Is it time for Consumer Marketing and Shopper Marketing to merge?

You might think that this is a strange article for me to write. After all, I’ve spent the last decade or more championing the cause of shopper marketing. Is Mike about to tell us to abolish our Shopper Marketing teams? Well let’s see! There are many downsides from having a separate shopper marketing team, after all. And organizations need to evolve over time as the world moves on. So as a champion of the ‘shopper cause’ it seems to be a good idea to challenge the idea at least – to see whether it is still valid. Has the shopper marketing team had its day? Is it time to get rid of consumer marketing teams and shopper marketing teams, and just have one Marketing Team?

I was prompted to (finally!) write this by a couple of things. Firstly, an article written by Mark Ritson, arguing that Digital Marketing teams should be abolished. I agreed with Mark’s argument, so that got me thinking. If we can abolish Digital Marketing teams, why not Shopper Marketing teams? I then had a conversation with the President of a consumer goods client, who was arguing that he wanted his (consumer) marketing team to ‘own the brand all the way to the shelf’. He was seeking better accountability for the brand from marketing. Again – a good idea in my mind. I then had a conversation yesterday with the Sales Director of a large multinational, where that exact topic was being debated. He asked me my opinion on merging consumer marketing and shopper marketing teams, and this article is based on my response.

Why did we need shopper marketing teams in the first place?

To answer the question of whether consumer marketing and shopper marketing teams should be merged, it is useful to consider why we ever thought we needed shopper marketing teams in the first place. Shopper marketing became important as more and more marketing funds slipped into the store. The consumer goods industry began to realize that there was a difference between consumers and shoppers. And that if we didn’t understand shoppers, then it was likely that much of that money would be wasted. With better understanding of shoppers, and of how to influence them, it would be possible to drive brand sales and profit. As marketing teams were focusing more and more on the consumer, the shopper was often equated with retail, and therefore sales. Consumer marketers didn’t seem interested in shoppers, so businesses needed to create a focus on the shopper. They needed to nurture new skills rapidly. How best to create focus and nurture new skills? Create a team! And hence shopper marketing teams were born. And the rationale for creating Digital Marketing was similar. Digital felt a bit different – it needed focus, new skills, and dedicated resource. So, businesses set up Digital Marketing teams.

The downsides of having separate consumer and shopper marketing teams

There are many downsides to having separate consumer marketing and shopper marketing teams. The biggest challenges are in communication, focus and ownership (which is true of pretty much any organization structure!). As soon as you create teams, you create silos. Teams create their own culture, ways of working, and priorities. And that will inevitably create friction.

Consumer marketing and shopper marketing teams don’t always have aligned goals – consumer teams sometimes don’t take ownership of their brand at retail. Teams sometimes feel like they are pulling in different directions. And all those meetings! Whenever we create a new team, we seem to create more meetings!

Is it time to merge consumer and shopper marketing teams?

So, with the obvious downsides of having separate consumer marketing and shopper marketing teams, is it time to merge them? The answer, at least for most businesses I’ve worked with, is no: and here is why.

The original purpose of creating separate shopper teams was to build specific capability, and to create the business focus on shoppers. While arguably much progress has been made on the former, there is for many companies some way to go. But the biggest argument for keeping separate shopper marketing teams is focus. In most companies I know of, ‘shopper’ still struggles to get the share of voice it needs in the business. Business focus in on consumers and retailers – not shoppers. Research funds still skew heavily towards consumers. There are too many marketing directors who are dismissive of ‘shopper’. The risk of losing the focus on ‘shopper’ by removing the ‘shopper champions’ is huge.

And this is where the parallel with digital marketing disappears. One can’t imagine brands not using digital if there was no digital team: but I can certainly see ‘shopper’ disappearing from the lexicon in many organizations, if shopper marketing teams ceased to exist.

Addressing the organizational challenges of separate consumer and shopper marketing teams

This does of course throw up a challenge. If there are so many problems created by separating consumer and shopper marketing teams, what do we do about that? How do we ensure that, even if we have separate teams, that they are able to function effectively? How do we align, ensure appropriate focus, and ensure effective communication?

That’s a big topic, and it isn’t the purpose of this specific post, but here is a starter. The answer lies in an effective, integrated strategy. And the best way to create that? Follow our Total Marketing Process. When followed it enables full alignment across functions, guiding investment decisions and priorities. Communication is simplified by having strategic alignment too. If you want more details about how this works in practice, and how to make it work for your business, please get in touch.

There is no one-size-fits-all for consumer and shopper marketing

Every business is different. I know that there are a very large number of businesses which have seen huge success with a merged consumer/shopper structure. It seems to me that the merging of consumer marketing and digital marketing teams makes sense: the same isn’t true for consumer marketing and shopper marketing – certainly not for everyone. If you are still unsure about how to structure your organization, please get in touch. And whatever your structure, don’t forget the Total Marketing Five Step Process – I guarantee it will make a difference.