It’s hard to believe that nearly a decade has passed since we launched Integrated Marketing Services as the marketing services division of Advantage Sales and Marketing. We’ve been very busy during this timeframe, executing over 10,000 programs and earning a place in the top 10 of the Promo 100.

At the time, Advantage was — and still is — the largest sales agency in North America. Some of our sales clients were coming to us for information about retail formats and then using that information to create programs with their marketing agencies, who themselves lacked a linkage to sales.

We realized that this knowledge was critical to building successful shopper-marketing programs. Since no one possessed more knowledge than we did because of our sales agency expertise and access to data, we could grow creative capabilities and compete in this space ourselves. We could leverage brand, retailer and shopper insights to really link sales and marketing teams together.

As Integrated grew, we made a few strategic acquisitions of companies specializing in areas such as custom publications, event marketing, and in-store execution — all falling under the umbrella of turning shoppers into buyers either in a retail setting or along the path-to-purchase. This has enabled us to offer clients a comprehensive suite of shopper-marketing services, delivering greater synergy and consistency across tactics, more executional control, and more efficiency.

The shopper-marketing agency/client relationship is evolving to a point where one size doesn’t fit all. Some clients are highly evolved in shopper marketing and some are just trying to learn. We understand that every client needs a different range of support depending on that client’s level of involvement and how much of the process it wants to own.

Our services begin at a basic level, which includes the planning and execution of events. But our services extend to that fully-integrated relationship where the agency acts as the client’s shopper-marketing strategic interface with the field sales organization, the retail buyer, and the marketing department.

That flexibility allows us to evolve with our clients as they continue to evolve in shopper marketing. In fact, for some clients we’ve innovated completely new service models. About a year ago, GlaxoSmithKline made a huge decision to reposition 17 of its non-strategic, yet profitable, brands around everyday value.

They told us they were interested in outsourcing the brand and sales functions of these brands to operate them more profitability and free up resources for other initiatives. So, we built a completely dedicated team of marketing and sales associates that serve as their fast and flexible, self-contained, sales and marketing unit.

We manage every aspect of these 17 brands. We define the value proposition. We do the packaging. We plan the shopper and equity-building executions. We lead their cross-functional teams through the advertising, communications and packaging development efforts. We even manage the brand P&Ls.

This ability to evolve and adapt to our clients’ needs and stage of growth exemplifies our passion for client service. When you meet someone from Integrated, you really feel that passion for client service excellence. You realize that we are willing to go that extra mile to do what the client needs and that we won’t be satisfied with delivering anything less than excellence to our clients. Integrated was founded on that client service mentality and that same spirit is the cornerstone of our business today.

Integrated Marketing fosters a dynamic, entrepreneurial culture built on teamwork and mutual respect. You can feel the passion, the collaborative spirit, and the client service mentality throughout our hallways. You can feel it whether you’re in our creative hub in Norwalk, Connecticut, our headquarters in Southern California or any of our satellite offices across the country.

Whether you are an entry-level associate here or the most senior-level associate, if you come up with a breakthrough idea, it’s like a Montessori school: you have the ability to build that idea. That’s one aspect of our culture I’m particularly proud of. You truly control your own destiny at Integrated.

Our agency will continue to evolve by expanding services to new clients and channels. Consumer electronics is a big part of our field-marketing business and we’ve recently followed suit by adding shopper- marketing clients that compete predominately in the consumer electronics and office-supply channels.

We will also develop new capabilities. We talk a lot about “practical innovation” here at Integrated. Rather than tasking ourselves to create the next big thing, we examine different disciplines and service models and contemplate how small tweaks might make meaningful differences.

We try to think like the pilot who looked at his suitcase and said, boy a couple of wheels would make this easier to haul. This, after all, is the same thinking process that inspired us to create a customer-centric agency model. It’s the same one that drove us to approach in-store sampling events differently by using direct labor, better calendar integration and branding opportunities. It also led us to turn the classic brand management model on its head at GSK. This is really what has been responsible for our growth and you can expect more of it from us in the future.

As a part of our expanding capabilities, we have committed dollars, resources and personnel to a dedicated planning and insights function we call the “Customer Integration Team.” This division acts as strategic consultants, providing support to field teams as they engage in program development across all classes of trade. 

We operate through a proprietary, three-step model: INtelligence, INtegration and INmarket effect. For the first step, the team explores the business issue at each customer and consistently connects brand with customer insights to identify the shopper sweet spot. The team then collaborates to ensure it is carried throughout the conceptual, creative and customer activation processes. 

As a final step to understand and amplify in-market effectiveness and efficiencies, programs are evaluated with the goal of making each more successful than the last. This is an important step of the process as we work closely with our clients to understand the best way of measuring their return-on-investment and program success.

We have shown our dedication to strategically-sound programming through our investment in resources ranging from syndicated sales data to consumer survey data to the most current retailer information.

In addition, our Customer Integration Team develops proprietary resources on a regular basis to help arm our clients with competitive insight, current trends and industry developments. This department, and our strategic approach, provides us with an edge in an industry where relevant shopper-centric programming is necessary to maintain a leadership position.

While there are suddenly scores of agencies practicing shopper marketing, our experience and scale sets us apart. We are the only agency offering a comprehensive set of buyer-focused solutions from custom content, to in-store demos, to field events, which can be leveraged to execute 360-degree campaigns with maximum efficiencies, executional control, and communicational consistency.

Every agency produces great ideas. But I believe that because we have grown organically from within a retailer-focused organization and were developed specifically to be a world-class shopper-marketing agency, we have the best understanding of sales and marketing practicalities. We have the best retail data, relationships and knowledge through which to strategically filter our great ideas. This makes us the best at serving up programs that “close the sale” with all stakeholders so that they can, in turn, “close the sale” with shoppers. After all, the point is purchase.