The most comprehensive conference for retail and FMCG marketers

People no longer buy brands, they join them. Nor is the path to purchasing products linear. Shoppers engage with their favourite brands across multiple touchpoints and occasions on their own terms.

Brands need to capture these customers when their intent to purchase is at its highest. They can only do this by putting the customer at the centre of their business and having technology infrastructure that allows them to serve the customer seamlessly across every touchpoint.

This is where the concept of headless commerce comes into play. Headless commerce decouples the customer experience from the back-end technology infrastructure enabling brands to deliver a truly customer-centric experience.

In 2018, Isobar created a white paper on headless commerce covering a wide range of areas within it and championing it as the future of transactional brand experiences.

Hear from Erik Hallander, National Managing Director of Isobar who will present the findings and more at the Mumbrella Retail Marketing Summit. He’ll speak about the context behind the emergence of unified commerce experiences, the limitations of conventional architecture approaches and the requirements of a headless commerce strategy and what the future holds.

According to Startup Muster, in 2017, around 25% of all Australian startups had revenue generated from export sales. Furthermore, 52.1% of those employed at startups where working in marketing. Whichever way you look at it, Australian startups are looking at overseas opportunity and they believe marketing investment presents a significant opportunity to achieve those goals.

Emma Evans, CEO of the award-winning Australian sparkling water brand, Capi, will join a panel discussion on how startups are successfully expanding into overseas markets in a world dominated by mass production and heightened competition. Evans will share the growth story of Capi since its rebrand in 2013, its focused expansion into Asia and how its decision to take much of its marketing functions in-house has transformed the business.

More panel members will be announced soon.

Retail Forecasts, produced quarterly, provides detailed analysis of current retail sales and consumer spending, and the important economic drivers which influence them.

More buoyant retail conditions in 2018 were supported by a rundown of household savings – an unsustainable trend. In 2019 will asset price declines and uncertainty spook consumers into moderating their spending?

In this session, Deloitte partner David Rumbens, author of Retail Forecasts, will present the ‘must know’ trends around retail in 2019.  Who will still have money and what will they spend on?

What other challenges and opportunities will retail marketers face?

Customer centricity has become a standard in retail marketing strategy. But going beyond customer focus, centricity, or even obsession is an absolute must. Relentless empathy can spur a culture of customer-first thinking and behaviour that will ultimately serve the end customer whilst greatly benefiting people, partners and providers.

Exploring best-in-class brands and retailers that display the practice of empathy to deliver successful results, Danny Lattouf, Regional Head of Retail at Ideaworks, part of VMLY&R, will pair that with macro and micro retail experience trends.

He’ll dive into the trends that are reinforcing the importance of honest understanding and explain the application of creative solutions in the context of those. Does your brand invest in using relentless empathy successfully? Find out here.

Digital ‘disruption’ is no longer disruptive – it’s the here and now. The most successful retail and FMCG brands share one common thread: they nurture consumer desire, and integrate experiences, across all channels.

They also have a deep understanding of consumer needs and use content as the conduit between brand, performance marketing, and commercial outcomes.

In this session, Matt Allison, Managing Director of Ubiquity Lab and former Head of Global Content Strategy at Bupa, will uncover what a sophisticated, customer-led, content ecosystem looks like, and how you can build it.

He’ll also give examples of how leading FMCG and retail brands use content to differentiate on the ‘why’ and how disruptive FMCG and retail leaders leverage utility to fuel growth.

If you have ever questioned having an owned media platform as the centrepiece of your engagement strategy, this is ‘must-see’.

While much is said and written about disruptive, young brands taking on the big players, how are legacy brands fighting back to maintain their relevance against the latest fads and shifting cultural trends?

For the 100-year-old Italian sauce brand, Leggo’s, growing consumer interest in other cuisines and the commoditization of the existing market presented a major challenge, with the brand failing to reach new and younger households in recent years.

Simplot’s GM Marketing, Suzanne Harman, will share how Leggo’s redefined its brand message to inject passion back into the category and drive sales – providing a timely reminder that a solid, well considered media campaign built upon a clear objective and simple idea, will outperform campaigns chasing the latest fad or media innovation.

Harman will outline how even in mature, cluttered and increasingly commoditized categories, there are still opportunities for brands to create new ownable ground, without having to radically move away from important category norms.

As consumers become increasingly interested in experiences rather than just possessions, Cotton On’s Group Head of Digital Customer Experience, Peter Hutchison, will share how the retailer has changed its online approach to better track the CX journey across the organisation’s eight brands, including Cotton On, Supre and Typo.

Hutchison will outline how the retail group aims to deliver on its four strategic pillars of improving customer acquisition, driving engagement, conversion and customer retention through its digital CX strategy.

After three years leading Marketing & Customer at Target, Kenton Elliot has had a big job helping to turn around the fortunes of the retailer. With more than 15 years experience as a global marketing leader, including working as the global strategy and innovation director for Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, Elliot will share the brand and customer-led thinking he has led to transform the retailer’s approach.

From putting the right team, processes and strategy in place, to having customer insights within his purview, and engaging his team in product design and packaging – Elliot will outline how customer data is used to develop better products, and how it informs the retailer’s marketing and communications efforts.

According to a Nielsen Global Corporate Sustainability Report, millennials represent the generation most willing to pay for brands committed to social and environmental sustainability. Further, in a book by the former global CEO of Havas and co-founder of non-profit One Young World, David Jones noted that millennials are “the most socially responsible generation that has ever existed”, providing a great opportunity for brands to build market share and loyalty among the millennials of today – and tomorrow.

This shift in consumer attitude is seeing more and more businesses starting up with a commitment to ethical retailing, while large consumer goods companies and retail groups are further developing their sustainability practices – including launching ethically-sourced product lines.

Julie Mathers, the former head of sales and marketing for Coles.com.au, GM online for Apparel Group and GM multichannel and technology at Masters Home Improvement, will share her story starting up what has now grown to become Australia’s largest vegan beauty and lifestyle store, Flora & Fauna.

Mathers will talk about her goal to run a best-in-class ethical business, underpinned by nimble, innovative retailing, with world-class business and customer metrics.

Mathers’ presentation will be followed by a panel Q&A.