Within the CPG industry, competition among brands and retailers remains fierce; a battle royale is taking place between in-store and e-commerce, and the industry is continuously buffeted by trends such as recession, changing shopper preferences, inflation and supply chain issues. Operating with razor-thin margins, brands and retailers need the highest quality data and analytics to create the insights necessary to navigate these challenges.
Revolutionizing an Industry
Founded in 1979, IRI is a leading provider of data and analytics to the CPG industry and its data, reports and subject experts are highly trusted and respected. Starting around 2005, IRI began to beef up its external marketing activities, increasing its internal team and bringing in UPRAISE for additional creative support and execution.
Between 2005 and today, IRI has enjoyed dramatic growth in terms of markets served and solutions offered. It has expanded from its original business of focusing on manufacturers to support retailers and marketing teams both within brands and retailers as well as their agencies. It has dramatically grown the data sets it makes available to clients from simply point-of-sale (POS) information to a wide range of performance and other relevant data, such as weather and traffic information.
IRI revolutionized the CPG industry by introducing IRI Liquid Data, which has grown to be the industry’s most advanced and most utilized planning and activation platform. It includes hundreds of integrated data sets to supplement clients’ data sets.
Spreading Our Wings
Brands, retailers and agencies turn to IRI for strategy and execution for an enormous range of activities, from identifying potentially high-value shoppers and spotting market niches ripe for new product introductions to developing approaches for embracing e-commerce and much, much more.
To demonstrate IRI’s range of expertise, support new business development opportunities, and continuously strengthen the IRI brand, UPRAISE recommended embarking on an ambitious program of placing IRI subject experts as speakers at relevant conferences. We dramatically expanded from focusing on manufacturer/brand conferences to including retail, media and technology-focused events.
Setting the Standard in Subject Expertise
UPRAISE initiated the speakers’ program in 2008. Since then, it has grown to include acceptance at roughly 150 conferences yearly, involving more than 50 IRI subject experts.
IRI speakers have become so well known that many conferences contact UPRAISE or the speakers directly to request their participation. And, multiple IRI subject experts have reported either closing new deals or moving existing deals forward as a result of their presence at conferences.
Currently, UPRAISE is working with IRI’s new Director of Event Marketing & Sponsorships to more strategically determine which conferences the company should expand engagement through sponsorships and related activities.