Event Management

Anyone who's ever been involved with sampling and merchandising events knows that it's not just the products that make the impression, it's also the people handling them.

That's especially true when those employees don't show up or do what they're supposed to, regardless of what they write on their reports. Cerritos, Calif.-based Mass Connections, however, offers an accurate picture of what's really going on with its Accountable Tracking Process. The technology-based system monitors in-store events in real time, putting PIN-coded, branded cards in the hands of photo-identified workers who swipe them when beginning work, buying items for sampling and at the end of the shift.

We wanted real, direct transparency to provide accountability, improve execution and eliminate wasteful spending for brand marketers and retailers, says Caroline Cotten-Nakken, Mass Connections' president and CEO. This watchdog approach cleans up slippage and [helps meet] industry claims of ‘perfect' execution.

Mass Connections, whose clients include Winn-Dixie, SUPERVALU, General Mills and Procter & Gamble, has great appeal to consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. More recently, however, the biggest growth category has been private labels. And though the Accountable Tracking Process system has been nearly 10 years in the making, it's actually the perfect time for companies to sign on, Cotten-Nakken says.

Following 9/11, we started to see retailers and CPG companies get really interested in food safety issues, looking more closely at people and doing background checks, she says. They wanted to be more careful about who was coming into their stores and touching the products.

Then when the recession hit, a lot of people were saying, ‘We've got to figure out how to take the waste out, how to do it all for less.' From the financial side, people are saying that they want to confirm that they're getting what they paid for, and they want accountability.

Now, she says, they're only being billed for what really happens. They can see it, because it's so transparent.

At the core of Mass Connections' Accountable Tracking Process are debit cards, which take the place of two-party checks traditionally used for buying products to sample. Each worker is assigned an individual card, which can be activated, de-activated and loaded with funds from a central location.

We can have 20,000 people out, all swiping their cards, and our screen will be picking it all up, Cotten-Nakken says. It allows us to manage any exceptions out of the individual stores, since the system will flag them.

Take the case of an employee who is scheduled to work but who fails to report. Because there was no initial card swipe, Mass Connections can contact that store and say, ‘We know someone hasn't shown up for a sampling event' … and tell them we know someone else who is available. It was going to be Cathy, but now it's Susie. Susie's card is activated, and it's all done online.

On-site photos
In addition to real-time windows into on-site activities, the technology also allows the transfer of photos of displays and the workers actually doing the sampling, Cotten-Nakken says, and it can be done within 24 hours of the project, whatever we're contracted to do. It doesn't matter if it's Saturday or Sunday — our team can see it all in seconds.

In one case, she says, a retailer wanted photos of a display and the window signage from a weekend event. There were five different areas they wanted pictures of, and it was all uploaded by Monday.

One client recently told Cotten-Nakken that when they perform an audit or analysis for a display or in-store merchandising, they still expect slippage of 30 to 40 percent. Isn't that awful? she says. In this day and age, with the technology that's available? This is a big opportunity for retailers, and I'm excited about it.