Talking Rain Finds the Right Mix
Founded in 1987, Talking Rain (www.talkingrain.com) attributes its rapid growth to an increased focus on its Sparkling ICE flavored water brand. Combining naturally flavored mountain spring water, fruit juice, vitamins and antioxidants, Sparkling ICE offers a bold, flavored, lightly-carbonated beverage that is widely appealing.
Since Talking Rain’s ultimate retail strategy is to be a trusted advisor providing insight to its customers about the right product mix and placement of products, the company needed a technology that would enable the category management, marketing and sales teams to provide retailers with these insights.
“After a lengthy search, we selected Symphony EYC’s Space Planning and Assortment Manager since the solution provided the functionality we needed, but also offered rapid deployment and data management services to consolidate and cleanse our category management data,” says Shawn Fox, category manager for Talking Rain, who is tasked with encompassing data mining, reporting, insight, category management, and business development.
Symphony EYC’s (www.eyc.com) solution has allowed Talking Rain to include category management and space management recommendations in all of its retailer sales engagements.
Fox explains,“The data we can now present puts our product in the spotlight. Consequently, the main challenge is making sure that our sales team understands the upfront needs and timelines necessary to complete the information.”
“You can’t turn around impactful data and planograms overnight, so there has to be some planning and lead time to ensure the projects are done well,” Fox says. “We are able to present some very clear and impactful data showing a comparison of our space versus sales, which enables us to fight the good fight for more space and more authorizations.”
He adds, “Because we can provide quality planograms and robust category management insights to our sales decks, we can be more specific about how sparkling water will perform in a retailer’s beverage aisle. Overall, this ability to present category management and space management data has made retailers more enthusiastic about the Talking Rain product.”
The solution also gives Talking Rain the tools to better communicate the size and growth of not just its own products, but the entire category, to retailers, which has led to new distribution and strong growth numbers. In 2014, Talking Rain revenue grew 29 percent, and the company grew in every retail channel and was recognized as the No: 1 sparkling water brand.
For other consumer goods companies looking to use data for better collaboration, Fox offers this advice, “Make sure you understand what the retailers are looking for. Don’t take the easy way out. Make sure you are looking under all the rocks in the data. Don’t just pick and choose the best data points, be sure to tell the whole story.”
SMB Market Award Winner
In 2013 Talking Rain’s CEO Kevin Klock (pictured), accepted CGT’s SMB Market Award, presented to the small to mid-sized consumer goods firm that is best utilizing technology or business initiatives to achieve substantial growth in size and/or revenue. Click here to make a nomination for the 2015 award, which will be presented at the Consumer Goods Business & Technology Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla.
Since Talking Rain’s ultimate retail strategy is to be a trusted advisor providing insight to its customers about the right product mix and placement of products, the company needed a technology that would enable the category management, marketing and sales teams to provide retailers with these insights.
“After a lengthy search, we selected Symphony EYC’s Space Planning and Assortment Manager since the solution provided the functionality we needed, but also offered rapid deployment and data management services to consolidate and cleanse our category management data,” says Shawn Fox, category manager for Talking Rain, who is tasked with encompassing data mining, reporting, insight, category management, and business development.
Symphony EYC’s (www.eyc.com) solution has allowed Talking Rain to include category management and space management recommendations in all of its retailer sales engagements.
Fox explains,“The data we can now present puts our product in the spotlight. Consequently, the main challenge is making sure that our sales team understands the upfront needs and timelines necessary to complete the information.”
“You can’t turn around impactful data and planograms overnight, so there has to be some planning and lead time to ensure the projects are done well,” Fox says. “We are able to present some very clear and impactful data showing a comparison of our space versus sales, which enables us to fight the good fight for more space and more authorizations.”
He adds, “Because we can provide quality planograms and robust category management insights to our sales decks, we can be more specific about how sparkling water will perform in a retailer’s beverage aisle. Overall, this ability to present category management and space management data has made retailers more enthusiastic about the Talking Rain product.”
The solution also gives Talking Rain the tools to better communicate the size and growth of not just its own products, but the entire category, to retailers, which has led to new distribution and strong growth numbers. In 2014, Talking Rain revenue grew 29 percent, and the company grew in every retail channel and was recognized as the No: 1 sparkling water brand.
For other consumer goods companies looking to use data for better collaboration, Fox offers this advice, “Make sure you understand what the retailers are looking for. Don’t take the easy way out. Make sure you are looking under all the rocks in the data. Don’t just pick and choose the best data points, be sure to tell the whole story.”
SMB Market Award Winner
In 2013 Talking Rain’s CEO Kevin Klock (pictured), accepted CGT’s SMB Market Award, presented to the small to mid-sized consumer goods firm that is best utilizing technology or business initiatives to achieve substantial growth in size and/or revenue. Click here to make a nomination for the 2015 award, which will be presented at the Consumer Goods Business & Technology Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla.