As seen in

More than 125

consumer product

manufacturer and

retail executives are

represented in this

year’s list of noteworthy

merchandising

professionals, all of

whom develop in-store

solutions that stand

up to the challenges of

today’s dynamic retail

environment.

WHO’S WHO in Merchandising

rin Minor fell into visual merchandising by accident. She worked for Esprit and started decorating the windows and remerchandising some of its stores. Then she went to work for Macy’s as a visual manager. After moving to

Seattle, Minor became the visual district manager for Banana Re-public stores in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, followed by a stint at REI for merchandising, fixture development and new store openings.

Minor decided to change her focus from soft goods to consumer electronics when an opportunity arose at Microsoft to work with the Xbox team. After three years as the Xbox U.S. visual merchan-dising manager, she recently moved to the Windows and Office team as the U.S. visual merchandising manager.

What are your current responsibilities?MINOR: As the Windows PC and Office visual merchandising manager for all U.S. retailers, I develop marketing materials and fixtures and support product launches in the U.S. I support the brand and give worldwide guidance for Microsoft.

MICROSOFT: ERIN MINOR, U.S. Retail Channel – Visual Merchandising and Marketing Manager

E

2

Describe the structure of your organization as it relates to merchandising, including how you interact with shopper marketing and with insights. MINOR: Everything begins with our business group/brand team and is then shared with the worldwide category and visual mer-chandising teams to create brand-appropriate messaging, brand imagery and priorities. The U.S. team then adapts the worldwide direction and customizes it per retailer to fit into each one’s retail environment.

How does your company define success for its in-store marketing programs?MINOR: We leverage our labor team to install and execute pro-grams and follow up with audits. We rely on our retailers to share sales and are at their mercy to track sales metrics and determine sell through of product. Since we also have Microsoft Office products, we look to attach sales of Office to every PC sale. In re-gards to the visual merchandising team, we measure our success by allowing ourselves to explore, test and roll out new programs

Photo by Jovelle Tamayo

3

to keep our ideas fresh and always on the forefront of good design or better customer experience.

How has the emergence of the omnichannel shopper influenced your overall approach to merchandising?MINOR: Microsoft tries to tie a similar messaging, look and feel of our online and in-store assets going to the retail partners for consistency. We do try to incorporate learnings on how custom-ers shop online to influence our tactics in recommendations for merchandising solutions at brick-and-mortar stores.

What are the important characteristics of a mutually beneficial merchandising collaboration between a manufacturer and retailers?MINOR: Trust and transparency. I need to know that they think of me as the expert so I can bring new ideas and they are open to it. Having a trusting relationship also allows them to tell me their struggles/frustrations so we can work together to solve problems.

How has merchandising changed in recent years? What trends are happening now?

MINOR: One of my most memorable moments was my first vi-sual merchandising job. It was a small company on the Califor-nia coast with only 15 stores. We didn’t have a large budget but we had big ideas. I knew some people on the Nordstrom’s vi-sual team who were willing to sell me some previous displays, mannequins and props. I drafted a proposal to our CFO on why we needed this and what it could do to our retail stores since

we were in the process of upgrading the stores, product and presence in these small beach towns. Once it was approved, the visual team (myself and one trimmer) painted, rebuilt and added to the props. We were able to do window displays to launch a summer campaign that brought rave reviews from customers and local newspapers.

MINOR: Best Buy had not updated the gaming section in its stores for a while. Since we were looking for a completely new approach, I reached out to agency WD Partners for concepts. Working solely with the agency, we had a clear creative direction and were able to sell it to Best Buy with the partnership of the sales account executive. It allowed messaging for new game and

product launches. It took the interactive TV screen and created a shroud and call to action for customers to engage with. We tested it in three stores prior to the holiday and saw great results in sales and customer engagement. Best Buy adopted the new concepts and began looking at the next step to refine, value en-gineer for cost effectiveness and roll out to the entire chain.

MINOR: I used to do amazing window displays and lots of trim 20 years ago. That has definitely changed. Space is at a pre-mium and used for selling product to get the most out of sales per square feet. Visual merchandising has become more about product placement and maximizing space. I think we will see the pendulum swing and see more retailers trying to tell stories through visual displays. I believe this will be how retailers will be able to define their unique voice.

What role do you foresee the physical store playing in the future?MINOR: Maybe because I am truly a visual merchandiser at heart, I think there will always be a place for physical stores. I don’t think showrooming will become the way of the future. I think people want to experience and play with product. I could see the retail space becoming a place for people to learn, play and experience. Products will become curated with exclusives and bring consumers back into the retail space on a regular cadence to find out what is new.

— Institute Staff

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT

RECENT ACHIEVEMENT

4

7-ELEVENFAREED SIDDIQUI, Senior Director, Field Merchandising

AACCO BRANDS GARY LAZICKI, Merchandising Channel Manager Lazicki builds the strate-gic insight for shopper destination and promo-tional programs for leading office and school product portfolios. Develop-ment is focused on customer, brand and vendor collaboration to align sales programs to achieve financial and tacti-cal activation.

ACE HARDWARELORNE COHEN, Category Manager – International Cohen develops, leads and executes the organi-zation’s international cat-egory management strategies across its retailers outside of the United States. Ace International has more than 675 stores in 60 countries around the globe.

