2020 Category Captains Award Winners

ABBOTT NUTRITION

Created in 1903, Abbott’s nutrition business is a division of Abbott, the global health care company. As a leader in nutrition science, research and development, the company’s goal is to deliver nutrition products and education that meet the changing needs of families across the world. Abbott is behind some of the world’s most trusted names in pediatric, adult and healthy-living nutritional product brands, including Similac, PediaSure, Pedialyte, Ensure, ZonePerfect and Glucerna.

When the pandemic peaked, Abbott experienced a 25% increase in online household sales of its products. Abbott began to hear from retail customers that 50% of consumers were staying loyal to their retailer of choice, but that there would be significant risk of losing the consumer if the retailer was out of stock on key items.

In response, Abbott implemented a strategy of using insights from a longitudinal study across sales, shopper marketing, marketing and category data. The company built a COVID Numerator dashboard and created a phased approach to long-term readiness reacting to buyer feedback to inform future waves, including e-commerce WIC/SNAP impact and store readiness for the next COVID surge.

Abbott also implemented a tiered approach to distribute inventory accordingly, based on consumer shifts in demand, and had secondary placement for pediatric brands, leveraging immunity claims. The company removed promotions during the first month of COVID to maximize inventory distribution. It drove awareness of Pedialyte in later months for stock-up trips during COVID-19 surges, supported retailers with paid search and incremental investment to ensure ease of on-site navigation, and continued to drive digital awareness through paid media.

All of these efforts led to $10 million to $14 million in additional shipments for national mass retailers, improvements in site navigation for the SNAP shopper, and adjusted shopper marketing campaigns to leverage digital acquisition and tactics. Further, as for that new COVID dashboard, it’s now being used by leadership to forecast trends, and by retail buyers to take on additional inventory shipments.

Anheuser-Busch

Before the pandemic, Anheuser-Busch was widely recognized by customers as the best category supplier when it comes to inventory planning. When the pandemic hit, the company leveraged global insights and learnings to ensure that it was ideally positioned to serve retailers. From raw materials procurement to advanced analytics to merchandising recommendations, Anheuser-Busch largely mitigated out-of-stock issues across major packs and brands.

One trend that the company identified initially was that shoppers wanted larger pack sizes and trusted brands. Therefore, Anheuser-Busch worked with retailers on pallet programs on top core packages to meet shopper needs and provide convenience in their pre-planned trips. 

The company also predicted growth in the two largest in-home drinking occasions, “Relax” and “Meals,” and recommended 360-degree retail toolkits to activate, building awareness pre-shop and in-store, and engaging post-shop. Anheuser-Busch also developed an e-commerce playbook that recommended solutions to make online shopping experiences seamless, focusing on both delivery and curbside pickup initiatives.

Retailers saw the results of the Anheuser-Busch-provided category and shopper-centric insights, recommendations, and solutions. A major grocery retailer’s director of alcohol says: “Anheuser-Busch is best in class at providing insights on how COVID impacts retail, and in providing recommendations on future merchandising efforts. Anheuser-Busch is the best supplier at managing supply and communicating, early and often.” This retailer’s beer category has grown 26% and gained share of market during the pandemic, due to its strategic response based on Anheuser-Busch’s recommendations.

Beyond the retailer and shopper focus, Anheuser-Busch continues to place heavy emphasis on its Better World initiatives, supporting communities through the Red Cross, providing hand sanitizer to front-line workers and donating emergency drinking water. The company ensured the safety of its people while providing temporary pay increases to front-line operational staff, and taking great pride in reallocating resources from on-premise to off-premise, with zero layoffs or furloughs. Finally, Anheuser-Busch continues to invest in training and development to ensure that its team is prepared to best serve the needs of shoppers and retailers during the next “new normal.”

Chiquita Brands

During the peak of the pandemic, Chiquita Brands knew what was coming. The company had been monitoring stockpiling grocery behavior in Europe and predicted the trend would likely affect North America as well. As a result, its supply chain was able to load additional fruit for the North American market in advance of the surges in panic buying and avoid shorting customers on bananas.

