By Michael ApplebaumBentonville, Ark. — The Clorox Co.’s Kingsford has partnered with Walmart on an experiential program designed to build awareness for the mass merchant’s new USDA Choice-grade beef products. Using co-branded “Mobile Brand Boxes” towed by pickup trucks, Walmart is staging grilling demonstrations in its parking lots and distributing samples to shoppers as they enter and exit stores. The program, which began in the fall of 2011, will have reached about 300 Walmart Super-centers in the Midwest and Southeast by the end of this year.

The Kingsford charcoal brand was a logical partner as Walmart

sought to introduce a higher quality beef. (The retailer has traditionally stocked USDA Select-grade beef.) Research showed a high correlation between fresh meat and charcoal purchases. Moreover, consumers who buy charcoal tend to prefer premium cuts of meat.

While Kingsford had previously participated in co-op advertising and conducted “pop-up” grilling demos with Walmart, the mobile events create a deeper consumer engagement on a much larger scale. “Walmart saw this as a great opportunity to get the meat products into consumers’ hands,” says Charles Mordy, Clorox’s director of shopper engagement for the Walmart team. “Nothing can replace the sensory experience of an outdoor barbecue. Consumers who have interacted with the Mobile Brand Boxes have been delighted by Walmart’s meat

p2pi.orgVol. 25, No. 6 • June 2012 / An Official News Publication of the

Rockwell Endcap Has Big Impact at Lowe’sPositec relies on old-school ‘tools’ to create a high-profile displayBy Joe BushChArlotte, n.C. — Tools manufac-turer Positec and merchandising de-sign agency Meyers used masking tape, magic markers, cardboard, cre-ative minds and a collaborative spirit to develop an interactive and ultimately award-winning main-aisle endcap dis-play for Lowe’s.

Despite a multifaceted design that in-cludes multiple-sized bays, on-demand video monitors and seven tethered tools for handling by shoppers, the original mockup created in the summer of 2010 at Positec’s Charlotte headquarters need-ed few tweaks before it made its way to 1,725 Lowe’s stores nearly a year later.

The companies factored in consumer demographics for Positec’s Rockwell brand of tools and the various sizes of endcaps available in Lowe’s stores, as well as the store associates. “It was to-tal back-of-the-bar napkin brainstorm-ing,” says Positec creative director Bragg Swain, who added that the Meyers team nearly missed its flight home to Min-neapolis as they raced to complete the initial slapped-together version. “That display sat in our boardroom looking like something your kids might make a lemonade stand out of – for our execu-tives and sales guys to show to Lowe’s and say this is what we’re working on.”

The initial challenge was to create a display that would fit each of Lowe’s

Walmart, Kingsford Beef Up Sampling EffortCo-branded ‘Mobile Brand Boxes’ distribute samples in store parking lots

See Positec, Page 14

iN MerchANdisiNg

See Kingsford, Page 12

Feature: Coupon Enthusiasts

Page 22

See Page 32

Shopper Marketing MeasurementPart 3 of a six-part series focuses on measuring brand impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 50

Platforms, Programs ...Retail-driven activity benefits participating brands in various ways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 26

Gallery: Shopper Marketing Effies

Page 16

P&G Gets Off to Fast Start With OlympicsCinCinnAti — Procter & Gamble unleashed a wave of retail pro-grams this spring tapping into its official Olympic Games sponsorship and the May edi-tion of “brandSaver.” The pack-aged goods maker also bridged its “Worldwide Partner” status for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London (and concur-rent Paralympic Games) with the Mother’s Day holiday by employing its frequent “Thank You, Mom” campaign theme.

P&G’s mas-sive Olympics a c t i v a t ion , which a l so runs heavily on Facebook, encompasses sponsorship of 28 U.S.

Olympic athletes and hopefuls and 150 athletes worldwide. The list includes gold medalists Michael Phelps, headlining mar-keting activity for Head & Shoul-ders, and Kerri Walsh, repre-senting Pampers. The effort also entails a newly launched “P&G, Team USA Youth Sports Fund” that will benefit United States Olympic Committee organiza-tions. Walmart, Target, Babies “R” Us, Safeway, Supervalu and Ahold USA are among the pleth-ora of retail partners.

Shopper Marketing will dive more deeply into Olympic-relat-ed shopper marketing activity in the August issue.

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programs12 Shopper Marketing June 2012

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and the overall tour experience.”The custom mobile units are the brain-

child of Plano, Texas-based Out Front Mar-keting, a joint venture between Crossmark and FLW Outdoors. The vehicles were pre-viously used as part of Walmart co-market-ing programs with Sony and The National Guard. Each unit is skinned with brand graphics, equipped with an electrical sup-ply and staffed by trained employees from both the retailer and participating brand.

Irwin Jacobs, chairman and chief execu-tive officer of Out Front Marketing, says the outdoor grilling events are proving to be a

more effective intercept than in-store dem-os. “Instead of getting 10% of shoppers, you’re getting 100%,” says Jacobs. “Nearly everyone who passes the Brand Boxes stops to engage with us in a positive way, and we’ve seen that in the comments that consumers have shared with us.” As of March, the part-ners have distrib-uted approximately 40,000 pounds of steak samples.

Mordy says the choice of store lo-cations for the pro-

gram is continually being re-evaluated to maximize the truck route against traffic patterns. “We see the program as getting better as we improve our learning and gen-erate better efficiency,” he says. “We’re not recording individual consumer names, but we are looking at numbers of samples given out and the individual store lift on sales of meat and charcoal.” (He declined to pro-vide specific numbers.)

Kingsford will be looking for opportuni-ties to reinforce the message of the sam-pling program in its marketing. Kings-ford’s Grilling.com website serves as a “grilling community” where consumers can find recipes, grilling experts’ blogs and events. “The sights and sounds of grilling meat outdoors, and having a presence in Walmart’s parking lot, is consistent with our marketing message,” Mordy says. “It’s not just about the benefits of grilling, but the whole grilling experience. We want to make sure that what we’re doing with the events matches what we’re doing in stores. For example, if we did a ‘Summer Grilling at Walmart’ program, we would look to see how the vehicle fits in with overall market-ing. That’s how you take a pilot program and bring it up to scale.”

Walmart’s parking lots also hosted the “Walmart Choice Steak Challenge” with Kingsford and Coca-Cola. The contest searched for steak-grilling chefs in mul-tiple cities, with shoppers voting for those chefs and sampling the steaks and Coca-Cola Zero. The Challenge was promoted on Grilling.com.

Brand: Kingsford

retailer: Walmart

Key insights: There’s a high correla-tion between fresh meat and charcoal purchases, and consumers who buy char-coal prefer premium cuts of meat.

activation: Bring grilling demonstra-tions and sampling to store parking lots with a mobile tour featuring a co-brand-ed trailer.

KingsfordContinued from Page 1

Kingsford and Walmart partnered on store events featuring grilling essen-tials (charcoal and steak). Grilling.com serves as a “grilling community.”

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