Hall of Fame Profile: Amy Dragland-Johnson

Amy Dragland-Johnson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in March at a ceremony conducted in conjunction with the Shopper Marketing Effie celebration. The event was part of the Shopper Marketing Summit.Dragland-Johnson was inducted along with Dirk De Vos, senior vice president, commercial marketing, Heineken USA; and David VanderWaal, U.S. head of marketing, home appliances/consumer electronics, LG Electronics. De Vos was profiled in the March issue. VanderWaal will be profiled in the May issue.There are many paths to the Shopper Marketing Hall of Fame, but none have been quite as circuitous as Amy Dragland-Johnson’s. In college, she started out in pre-med/pre-law but wound up in finance. To work her way through school, she “smiled and dialed” as a phone rep and discovered an affinity for sales. She launched her business career in financial services but soon found herself in, of all things, supply chain replenishment, managing shipments from General Mills’ loading docks to hundreds of retailer warehouses.But no part of her path was as winding – some might even call it “miraculous” – as her first steps. As a newborn in Korea, Dragland-Johnson was abandoned in a cardboard box by the side of the road. She was rescued by policemen who brought her to an orphanage where only three out of 10 children are ever adopted. Luckily, her soon-to-be parents saw an ad from the Children’s Home Society of Minnesota in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and, even though they’d never even met a Korean person before, “decided to embark on an adventure that would change their lives – and mine.” Given her background, it should come as no surprise that two of her favorite words are “drive” and “determination.” She brought that outlook along to SC Johnson when she joined in 2006, helping create a shopper marketing function that she now manages across all U.S. accounts and brands. Bill Schober, the Path to Purchase Institute’s editorial director, met with Dragland-Johnson in mid-January at SC Johnson’s field office in Minneapolis.In 20 years of doing these Hall of Fame interviews, I’ve made it a point to steer clear of an inductee’s personal story. But in your case, it’s hard to separate your background from your career success. When did you first really learn about it?ADJ: Oh, my parents told me all about it, straight up, when I was very little. And those circumstances – yes, it might sound sad or tragic to people. But the way I see it, I’ve had a really great life, I was given a wonderful opportunity, and I need to make the best of it. And I hope to do something for others who didn’t have my opportunities. [Dragland-Johnson is a founding member of the Mentees and Mentors Korean Adoption program at Children’s Home Society of Minnesota.] But yes, it makes me a little different.Born under a lucky star?ADJ: No, but I do think I have a determination and a drive that is unmatched, based on my background.Dragland-Johnson works alongside team members Jenny Roesner (left) and Nicole Abramson (center), both shopper marketing managers, at SC Johnson’s field office in Minneapolis. How did you find your way into consumer packaged goods?ADJ: I went to Gustavus Adolphus College, which is in St. Peter, Minnesota, and majored in economics, management and communication studies. Initially I thought I’d go into either medicine or law, but I realized I had a skill set for selling and working with others. I helped put myself through college working as a phone sales rep at Fingerhut and Damark International. After school I went into finance initially at Prudential, but I found marketing and sales to be more interesting, so I moved on to The Pillsbury Co., where I started my career in sales as a customer manager. I was probably one of the youngest and one of the only females in my line of work at the time – which really wasn’t all that long ago, about 15 years. But I really had strong mentorship from the top at that organization, and to this day those people are still in my life.Many Hall of Fame honorees spent some time out in store aisles learning the business from the inside out. What was your experience?ADJ: I was a customer manager for 300 retailer customers at the time. I could handle that many accounts because we only sold a handful of shelf-stable SKUs – Progresso soup and Pillsbury cake mix – in certain stores such as Save-A-Lot, CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Target. We didn’t have email when I started, so I had a big book of business with a three-ring binder. The way it was structured back then, you really were a general manager and “owned” all facets of your business. You’d go out to your stores and walk them, making sure that all the marketing, trade and everything else under your purview happened correctly. When I look back, I think that having that GM experience very early on – right on down to making sure everything was delivered in a timely manner – set me up for future success.Sounds like Pillsbury set the foundation; what was it like at General Mills?ADJ: When Pillsbury was acquired by General Mills, I spent a year in supply chain/vendor management. Supply chain replenishment experience isn’t something that most shopper marketing people have, but I learned a lot there. But marketing and sales is my thing, so they found me a place in “promotion marketing,” which basically was their integrated shopper marketing organization. It served me well because I was able to work with different divisions – snacks, meals and Yoplait. Everything I did at that organization revolved around a consumer insight and the shopper mindset. I was working with world-class brands at Mills, and each campaign would have interesting, differentiated elements for each key retailer. Mills was ahead of its time, in terms of shopper marketing. I really liked the 360-degree, integrated approach to marketing, and that experience helped set me up for success.And then, in 2006, you moved to SC Johnson.ADJ: I came over to SC Johnson to manage shopper marketing for the Target account, but the thing was, we really didn’t have a shopper marketing structure at the time. My first challenge was to address what a shopper marketing organization should or could look like. The key, for me, was that our team was making headway at Target by showing them best-in-class shopper marketing examples. That, in turn, gave SC Johnson reason to believe that the organization should invest in this important discipline.