Chiquita’s supply-chain response also allowed the company to transport conventional fruit to new customers during the height of panic buying, and allowed for immense expansion of services to current Chiquita customers during those key weeks. Now, in the later days of the pandemic, Chiquita has established plans and protocols to adapt to shifting industry needs. Using a B2B portal developed in 2019, it has offered virtual training for store employees and educational white papers for retail partners, and will be hosting a webinar for customers this fall.

The company has also grown the banana category during a difficult year by translating marketing methodologies into strategic executions. Among these, secondary displays and cross promotions have proved to be most effective. The secondary displays encourage consumers to purchase more Chiquita bananas while also increasing purchase frequency. An activation at a major Midwest retailer generated 4.8% volume sales lift, 1.5% increase in household penetration, and 1% increase in basket penetration. In summer 2020, Chiquita expanded this program to a retailer’s additional divisions, as well as implemented the program with new customers. Subsequently, the expanded program resulted in a 2.2% lift for one customer within one week.

Meanwhile, Chiquita has been upping its social media game. This year, the company deployed a sticker activation in partnership with Spotify. Through the campaign, consumers were encouraged to scan the code on their banana for a customized playlist to enjoy various stay-at-home activities such as cooking and working out in a playful way. The campaign garnered 102 million impressions.

Further capitalizing on the digital momentum while promoting the health and safety of consumers, Chiquita leveraged the iconic blue sticker on social media by removing iconic brand mascot Miss Chiquita, noting that she was leading by example by staying safe at home. In her absence from the blue sticker and while in-home consumption was trending up by 65%, Miss Chiquita used Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to promote innovative banana-centric recipes.

The Coca-Cola Co.

As the longest-standing sponsor of the Olympic Games, the Coca-Cola Co. had planned its category management initiative for summer 2020 around the Tokyo Games. When the games were postponed due to COVID-19, Coca-Cola worked quickly with retailers to pivot its program. Using a data-driven approach, Coca-Cola shifted to what it calls the Coke & Food program. At the end of March, Datassential reported that cooking and eating at home had increased by 42% since the onset of the pandemic. Leaning into these insights, the company anchored its program around the Coca-Cola brand and the action of sharing a summer meal at home.

Coca-Cola worked with retailers to activate a cross-category program bringing together everything shoppers need for meals at home. Imagery and promotions focused on trending at-home summer meals such as tacos, pizza and backyard grilling – paired with Coca-Cola and the campaign headline “Together Tastes Better.” The program was customizable for retailers, allowing them to choose the food pairings that best fit their regions and shopper demographics.

The activation leveraged in-store product displays and signage while extending outside the store through TV, geo-targeted digital ads, radio and out-of-home promotion. Retailers offered coupons for Coke-and-food bundles that also featured unique recipes. Coca-Cola cans displayed Sip & Scan icons that shoppers could scan with their phones to unlock a digital experience, The Coca-Cola Kitchen, featuring exclusive videos of celebrities and influencers cooking and sharing recipes and memories.

The campaign proved a success for all parties. From July 1-Aug. 15, 2020, Coca-Cola grew 19% and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar grew 24% compared with the previous year. One prominent Southeast grocery store chain reported a 30% increase in sales of Coca-Cola and a 44% increase in sales of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar during the 13-week period ending Aug. 22. Another food retailer in the Northeast reported that retail dollar sales for participating brands and packages accelerated 23% versus the trend. As a result of the program’s success, Coca-Cola plans to launch Coke & Food 2.0 in 2021 to continue driving value in the grocery channel.

Dole Food Co.

At the height of the pandemic, Dole Food Co. launched a new sustainability framework, The Dole Promise, featuring three pillars: nutrition, sustainability and the creation of shared value. The company’s efforts to drive innovation in the fresh fruit and salad categories helped not just Dole, but also all retailers, fulfill that promise to shoppers this year.

At the start of the COVID-19 crisis, Dole worked with retailers in planning for the pandemic’s effects on shoppers, including fewer shopping trips and larger basket sizes, health and wellness as a priority, and new financial constraints. Dole rolled out a two-color banana program that met the needs of pandemic shoppers, allowing them to buy bananas that will serve their families’ consumption needs for a week. Retailers that executed the program outperformed competitive trends.