ACH FOOD COS.PAUL REARICK, Research Development Packaging Engineer

ADVANCE AUTO PARTS MIKE PLUM, Director, Omnichannel Customer Experience Plum leads a cross-func-tional team that focuses on best-in-class product presentation, showroom layout and digital touchpoint strategic develop-ment to deliver an exciting, engaging and innovative omnichannel customer experience.

AHOLD DELHAIZE LUCIA BROWER, Vice President, Store Format

TONYA HERRING, Senior Vice President, Non-Perishable Merchandising With more than 25 years’ experience, Herring leads the non-perishable merchandis-ing team for Ahold’s retail brands. She manages multiple portfolios, including edible grocery, frozen, dairy and fuel. In 2018, she will lead the Giant Landover merchandising organization as SVP/chief merchant, managing all aspects of merchandising for the Giant Landover banner.

MELISSA HUGHES, Director, Format Innovation

AMAZON.COMDAVID GILMAN, Senior Product Manager, Customer Shopping Experience

ASICS AMERICACASEY NOLTER, Director of Retail, Americas

AVERY PRODUCTS KIMBERLY TRUE, Director, Sales Merchandising & Content True leads strategy for in-store presence, trade shows, sales communications and cus-tomer content. She recently launched a reseller portal for dealers to have 24/7 access of online marketing tools and promotional content.

BBACARDI & CO. EDDIE PINEIRO, Director, Marketing Materials

BARILLA AMERICA CHARLIE DIGREGORIO, Packaging Engineer DiGregorio specializes in packaging design and innovation and in-store marketing at Barilla. He led the packaging development for the company’s new “Ready Pasta” and was recently awarded the 2017 “Rising Star in Innovation” from Brand Experience magazine for his work on Barilla Pesto Sauce.

BAYER HEALTHCARE PETER DAVIDSON, Senior Manager, Visual Merchandising

MICHELE SMITH, Senior Manager, Visual Merchandising Smith is responsible for the design and development of innovative in-store merchandising solutions and second-ary display vehicles for food, drug, mass and club accounts across multiple brand categories.

BEIERSDORF SHEILA STROH, Senior Manager, U.S. Promotions Stroh’s mission is to lead the development of best-in-class retailer and brand in-store activation for Beiersdorf brands. She has a passion for guiding its teams to collaborative, creative and efficient solutions to drive brand and retail share.

BEST BUYCHRIS BRANDEWIE, Director of Store Design Brandewie leads the creative design team focusing on store layout, architecture, displays and fixturing. He is also responsible for the development of new store concepts as well as the refresh of existing stores.

BLUE BUFFALOCRAIG STANKEVICH, Senior Director, Channel Marketing

Institute member

ICON KEY

BOSE CORP.ERIC GREEN, Global Display Category Manager

BOSTON BEERSCOTT WATTERS, Senior Director, Creative Services

BURT’S BEESJEFF CECCARELLI, Team Leader – Category Advisory Services and International Sales Planning Ceccarelli is responsible for category management across all Burt’s Bees categories within the high growth natural beauty care segment, in both the U.S. and around the globe.

THERESA CHAMPAIGNE, Shopper Marketing Manager Champaigne is respon-sible for partnering with the company’s retailers to develop marketing tactics that leverage key insights to influence the shopper to purchase at the point of decide.

CCAMPBELL SOUP/PEPPERIDGE FARM JUSTIN CERRITELLI, Team Lead, Sales Execution Cerritelli provides cross-functional leadership to five core teams – sales AOP planning, retail execution, sales communications, display management and trade analytics.

CHRIS COGAN, Senior Manager, Retail Execution & Merchandising

LEIGH PALUMBO, Manager – Sales Operations, In-Store Merchandising

JEFFREY SEIGEL, Senior Manager – In-Store Merchandising and Visibility Seigel manages the in-store merchandising ef-forts for many of the Campbell brands.

RANDI SLUSKY, In-Store Merchandising Team Lead Slusky leads the develop-ment and implementation of in-store merchandis-ing for the company, with a focus on the Pepperidge Farm brands. Using key insights to elevate the Campbell brand experience for the consumer, she brings innovative solutions to market that increase incremental placement and drive sales.

CENTRAL GARDEN & PET ROGER MOSSHART, Vice President, Retail Sales & Service

CHURCH & DWIGHT AISHA RICHMOND, Display Fulfillment Specialist II Richmond’s current responsibilities include developing, planning, managing, sourcing and executing programs for display production and fulfillment activities. She initiates im-provement opportunities and supports internal cross-functional teams.

CLOROXTIM ROBERTS, National Retail Operations Manager

COCA-COLA KARYN FROSETH, Group Director, CCNA Shopper Science & Design Froseth has held various sales and marketing roles with The Quaker Oats Co., The Coca-Cola Co., Novartis and Arc Worldwide. She joined Coca-Cola in 1999 and cur-rently leads the shopper science and design team within Coca-Cola North America’s shopper marketing organi-zation. She and her team are focused on shopper merchandising innovation, shopper capabilities and digital shop-per marketing.

RON HUGHES, Senior Manager Shopper Strategy and Innovation, Shopper Marketing and Merchandising Center of Excellence Hughes is responsible for identifying shopper path to purchase innovation and shopper experience opportunities and developing a multi-year pipeline of innovative in-outlet solutions that incorporate the latest sensory tools and span over pre-, during and post-shop. He has led longer-term holistic shopper experience innovation across multiple retail channels, while growing strategies at retail, mining and apply-ing shopper insights, and collaborating with brand marketing and sales teams to commercialize channel and shopper marketing solutions.

