Ignite Joe Public are proud to announce the launch of its latest Shopper Marketing division, which is expanding the specialist agency's integrated offering.

From strategic thinking to strong channel and category growth-driven concepts and executions, Ignite Joe Public differentiates its offering in the marketplace with a unique Shopper A-B tool. It’s a robust strategic toolkit that considers the three shopper marketing stakeholders: brand, shopper and retailer. Having specialist partners within the Joe Public group means that the agency can tap into various resources, from packaging design to digital, essential to delivering effective shopper marketing results.

Brands can’t afford to ignore shopper marketing. A recent USA study conducted by the Grocery Manufacturers Association concluded that brands investing in shopper marketing grew by up to 50% ahead of the category.

In the current economic climate people are not as loyal and a brand’s strategy is not complete without taking both the consumer and shopper’s behaviour into consideration. The path to purchase and a shopper’s behaviour can change daily and almost every time they shop. This is as a result of changing consumer needs, consumption occasions and trip missions in a dynamic and evolving market environment.

Ignite Joe Public’s Shopper Toolkit works to identify the nuances and differences in shoppers’ behaviour across shopping trips in order to target where and how to have the most influence. This is critical to ensuring your brand is in the consideration set and selected by more shoppers.

The new division is headed up by shopper marketing specialist, Michaela Murning. Bringing over 20 years of marketing experience, Michaela has worked in customer and brand marketing for Unilever, as marketing director for Reckitt Benckiser and having led her own shopper, brand and innovation consultancy, she is regularly invited to share her knowledge of shopper behaviour, retail and shopper trends at conferences.

“A brand and category growth strategy is not complete without considering shoppers and their first moment of truth (a phrase coined by A.G. Laffley of P&G), i.e. that moment when a shopper selects a product off the shelf. And if their path to purchase and behaviour is open to change with every single shopping trip (as we know it is), brands have to carefully consider where and how they speak to shoppers to secure more purchases,” said Ursula McDonald, managing director of Ignite Joe Public.

Ignite Joe Public has already successfully serviced clients with shopper marketing campaigns, including Clover’s Manhattan Ice Tea and Merck’s Iliadin – a local campaign so successful, it has been adapted across global markets.

Ignite are excited to offer its clients strong shopper marketing capabilities, which are strategically led, and insight-driven. “Our Ignition thinking philosophy is how we make the shoppers’ moment of truth more exciting, compelling them to choose our clients’ brands, whilst adding real value to the brands we grow,” says McDonald. “By helping clients to understand the role that shopper marketing can and should play in brand success, we can continue to deliver sustained growth to our clients’ bottom lines.”