Graco 2013 Annual Report Download - page 15

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Newell Rubbermaid | 2013 Annual Report
support for key home center customers. This has allowed us to increase
store coverage, thus driving better results.
The Furious Five promotional campaigns were a big win in 2013.
What’s the strategy behind them?
We initiated Furious Five because we saw an opportunity to offer
shoppers key solutions throughout the year with Newell Rubbermaid’s
products. To do this, we built quarterly events around consumer
behavior — The Super Bowl and Projects Made Possible in the fi rst
quarter of the year, Summer Entertaining in the second quarter,
Back-to-School in the third quarter and Holidays in the fourth quarter.
These Furious Five events resulted in an incremental $50 million in
sales. Our shopper marketing team helps develop insights and then
Customer Development
leverages this intelligence to create marketing campaigns for the
benefi t of both Newell Rubbermaid and our retail partners. We believe
the shopper marketing approach demonstrates a fresh way of thinking
about discretionary consumer products that distinguishes our brands
from competitors’.
How has the new Customer Development organization been
received thus far?
Although we still have a lot to accomplish, the Customer Development
organization has been well-embraced thanks to a strong leadership
team and good fi eld selling professionals. The new organization has
received enthusiastic support throughout the company, and the suc-
cess of efforts such as Furious Five has attracted the attention of
customers as well. In 2013, we were named Partner of the Year by
The Home Depot, Vendor of the Year by Babies “R” Us, Supplier of
the Year by Walmart, and both Supplier of the Year and Power Tool
Brand of the Year from the PRO Group — a national buying group
comprised of regional hardware distributors. In addition, we saw a
43 percent improvement in our results versus last year from the Kantar
Retail PoweRanking® benchmarking survey, in which retailers rank
manufacturers. This was a good step forward!
What are your priorities for 2014?
We are focused on exceeding our business targets by gaining market
share and deploying our portfolio to new channels. To assist these
efforts, we will leverage our expanded distributor sales team, increase
our shopper marketing programs and use our new category manage-
ment capabilities, while continuing to explore ways to improve our
trade spending return on investment. In addition, we plan to accelerate
our growth in e-commerce by working with all of our customers to
optimize this tremendous opportunity. We are also working to extend
these strategies and capabilities globally, starting fi rst in Australia
and Canada. Our strong 2013 U.S. sales growth of 3.2 percent, despite
tough macros, gives us confi dence that we are on the right track and
that the Customer Development team can be a key driver of the
Growth Game Plan.
Our successful Furious Five promotion in 2013 resulted in an incremental
$50 million in sales.