WKR+Company completed the website for www.offerworks.com, a company that provides centralized personalization and offer management services that manages and analyzes the promotional marketing campaigns for grocery and other retail environments.

WKR+Company provided the following components to complete the website build:

* Web 2.O Features - Audio
* Web 2.O Features - RSS Feed
* Graphic Design
* Information Design

About OfferWorks
OfferWorks’ vision is to be recognized in the markets we serve as a leader of business solutions through innovation, commitment and talent. As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, personal excellence, constructive criticism, continual self-improvement and mutual respect.

WKR+Company brings ZoCo Holdings on board and is providing the food and beverage business engineering, marketing and sales development organization with operations and marketing consulting services.

The primary focus of the engagement is to assist the firm in bringing IXSO Energy Drink into the North American market and introduce it into the natural and organic segment.

WKR+Company is providing the following services:

* Business structure setup

* Introduction to distribution partners

* Business Plan development

* Introduction to equity partners

* Marketing Plan creation

About ZoCo Holdings
ZoCo provides stewardship, develops green and sustainable strategies and implements end-to-end business solutions from manufacturing to distribution to sales and marketing for organizations that target the Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) marketplace.

ZoCo executes a process to adapt, launch and manage products for the North American market. In addition, the company provides consulting services to firms that are positioning their products and services in the worldwide natural and organic marketplace.

BRANDWEEK
By Steve Miller

Bad news for trees, good news for business.

A new study finds that 72% of consumers are using more coupons than they did six months ago. Three-quarters of those respondents claimed the economy made them do it.

The study, conducted online by Prospectiv, Wakefield. Mass. earlier this month, polled 1,386 consumers. The vast majority (81%) said use coupons for grocery items.

While newspapers and magazines were the primary source of coupons for 51% of consumers, 39% said they wanted to receive their future coupons via direct mail, while 26% said e-mail, either direct or through newsletters, would work. Another 16% preferred Web sites. Newspapers trailed with 14% favoring the once prevalent way to obtain coupons.

The study also found:

* 80% said they would be very likely or likely to increase their use of coupons if they could be tailored to their interests and delivered online.
* 87% of shoppers said they would be more likely to shop at a retailer that offered coupons.
* And the good news for newspapers: 47% found print and online coupons equally convenient, while just 9% reported online coupons were most convenient.

“The one thing that really surprised me about this study was how many people wanted to receive their coupons via direct mail and how many other wanted some form of Web delivery,” said Jere Doyle, CEO and founder of Prospectiv, a consumer packaged goods consultancy that has worked with General Mills and Betty Crocker. “And also while newspapers ranked so high on where people get their coupons now, that is way down in terms of preferred delivery.”

The finding echoes previous studies conducted this year in the wake of the falling dollar and subtle inflation. ICOM Information & Communications, Toronto, which in April polled over 1,500 U.S. shoppers, found 89% of those queried said they were either much more likely or more likely to use coupons in the case of a recession. Printable Internet coupons were favored by 52% of respondents compared to the 31% who preferred newspaper coupons.

“If we fast forward, we are going to see most people getting coupons from the Internet, and that’s the preference of consumers,” Doyle said. “It’s much easier for them to get what they want online, and marketers are going to have to figure that into their plans.”

Boston Herald and Herald Media
By Donna Goodison

Shoppers can skip the hassle of clipping coupons each week and handing them to supermarket cashiers under a new Upromise program.

The Newton company has launched what’s billed as the grocery industry’s first national paperless coupon program. But instead of receiving a dollar off Huggies diapers at the register, the e-coupons’ values are credited toward Upromise members’ free college savings accounts.

Early next year, however, Upromise will extend the offer to shoppers who’d rather have that money deducted from their grocery receipts and not become members.

“The way the couponing program is going to succeed is if we get enormous scale,” president David Rochon said. “We’re talking millions of people to make it attractive to manufacturers and drive business to retailers.”

Currently, Upromise members can save up to $25 a month with e-coupons from 20 product manufacturers, but Rochon hopes to increase that to as much as $100.

The e-coupons can be redeemed through 160 grocery and drug retailers with some 21,000 locations nationally. In Massachusetts, they include Stop & Shop, Shaw’s, Hannaford Bros., Roche Bros., Atlantic Food Mart, CVS and Osco.

Upromises makes it money by charging the retailers an administrative fee for the service.

To use the program, shoppers must enroll as a Upromise member, which is free, and register their store loyalty cards on its Web site. When they click on the e-coupons they want to use, the e-coupons are automatically linked to their cards electronically. Members can print out their coupon lists so they remember what products to buy. And, once at the store, they need only swipe their loyalty cards, and their purchases are relayed to Upromise, which credits the e-coupons’ values to their college savings accounts.

“It is so much simpler than having to rifle through the Sunday circulars and clip the coupons and remember to bring them to the store and remember to hand them to the cashier,” Rochon said.

Ease of use and promoting customer savings is what prompted Quincy-based Stop & Shop to sign on to the program, spokesman Rob Keane said. “It requires no extra steps for cashiers or the consumer,” he said. “And, obviously, there’s no paper coupons needed, so it’s environmentally friendly.”

