.”

Crayola’s new Sky Blue merchandising lab has enabled Stringer and his group to be much more proactive in the work they do. Using what he calls a “scrappy approach,” the company is bring-ing in moms and dads, kids and grandparents alike to garner its directional insights and then engaging with retailer partners to localize programs to their specific shoppers or visual merchan-dising needs.

“It’s been very impactful,” he says. “It’s designed to say to our customers, ‘Here are some directional learnings, now let’s focus in on your specific shopper insights.’” Retail assets have to work harder, he adds, but with the business intelligence and advanced analytics retail customers have today, they can measure the data more accurately than ever before. “So that means that the collaboration to ensure that we’re strategically aligned with the

WCRAYOLA: RICK STRINGER, Vice President of Customer Solutions

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customer’s objectives is a bigger deal. Something that goes up quickly and easily is really becoming a major imperative.”

As shoppers have more “stepping stones” along the path to purchase, Stringer believes it will be critical to continue digging into the different occasions when consumers buy Crayola prod-ucts and the key points of influence that drive decision-making. “We’ve done shopper segmentation work to understand different shoppers’ approaches and behaviors when shopping,” he says. “We know there’s a strong emotional connection to the brand, and sometimes it’s just ensuring that it stays top of mind. But we also want shoppers to recognize that we provide great solutions for all their needs throughout the year.”

Beyond the normal success metrics, Stringer emphasizes that programs have to be seen as efficient in the retailer’s eyes. With the emergence of the omnichannel shopper, he believes consis-tent threads that weave through the entire path to purchase will help drive conversion in-store. He sees the Holy Grail in mer-chandising as the integration of mobile and digital technology at shelf, and his group will continue its exploration of engaging the shopper in a meaningful way.

Photo by John Kish IV

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Career achievementOver the last 10 years, Crayola has placed a large focus on the back-to-school sea-sonal set, not only understanding how the list impacts the way mom shops and the role of the brand but also optimizing product placement and flow. “That is work that we continue to refine,” Stringer says, noting that it includes understand-ing how to ensure the company is meeting the core basic needs of the shopper while at the same time continually refining insights to find transaction-building opportunities, trade-up oppor-tunities and speed of shop. “That profiling work is so important to understand the different types of back-to-school shoppers and how to find executable merchandising plans for our customers to actually roll out. It’s a big deal.” The teams conduct a variety of annual studies and have boosted efforts within its new lab. “We’re building merchan-dising vehicles with an eye on the holding power required and having the right items in place at the right times,” he says. “That can be very impactful as well. It’s the basic and simple stuff that really impacts the business.”

nGreg Norsworthy, Director, Retail Presentation, North America Norsworthy’s primary objective is to create enhanced shopping experiences at the category and brand level.

nPam Venn, Senior Display and Merchandising Specialist

NESTLE USA nThomas Kobayashi, Merchandise

Manager, Confections & Snacks Division

nCory Wofford, Team Lead, Communications DepartmentWofford’s team collaborates and co-ordinates with the brand teams in de-termining the key priorities for Nestle’s retail sales teams that include selling and merchandising in stores across America.

NIKE INC.nKenneth Edwards, Senior Visual

Manager

nMatt Kelly, Director, Global Procurement, Retail & Corporate Facilities Kelly’s mission is to maximize consumer impact by leveraging Nike’s suppliers and scale to help provide world-class experiences and environments.

Recent achievementBased on learnings garnered through ethnographic work and formal shopalongs, Crayola in October implemented a complete aisle redesign at Meijer that went across all of the chain’s stores at the same time. It was time to “freshen things up,” Stringer says, and it started at the ground level and moved up to the Sky Blue lab, where testing of four different full plano-gram executions took place, with three different itera-tions. “We leveraged the Crayola brand and it was designed around wayfinding and the proper seg-mentation flow,” he says. “We’re really pleased with the re-sults of that and very pleased with the ex-ecution.”

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PFIZER nChris Beley, Display Team Lead

POST CONSUMER BRANDS nSteve Collette,

Visual Presentation & Merchandising Manager Collette leads the strategy and design of in-line merchan-dising as well as all displays in North America, driving consumer perception across Post’s full portfolio of brands.

