I've Missed You Australia

I’ve Missed You Australia

It was so nice to be back in Australia during July! Being previously based in Sydney, many of Green Purse’s clients are in Australia and it's a place I absolutely love! It’s been years since I was last in Australia due to the pandemic days, so this recent visit felt even more special. This trip was for my client, Land to Market, to support their expansion into the Australian market.

Below are some photos showing a visual recap of my recent trip. Some highlights include farm visits — meeting Aussie graziers and farmers that are working to improve environmental health through regenerative agriculture. We also met with companies looking to source materials (like meat, leather, wool, etc) and Land to Market verified regenerative products from the Land to Market member base. In addition to work, I managed to make time for spotting some pretty views and lots of delicious food & drink.

The Australian market continues to be a major focus for myself and Green Purse PR. We work with many of Australia’s leaders in agriculture, red meat, wine and honey. Australia has a lot to offer the world in terms of natural and organic products. I'm keen to help Australian companies be successful in the American market by helping them better understand the market and their consumers. Learn more about our experience with other leading Australian companies (like Meat & Livestock Australia) and research capabilities here and contact me if you're keen to learn more. 

- Lisa Mabe, CEO of Green Purse PR

---

Curious to know what American women think about products from Australia?

Watch this video Green Purse produced, featuring our shop-along research.

Making the most of the Fall + Halloween Shopping Season

Making the Most of the Fall + Halloween Shopping Season

I’m a big fan of using holidays (major holidays and even the so called made up marketing holidays) and seasons as a basis for planning your shopper marketing activities, in places like social media and inside stores. Have you thought of considering the Fall + Halloween season as a series of “mini events” in an effort to stretch out the season and create more purchase opportunities?

You may be tempted to think of some holidays as just a one-day events, but in reality most holidays are made up of several mini events that we can leverage in our shopper marketing. How many mini events can you think of for the Fall + Halloween season? Turns out, there’s a lot and some depend upon age and life phase. For example, to connect with parents of young children around Halloween season, here are just a few of the “mini events” (and buying opportunities) you can build shopper marketing around:

Build Shopper Marketing Around These ‘Mini-Events’ Leading to Halloween

• Home decorating (for fall and then again for Halloween) – 2 encouraging people to have the best house on the block.

• Pumpkin picking.

• Booing (and also the adult version, “boozing.”)

• Costume hunting.

• Trick or treating.

• School parties.

• Neighborhood parties (suburban.)

• At-home parties (pizza is super popular.)

My favorite from this list is booing. If you’re located in the USA and live in a suburban area + have young children, you probably know about this trend. According to a case study presented by Mars at the 2018 Shopper Marketing Conference, 7% of Americans currently participate in booing. For retailers located in suburban areas, this is a ripe opportunity just waiting to be picked.

When my house was “booed” last year

Some Halloween merchandising at Whole Foods Market

Fall door decor found at American’s homes

Here are some ways that retailers can connect with parents in suburban areas around the mini event of booing.

• In-store shopper marketing like end caps that invite shoppers to boo their neighbors. For a limited time, curate a special selection of products ideal for booing – boo bags, tags, candy. Because you usually only boo a few houses (we do two) and because you’re likely to boo peoples’ homes that you know well, you can encourage better quality, more expensive candy for these, than candy given out in much larger amounts for trick or treating.

• Educational signage that offers guidance on booing, why to do it and what to include in your boo bag.

• Host a Halloween prep in-store event one weekend sampling healthier candy and sweets options + educate on fun ways for families to celebrate the season.

• Website landing page and accompanying social media and email marketing driving people to a site all about making their boo bag the best on the block.

In fact, Green Purse PR creates an annual list of holidays, specifically for food companies. It’s called our Holidays List for Food Marketing. It’s a social media planning resource available here (stay tuned for the 2020 version coming out soon.)

Halloween merchandising at The Market inside The Twitter Building, San Francisco, California

Target’s Halloween section, Hyde and Eek!

Teal Pumpkin Project for Halloween at Target

Halloween signage at Target

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, Founder, Green Purse PR

Creating “Mini-Events” for Holidays + Celebrating Female Leadership | Recap from the Path to Purchase Expo

Creating “Mini-Events” for Holidays + Celebrating Female Leadership | Recap from the Path to Purchase Expo

I attended a shopper marketing conference and trade show, the Path to Purchase Expo, by the Path to Purchase Institute for the first time this year. It was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota during the first week of October and was attended by a lot of big consumer packaged good (CPG) brands, retailers, creative agencies, and technology service providers. The likes of retailers such as Walmart and Kroger, brands like Coca-Cola and The Clorox Co. and service providers like Volta and Aha!ogy were there. I noticed a few from the natural products industry – Organic Valley and the Fair Trade Association. There were a few from the meat industry as well – Hormel, Superior Farms (lamb) and the American Lamb Board.