Dole also leveraged healthy immune-building products and created a vitamin C awareness campaign centered on pineapples, increasing sales for retailers. As a result of learnings from the Great Recession more than a decade ago, Dole helped retailers execute more private label programs and pricing initiatives for retail at the expense of branded share. Dole worked with retailers to adjust pricing and promotional strategies using a custom revenue price optimization tool to adjust promotional plans to maximize margins, remaining competitive and avoiding out-of-stocks.

Dole also helped retailers grow organic bananas sales. One in three banana shoppers buy both organic and conventional bananas; retailers with a larger percentage of organic banana sales saw greater overall increases, and Dole helped those stores with space allocations.

Finally, Dole’s 2020 innovations focused on high-growth segments. In salads, Dole expanded ready-to-eat bowls by adding varieties and size options, resulting in increased retailer performance and 93% branded growth. The pandemic affected in-stock rates on staple products, so Dole used social media to educate consumers on plantains. As a result, plantain volume increased 2%-5%. The company, with its focus on increasing collaboration with retail to reach new category heights, is truly fulfilling The Dole Promise of nutrition, sustainability and the creation of shared value.

Hershey Co.

When the COVID-19 crisis began in March, Hershey was in the middle of restructuring its everyday chocolate assortment segment. The company had modified its brands and packaging to improve noticeability at shelf. In March, Hershey relaunched its assortments portfolio with 14 new national listings and a new display vehicle. Just as the new portfolio began to hit the market, the COVID-19 outbreak led to unpredictable consumer demands, temporary labor shortages and supplier challenges.

Fortunately, Hershey’s supply-chain team was able to rise to the challenge, working closely with internal demand, supply, transportation, sales and category management teams to meet the increasing demand at retail and deliver a high level of customer service, with a case-fill rate well ahead of the industry average. Additionally, the new portfolio was able to satisfy the dramatic shifts in shopper behavior during the crisis, which included an increase in chocolate consumption and “stock-up” buying.

Hershey’s new assortment strategy paid off, as the category increased 28% in the food channel, with Hershey pacing growth at 67%, regaining share leadership within the chocolate assortment segment (51.8%). In 2021, Hershey will continue to innovate within the segment to capture emerging shopper demand within the new COVID environment.

Hormel Foods

As a category leader in both retail and foodservice, Hormel Foods understands how trends affect both channels and how consumers navigate each of those, even during a crisis. When the pandemic hit, though, all bets were off. Panic buying ensued at retail grocery, e-commerce skyrocketed, and consumers stopped going to restaurants.

Hormel immediately went into action by prioritizing production of foodservice-inspired items to provide the restaurant experience to consumers who were staying home. In addition, the sudden acceleration of online grocery shopping led Hormel to build a strong relationship with its e-commerce retailers. With one national retailer, the company worked side by side to conduct a full evaluation of its online versus offline assortment. Hormel analyzed the incrementality of the items that were missing online to understand which items would be best suited to fit the needs of those consumers. These key assortment changes helped the retailer meet the needs of online consumers and increase sales.

During the COVID peak, the company saw sales increase as high as six times normal weekly sales. These sales have maintained their growth at more than two times that of pre-COVID-19 sales. Given the growing trend of e-commerce in the CPG world, Hormel has been investing in the development of premier e-commerce activation. This includes developing best-in-class analytics and insights to help drive the e-commerce business forward. Hormel has now launched e-commerce-specific items for key e-comm accounts. In creating and developing these items, the company has partnered with key retailers to ensure that these new products would meet the needs of consumers.

Hormel also prioritized production to maximize the supply of highest-impact items to best meet retailer and consumer needs. Additionally, trade reduction efforts were deployed to control demand and funds were reinvested into the e-commerce space to align with key channel shifts. Investments have been made into out-of-stock insights to further understand retailer implications, stage product through supply-chain efforts, and improve demand planning and inventory build. 

As a result, Hormel brought more than 22 million new buyers to key brands, with an average of 52% of them being new to the category.

Mars Wrigley

Encouraging impulse purchases has always been challenging. Then came the e-commerce era. Then came the COVID-19 era, and Mars Wrigley knew it was critical to help retailers capture missed in-store and online impulse sales by keeping confections top of mind for consumers shopping in-store or online.

