Procter & Gamble and FCB RED Top The Hub Magazine’s 2015 Shopper-Marketing Report

April 27, 2015 | By Business Wire News

WESTPORT, Conn.

Procter & Gamble is once again ranked as the number-one brand marketer in The Hub Magazine’s Top 20, the eighth annual survey of excellence in shopper marketing. FCB RED is ranked as the number-one shopper-marketing agency. Results of this year’s Hub Top 20 were announced and winners presented with framed certificates at a celebratory dinner during Hub Live: The Retail Experience Symposium in New York City on April 23.

P&G, which ranked first in the first two years of the survey and again in its sixth year, has never finished lower than fourth. FCB RED rose from 10th place in 2013 and 5th place in 2014 to take the #1 spot.

The Hub Magazine compiles The Hub Top 20 in collaboration with the University of Tennessee by asking brand marketers and agencies to evaluate each other in 13 areas critical to success in shopper marketing, a rapidly growing discipline dedicated to serving shoppers and marketing brands at retail.

This year’s survey marked a significant departure in methodology relative to previous years. For the first time, The Hub: 1) confined participation to leading shopper-marketing executives by invitation only and 2) asked brand marketers to evaluate individual agencies on a numerical scale rather than a 1-2-3 ranking.

“This elevated the quality of responses significantly,” said Tim Manners, Founder of The Hub. “As a result, the breadth, depth and insights provided by these respondents to this year’s Top 20 report are far and away the best ever.”

Dr. Dan Flint, director of the Shopper Marketing Forum at the University of Tennessee, comments: “What stands out in this year’s report is that, primarily because of digital ubiquity and, specifically, because of the ways in which consumers and shoppers consume media and make purchase decisions, the market is moving exceptionally quickly. Consequently, what constituted ‘excellence’ only as far back as 2012 no longer suffices in 2015.”

In order, the other brand marketers in the Hub Top 20 are PepsiCo; M&M Mars; Unilever; Kimberly-Clark; Kraft Foods; ConAgra Foods; The Coca-Cola Co.; Clorox; Walmart; Campbell Soup Co.; The Hershey Co.; Hormel Foods; Anheuser-Busch InBev; Colgate-Palmolive; Samsung; Energizer Holdings; Nestle; T-Mobile and Mondelez (tie); and Johnson & Johnson.

The other agencies are Catapult; The Mars Agency; TPN, Geometry Global; Arc Worldwide; IN Marketing Services; Momentum; The Integer Group; Match Marketing Group; Twin Oaks; Saatchi & Saatchi X; Grey Group; TracyLocke; Collaborative Marketing Group; Blue Chip and Hunter Straker (tie); Upshot; Collective Bias; Alcone Marketing Group; and The Marketing Arm.

Complete Hub Top 20 results and analysis, co-authored by Dr. Flint along with Chris Hoyt and Nancy Swift of Hoyt & Company, are available online at http://hubmagazine.com/hub-top-20.