Georgia-Pacific, the manufacturer of brands like Angel Soft toilet paper, Brawny paper towels and Dixie plastic utensils, is honing its retail marketing strategy to keep pace with the digital revolution.

Mike Feldman, Georgia-Pacific’s lead/retail media, discussed this subject in a session that was held at Advertising Week New York 2019.

And he reported that advertising on retail platforms such as Amazon.com or Walmart.com is an increasingly important strategy for the company.

“When I started at Georgia-Pacific four years ago, we were very heavy into shopper marketing. And … the people on that team were people that were comfortable with feature and display in-store,” he said. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: Georgia-Pacific taps advertising power of ecommerce websites.)

“Now, in this more modern world, feature and display is basically paid search on Amazon. So, it’s become more and more of a media push, especially with the high-frequency, relatively low-interest categories that we play in.”

In response to this shift, Georgia-Pacific has needed to recruit different talent than was the case in the past, as the inputs and outputs of its strategy are changing.

“The talent that we needed on the team needed to change. We needed people that were media experts, that were comfortable with the data and measurement, and [could] then apply it to our retail strategies versus going the other way,” said Feldman.

“We’ve been hiring media experts, and then we’ve been teaching them the retail aspects, because that’s been an easier learning curve than going the other way.”

The results of Georgia-Pacific’s advertising on e-commerce platforms, Feldman suggested, have been extremely promising to date – with further evolution also planned going forwards.

“My team in my role was created because we've continued to shift more investment towards these retail-media capabilities. And I think it’ll be a strong part of not only our shopper mix or our trade mix, but also our national mix as well,” he said.

Sourced from WARC