SUSAN LAZARO, Director, Merchandising Excellence Lazaro leads a team whose purpose is to turn shoppers into buyers through the creation of best-in-class science and design-driven shopper so-lutions that are irresistible and easy to execute.

CATHY STEPHENS, Senior Manager, Merchandising Solutions Stephens is responsible for the development and commercialization of innovative merchandising for all Coca-Cola trademark marketing programs. These include such programs as Share a Coke, NCAA Final Four and holiday.

BRAD WILLIAMS, Senior Manager Shopper Marketing, Merchandising Williams leads the devel-opment of merchandising solutions for the large-store channel as well as many other high-priority in-novation efforts. He came to Coca-Cola from The Home Depot in 2009, where he led visual merchandising.

5

6

avid Churchill brought a long history of produce merchan-dising to The Wonderful Co. when he joined in 2008. He began his career with nearly a quarter-century as produce manager and then assistant store manager at Vons Grocery.

He then became national director of merchandising at Ready Pac Foods, and he later worked at Advantage Sales/Marketing. The Won-derful Co. hired him to oversee merchandising for their brands, which include Fiji Water and Wonderful Halos, almonds and pistachios.

What are your current responsibilities at The Wonderful Co.?CHURCHILL: I’m responsible for the day-to-day operations and strategic planning of the entire merchandising team for North America. For Wonderful sales, that’s conventional grocery in America and Canada, but also the merchandising aspect for Walmart and Sam’s. Our whole program is designed to run syn-ergistically with our brand teams and marketing teams. While the teams design brand message, focus and direction, we bring them insights from the field. Then it’s on us to execute company pro-grams at retail. We’re responsible for bringing that brand message to life at the point-of-purchase.

Structurally, how does the merchandising arm of your company interact with shopper marketing and with insights?CHURCHILL: Our team supports the items in the produce sec-tions of conventional grocery: pistachios and almonds, juices, and Halos. Our interaction with the brand marketing and insights

THE WONDERFUL CO.: DAVID CHURCHILL, Vice President of Merchandising, Wonderful Sales

D team is pretty collaborative. We have 175 merchandisers around the country. At any given time, they’re carrying with them a car-load of POS materials, merchandising materials, popup bins and side trays. We seem to have something for everybody.

How does your company define success for its in-store marketing programs?CHURCHILL: It’s about having something that will resonate with our buyer, wherever she’s at. We’re finding out what’s important to decision makers at store level, asking a lot of questions, finding out what programs they’re looking for, what’s going to make them successful. And then bringing them ideas that fit in with where they want to go. When you start thinking about what defines suc-cess, ultimately we’re going to define that by sales, and whether what we’re doing is resonating with our buyers. Wonderful pista-chios are the top-selling snack nut and Halos are the top-selling citrus item in the U.S. You can’t argue with that kind of success.

How has the emergence of the omnichannel shopper influenced your merchandising?CHURCHILL: I don’t think it’s changed how we merchandise too much because our shoppers and brand shoppers in general are really loyal shoppers. We try to have as many points of interaction as we can. Then that might lead to “Oh yeah, I saw those pista-chios on my Instagram feed.” We also try to get on the perimeter of the store. It’s all about that impulse purchase. I don’t think it’s

Photo by George DeLoache

7

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT CHURCHILL: I was the very first person hired in Wonderful sales. The whole direct team was a concept. They asked me to put together this pilot program in Los Angeles, which started with five employees, 10 years ago. We ran that pi-lot program for five months, decided it was successful and spent the next 18 months rolling the program out around the country. We were hiring people, bringing them back to L.A. for training and then sending them back into the field. By the end of that, we had built a national direct mer-chandising program where we didn’t have one before. We were still developing the Wonderful brand of pistachios. Today, when you say “pistachios,” you think Wonderful. Our merchandising team was intimately involved in help-ing that grow, in bringing that package front and center to the consumer.

changed how we merchandise, but it’s brought to life the fact that how we merchandise is that much more effective for us.

What have been the main trends in merchandising in recent years? CHURCHILL: More and more, it’s about that perimeter of the store, it’s about fresh and it’s about the healthy items. Store for-mats have changed because of it. Each year, more and more con-sumers are listening to that message and shopping the perimeter of the store. It’s changed how vendors and manufacturers see the need to get on that perimeter in some way and not be confined to those shelves in the middle. It’s creating many smaller players and formats that focus in that direction. The other thing is the contin-

RECENT ACHIEVEMENT CHURCHILL: One of the things we decided to do two years ago was venture into Walmart/Sam’s Club for the first time. That was different for us. We looked at how could we make our program more efficient and decided we could fold it into our existing foundation with as small an initial invest-ment of labor as possible. We grew our actual store calls we were doing a year by 35%, with less than 5% added labor. That allowed us to get out of the broker model at Walmart and transition into a direct program. Sales have continued to grow and grow. We were able to save the company mon-ey and continue growing sales in two of the most important channels. We were able to leverage what we had built to make it as efficient as possible for the company.

ued focus on the plant-based shopper. They’re in the produce de-partment. Produce is becoming the prime place to be. If anything, produce continues to grow and become the major focus.