PRICE CHOPPER SUPERMARKETS nBlaine Bringhurst,

Senior Vice President, Sales, Merchandising and Marketing

nMichael Cormier, Vice President of Corporate Brands

nScott Evans, Group Vice President, Merchandising

PROCTER & GAMBLE nAndy Monaco, Operations Leader,

Health & Well-Being and Beauty, North America

nDon Overton, Pet Care Display Leader

RREEBOK INTERNATIONAL nJohn Lynch, Vice President, Head of

U.S. Marketing & Merchandising

SSABRA DIPPING CO. nPete Loizzo, Director, Sales

Operations

SARGENTO FOODSnJohn Bottomley,

Senior Director of Retail Merchandising Bottomley is re-sponsible for retail merchandising excel-lence across all channels of trade.

nMichael Sokol, Vice President, Sales Services

nMichael Vaszily, Director, Marketing and Merchandising

SC JOHNSON & SON INC.nLute Rasavong, Director,

Sales Operations

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS CO.nPaul Cobb, Director, In Store

Marketing

SKULLCANDY nJeff Chuh, Director of Retail

Product Marketing and Visual Merchandising

PPEET’S COFFEE & TEAnAdam O’Connell, Director of Visual

Merchandising

PEPSICO nKarl Flowers,

Senior Manager, Small Format Merchandising Innovation, Frito-Lay

nJim Ivy, Sales Strategy & Planning, Merchandising, Frito-Lay Ivy manages design and development for Frito-Lay’s permanent equipment solutions in the large-format channel.

nBrian Kelly, Senior Director of Merchandising & Execution Kelly leads the Mer-chandising Center of Excellence for the Pepsi Beverages Co. (PBC), PepsiCo’s beverage manufacturing, sales and distribution operating unit in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

PETCO ANIMAL SUPPLIESnTim Swanson, Vice President, Visual

Presentation

PETSMART nShane McCall, Vice President, Store

Design and Visual Merchandising

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SONY ELECTRONICS nAnne Lips, Retail Marketing,

Visual Merchandising Manager

nTony Shinker, Senior Manager, Retail Merchandising and Strategy Shinker leads and manages all retail merchandising and display initiatives, including strategy and development for Sony’s sound division.

STAPLESnRobert Madill, Vice President,

Visual Merchandising

STARBUCKS nJennifer Berger, Vice President,

Global Creative Studios

nKelly Marsh, Director, Shopper Innovation & Experience

nJennifer Quotson, Vice President, Global Creative Studios

TTARGET CORP. nSarah Arnold, Senior Director,

Divisional Merchandise Manager

nErika Rinkleff, Manager – In-Store Marketing, New Formats Rinkleff’s focus is on the planning and im-plementation of the in-store experience of Target’s smaller format stores and other high-level in-novation projects.

nLisa Roath, Senior Director – Merchandising Strategy & Transformation

nTed Smetana, Vice President, Merchandise Operations

nBill Stafford, Senior Design Lead Stafford is responsible for the design of store environments and fixture and light-ing development.

nJen Theisen, Senior Fixture Designer Theisen is respon-sible for the design of fixtures and store environments for the health & beauty, electronics & enter-tainment and household commodities divisions.

TIMBERLAND CO. nJackie LaLime, Senior Director,

North America Merchandising, Footwear & Apparel

TIME INC. RETAIL nTroy Stratton, Director of Retail

Operations & Display

TYSON FOODSnKatherine Tai, Manager,

Strategic Merchandising & Mix

UUNILEVER nTom Gioielli,

Team Lead – U.S. Category Strategy Gioielli’s team devel-ops and leads con-sumer and shopper insight-based assort-ment and shelving strategies for all of Unilever’s categories.

WWALGREEN CO.nLouis Dorado,

Director, Space Management, Visual Merchandising Dorado’s team brings to life planograms, floor-plan execution and promotional space at the more than 8,100 Walgreens stores.

nMike Hattenschweiler, Director, In-Store Marketing Design

nJim Jensen, Group Vice President, Well Experience Implementation & Space Planning Jensen is responsible for developing and leading store for-mats and the creation of new business programs. His team is also responsible for space planning relating to macro space allocation, category display plans and promotional activities.

imberly True’s first career men-tor was her stepfather, Jim Wil-ley, a former vice president of sales and marketing with then

Anheuser-Busch division Merico. And while she continues to heed Willey’s ad-vice, True is now more than capable of offering her own after stops at leading companies like Nestle USA, Masterfoods USA, Sony Pictures Entertainment and now Avery Products. “Some of the most valuable lessons I learned along the way are: collaborate with the cross-functional team on projects; forecasting is not an ex-act science; learn to write a great creative brief; and identify what risk you have in the plan and have counter measures in place,” she says.

In high school, True worked at a grocery store and learned a bit about in-store operations, planograms, and off-shelf and front-end displays. After earning a marketing degree at California State Polytechnic University (Pomona), True joined the logistics group at Nestle in 1991. “The club store channel was just getting traction, and one of my key responsibilities was converting retail packs into club pack pallet displays,” she says. “That’s where it all started.”

