Inside the 2007 Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Summit

The 2007 Consumer Goods Sales and Marketing Summit is committed to providing a single thought leadership forum for consumer goods executives to network with peers, share ideas and experiences,and learn about important industry trends.This year's agenda, focused on “Achieving Profitable Growth through Strategic Insights,” attracted 225 sales, marketing and technology executives who are charged with aligning business strategy with IT investment.When attendees weren’t taking advantage of networking opportunities galore, they sat in on presentations given by respected peers on an array of relevant sales and marketing topics. Here are a few of the many highlights:

Consumer goods companies devote significant resources to understanding consumers. But today’s situation can be a bit daunting. Seventy percent of new products fail to meet expectations, says Matt Nitzberg, SVP/CPG Practice Leader, dunnhumby USA (quoting IDC). In his opening keynote presentation, Nitzberg said linking these efforts to the creation of profitable consumer demand is often surprisingly challenging, even among the most sophisticated organizations. He addressed the barriers to using consumer insights to achieve sustainable profitable growth and shared ideas on how to overcome them.

Next, The Campbell Soup Company’s Director of Shopper Insights Philip McGee told the story behind the story of Campbell’s revolutionary shelving innovation — the IQ Maximizer. The gravity feed shelving system is praised by both consumers and the media for revolutionizing the way the consumer shops the soup category — one of the most difficult categories to shop.Companies like McCormick & Co.have followed suit with similar innovations.

In a session about downstream data, Tony van der Hoek, director, strategy and business solutions, The Coca-Cola Company, explained how a demand signal repository, dubbed Customer Analysis and Reporting System (CARS) and corresponding business processes are being deployed to ensure critical demand insights are integrated into multiple disciplines. A lively Q&A session confirmed that this is a growing area of interest.

David Foster,director of demand systems,and Scott Smith,director commercial effectiveness, discussed Colgate-Palmolive’s business strategies for improving trade promotion effectiveness,and how technology is supporting those systems.Dubbed CBP (Colgate Business Planning), this process will accelerate sustainable growth through one global disciplined and integrated approach to commercial planning.

Attendees also heard from Anheuser-Busch on using store-level insights to drive sales growth; General Mills on category captaincy; Coty and Tyson Foods on trade promotion strategies; Wegmans on the retail perspective; Deloitte on environmental sustainability; Procter & Gamble on the word of mouth; and a Wall Street panel and a Sales & Marketing Study panel on the wealth and health of the consumer goods industry.