So what did Mars Wrigley do? It created a custom paid social campaign to remind consumers that they could still purchase its brands from the safety of their homes and drive traffic to online retailers. The company kicked off work in mid-March, and within a week, it had tapped into the agility of its in-house creative team to quickly create new shoppable digital commerce ads across Mars Wrigley brands. The campaign was unique in not only how the media buy was split across retailers, but also in how it leveraged in-platform shoppable features.

The campaign proved highly successful in boosting online confection sales. Online retailer traffic increased 4,000%, with more than 3.3 million clicks across the ads. The ad units themselves had a two-times higher click-through rate when compared with Mars Wrigley’s typical benchmarks. When the ads were running, retailer sales doubled.

In addition to this impressive campaign, Mars Wrigley partnered with a regional grocer this year to conduct a neuroscience study that included electroencephalogram testing and eye tracking to better understand what the shopper was looking at online, and how the brain reacted to that content. Mars Wrigley then used the findings to implement optimized visual navigation and hero imagery with the retailer, driving conversion and engagement from search pages.

Mars Wrigley continued to be a key partner for grocery retailers in 2020 by driving digital purchases amid one of the most challenging retail landscapes in decades. Mars Wrigley’s commitment to growing the grocery channel continues to be a top priority as it brings quick-turn solutions to ensure the success of its retail partners and the category.

Milo’s Tea Co.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Milo’s Tea Co. has been accelerating several Big Data initiatives to streamline planning and manufacturing processes as well as to provide clearer visibility of finished products. The company is also using large data sets to inform forecasting, production scheduling and capacity calculations.

Milo’s is in the process of upgrading its inventory realization and warehouse management systems. During the first half of 2020, it worked to have more visibility of finished products in its facilities, and during the last half of this year, it will be working to add full visibility to the movement of finished products from its facilities to customers’ facilities. This system will be fully operational early in 2021.

The company has also been making progress with the addition of new electronic data interchange (EDI) carrier transaction types. With these new transactions, Milo’s will receive GPS information directly from the carrier so it can track outgoing shipments in real time. This will allow the company to better serve customers and provide product tracking from its dock to customers’ doors. Additional newly implemented EDI transactions have accelerated shipment scheduling, saving countless hours.

Along with these advances in technology, Milo’s has launched a stage-gate process, which allows for corporate collaboration on new items, investing decisions and large projects. This process gives Milo’s the ability to streamline planning and collaboration across the organization for repeatable positive results. By the end of 2020, this process will be systemically supported from end to end with software solutions.

Molson Coors

When the coronavirus shut down bars and restaurants, at-home drinking occasions exploded as shopper anxiety about going to retail stores grew. Sensing a massive opportunity, Molson Coors ran the first-ever TV spot highlighting the ability to get beer delivered. As a result, beer e-commerce sales accelerated, and shoppers’ awareness of buying beer online doubled. 

Molson Coors’ e-commerce leadership extended to the digital shelf, where it’s critical that shoppers can find the items they want. Based on its research, Molson Coors recommended “alcohol” as a top navigation panel, followed by a sub-navigation panel for “beer,” “wine” and “spirits,” followed by beer page navigation for each segment. Its recommendations led to a 5% increase in ease of finding, a 6.3-second improvement in shoppers finding their preferred product, and an 8% spend increase.

To help generate awareness, Molson Coors created “Buy Beer Online” tabs on its brands’ websites, enabling shoppers to see, after entering their ZIP code, all retailers in their area that allow online order for delivery or pickup of beer. Shoppers are then driven directly to a retailer’s site to make their purchase.

The work, resources, and thought leadership that Molson Coors has driven in the wake of unprecedented beer e-commerce growth will pay dividends in the beer category for the balance of 2020 and well beyond.

Monterey Mushrooms

Amid the ongoing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in communities across the country, Monterey Mushrooms has taken its special responsibility as a food supplier seriously, when it comes to satisfying consumers and retailers alike. Specifically, the company has been helping retailers large and small maximize sales and profits in the category while the industry has been dealing with supply challenges.

In one example, Monterey helped a smaller retailer in the Midwest grow its organic segment to industry average or better while ensuring overall category sales and profits didn’t fund the organic growth. Monterey helped the retailer set everyday goals, relocating organics in the base set and fine-tuning promotions. As a result, organic share grew from 10.5% to 15.5% while the total United States averaged 13.5%. The retailer’s total category posted 21.3% sales growth, 21% unit growth, shrink reduction of 21.7% and net profit growth of 29.5% over the same time last year. Monterey’s efforts helped prove that even in a pandemic, a category can achieve desired goals.