I’ve been reading the Path to Purchase Institute’s trade publication, Shopper Marketing Magazine, for years, - I’ve even had my work featured in it before, but this was my first time attending one of their conferences and I’m glad I went. I attended mostly because I want to learn – learn what big CPG brands and mass retailers are doing to understand and connect with shoppers, both from a research and shopper marketing perspective.

While there, I also participated in the inaugural When Women Lead Symposium made up of other female leaders who work in shopper marketing. Helping to promote female leadership in my industry (the natural products industry) is naturally something I’m an advocate of. As a female entrepreneur and thought leader, I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to share my expertise with companies around the world on the topic of marketing to women.

Lisa of Green Purse PR participating in the When Women Lead Symposium. Photo source: Path to Purchase Expo.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with several clients that have female CEOs and leadership. In fact, nearly all of the clients Green Purse PR has worked with have excellent track records (in my opinion) of valuing the opinions of women and ensuring their voices are heard, recognized and celebrated at the highest levels.

One of the female leaders that immediately come to mind is Dalene Wray of OBE Organic, a leading organic, grassfed beef company from the Outback of Australia. Dalene works in a male-dominated industry – agriculture and meat, but is continuously ‘kicking glass’ as we like to say. She’s become one of the most recognized female voices in Australian agriculture and is now sought out and awarded for her unique expertise by Government and industry bodies. It’s not uncommon to find Dalene on a speaker panel or in a working group at an industry event in Australia, Hong Kong, New York City or Saudi Arabia where she is the only female on the stage sharing her voice. In addition to sharing her own voice in a big way, Dalene is a champion for others – for other women (like me,) for promoting diversity in general within Australian agriculture and also reconciliation for indigenous peoples of Australia. In fact, OBE Organic was one of the first Australian agribusinesses to adopt a Reconsilation Action Plan, a plan to create social change and economic opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through relationships, respect and opportunities.

Even though the CPG industry as a whole is mostly ran by men at the upper levels, we’re seeing more and more women take up leadership roles. I’m happy to have connected with a group of women and men here in the USA who are dedicated to helping create, encourage and celebrate female leadership across CPG, retail, and in my case, shopper marketing and the natural products industry.

Finally, I do want to share a few key takeaways that I learned from the conference portion of the Expo from my unique #GetInHerCart perspective.

I’m a big fan of using holidays (major holidays and even the so called made up marketing holidays) and seasons as a basis for planning your shopper marketing activities, in places like social media and inside stores. Some folks from Mars Wrigley Confectionery gave a presentation focused on the Halloween holiday and how to think of it in terms of several “mini events” in an effort to stretch out the season and create more purchase opportunities.

You may be tempted to think of some holidays as just a one-day events, but in reality most holidays are made up of several mini events that we can leverage in our shopper marketing. For example, Mars shared a case study for the current, 2018 Halloween season that’s in market right now. Companies like Mars are launching their Halloween shopper marketing campaigns as early as August now.

How many mini events can you think of for the Fall/Halloween season? Turns out, there’s a lot and some depend upon age and life phase. For example, to connect with parents of young children around Halloween season, here are just a few of the “mini events” (and buying opportunities) you can build shopper marketing around:

• Home decorating (for fall and then again for Halloween) – 2 encouraging people to have the best house on the block.

• Pumpkin picking.

• Booing (and also the adult version, “boozing.”)

• Costume hunting.

• Trick or treating.

• School parties.

• Neighborhood parties (suburban.)

• At-home parties (pizza is super popular.)

My favorite from this list is booing. If you’re located in the USA and live in a suburban area + have young children, you might know about this. The case study that Mars shared indicated that just 7% of Americans currently participate in booing. For retailers located in suburban areas, this is a ripe opportunity just waiting to be picked.

My house just got booed this week!

Some Halloween merchandising I noticed recently at a Whole Foods Market

Here are some ways that retailers can connect with parents in suburban areas around the mini event of booing.

• In-store shopper marketing like end caps that invite shoppers to boo their neighbors. For a limited time, curate a special selection of products ideal for booing – boo bags, tags, candy. Because you usually only boo a few houses (we do two) and because you’re likely to boo peoples’ homes that you know well, you can encourage better quality, more expensive candy for these, than candy given out in much larger amounts for trick or treating.

• Educational signage that offers guidance on booing, why to do it and what to include in your boo bag.

• Host a Halloween prep in-store event one weekend sampling healthier candy and sweets options + educate on fun ways for families to celebrate the season.

• Website landing page and accompanying social media and email marketing driving people to a site all about making their boo bag the best on the block.

In fact, Green Purse PR creates an annual list of holidays, specifically for food companies. It’s called our Holidays List for Food Marketing. It’s a social media planning resource we created for the first time for 2018 and we just released our 2019 edition. Click here to download our 15-page list of holidays for food marketing.

