Wal-Mart, Church & Dwight, Food Lion, SUPERVALU and Procter & Gamble Set to Headline The Nielsen Company’s Consumer 360 Conference

The Nielsen Company today announced the agenda for their annual Consumer 360 (www.consumer 360.com) event to be held May 15-17 at the Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood, FL, which features a lineup of leading industry executives. This conference is the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry’s premiere educational and networking event, attracting over 1,000 industry professionals each year.

This year’s theme, “Winning Today, Transforming tomorrow” will center around the consumer and how businesses can transform in order to grow and succeed in the future. This theme will be showcased throughout the general session and in over 25 concurrent sessions.

Headlining the general sessions will be Rick Anicetti, chief executive officer at Food Lion, who will share his insight into how his business is paving the way the retail industry views their customers - by putting their shoppers first - and creating marketing initiatives to best reach the customer at the store.

Stephen Quinn, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will present an in-store media presentation alongside Dina Howell, general manager of marketing global operations at The Procter & Gamble Company, showcasing how their businesses are integrating technology and data to reach their consumers.

In addition, the conference will feature an Executive Roundtable featuring James R. Craigie, president & chief executive officer at Church & Dwight, Duncan MacNaughton, executive vice president, merchandising and marketing at SUPERVALU, and Charlie Rutman, chief executive officer at Media Planning Group. The executive roundtable will be moderated by Susan Whiting, chairman & chief executive officer, media services and executive vice president of The Nielsen Company. This discussion group will delve into key business issues surrounding the state of the industry and what each participant believes they need to grow in the future as the marketing mix continues to change and evolve.

Completing the general session line-up are: James Surowiecki, author of the well-received book, The Wisdom of Crowds - Why the Many Are Smarter than The Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations., which describes systematic ways to organize and aggregate the intelligence available in your organization in order to arrive at superior decisions; Polly LaBarre, co-author of Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win, who will share her sharp eye for the texture of working life and a well-tuned ear for the themes that mark the economic moment; and Ravi Dhar, George Rogers Clark professor of marketing and director of The Center for Consumer Insights at Yale School of Management, presenting how to use psychological and economic principals to identify successful consumer and competitive strategies in the offline and online marketplace.
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“It is such an honor to have industry leaders of this magnitude participate at this year’s Consumer 360 Conference. The insight they will share has led to revolutionary change in the retail industry,” said John L. Lewis, president & chief executive officer, marketing services at The Nielsen Company.

In addition to a robust general session agenda, this year’s Super and Concurrent sessions will provide solutions to attendees’ current business issues and insight into upcoming industry trends. “Super Sessions” will be a conference highlight, that are 75 minutes, and presented in a more interactive and comprehensive format that provides an in-depth learning experience on the most important topics facing the industry today. Super and Concurrent sessions are organized by business issues, covering: Superior Consumer Insight, Business Transformation, Retail Execution, and Trends & Foresight.

“At Nielsen, our number one focus is to help our clients understand who their consumers are and what makes them tick,” Lewis said. “Our goal at this year’s conference is to present our innovative consumer-centric solutions, along with those of key industry experts, to help our clients grow their business. This year’s speaker line-up showcases some of the top leaders in today’s industry who will provide unparalleled, actionable consumer insight all attendees can utilize to transform their own business.”