What role do you foresee the physical store playing in the future?CHURCHILL: In the end, especially with fresh, shoppers want to see it, touch it, smell it, feel it. There are many consumers switch-ing to buying some online groceries for things in packages and bags. That’s going to continue to grow. But they will want to get to the store and their farmer’s market when it comes to fresh pro-duce, which is good for us, because that’s where we tend to play.

— Ed Finkel

COLUMBIA SPORTSWEARMATT KELLY, Senior Marketing Category Procurement Manager Kelly’s role is optimiz-ing the portfolio for the marketing category at Columbia for the Columbia, Mountain Hardwear, Prana and Sorel brands. The goal is alignment of right supplier/right work for creative agencies, media, digi-tal, PR and retail environments to facili-tate the company’s future growth.

CONSTELLATION BRANDS ANDI CAREY, Director, Marketing Activation – Promotions Carey and her team man-age the development and execution of POS displays and collateral for the wine and spirits portfolios of Constellation Brands, with building brands by breaking through the clutter as a top priority, driving in-novation and improving processes for greater efficiency closely following.

COTY DIMITRI FOUTRES, Vice President, In-Store End to End Strategy

CRAYOLA BETH ONDUSH, Manager, Merchandising Ondush’s responsibilities include leading the team development and execu-tion of in-store merchan-dising solutions across accounts and trade classes.

DDAS COS. DEREK LEHMAN, Director, Channel & Shopper Marketing Lehman develops stra-tegic and insight-driven shopper marketing solu-tions for the convenience and travel center channels. His focus is creating engaging shopper experiences to ulti-mately drive conversion on the path to purchase.

DG YUENGLING & SON CHRIS SEIGH, Trade Marketing Manager Seigh leads shopper marketing efforts with large- and small-format national accounts driv-ing activation and customization. His focus is on utilizing actionable insights to drive merchandising that influences behavior and demand across multiple touchpoints at retail.

DURACELL JOE CERONE, Team Leader, NA Merchandising

EEDGEWELL PERSONAL CARE NATALIE MALLONE, Senior Manager, Merchandising & Display, Wet Shave See profile on page 10

DAVI TASH, Merchandising & Display Manager, Suncare

FFOOT LOCKERBRIAN LANDMAN, NA Director of Visual Merchandising, Marketing & In-Store Experience

GGARMIN INTERNATIONALRONNIE LAMENDOLA, Senior Manager, Retail Marketing Lamendola oversees innovative merchandis-ing initiatives at retail, implementing a vision of integrated approaches that blend new technol-ogy, trends and designs for the ultimate customer experience. He opened the Garmin store in Miami and assists re-tail, marketing and creative teams at headquarters, throughout the U.S. and abroad.

GENERAL MILLS BOB MYERS, Director, In-Store Design & Strategic Events Myers manages a “con-cept to consumer” in-store design team fo-cused on delivering fully integrated co-hesive display merchandising capabili-ties in stores for General Mills brands’ in-store merchandising and category growth initiatives.

GLAXOSMITHKLINE MARGHERITA FARRELL, Manager Displays/ Special Packs – Sales Operations Farrell manages the de-velopment, production and execution of GSK OTC promotional displays. She has more than 30 years of experience at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and GSK. She works closely with supply planning, demand plan-ning, customer strategy, brand, market-ing, sales, master data and customer service, specializing in on-time delivery to retail.

JOHN HANKINS, Senior Sales Operations Manager Hankins has more than 30 years of CPG experi-ence with Kraft, Starkist and GlaxoSmithKline. He currently leads the strategy and development of GSK’s in-store visual merchandising. A recent highlight was the successful Flonase Sensimist RX to OTC switch in 2017.

GOPROGABRIEL MENDEZ, Head of Global Retail Solutions Mendez has global re-sponsibility for all retail execution, P-O-P, store-in-store, retail services and visual mer-chandising efforts.

HHEINEKEN USASUSAN MASTROGIACOMO, Category Development, Central Strategy and Distributor Manager

8

HERSHEY SCOTT DUNKLEY, Director, Merchandising Center of Excellence Dunkley’s team defines and executes Hershey’s merchandising strategy across permanent secondary displays, pre-packed units, and retail carry-in POS. Using data-driven analytics, shop-per insights and impactful experience, the team drives conversion for Her-shey’s iconic brands.

MIKE KAUTZ, Manager, Merchandising – Innovation/Dollar/Club

TIFFANY PIEJA, Merchandising Manager, Walmart As a member of Her-shey’s Merchandising Center of Excellence team, Pieja leads the design and devel-opment of innovative merchandising solutions for Walmart.

RICK PRICE, Senior Manager, Merchandising Center of Excellence Permanent Team Price leads the Merchan-dising Center of Excel-lence team, which leverages shopper insights to develop and execute high-impact brand experiences and display spectaculars to create fun, convenient and immersive shopper experiences that increase shopper/trip conversion and build bigger baskets for large- and small-format retailers.

FRANK SHEEHE, Global Retail & Merchandise Manager

THOMAS SZELTNER, Senior Manager, National Merchandising Szeltner is part of a team that designs temporary displays that create stopping power to enable quick sell-through of Hershey’s preferred brands across all classes of trade.