Halloween merchandising at The Market inside The Twitter Building, San Francisco, California

Target’s Halloween section, Hyde and Eek!

Teal Pumpkin Project for Halloween at Target

Halloween signage at Target

Lisa of Green Purse PR meeting with exhibitors at the show. Photo source: Path to Purchase Expo.

Lisa of Green Purse PR listening to one of the workshops. Photo source: Path to Purchase Expo.

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, Founder, Green Purse PR

Scenes from Natural Products Expo West 2018, Anaheim, California

Photos | Natural Products Expo West 2018

Take a behind-the-scenes look at the recent Natural Products Expo West 2018 trade show. As always, Expo West was a great use of time to connect in person with clients, colleagues and friends. 

Green Purse PR's Lisa Mabe at the entrance of Expo West

Nice to see so many GAP (Global Animal Partnership) rated products at the show.

Grass fed continues to be a big focus.

We LOVE this brand and this particular flavor of LaCroix!

Lots of Aussies at Expo West.

Representing some Kiwis from New Zealand too.

Made the social media visualizer board at Expo West.

Also don't miss this time-lapse video directly from the show. 

Good to be back in Sydney, Australia

Green Purse PR's Lisa Mabe Back in Sydney

It was so nice to be back in Sydney during June to speak at conferences and meet with some of Green Purse PR's clients. Being previously based in Sydney, many of our clients are in Australia and it's a place I absolutely love. 

Below are some photos showing a visual recap of my recent business trip. Highlights of the trip included speaking about marketing to millennial consumers at the Naturally Good Business Summit, and Naturally Good Expo / Fantastic Food + Drink Show. More on those trade shows + links to my presentations here.

While there, I toured some of the local grocery stores, and visited some of my old stomping ground. Have a look at some of the grocery stores we visited here:

• About Life in Crows Nest, Sydney

• Fourth Village Providore in Mosman, Sydney

• Woolworths in Crows Nest, Sydney

The Australian market continues to be a major focus for myself and Green Purse PR. Australia has a lot to offer the world in terms of natural and organic products. I'm keen to help those companies be successful in markets like the USA, Middle East and Asia. Learn more about our expertise and capabilities here and contact me if you're keen to learn more. 

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, Founder, Green Purse PR

Curious to know what women in the USA think about products from Australia?

Watch this video I produced, featuring our shop-along research, for the Naturally Good Expo.

Speaking Engagement | Lisa Speaking at SupplySide West, Las Vegas Sept. 26

We are excited to announce that Green Purse PR Founder & CEO, Lisa Mabe, will be a speaker at the trade show and conference, SupplySide West September 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

CPG manufacturers, marketers and formulators rely on SupplySide West when searching for their next innovative ingredient. More than 15,000 people will attend SupplySide West -- companies in the global dietary supplement, functional food and beverage, personal care, and sports nutrition industries to drive their innovation, growth and profitability, with input from purchasing, R&D, product development, executive management, marketing, compliance, supply chain management, QA/QC and more.

Lisa's session, How Millennials Are Transforming Modern Marketing, will focus on how health-conscious Millennials think, behave, buy and share. The session takes place Tuesday, September 26 at 9 AM.

For more details on the panel presentation, click this link. Also listen to this new podcast from Natural Products Insider where Lisa previews some insights on millennial women that she will share at the workshop at SupplySide West. 

Plan to join us if you are attending the trade show. If you are interested, but cannot attend the event in person, follow the dialogue online by using the hashtag, #SSWExpo. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaMabe and the conference at @supplyside both will be tweeting from the show.

Stay tuned on our speaker page for other upcoming speaking engagements. 

Photo Tour | Woolworths in Crows Nest, Sydney

I recently returned from a business trip to Sydney, Australia, where I used to be based. I was in town to speak at the Naturally Good Expo and Naturally Good Business Summit. While there I had a look at some of Sydney's grocery retail scene, including some of the stores I used to shop at when I lived in Sydney.

One of the stores I visited was Woolworths in Crows Nest. This 'Woolies' store just reopened in April 2016 after two years of major renovation. I shopped at this Woolies during my time in Sydney; last time I was here it was still being demolished. Now, $52 million later in redevelopment, it's a completely different store. Previously it was a very tired, soulless, one-level store -- the kind that's so unpleasant, you can hardly wait to get out of it. Now it's shiny, new and includes multiple-levels. 

Below are some photos I took of Woolworths located at 10 Falcon St, Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia.

Woolworths - Crows Nest, Sydney

Such a beautiful structure on the outside. Crows Nest is an adorable community, but it could use some updating. The new Woolworths helps modernise the community. 

Main level includes lots of grab & go options.

