Interview with Gianfranco Iuculano, Sales Director, 20th Century Fox

Q: Why did you decide to work with BeMyEye?

A: There are many reasons that lead 20th Century Fox to choose BeMyEye. We were running a complex management and business performance project in collaboration with a consultancy firm called “GreenUp!”, and the service offered by BeMyEye was the missing piece of the puzzle we had been looking for.

As a business, we decided to fundamentally change the role of the traditional Key Account Manager/ Sales Manager focused purely on sales, into a role that focused on the effective execution of promotional campaigns. We call these new roles Sales Ambassadors. The nature of the Sales Ambassador meant that success was no longer tracked through pure commercial sales numbers.

We teamed up with a company specialising on in-store merchandising to carry out the operational setup of the displays. What BeMyEye enabled us to do is achieve higher standards of execution and compliance from this agency by monitoring their activities. To carry out such thorough checks across every location would have been operationally impossible using our Sales Ambassadors, cause unnecessary loss of focus and be very expensive. BeMyEye helped overcome all these obstacles.

Q: What kind of stores were you interested in checking?

A: We were interested in monitoring all types of stores where we had a presence across retail and electronics. Regardless of the store type or location, the quality of data and turnaround times from BeMyEye were always of the highest standard.

Q: What were the specific services that made you choose BeMyEye and what insights did you find the most valuable?

A: The first few days that follow the launch of a new product are extremely important for its long-term success. This is apparent across every industry, not just our one. High impact promotional periods supported by enhanced communications from retailers have a very short life-span, forcing companies across all industries to take the upmost care for effective in-store execution.

This is especially the case at the beginning and end of promotional campaigns, as they can amount for 60-70% of the total sales during the promotional cycle. With this in mind, the added value offered by BeMyEye can be summarised in clear and objective terms:

• Completion time of campaigns falls in line with the needs of the market
• Clear and actionable post-campaign analyses
• Tailored campaigns to my specific needs
• Quick briefing and drafting of messaging for their crowd of ‘Eyes’
• Exceptional geographical coverage always exceeded expectations
• Plug & play model: the simplicity of the service always satisfied the needs of the campaign
• Measurable business impact
• Cost-effectiveness (it’s impossible to achieve the same results even though other external resources for the same cost)

Q: How did you use the insights obtained through BeMyEye?

A: The data gathered has been used in many ways within the sales planning and in-store execution methodology, but mainly around the overview on distribution segmentation. We used the field information not only to make real-time changes to the execution at the beginning of promotional campaigns (pricing, execution, product placement, POP material) but the the data was also used to monitor the in-store activities carried out by our distributors.

As I said before, timely market execution is an important element for every industry, but for our products and the type of promotional strategy we run, it becomes a key factor in the overall success.

Q: Which were the main issues that were uncovered by BeMyEye?

A: Stores are complex ecosystems therefore its imperative we react quickly to the insights. The most prolific inefficiencies were: POP material not being implemented in-store, execution numbers not in line with the investments, wrong prices being displayed, missing products, and large stock-outs.

Q: Did these insights change your relationship with the retailers?

We usually share our execution goals with our retailers, and by getting real-time feedback on in-store compliance might be perceived as an element of distrust. The speed and efficiency of the campaigns allows us and our retailers to offer the best customer experience to the consumers, presenting them with the right product displays and product quantities in line with the promises made by promotional flyers or advertising campaigns.

These are critical when it comes to competing with online, and the retailers that understand such importance gain a considerable advantage against competitors.

Q: If corrective measures were taken have they influenced sales positively?

The speed and actionability of the data offered by BeMyEye is one of the key qualities of the services as it allows us to take corrective measures instantly. Unfortunately, for many reasons it’s impossible to measure the impact of these insights on the whole business. But what we can do, and successfully measure, is the effectiveness of the corrective measures in qualitative and financial terms.

The actionable information (clear, accurate and right to the point) on non-compliant stores identified by BeMyEye has generated measurable results in terms of: immediate restoration of the correct quantities of stock or right display (this has been translated in higher product availability at the launch of a product, resulting in 10-20% of sales that otherwise would have been lost had the corrective measures not have taken place); pricing and product placement strategy adjustments (In a renowned supermarket chain we found out that 30% of the stores were not compliant in terms of agreed share of shelves, due to bad communication with the retailer).

Through BeMyEye’s data we managed to get back the unused promotional budget for non-compliant or non-executed promotional campaigns and even more frequently the free repetition of said campaigns.