HUNTER DOUGLAS MAUREEN MARRONE, Director, Visual Merchandising Marrone is responsible for developing customized in-store merchandising programs to help Hunter Douglas retail-ers create a more professional selling environment. She recently developed and installed a full, in-store merchan-dising concept that set a new standard for selling window coverings.

JJACK LINK’S KENT OAKLAND, Packaging Engineering Manager

JOCKEY INTERNATIONALMARK FEDYK, President, North American Wholesale & Licensing, and Chief Merchandising Officer

JOHNSON & JOHNSON STEVEN HECHT, Director, In-Store Strategy & Innovation

KKELLOGG KURT DECK, Senior Manager, Merchandising Capabilities, Supply Chain & Design Deck is closely involved in the design process when purchasing corrugated displays, which include promotional, knock down and pre-packed displays for the snacks and morning foods business units within Kellogg. For those units Deck also over-sees the design and purchasing of per-manent display fixtures that support in-store display opportunities, along with a shelving systems initiative and in-aisle reinvention projects.

JEANNE FIGO COMAR, Director, Packaging & Merchandising Design and Commercialization

MEGAN PHELAN, Senior Manager, Merchandising Services Phelan develops and produces merchandis-ing display solutions for Kellogg’s specialty channels, Morning Foods, shopper marketing and Kashi Co. She also leads Kellogg’s print ser-vices department, producing POS, signage, coupons and communication materials for Kellogg USA.

KEURIG GREEN MOUNTAIN DON COLLINS, Director, Merchandising & Retail Innovation Collins leads a team that drives innovation and builds programs to con-vert consumers at shelf to Keurig. He provides merchandising solutions for all customer channels including mass, de-partment, grocery, specialty, drug, club and convenience as well as the com-pany’s away from home food service and workplace channels.

KIMBERLY-CLARK LISA HURWITZ, Vice President, Global Brand Design

KRAFT HEINZDAVID STAPLES, National In-Store Merchandising Manager, Beverage Business Unit

LL’OREAL MICHAEL ARECCHI, Vice President of Retail Innovation

CHRISTINA P. RAGAZZINI, Assistant Vice President, Retail Innovation – Permanent Merchandising

9

10

n the past 16 years, Natalie Mallone has worked on every brand within the Edgewell portfolio, mostly in merchandising and display roles for categories such as sun care, feminine care and infant care, in addition to her current position in the wet

shave category. She also did a rotation in sales planning to build her strong foundation in customer knowledge. “It really helped me to understand the different 4P tactics across all classes of trade,” she says. “Knowing the different go-to-market strategies of customers is critical in building strong and effective customer promotional plans.”

Today, she leads the merchandising and display team for the wet shave category and the newly created go-to-market center of excellence for the shave portfolio. In this role, she is responsible for the planning, development and execution of all wet shave off-shelf promotional plans across all U.S. customers. Her team is respon-sible for building brand equity and strategy and for bringing the brand strategy to life in store.

How does your merchandising team interact with shopper marketing and with insights at Edgewell?

EDGEWELL PERSONAL CARE: NATALIE MALLONE, Senior Manager, Merchandising and Display, Wet Shave

I MALLONE: The merchandising and display teams and the shop-per marketing team are housed under the same marketing director. This allows for consistent 360 surround-sound programs driven by annual brand priorities and platforms. Our in-store strategies are focused around key insights that drive commercial innovation.

How does your company define success for its in-store marketing programs?MALLONE: Success in-store is first measured by display compli-ance. No matter how strategic or impactful the promo vehicle is, if it is not executed in-store, sales will not be realized. Also, sell-through and ROI are key metrics that determine a program’s success and whether it should be anniversaried. Finally, there’s a motto I like to go by for any promotion: on strategy, on budget and on time.

How has the emergence of the omnichannel shopper influenced your overall approach to merchandising?MALLONE: Omnichannel is often used as a fact-finding or re-search destination for shoppers. Purchase decisions are increas-

Photo by Mark Conrad

CAREER ACHIEVEMENTMALLONE: The accomplishment I am most proud of was the 2016 De-sign of the Times Gold award for the Schick Walmart Barbershop 3 way. This was the only temporary/corrugate display that won a gold in the mass category. It was the first display I created for razor and blades in which the creative was driven more on emotional insight rather than technology claims.

The barbershop idea originated from the insight that men want masculine symbols of identity to maintain a sense of male self where gender roles are blurring. Two key things make the barbershop a clever, power-stopping dis-play: 1) barbershop represents masculinity and experience, and 2) a perfect shave replicates a barbershop experience and the smoothness afterward.

Designed to appeal to men, the display utilized corrugate that resem-bled rich mahogany wood, marble and foil that replicated vintage galva-nized mirrors. The showpiece was the vacuum-formed barber pole that sat in the middle of the structure.

11

ing outside of the store environment. It’s important to create im-pactful merchandising to capture shoppers while in-store. It is also important that secondary placement builds the emotional connection with the shopper, separating your product from com-petition.

How have you seen merchandising change in recent years? What trends are you seeing now?MALLONE: In-store promos are moving toward a fewer, bigger, better philosophy. Retailers are looking for solution-based promo-tions to drive purchase across categories. This allows one-stop shopping for the shopper and helps navigate through the clutter in-store. In addition, in-line solutions are expanding to educate shoppers and provide easy navigation at shelf. In the shave cat-egory, we use touch-and-learns so consumers can get up close and personal with our products and look at our key benefits.