Spotted several products featuring the Australian Certified Organic bud, Australia's most recognised organic certification amongst Australian consumers.

This Thomas Dux corner on the first floor made me sad. I'm glad Woolworths still managed to let the brand live on in some form, but I'm disappointed that the stand alone stores no longer exist. Thomas Dux Grocer closed about two years ago. There used to be an outstanding Thomas Dux right around the corner from here; it's now a different store, called About Life. Read my blog post, photo tour of About Life here.

Stayed tuned here on our blog, #GetInHerCart, for more information on grocery retail and from our travels around the world as we speak at various conferences and conduct shopper research in different markets. 

Recap of Naturally Good Expo in Sydney, Australia

Download my presentations from Naturally Good Expo

I just wrapped up several days at the Naturally Good Expo and Business Summit here in Sydney, Australia where I spoke to some of Australia and New Zealand's leading natural products and retail companies. During the conference and trade show, I spoke about marketing to health-conscious women, mums and millennials. 

While the sessions were not recorded, I have published my presentations online (see form below at the end of this blog post) for you to have a look at, as well as the video that I produced for attendees of Naturally Good Expo. 

As you may already know, I've gotten to know the market here well (I used to be based in Sydney,) am here a few times per year, and am particularly passionate about helping market products from this region to overseas consumers, in places like the USA, Canada, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

For those focused on exporting, getting a good distributor and onto retail shelves or online is NOT enough to be successful in places where you have little to no brand awareness. My consultancy, Green Purse PR, works with companies in Australia and New Zealand to help them understand their shoppers (through our shop-along research) and work on public relations and social media marketing programs to connect directly with health-conscious shoppers.

We support clients with research, strategy and executing ongoing public relations programs. For those who may just be after some initial direction, ideation, training or feedback, we also offer consulting, including one-hour, virtual consult sessions to get you headed in the right direction. 

If you're keen to create more awareness and drive sales at retail or online, contact us. Happy to have an initial chat about our expertise and services, as well as learn where your products are sold, who your target consumers are and what we can do to help you engage with shoppers and drive sales. 

Please fill out this form for access to both of my presentations (Get In Her Trolley & The Next Generation of Shoppers) from Naturally Good Expo. If you are unable to fill out the form, email me at lisa {at} greenpursepr.com and I'll send directly to you. Cheers!  - Lisa, CEO of Green Purse PR

Get in Her Trolley | Presentation + Video from Naturally Good Business Summit

For those who attended Naturally Good Expo's Business Summit in Sydney, view Lisa's presentation, 'Get In Her Trolley,' and accompanying video below.

Fill in your contact information in the form below and press 'submit' to receive a link to our presentation.

We're happy to chat to you about the value of getting to know your female shoppers, in the Australian market, as well as in export markets like the North America, Middle East and Asia. Contact us to learn more about our shop-along research service.

Green Purse PR's Lisa Mabe to Keynote Naturally Good Business Summit in Sydney

Green Purse PR's Lisa Mabe to Keynote Naturally Good Business Summit in Sydney

We are excited to announce that Green Purse PR Founder & CEO, Lisa Mabe, will present the keynote address at the Naturally Good Business Summit in Sydney, Australia 2 June, 2017 at 9:00 AM.

The Naturally Good Business Summit is a growth strategy event that aims to push businesses to the next level. The one-day forum will fuel strategic thinking, business development and industry connections.

Lisa's keynote, Get in her trolley: Global insights for connecting with women shoppers, will cover:

• Looking into the shopping trolleys of women
• The importance of understanding how women shop
• How retailers and brands can engage women in stores and online

Women are the fastest-growing economy in the world, influencing 90 per cent of purchasing decisions and driving the global cultural shift towards cleaner, greener, healthier products for themselves and their families. If companies with healthy products want to succeed in this evolving marketplace, they must win with women.

But how do you influence purchasing decisions and what makes women choose one product over another? Who are the key segments you should be connecting with to sell healthy products? Attend Lisa's keynote presentation to find out.

For more details on the Business Summit, click here.

Plan to join us if you can. Otherwise, follow the dialogue online by using the hashtag, #NaturallyGoodExpo. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaMabe as she will be live tweeting from the event.

In addition to the Business Summit, Lisa is also speaking a few days later at the Naturally Good Expo. There, Lisa will discuss marketing to health-conscious Millennial shoppers. More on that here.

Lisa is CEO of Green Purse PR, a boutique research and public relations consultancy based Washington, DC. Lisa is an award-winning public relations expert with recognized expertise in social communications and marketing to women. Lisa has over 12 years experience working with leading companies around the world, including Australian companies like OBE Organic and Changing Habits. Lisa was previously based in Sydney, and is often in the region servicing clients throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Want to connect with Lisa ahead of the Summit? Contact her via this form.