September 9, 2008
Progressive Grocer

Gulf Exists Between Desired and Actual IT Role at CPG Companies: Study

One reason for this is an overly complex technical environment at many major manufacturers, said the study from GMA.

Just about everybody thinks IT ought to merit major investment but many fewer CPG exec believe their companies are putting their money where their mouth is, according to a research report issued yesterday by the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

The “GMA Information Technology Investment and Effectiveness Study,” based on surveys conducted for the CPG trade group by IBM and AMR Research, revealed that more than 75 percent of business executives, and 80 percent of information technology execs, think IT should be a major area for investment; but just one-quarter actually believe this investment is being made.

The study incorporated responses from 118 executives at 46 consumer packaged goods companies, GMA said. Their responses indicated that the discrepancy between the desired and actual role of IT at these companies is partly because of misaligned business strategies, in which executives see IT as a cost of running the business rather, than as a crucial player in revenue-generating programs, said GMA.

“The average IT budget for a CPG company is just over 2 percent of revenues and has not grown significantly in the past five years,” said Jeanne Iglesias, GMA’s senior director, supply chain and technology. “Until companies realize that IT can make strategic contributions well beyond the day-to-day operations, this lack of funding is likely to remain a challenge.”

Technological environments that are too complex also stymie improvements to IT’s effectiveness, the report said. Organizations with yearly revenues of over $1 billion reported using more than 750 applications within their systems; such complexity impedes their ability to employ IT more strategically.

“In an increasingly competitive environment, companies must leverage every asset to gain an advantage,” said Gerrit Schutté, s.v.p. and c.i.o. at ConAgra Foods, Inc., and also as a member of GMA’s Information Systems Committee. “The IT function has the opportunity to be a difference-maker, but only if IT executives assert their team’s potential and focus on value-adding activities.”’

The GMA Information Technology Investment and Effectiveness Study can be downloaded at www.gmabrands.com/publications/GBE03087-USEN-00.pdf.

Supermarket News
By Elliot Zwiebach

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Decisions by shoppers to spend less and shift to lower-priced retailers to cope with rising food and gas prices “are capable of shaking the retail landscape and creating seismic shifts,” TNS Retail Forward, a consulting and market research firm here, said yesterday.

“Whether new patrons permanently adopt these retailers depends on how well retailers address the needs of their new customers and how well new patrons acclimate to shopping in less-familiar territory,” Putnam said.

According to Mandy Putnam, a vice president with TNS Retail Forward, retailers’ customer profiles are shifting — not just because they are gaining customers who are trading down but also because they are losing customers looking for more value-oriented channels.

According to TNS Research, 26% of shoppers said they are switching to retailers other than where they usually shop to offset high gas prices, including patrons of upscale and specialty formats, who say they are shopping less often to get better deals elsewhere.

A gaming and entertainment client engaged WKR & Company to assist them in the adoption of the new produce product identification system by creating a visual online catalog.

The client required that the system be accessible by thirteen properties. WKR & Company utilized the firm’s secure intranet to manage access. Then PMA’s ASAP Produce product identification system was loaded into our purpose-bulit online catalog along with image, storage information, description, preparation and recipes.

Now ordering of produce is systemized and streamlined. Click here (opens a new window) to view a sample of the Produce Product Identification System bulit by WKR and Company.

The Produce Traceability Initiative spearheaded by United Fresh, PMA and CPMA is off to a great start. The group’s Steering Committee of more than 30 industry leaders met January 9 in Atlanta, and concluded that systematic and consistent application of common standards across the supply chain is needed to enhance chain-wide traceability.

It’s clear from the committee’s discussion that now is the time to move aggressively to adopt a consistent industrywide approach to traceability.Committee Chairperson Cathy Green, chief operating officer, Food Lion LLC.

The committee reached agreement on four key elements for implementing industrywide traceability standards

1. The GS1 produce traceability standard should be widely adopted throughout the full produce supply chain
2. A formal industry timeline for adoption of standards is needed and will be developed
3. The committee will develop ways in which companies can best show their support and commitment to adoption
4. Traceability standards should be adopted at the case level initially, as the backbone of supply chain traceability, but companies should also move toward item-level coding as feasible.

Traceability is one of the most important issues facing our industry. It not only affects our nation’s health and security today, it will become increasingly more important as time goes on. Kent Rhodes, President WKR & Company

The joint news release issued by the three associations (opens a new window) is now available. In addition, United Fresh will soon post on there website the committee’s minutes as well as presentations and other guides and resources being used as part of this initiative.

Unicous Marketing, Inc. reports that Big Y Foods, Springfield, Mass., increased product sales numbers by as much as 71% with their EZ-PIC™ paperless coupon system.

Unlike a loyalty program, EZ-PIC requires no signup. The items are promoted in store via shelf signs as well as signage at the POS. The only effort of the shopper is to walk though the aisles and select products advertised by the EZ-PIC signs. Products in this program have automatic savings and the discount is electronically programmed into the cash register at the grocery stores.

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Revionics today announced that SUPERVALU, one of the largest companies in the United States grocery channel, has renewed their strategic partnership with Revionics. Revionics provides SUPERVALU retailers advanced, adaptable and affordable price optimization Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions via a weekly subscription model over the internet.

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