In another example, this time with a national retailer, Monterey worked with the retailer to put in place a promotional plan focusing on larger-size packages that provided the following 26-week results over the same time last year. Overall category sales grew 26.3% while the total U.S. market averaged 20.7% growth. Overall category units grew 16.4% while the total U.S. market averaged 15.6% growth, and overall category pounds grew 17.5% while the retailer’s market was at 17.1% growth. The retailer showed a shrink improvement of 34.1% and net profit results of 45.2% over the same period last year.

The COVID environment has challenged almost every supply chain. What most retailers ask for first is supply to support their past category trends. One of the best strategies today is larger packages, priced correctly. Monterey is proving that even though this strategy is a big win for consumers, it’s an even bigger win for retailers.

Nestlé Purina

The world changed in March, and Nestlé Purina had to change with it. The company, which operates a highly renowned retail innovation center (RIC) in St. Louis, normally offers retailers an immersive and exploratory category management experience in person. When the pandemic forced everyone to stay put, Nestlé Purina had to digitize its RIC content over a period of 10 weeks. That turned out to be a soaring success.

The virtual RIC not only allowed Nestlé Purina to continue influencing retailer engagements, but it also helped the company expand its reach and category influence with both new customer accounts and cross functional audiences within existing retailer partners. The new virtual RIC has also become a tool for internal teams at Nestlé Purina to help cultivate retailer needs upstream in the product development process. The virtual RIC is additionally influencing category strategy at some of the company’s top customers, driving actionable solutions and incremental business opportunities each time.

For example, Nestlé Purina leveraged the experience with its No. 1 customer to inspire and co-create new ways to drive dog treat category growth. These ideas are now being developed for market implementation and wouldn’t have happened without the virtual RIC. Meanwhile, Nestlé Purina’s category experience design (CXD) team tackled the notoriously challenging wet cat food shopping experience this year. The ultimate goal was to build a shopper-centric solution, but to consider the needs of the retail stocker and picker as well. The company immediately got to work trying to fully understand the frustrations or pain points for each of the core audiences. 

The Nestlé Purina team ended up devising an elegantly simple solution that solves the needs of the stocker, picker and shopper. Highlights of the final design include:

• A color-coded system with key search elements highlighted for ease of picking,
• Shelf dividers with UPCs attached to make stocking more efficient, and
• Clear product labels enhanced under each SKU, with distinct forms and proteins called out for easier shopping.

The solution has proved to be a success, with shoppers purchasing more items, stockers having an easier time keeping the shelf clean, and pickers becoming more efficient when searching for items. Sales have been strong for both Nestlé Purina and the total wet cat food category, and the plan is to expand beyond testing into a scaled rollout in the future.

Pompeian Inc.

How do you grow a flat category in the middle of a pandemic? Pompeian Inc. was certainly up to that task this year. After all, even before COVID-19 hit, the company was already working on proprietary research to help resolve consumer confusion in the olive oil category. Pompeian found that consumers spend more than 10 minutes trying to decipher olive oil benefits, the difference in types and how best to use it.

As Pompeian was designing an education campaign to eliminate confusion and unlock category growth, COVID-19 drastically changed shopping behaviors of olive oil buyers. All of a sudden, sales in the olive oil aisle were booming, and the company had to pivot to focus on keeping shelves stocked and fulfilling orders faster than ever. Pompeian revisited operations to speed up orders, ensure stable prices and eliminate shortages. As Pompeian accelerated its distribution network, many olive oil brands bottled outside the United States were slowed by recent tariffs.

As pandemic demand moderated, however, Pompeian went back to the education campaign aimed at easing buyer confusion, and the company went a step further,  also zeroing in on COVID-19 shopping trends, shifting its pre-shop communication to focus on health and usage, taking the guesswork out of shopping and getting consumers in and out of the store quickly. Pompeian evolved its search/paid social targeting from regional to national, had organic/paid social media spotlighting healthy pantry-staple recipes, and teamed up with WebMD to promote EVOO’s health benefits.