How has your approach to this at Edgewell changed versus several years ago?MALLONE: Many of our promotions are category-driven instead of product-line driven. For example, in the shave category, we will execute a men’s display – instead of simply a Hydro men’s dis-play – where our disposables, our systems and our prep products can sit. It’s more solution-based, and having that approach is also yielding greater sell-through on our promotions.

What role do you foresee the physical store playing in the future?MALLONE: I think the physical store will be used as a destination to experience the product. I picture store-within-a-store concepts for different categories. Shoppers will use their mobile devices to order from the retailer website while they’re in the store and then the product will shortly be delivered to their doorstep.

— Chris Gelbach

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTMALLONE: The January 2018 launch of the Schick Intuition F.a.b. (“forward and backward”) razor brought with it a strong in-store display presence. The Intuition F.a.b. is the first of its kind where every cartridge contains bi-directional blades that let consumers effortlessly shave in both directions. Fab yielded strong promotional support in-store across all classes of trade. All display vehicles contain a battery-operated razor moving up and down to reinforce to the shopper the main reason to believe. Retail partners are excited about this disruptive innovation in the women’s category and have supported F.a.b. with solid launch display plans. We have shipped more than 40,000 displays for our launch window.

LG ELECTRONICS STEWART HENDERSON, Senior Manager, Home Appliance Shopper Marketing Henderson leads the shopper marketing team for LG’s home appliance business units and is tasked with developing and ex-ecuting LG’s omnichannel experiences for the shopper.

RACHEL OLSON, Senior Shopper Marketing Manager Olson creates innovative, best-in-class shopper experiences for premium consumer electronics for LG Electron-ics. She works with the largest U.S. re-tailers to create engaging experiences that lead the shopper down the path to purchase.

LOGITECH CYNTHIA BOWENS, Channel Marketing Manager Bowens is passionate about customers’ experi-ences, developing mer-chandising that engages the customer and drives sales. She’s responsible for creating and executing marketing plans across key accounts with experience in both the U.S. and Canada.

MMARS WRIGLEY CONFECTIONARYJASON WOOD, Director of Display Development Wood leads the team responsible for all Mars Wrigley Confectionary displays. They develop pre-pack, P-O-S and semi-permanent displays that deliver innovative solutions to drive incremental sales.

MASCOSARAH FURNARI, Vice President of Retail Experience Furnari leads visual mer-chandising and retail experience efforts for the company. In 2015, Masco’s Behr brand launched a new Color Center to help consumers more easily find their perfect color. Further innovation in the paint shopping experience is a key focus.

MCCORMICK AND CO. BRIAN ESLINGER, Merchandising Development Manager

MEIJER SHELLY HUISKEN, Director of Merchandise Presentation Huisken leads the mer-chandise presentation team for the retailer. Her team is responsible for develop-ing space planograms and floorplans for in-store merchandising strategies and providing analytics to determine department and category adjacencies along with space allocation for new stores and remodels.

MICROSOFT CORP. ERIN MINOR, U.S. Retail Channel – Visual Merchandising and Marketing Manager See profile on page 2

JAKE OLSEN-JACOBSEN, Senior Retail Demo Manager A 27-year retail veteran, Olsen-Jacobsen previ-ously managed the Xbox and Xbox 360 global video game retail kiosk programs. He is currently responsible for the global consumer retail demo experience on Windows OS devices.

MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL ALICE MOORE, Merchandising Manager Moore manages the de-velopment and produc-tion of unfilled permanent displays. She says the company’s receipt of a Platinum Award at Design of the Times for the SPK floorstand is a testament to the quality and effectiveness of this program.

KELLY O’BRIEN, Merchandising Manager O’Brien manages the cre-ation and production of POS displays. Her career is balanced in pragma-tism and passion to be relevant and unique, working alongside admirable and diverse partners to deliver the company’s goals.

ROBYN PETROSKI, Senior Merchandising Manager, Shopper Merchandising Solutions

STEVE ZOELLNER, Director, Shopper Merchandising Solutions

NNBC UNIVERSAL STUDIOSMARY KHACHIKYAN, Vice President of Production & Release Planning

NESTLE USA THOMAS KOBAYASHI, Merchandise Manager, Confections & Snacks Division Kobayashi leads strategic management and devel-opment of temporary, permanent dis-play and special packs for Nestle Con-fections. His blend of creative agency, display supplier and CPG business management experience enables the company to efficiently grow, defend and maintain existing distribution, drive awareness of new items, communicate promos and exploit last-minute oppor-tunities that drive incremental sales.

12

NESTLE PURINA PETCARE BILL KAMBOL, Principal, Display and Merchandising Kambol is responsible for structural design and shopper marketing efforts for several brands including Friskies, Fancy Feast, Pro Plan, Purina One and Tidy Cats.

GREG NORSWORTHY, Retail Experience Director, North America See profile on page 14

PAM VENN, Senior Display & Merchandising Specialist

NEWELL BRANDSRENE BRIGNAC, Manager, Visual Merchandising – Coleman

NIKE INC.KENNETH EDWARDS, Senior Retail Brand Manager

PPEET’S COFFEE & TEAADAM O’CONNELL, Director of Visual Merchandising O’Connell leads the design, development and implementation of permanent fixtures and temporary displays for retail. He also oversees sea-sonal P-O-P development and visual merchandising directives for Peet’s Coffeebar locations nationally.

