Record High Retailer Turnout Expected for 2016 Multicultural Retail Summit

With less than nine weeks to go, hotel rooms are filling up quickly for this year’s Multicultural Retail 360 Summit, to be held Aug. 24-26 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel.

This year’s conference is on pace to attract a record number of retailer attendees from across all channels of retailing. Confirmed attendees include both general market grocers such as Brookshire Brothers, Food Lion, Food4Less, Fry’s, Grocery Outlet, H-E-B, Jewel/Osco/Albertsons, Kroger, Publix, Ralph’s, and Save-A-Lot, as well as multicultural specialists like Northgate Gonzalez Markets, Superior Grocers and Tawa Supermarkets.

Also signed up to attend are drug store chains like Walgreen’s, convenience store chains like 7-Eleven, Maverik, Chevon and BP am/pm, and even discount store chains like Big Lots.

The special discounted hotel rate of $229 per night at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront expires soon, so prospective attendees are being urged to make their reservations as quickly as possible.

This year’s Multicultural Retail 360 Summit features what is likely the strongest educational agenda in its 12-year history. The theme of the conference is: “Optimizing the Omnichannel Experience for Multicultural Consumers.” Among this year’s general sessions are:

• America@250:  How Retailers Will Capture the Multicultural Demographic in America Over the Next 10 Years – In the conference’s opening session, speakers from prestigious consulting firm A.T. Kearney present the results of a multi-year study conducted in partnership with The Wall Street Journal to explore the profound changes underway in demographics, consumers values and preferences, technology, policy and politics.
• A Taste of Diversity – Ethnic merchandising leaders from Jewel-Osco show the supermarket chain’s renowned experiential activations celebrating the Hispanic, African-American and Kosher communities through the eighth annual “Taste of Hispanic Heritage,” 16th annual “Taste of Black History,” and first annual “Taste of Kosher” events.
• Reaching Consumers Through Dance and Fitness – See and hear how Zumba, the international fitness and dance craze, is helping all types of companies, from retailers to insurance companies, make their advertising more relevant and interesting to multicultural consumers.
• How Kellogg Applies a Global, Culturally Relevant Approach to Drive Multicultural Growth – Major food company Kellogg illustrates how it has successfully implemented an agile, cultural relevant approach that leverages both local and global best practices to reach, engage and drive growth with multicultural consumers across product, packaging, retail, mobile and social platforms.
• Cultural Authenticity, Employee Training, and Social Media Outreach to Multicultural Consumers – A panel of foodservice operators, including representatives from Sodexo, Brinker International and Buffalo Wild Wings discuss three key facets to meeting the multicultural challenge.
• Bi-Cultural Hispanics: Who Are They and Why Should We Be Paying Attention? – Experts from Coca-Cola’s Multicultural Marketing Center of Excellence explore why brands need to understand the nuanced differences between Hispanic consumers; how bi-cultural Hispanics embrace the best of two worlds; and, how best to reach them.
• A Fresh Look Into Multicultural Consumers: Disrupting the Mainstream Market – Thought leaders from Nielsen explain how the multicultural consumer impacts the way stores and products are shopped and help identify new growth opportunities for retailers.
• The Multicultural Consumer: from Millennials to Boomers – A panel of expert marketers discuss key trends being driven by African-American, Hispanic and Asian households, from 50-plus consumers to intergenerational families.
• A New Roadmap for Connecting with Hispanic Shoppers in the Breakfast Aisle – Hispanic marketing experts from Post Foods take a fresh look at the Hispanic shopper, based on new acculturation data, and examine new breakfast category attitudes, perceptions and insights to bring culturally authentic trends to the surface.
• Multicultural Consumers – The Organically Mobile Shopper – Facebook’s head of multicultural, Christian Martinez, will unveil insights that can help businesses learn more about the connection people have with their favorite brands and products.
• Creating and Nurturing a Productive and Diverse Workforce – Today’s demographic landscape demands that businesses create a working environment where every employee has an equal chance to contribute to their greatest potential. Debra Sandler, African/Caribbean/Latina senior executive, will share personal and professional views on approaches to creating a truly productive and diverse workforce.

The 2016 Multicultural Retail 360 Summit also features 12 concurrent sessions on specific research-based or niche topics, two open discussion intimate working groups, and a pre-conference study tour of San Diego’s top ethnic retailers.

And, this year’s opening night will feature actor/comedian/author John Leguizamo, who is sure to provide entertaining stories and a moving message about America’s diverse future.

In addition, Multicultural Retail 360 will honor one of the true pioneers in multicultural research and marketing -- Isabel Valdés. The pioneer of in-cultural marketing, Valdés will be inducted into the Multicultural Retail 360 Hall of Fame during a special ceremony on Thursday evening, Aug. 25.

Now in its 12th year, the Multicultural Retail 360 Summit (formerly Hispanic Retail 360 Summit), is produced by Stagnito + Edgell and its market-leading brands Progressive Grocer and Convenience Store News.

To register, go to www.multiculturalretail360.com/summit.