She was promoted to the merchandising group in the confec-tions division, where she created promotional display programs and national permanent display fixture programs while defin-ing ROI methods with key customers and integrating consumer insights. Rene Alvarez, then the merchandising manager for the confections division, taught True to emphasize “stopping power” in her display work.

True then climbed the leadership ladder – at Masterfoods (Mars Inc.) as in-store presence manager for brands like Whiskas and Uncle Ben’s, and at Sony as director of operations, leading a group in the operational aspects of DVD display production, spe-cialty DVD packaging development and materials management.

At Avery since 2006, True leads the retail and commercial teams that are account focused on retail displays and trade shows, and commercial customers’ online and print catalogs. She heads all category merchandising solutions, retail test merchandising and trade advertising assets. “Within my role, I also aid the sales organization with ensuring the sales tools needed for market activation are developed and available such as collateral, online digital assets, retail planograms and displays or commercial pro-motional programs,” she says.

True’s team is part of the customer marketing group within Avery’s sales organization, and is split into retail and commercial catalog focuses. They work with the consumer insights group to learn shopping behavior and user behavior for Avery prod-ucts. “Our product marketers, consumer insights and digital

KAVERY PRODUCTS: KIMBERLY TRUE, Director, Visual Merchandising

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marketing teams within our marketing group collaborate with our category business managers, account sales teams and visual merchandising team within our sales group to develop programs to drive the business,” she says.

True says she enjoys working with teams from Avery partners. Collaboration within leads to collaboration without. “I have found that when we have the ability to bring together the right team, decision makers and area experts between the retailer and the brand, it aids in the ability to create a successful program and bring it to market more quickly,” she says.

“Key players that drive this are our retailer merchants with their marketing and store operation and visual teams, the brand marketers with their account sales team, category business man-agers, insights and visual teams. I also find it integral to include in the process the supplier/thought partner that will be producing the program.”

Now in her third decade of merchandising, True says recent years have brought change. It’s become more instantaneous, she says – faster delivery to store, quicker turns, and retailers want-ing the easiest in-store setup to maximize compliance. And she’s noticed in-store promotional windows are shorter with more frequent display programs. “I’ve noticed more category manage-ment solutions over the last five years or so, more loyalty card-based signage and integrating mobile-friendly content with less instant on-pack promotions,” she says. “Also, in some categories, I see lighting transforming the retailer’s in-store environments, which is very engaging. For office supplies, key trends in the marketplace are about inspiring the consumer with solutions and the products that can make their project successful.

“Brands are achieving this with inspiring visuals, on-target messaging and the use of various types of materials/printing techniques to create that inspiration and stopping power, both online and in-store.”

Photo by George DeLoache

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Career achievementTrue says that one of the more suc-cessful broad market merchandising projects she has worked on was a new line of specialty labels in unique shapes, textures and sizes. Website analytics provided a target market of small businesses that could use these products to brand and promote their products. To inspire small busi-ness owners, Avery needed to show them what the materials looked like – printed – and needed to commu-nicate how easy it was to get great results. “Our cross-functional Avery team brought forth to market cat-egory solution signage, merchandis-ing solutions and a few test vehicles to gain additional consumer insights and shopping behavior on this line of products,” says True. “This line con-tinues to gain momentum with line extensions and performance for the category.”

WALMART STORESnMark Brodeur, Senior Director

– Visual Merchandising / Merchandise Execution

nPaul Kilsch, Director, Apparel Visual Merchandising

nBarbara Magstadt, Senior Director, Visual Merchandising

nSteve Rogers, Senior Director, Visual Merchandising Marketing Rogers leads the visual merchandis-ing services team and is responsible for in-store marketing programs for Walmart U.S.

WONDERFUL BRANDS nDave Churchill, Vice President,

Merchandising

WORLD KITCHEN nChuck Schneider, Senior Director,

Visual Merchandising

YYANKEE CANDLE CO.nBrian Chaisson, Director of

Merchandising and Promotions, Retail Stores

nDebbie Ter Doest, Vice President/GMM Retail Activation

Recent achievementAvery worked on the labels category with superstore merchants at Staples and Of-fice Depot/OfficeMax. Each of the retailers’ objectives was independent, and True’s team was able to collaborate with them to create planograms that are visually com-pelling and meet many of the outlined objectives set forth for each account. “At Staples, the labels set was increasing the shelving density and we needed to im-prove the category performance of our specialty labels by increasing the presence of those products in the set,” says True. “At Office Depot/OfficeMax, our objectives were about harmonizing the assortment, improving category navigation, and cre-ating a product presentation to drive trade-up.”