Grocers Geek Out Too

At the National Grocers Association convention this week it was clear as an Aspen stream… Grocers definitely have their geek in the “ON” position.

Twitter came up in every marketing oriented session I was in. The Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-Cola North America was really getting poked and prodded over mobile’s effectiveness. At one point the CEOs of IGA and Conrad’s were talking about tweeting each other.

Loyalty cards… The take away here is there’s a right way to do these. Everything else is just some variant on a license to spam. There’s a move on to tie these to your phone, your OpenID… lots of things.

“Green”, “local” and “sustainable” were huge. From bags/totes to veggie wash to enviro-friendly containers.

Coupon use is expected to really outperform. High expectations on the digital side of that equation. Some neat concepts floated on the exhibition floor.

There were two standouts though. The first was the Pan Osten self checkout station. Guys, this is a unit Jordie from Star Trek would absolutely jam on. There was a competition to see who could go (accurately) from basket to bagged in the fastest time. The best time was in the 1 1/2 minute range. It was a LOT of fun and proves self-checkout IS doable and very reliable (even at full speed).

The other cool thing I saw that really stood out was ShopToCook.com This is a KILLER kiosk system. You go into the store with NO LIST… & it helps you id your entrees, deserts, whatever and prints your shopping list as well as where to find items on the store aisles. Pretty slick stuff.

Lots of new products introduced. But the sad news there is all the industry intel is saying in this economy people are sticking to what they know and are either buying in smaller unit sizes (6 packs as opposed to 24s) or in bulk when it’s on sale (cases of tomato soup as opposed to individuals).

Was a ton of fun and am looking forward to going back on ‘010

---