Praise vs. Flame

Goodman Fielder broke cover on a plan to combine trade and marketing budgets in April ’23, while handing a larger chunk of responsibility for retail media planning and spend to agency Initiative.

At the time CMO Christine Fung said the firm’s sales function would retain responsibility for its trade budgets and targets, but that “planning and strategy sits with us [marketing] – and now Initiative … so we are spending holistically”.

How has that panned out?

“It’s definitely been a learning exercise for everyone – how the process works, keeping all stakeholders looped in. That’s not done and dusted, because it’s a new way of doing things. But we have definitely started to make inroads.”

Is it delivering?

“We can see a future where the investment in the process is going to pay back.”

Streamlining required

With sales, marketing and activation, agencies and retailers all needing to align, “streamlining” has been part of the learning curve.

“Starting off, there were multiple people for different campaigns, multiple people working on different parts of the portfolio – and that became confusing. So we’ve streamlined that down to single touch points. To its credit, Cartology is moving that way as well, so we can be more singular in who we speak with for key categories,” says Fung.

“I think that’s probably the thing: Just knowing who and when to pull into each conversation and making sure that we don’t lose the customer engagement piece,” she adds.

“Plus making sure that we’re still getting all the fantastic ideas on the table from a workshopping point of view – in terms of what that activation calendar is going to look like; what are those key things that we’re going to work on together to drive growth into the categories?”

Investment splits

Initiative doesn’t handle all trade spend, with the commercial buying team negotiating with Cartology and Coles 360 on some aspects – like off location displays, i.e. the physical shelf extensions that are “super important in driving a lot of awareness and stock weight,” per Fung.

“What Initiative will handle is all the stuff that is actually purchased through Cartology and Coles 360”, she says, with Goodman Fielder also working with Metcash.

“Initiative is looking holistically at our key objectives and the best way to get there in terms of channel splits. Then they will recommend whether the trade spend we are cycling is enough, or whether they believe that trade investment needs to be topped up because those channels are doing a better job of reaching who we need to reach,” says Fung.

“They’ve been doing a pretty fair job of doing that.”

Has the overall quantum invested into retail media increased over the last year?

“I wouldn’t say it has significantly increased. It very much depends on category.”

Fung is perhaps reluctant to state categorically that Goodman Fielder’s approach and investments have delivered the incremental growth and efficiency touted by retailers. But implying that there is more juice to squeeze keeps all parties on their toes.

“We still believe that this will be the most efficient way to plan and develop holistic media strategies,” she says.

Data tax

When announcing the plan to centralise trade and marketing investment through the line, Fung flagged “robust and comparable” measurement and reporting – plus access to actionable data that doesn’t carry an exorbitant price tag – as “probably the biggest thing we all need to lean into.”

Who drives standardisation of retail media locally is up for debate, with Cartology not convinced a “one-size-fits-all” approach and currency will cut it given category nuances.

Either way Fung says the retailers “are clear on what we’re looking for … they are definitely saying they are working on it”.

Is she confident of obtaining reasonably priced data from the major players within the next 12 months?

“I’m not confident, to be honest. But I do still believe they have some of the best targeting and segmentation capability in the market. So I guess ‘reasonably priced’ for us is relative.”

Full funnel?

Both Cartology and Coles 360 are doubling down on retail media “collapsing the funnel” as they aim to take a greater share of brand dollars.

Can retail media genuinely deliver both longer-term brand building and immediate lower funnel sales? Fung said Goodman Fielder’s early findings – working via Kantar’s brand growth framework – suggest for some categories double duty is possible.

“It’s not cut and dried that retail media is purely lower end short-term performance,” she suggests. “We absolutely can see that, in some categories, it plays back into longer-term brand equity in the same way that our packaging and recognition on shelf does long-term brand equity job.”

Effectiveness, MMM

Fung said Goodman Fielder’s top 2025 marketing priority is its marketing effectiveness framework.

“Our core focus is making sure we’re linking all of our efforts back into that framework and the way that we manage brands for growth – and that we’re measuring them properly.”

The firm is reviewing market mix modelling providers to support that work, with two left in the running. But Fung acknowledges the drive for efficiency and precision presents its own challenges.

“The biggest watch-out is that we don’t kill creativity with over-measurement.”