“Shopper marketing is a grind. It’s a tough field. I think that the most successful people I know in this industry have grit.” That takes us to the eternal question – how do you define shopper marketing?ADJ: I think the essence of shopper marketing is connecting a unique insight for a specific shopper at specific retailers. It’s making sure that you can, through thought leadership, fulfill needs that your shoppers and retailers have with your products and brands by differentiating and customizing them accordingly. So that’s an elongated way of saying that we need to customize according to our shoppers’ unique tastes and preferences. A shopper shopping at Target may be a completely different shopper than when she is walking the aisles at a Home Depot or a supermarket or at a Walmart. You need to adapt to those shopper circumstances. It’s all dependent on her need state and how a brand fits into her life.Were there any key mentors along the way?ADJ: Well, let me just say that the senior leadership team here at SC Johnson has really believed in me, and that’s meant a great deal to me.How is shopper marketing structured at SC Johnson?ADJ: We have a field-based shopper marketing organization – a team of shopper marketers who are integrated into the various retail sales teams. We work with our brand teams to ensure we are aligning strategically with their brands’ strategies, providing our retailers with thought leadership, differentiation and innovation for their core shopper.What work at SC Johnson are you particularly proud of?ADJ: Shelly Sinas [director, customer engagement and shopper marketing, Pepperidge Farm] and I have worked together for nine years now on a partnership between our Ziploc home storage brand and Pepperidge Farm’s Goldfish brand. The first conversations were held just a week after I joined SC Johnson, and I was so excited that I could do something with Goldfish because it’s such a great, iconic brand. And I thought, “Well, this proposal should be easy. We’ll just print the Goldfish imagery on our Ziploc bags and both sell more stuff at Target – done!” And yet, Pepperidge Farm said, “No. This is never going to happen.”But then I talked to Shelly, who at the time was the team lead on the Target Pepperidge Farm business, and proposed that we just put Goldfish stickers on our bags – no printing. And she got an OK for that because it was seen as low-risk, low-hanging fruit. So we started out with Goldfish stickers on our packages and Ziploc coupons on their packages. But each year we went a step further: We did a print ad together; we did a joint Target circular ad; and then we emphasized FSIs and PFPs [Price Feature Plus]. I did not give up, and then finally, five years later, they said, “Okay, you can print our Goldfish on your bags.” It was a unique, limited-edition design created only for Target. We were able to sell in an incremental SKU from a Ziploc perspective on account size to Target and get incremental distribution. And we still hold that distribution and incremental space five years later. In short, it went from just putting stickers on stuff to incremental distribution of a SKU that never existed before.“This truly was a ‘partnership’ and not just another one-sided deal. I think a lot of people try to force-fit partnerships that really shouldn’t be together.”Why has it endured?ADJ: For two reasons. Number one, we both had to have influence within our organizations, and number two, this truly was a “partnership’’ and not just another one-sided deal. I think a lot of people try to force-fit partnerships that really shouldn’t be together. But here we have two great brands that should be together – you don’t need a $500,000 study to say that snack food goes in snack bags. So we sold a lot of Goldfish and a lot of Ziploc that we wouldn’t have sold except for this great partnership of the last nine years. We have really been a pioneer in this space, and I’m really proud for the organization.You also mentioned the Glade holiday program at Target.ADJ: One way that we distinguished ourselves at Target is by offering a limited-edition, exclusive SKU. And we’ve managed to sustain our presence on a dedicated endcap there for several years. But I think what’s made this so successful is that each year we add something unique to that brand and business at that retailer. And this year we really took it to the next level. We actually put that on our packaging and also had Target create a stand-alone endcap based on our unique SKU and limited-edition scent.Do you work on the P-O-P as well?ADJ: Yes – and for that brand, in particular, I would say it represents a best-in-class example of how P-O-P can be differentiated across all retailers and classes of trade and provide unique shopping experiences in the aisle. We oversee the creative and the agency, and we work in tandem with the brand teams, our suppliers and retailers, be it Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens, Family Dollar, Dollar General – everyone. It’s really an all-hands-on-deck approach to get that work done.Where does research fit in?ADJ: Everything we do is based on insights. We have a dedicated shopper and consumer insights team that mines data and works hand-in-hand with our brand teams, media and all functions to ensure that we have the right insight for the right objective. Our role is to take these insights to our retailers, share them accordingly and make sure that we’re activating them properly. One of the biggest insights we are marketing on right now is the level of emotion that is evoked by scent. Five years ago we were focused on different things with that business – odor elimination and form type. Today, if you look at our advertising, it’s about how scents connect people to positive emotions. When you look at what sells and what people care about, it comes down to one of two things: Either the brand connects with them on an emotional level or the brand is fun, vibrant and can make them laugh.Dragland-Johnson served as the ribbon cutter at the 2014 Shopper Marketing Conference & Expo, held in October at the Minneapolis Convention Center. What metrics do you value most?ADJ: That’s a challenge for everybody in shopper marketing. I’ve attended many a forum on the best ways to do it, but there’s no right formula. It all comes down to meeting a stated objective whether it’s household penetration or shopper conversion or something else. So it’s a confluence between our KPIs and, of course, sales.Where does digital fit in?ADJ: We are definitely investing a lot in digital, and it’s an increasingly important part of our function. Look at Millennials and how their needs, wants, tastes and preferences are already so different from my Generation X. They shop differently and want things in real time. Digital provides that 24/7. Those expectations must be met or your brand will be disregarded.What advice would you give somebody who is just breaking into shopper marketing?ADJ: Shopper marketing is a grind. It’s a tough field. I think that the most successful people I know in this industry have grit. They’re determined to drive innovation and they want to see ideas come to life, and they want to see things through.A lot of companies are forcing people to do a rotation in shopper as part of their full experience with the company.ADJ: I find that interesting because I think some people will wind up being resentful. Shopper marketing is challenging because people don’t understand it. It hasn’t been around for 100 years and there’s no traditional sales or marketing model. So there needs to be greater empathy for the function. But I encourage people to embrace the fluidity of shopper marketing. No day is the same, and you have to be ready for anything.

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