From 2004 to 2011 I worked in the wholesaler end of the beverage business. I started as the POS manager, and head graphic designer. Te company had a massive portfolio, and most of my time was spent creating POS for their "core" brands, who had the larger budgets. I developed close relationships with smaller local brand reps, who depended alot on us to manufacture their POS, as they simply didnt yet have the big dollars of other national brands. A certain few of these brands, with outstanding products, eventually became profitable investments, with national success, and worldwide recognition.
In 2008 I was promoted to the companies first reset team manager. I spent alot of time in the market developing databases, and reset planagrams. It was a difficult process. It seemed like there were dozens of new skus, (mostly micros, and imports) to add to the data base everyday, which is a time consuming, and lengthy process. It became frustrating as the majority of these skus to be added to the database had little or no information about them, and made it difficult to build a solid planagram.
I realized quickly, how fragile these new products in the market are, often being left out of planagrams alltogether due to the lack of data. It was then where the idea of building a unified space, using region, and category would not only make my job easier, more importantly, it would provide key information to the consumer, giving these otherwise unknown brands, a "fighting" chance to succeed.
Its no secret that this is a extremely oversaturated market. It can be an overwhelming experience, having to file through the plethera of products, trying to choose one, not knowing a thing about them. Brand loyalty seemed to be more out of convenience than anything else, so why not make the consumers experience a little more relaxed. Using a category, regional plan, along with the proper POS will allow the shopper to self educate, and perhaps become, somewhat of an enthusiast.
