FMBE winners 2022: Most Effective Retail Experience/ Sales Event
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This was one of the hardest fought categories and saw the judging panel split between two popular choices for bronze and silver. One comment noted that the depth and variety shown through the top four indicated a real renaissance in retail experience post-COVID.
BRONZE – Link Communication – CleanCo
Link Communication has dominated this category in recent years, and it isn’t hard to see why. For years Link has been the leader in accountable sampling excellence at retail.
This campaign for Clean Co showed innovative store selection coupled with easy set up sampling that made impactful events possible in more stores in less time via store twinning. The brand is making its name in the non-Alcoholic spirits sector and sampling has been used to overcome price point and taste inhibitions. Results impressed our judges but are not for publication.
SILVER – Backlash – Beauty Pie
All judges loved the vivacity of this pop-up store for an online brand. It made an even bigger impression by winning Gold in the Immersive Events category.
SILVER Fizz Experience – Aspire Drinks
This was an exceptional campaign for energy drink company Aspire at wholesaler Costco that was so successful with Costco members that it contributed to a first Costco US listing for the brand.
The Fizz team really impressed with attention to detail and a focus on the value brought to Aspire by pre-event training and post event surveying brand ambassadors. The post event survey meant that valuable insight was brought back to the brand as well as sales uplift.
Fizz’s entry also showed how detailed accountability has led to increased impact per demo day from 2021 to 2022, with a consequent uptick in sales year on year.
GOLD – Fusion – Kia
This Electric Experience was heralded as an outstanding winner with Fusion helping Kia to launch the EV6 with dealership invitationals at a time when footfall and the market had been spun into COVID freefall and was looking for ways to recover.
The entry centred around a new digital sales event tool developed by Fusion. Fusion CORE brought the convergence of ATL media, regional marketing, and localised retailer recruitment into one portal. It was utilised by trained brand ambassadors for both informed selling and live reporting. It meant the campaign was national through 190 dealerships but nuanced locally.
The resulting personalised customer events saw 10948 attendees, 5877 Keep in Touch requests, 1520 orders paced and then a further 278 sales seen via customer tracking through the next 4 weeks a cost per sale of £667, a figure that is way below the industry norm.