As TBWA/Raad launches Integer, the region’s latest shopper marketing agency, the discipline’s big challenge will not be shifting product but keeping clients focused on their brands

Originally published in Communicate, May 2010

Everyone’s getting into shopper marketing these days. OgilvyAction has been around for a while, and Saatchi launched its shopper marketing arm, Saatchi & Saatchi X, in October 2009. Last month, TBWA/Raad joined the fray, with the launch of a MENA office for Omnicom shopper marketing agency Integer.

More shopper marketing agencies mean more buzzwords from the discipline that brought us wobblers and danglers. At March’s Dubai International Advertising Festival, Simon Hathaway, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, waxed lyrical about “storeback thinking,” “the shopping cycle,” “destripping the store,” and “return on involvement,” before getting to the crucial question: “How will it play on-shelf?” Read the rest of this entry »