Additionally, because retailers weren’t accepting in-store promotions, Pompeian introduced new purchase/sales-driving tactics to increase online volume, including paid search and a Walmart/Amazon direct-to-cart influencer program, after uncovering the fact that 36% of April’s category buyers ordered online (Pre-COVID, it was 14%).

As a result of Pompeian’s pivots, a major e-commerce giant selected Pompeian to be its majority olive oil partner for its first 2020 retail grocery launch, and another major retailer gave Pompeian a supply-chain award. As of July, while overall CPG category sales had trended back to normal, olive oil still showed double-digit gains, up 25.7% (31% year to date), with Pompeian bolstering the category, growing 32.1% in July.

Rich Products Corp.

While it’s important to offer careful planning based on shopper insights, followed by flawless execution, an equally important skill set is the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and adjust strategies in real time, based on quickly evolving information. That’s the situation in which Rich Products Corp. found itself this year.

The family-owned company partnered with Disney and Focus Brands to launch a Carvel brand “Frozen 2” Ice Cream Cake to capitalize on the November 2019 debut of the highly anticipated “Frozen 2” movie, working closely with the Disney team on in-store marketing support and social posts from the Rich’s-owned I Love Ice Cream Cakes website and media platforms to drive demand.

However, as markets began implementing COVID restrictions, Rich’s quickly adjusted its social media content, email and influencer campaigns to focus on the theme of making celebrations at home special, and tweaked assortments to emphasize more family-friendly sizes as opposed to products geared toward larger gatherings.

Rich’s pivoted further to eliminate its fourth quarter holiday free-standing inserts to reallocate dollars to digital promotions such as paid searches on retailers’ e-commerce platforms to attract new customers. The efforts paid off as ice cream cake sales increased 35% during the early months of the pandemic.

The company’s nimbleness helped it drive substantial growth in a category where it has a 77% market share, with sales growing by solid double digits in a category where growth typically averages 1%-3%. The results that Rich’s achieved were the culmination of a successful new product and of quickly shifting marketing activities after the onset of COVID-19 to a digital approach, both of which brought new shoppers and improved the Carvel brand buy rate by 25% from March through June, with an 84% increase in buyers who were new to the brand.

The company’s efforts also benefited the overall category, too, with shoppers buying ice cream cakes more frequently, eating more frozen desserts, and creating new “just for fun” usage occasions, as opposed to only celebrations.

Thai Union North American (Chicken of the Sea)

Shelf-stable tuna popularity reached new heights during the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers began loading their pantries, and Chicken of the Sea was uniquely poised to meet this unprecedented demand due to the company’s supply-chain optimizations. Whereas other companies were unable to surmount challenges ranging from fishing-port closures to border restrictions interrupting their ability to buy from their suppliers, Chicken of the Sea was able to keep up with demand and, in turn, its parent company Thai Union reported a 50% jump in shelf-stable seafood sales in March alone.

During this period of record sales, the company recognized both an opportunity and a challenge. A significantly higher percentage of the population purchased canned tuna in March compared with its average consumer penetration, offering an opportunity for these incremental households to reconsider tuna from a taste, health and sustainability perspective, and to remain category purchasers moving forward.

At the same time, Chicken of the Sea recognized that consumers would be less likely to return for future category purchases if they didn’t use their stockpiled products. It became critical that the company increase tuna usage in Q2 to maintain category purchase frequency, so Chicken of the Sea quickly pivoted toward a consumption-driving plan with an emphasis on states with the highest brand penetration, and therefore the biggest purchase rates. This consumption-driving plan featured a paid search campaign, brand website optimizations, strategic paid and organic social media content, influencer partnerships, and a PR push driving coverage of the brand’s pantry-friendly recipes and featuring a partnership with celebrity chef and registered dietitian Ellie Krieger. This PR generated more than 156 million impressions to date, including results from distributing an advertorial, “Ways to Make Healthy Meals at Home with Pantry Staples,” which ran verbatim in newspapers and on online news sites across the country and drove more than 10 million impressions.

Chicken of the Sea also refused to compromise on its category-leading sustainability efforts despite challenges presented by the pandemic. Thai Union was quick to adopt e-observers, e-reporting, e-logbooks and e-audits on fishing vessels, boasting impressive technology leaps that allow for transparency and traceability even when people are unable to be there to physically observe the processes.