PEPSICO KARL FLOWERS, Senior Group Manager, Merchandising

DENIS GIBNEY, Director, Merchandising Innovation & Design

JIM IVY, Sales Strategy & Planning, Merchandising, Frito-Lay

BRIAN KELLY, Senior Director of Merchandising & Execution Kelly leads the Merchan-dising Center of Excel-lence for the Pepsi Beverages Co. His team is responsible for in-store mer-chandising strategies, the development of equipment and evaluation of in-store success.

ROBERT TAYLOR, Senior Director, Sales Strategy & Commercialization

PETCORICK NEIRA, Director, Visual Presentation

TIM SWANSON, Vice President, Visual Merchandising and Store Design

PETSMARTSHANE MCCALL, Vice President, Store Design McCall’s team creates store designs to enhance the brick-and-mortar journey with pet-centric layouts, fix-tures and visual merchandising. In 2017 the team launched The Groomery, a pet grooming salon and localized decor and product merchandising.

PFIZER TONY SCAVONE, Director, North America Display Innovation & Supply Chain

POST CONSUMER BRANDS STEVE COLLETTE, Visual Merchandising & Marketing Manager

PRICE CHOPPER SUPERMARKETSBLAINE BRINGHURST, Senior Vice President of Sales, Merchandising and Marketing

SCOTT EVANS, Senior Vice President, Sales & MerchandisingEvans oversees fresh & center store merchandising, merchandising services, sales planning, pharmacy, own brands and procurement. He has 25 years of experience in the industry, including 21 years with Albertsons/Supervalu, where he held various positions includ-ing store management, operations specialist, category manager, corporate business development manager and corporate director.

RREEBOK INTERNATIONALJOHN LYNCH, Vice President, Head of U.S. Marketing & Merchandising

SSABRA DIPPING PETE LOIZZO, Director of Sales Planning & Operations

SARGENTO FOODS MICHAEL VASZILY, Retail Merchandising Director Vaszily is responsible for developing the retail merchandising strategic plan as well as providing thought lead-ership to key strategic merchandising initiatives and new product develop-ment. A major accomplishment was the development of a strategic roadmap to establish best-in-class merchandising competencies at Sargento.

SHERWIN-WILLIAMSPAUL COBB, Director, In-Store Marketing

SONY ELECTRONICSANNE LIPS, Senior Retail Marketing, Visual Merchandising Manager

ANTHONY SHINKER, Retail Merchandising Activation and Strategy/ Sound Division Shinker leads all retail merchandising strategy and product display activation for Sony’s Mobile and Home Audio catego-ries.

13

14

reg Norsworthy’s career in merchandising began more than 20 years ago when he was an account executive for Nestle Purina Petcare. After several years in category lead-ership roles, he became very interested in the retail envi-

ronment. It was evident to him that pet care environments were lacking in presentation and experience. They had no emotional connection to pet-owning households. So, he worked with one of his clients, a major grocery chain, to completely reinvent the pet care department. The result was double-digit sales growth and a drastic elevation at Purina Petcare for Norsworthy to a director-level role.

The move created new work and a new team at Purina focused on retail presentation that has now been part of the company for more than 20 years. Today, Norsworthy focuses on designing retail pet care experiences at both the category and brand levels, working with category teams, retailers and various Purina Petcare brands.

How does Purina Petcare define success for its in-store marketing programs?NORSWORTHY: Not to make this too simple, but our solutions must grow the total category and drive increased household con-version and sales. Because that’s really what we’re all after. We’re in a category that’s still growing marginally, so to be able to drive new households is an awfully big opportunity right now.

How has the emergence of the omnichannel shopper influenced your overall approach to merchandising?

NESTLE PURINA PETCARE: GREG NORSWORTHY, Retail Experience Director, North America

G NORSWORTHY: Shoppers desire a faster and more convenient experience in the store. The structure and layout of the depart-ment has to be more intuitive based on their wants and needs. For example, small dog owners only want products for small dogs. They don’t have the time to deselect hundreds of items prior to finding their product in store. If retail stores don’t improve the experience, shoppers will gravitate toward online.

Has that insight caused you to segment the products more clearly in stores?NORSWORTHY: Yes. That’s deeply in development right now. We’re seeing a disproportionate growth in small dog ownership. But if you walk into a store looking for something for a small dog right now, good luck.

What are the important characteristics of a mutually beneficial merchandising collaboration between a manufacturer and retailer?NORSWORTHY: The mutual objective really is to create relation-ships with valuable shoppers and to grow the category profitably through value-added solutions that enhance the shopping experi-ence and trade up shoppers. I heard a major retailer say once, if we could fire shoppers, we would. It’s that 80/20 rule. The key mutual objective is to create those relationships with our most valuable shoppers.

Photo by Whitney Curtis

15

CAREER ACHIEVEMENTNORSWORTHY: In 2010, Nestle Purina launched a pet care department redesign in supermarkets that was called “Open Air.” The department was transformed into a more shoppable department, and shoppers were pre-sented with a completely new pet supplies assortment of 800 items previously only found in pet stores. I led the pre-research with shoppers utilizing virtual reality and the design phase of the department with design firm 10 Red, as the execution phase with multiple suppliers engaged. I also recruited pet supplies distributor Central Pet to pro-vide direct-store-delivery service for the initial test store. The Open Air project was hugely successful, growing sales for the total category and enhancing margins due to pet supplies sales increases. Shoppers also spent an average of 40 seconds longer in the aisle browsing, and it was de-termined that the Open Air design converted incremental households for the category.

