The Promotion Optimization Institute (POI), the leading resource for trade marketing and merchandising executives, announced today registration is now open for “Collaborative Marketing - Committing to Customer Relevancy” summit from April 14 -16, 2013 at the Embassy Suites Chicago in Rosemont, Illinois. The POI Spring Summit is geared towards sharing with retailers and manufacturers the best practices for increasing profits through collaborative marketing and optimizing promotions.

“The POI Summits are more than a conference and have become a celebration of the best in process, people skills, leadership, and technology from headquarter strategy and predictive planning, through sales, course correction, and trading partner analytics.” said Michael Kantor, CEO of the POI. “The 2013 POI Spring Summit is the strongest agenda yet, and is specifically tailored for executives responsible for pricing, trade marketing, category management, retail marketing/merchandising, IT, demand planning, sales leadership, loyalty or promotions.”

The three day summit will kick off with a joint keynote from Dale Hagemeyer and Don Scheibenreif, both vice presidents of Gartner, titled “'Me' Marketing: Get Ready for the Promise of Real-Time, Context-Aware Promotions in Consumer Goods”. Hagemeyer and Scheibenreif will describe the future where grocery shoppers will get personalized real-time offers while they are in store, powered by context-aware computing. They will also lay out the ecosystem for this future, the associated benefits and risks, and what retailers can do to get ready for it.

7-Eleven’s Tom Burkemper, senior director of Merchandising, will follow with his general session presentation on "Collaborative Cultures and Strategies that Work". Burkemper will describe how collaborative marketing is helping manufacturers and retailers to align their strategies, systems, processes, and people to provide the best value to shoppers/consumers. On day three of the summit, Craig Brinkman, finance manager of Global Trade Funds for Procter & Gamble, will deliver his general session presentation on “Chicken or Egg- which comes first: standardizing the processes or moving to a standard system”. In addition, John Buckley, director of Integrated Business Planning for Kraft Foods, will deliver his presentation “Transforming Sales & Operations Planning into a Competitive Advantage” also on day three.

The POI spring summit is chalk full of numerous educational sessions including “Utilizing Available Tools/Data to Course Correct Product Promotional Mix and Improve Profitability” presented by Jeff Rogers, president of Physicians Formula Cosmetics and “The Next Steps – Premier Foods Applies Lessons Learned Towards Achieving TPO” presented by Trevor Barrett, logistics manager of SAP. The entire agenda is available at the POI web site.

Attendees will leave the three day summit knowing:
1. How to achieve greater promotional outcomes through improved collaborative capabilities
2. Mobile strategies to reach shoppers with targeted offers where they want to be reached
3. A clear understanding of how TPO and Predictive Analytics drives trading partner results
4. Effective pricing/promotion strategies refined through better use of data
5. How to integrate the supply chain with your promotional results and shopper loyalty
6. To what extent a shared responsibility on retail execution improves mutual results
7. How trading partners can get started with collaborative marketing strategies and the benefits of execution
8. How the Certified Collaborative Marketer™ builds skills and results across teams

Registration
Manufacturers and retailers can register now by visiting the registration page for “Putting a Stake in the Ground for TPM-TPO and Collaborative Marketing”. The POI Summit is close to capacity.

About the Promotion Optimization Institute (POI)
POI brings together manufacturers, retailers, solution providers, analysts, academics and other industry leaders. Members of POI share cross-functional best practices in both structured and informal settings. Additionally, members benefit through our industry alliances, the Certified Collaborative Marketer (CCM) ™ curriculum and certification, industry leadership events, and the Promotional Collaboration Capability Matrix (PCCM). POI aims to instill a financial and metrics-based discipline not typically found with other trade groups. The goal of our innovative approach is collaborative promotion optimization. The focus is on the customer/shopper through sales, marketing, and merchandising strategies. POI is based in West Nyack, New York. To learn more about the POI including how to participate in research, how to register to attend or sponsor events, and how to engage with leaders on the CCM, visit www@p-o-i.org, or email info@p-o-i.org.

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The Certified Collaborative Marketer (CCM) ™is a trademark belonging to the Promotion Optimization Institute. All other trademarks are the property of their registered owners.