How has merchandising changed in recent years? What trends are happening now?NORSWORTHY: The power has really shifted to the shopper. Many times, the purchase decision is made prior to the retail store. Research indicates 69% of shoppers are frustrated with their shopping experience. That’s across all channels. We’re devel-oping solutions that assist shoppers with finding a product faster. If a shopper finds a product within the first 10 seconds, they’re likely to buy more products on that same trip.

What role do you foresee the physical store playing in the future?NORSWORTHY: I believe the physical store will be important in building awareness with shoppers for the overall category. Key retailers will utilize the physical store to enhance conversion for

categories like pet care, but they will also offer expanded selec-tions for food, supplies and services online or what we call the endless aisle. Generally, stores will be smaller in the future, so a hybrid approach of the physical store and an online transaction will be required to remain relevant.

What do you see as the keys for success in the category moving forward?NORSWORTHY: I think we’re at a point where you have to be extremely successful in the brick-and-mortar physical space and the online space to win in the category. More families are adopting pets. So it’s a great time to be a pet, and it’s a great time to be in the pet care business. It’s just highly competitive, and I think that the online experience has brought new competition to the category. It’s forcing new work, if you will.

— Chris Gelbach

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTNORSWORTHY: The shopability of heavy items, such as bags of dog food, are a concern with shoppers in re-tail stores. Once pet food displays are shopped down, it’s difficult and even unsafe to lift heavy bags into the cart for shoppers. The pallet lift merchandiser provides an en-hanced shopping experience that keeps larger bags of pet food always available at the optimal 30-inch height, with automated sensors that lift the display when it is shopped below 30 inches. It saves the retailer labor costs because once the pallet is loaded with a typical retail pallet jack, the product remains shoppable until all the pet food bags are purchased. The pallet lift merchandiser also provides a safer shopping experience. Its large graphic panels have proven to drive category and brand awareness. Sales in-creases have been between 15% and 30% for a typical two- to four-week merchandising program, versus a typical endcap display. The pallet lift is relatively new to the retail industry, but it is a very promising solution for pallet-driven promotions across the retail landscape.

STAPLESCHRISTINE MALLON, Vice President, Retail Marketing

MATTHEW SETTERLUND, Director of Visual Merchandising Development

STARBUCKS JENNIFER BERGER, Vice President, Global Creative Studios

KELLY MARSH, Director, Shopper Innovation & Experience Marsh is responsible for bringing the Starbucks experience to life in cen-ter store at retailers throughout the U.S. She leads and develops strategies to deliver category growth and build Star-bucks brand equity at retail.

JENNIFER QUOTSON, Vice President, Global Creative Studios

TTARGET SARAH AMUNDSEN, Senior Director, Store Planning & Design

NATE BULLARD, Director – Space & Presentation Transformation

ERIKA RINKLEFF, Senior Marketing Manager Rinkleff’s focus is on the planning and implemen-tation of the in-store experience of Target’s smaller format stores and other high-level innovation projects.

TED SMETANA, Vice President, Merchandise Operations

BILL STAFFORD, Lead Designer, Studio Team, Target Corporation Store Design Stafford works on store environment design with a concentration on lighting, and store fixture design. His more than 40 years in retail design has included stops at Belk-Leggett, U.S. Shoe Corp., Space Design NY, and Adirondack Scenic.

TYSON FOODS KATHERINE TAI, Manager, Strategic Merchandising & Mix

UNILEVER TOM GIOIELLI, Team Lead, U.S. Category StrategyGioielli’s team develops and leads con-sumer and shopper insight-based as-sortment and shelving strategies for all of Unilever’s categories.

WWALGREENSJEFF CHADWICK, Senior Manager, Space Management

MIKE HATTENSCHWEILER, Director, In-Store Marketing Design

SHERRI PICCHIETTI, Senior Manager, Space Management

WALMARTMARK BRODEUR, Director of Visual Merchandising & Customer Experience Brodeur is responsible for all general merchan-dise businesses. His focus is to drive improvements to the in-store customer experience through next generation department re-inventions and mobile omnichannel integration.

PAUL KILSCH, Director, Merchandising Project Management Office

BARBARA MAGSTADT, Senior Director, Visual Merchandising

STEVE ROGERS, Senior Director, Visual Merchandising – Marketing Rogers leads the visual merchandising team in marketing to help deliver a great cus-tomer experience by inspiring her, help-ing her find the products and services she needs, and by saving its customers time.

ED VIRGADAMO, Director, Navigational/ Structural Signing, Customer Experience, Marketing Virgadamo is responsible for overseeing the design, develop-ment and execution of the permanent navigational interior branded signs, for Walmart U.S. stores. He was key in leading the activation of the Walmart “Save Money Live Better” brand across the chain in 2009, and he and his team are an integral part of the brand refresh hitting stores in early 2018.

WONDERFUL DAVID CHURCHILL, Vice President of Merchandising See profile on page 6

16

© Copyright 2018. 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.