Given the right mix, tie-ins are an extremely effective way for multiple brands to team up. Not only are brands sharing cost in development and production, but they are also strengthening their brand message. And finally, retailers desire them because of cross-category purchases.

A Triple Win

Retailers Win:
Stimulated cross-category purchases
Increased store traffic

Consumers Win:
Saving money
Increased awareness

Effective and dynamic communications.

Strategically compelling and visually stimulating creative solutions. Linear SC creates positive reactions for your brand or company in the marketplace.

A Brand Platform For Growing Sales

Our clients depend on integrated, consistent, brand messaging. With an eye on building our clients business and a never ending appetite to thinking out-of-the-box, LSC becomes your consistent point-of-contact for all Below The Line activities.

Your business is made up of many elements that form a cohesive, brand platform. Linear SC understands that brands need a watchful eye to flourish. A brand champion that can communicate the unique points of differentiation in the marketplace. And with everyone being asked to do more with less these days, it's great to find a enthusiastic group of smart, creative individuals that knows what it takes to produce meaningful results. Results that aren't about creative successes. It's about increasing sales and building brand value.

What's a Tie-In?
Tie-Ins come in all shapes and sizes. In general you are looking to team up with a partner or partners to increase sales of all partner products. You are usually looking to promote this Tie-In to the trade to increase orders. Tie-Ins are beneficial to the trade for a variety of reasons.
1. Partners share expenses
2. Retailers see cross category lift
3. Consumer benefit from promotional offer

Music has a permanent place in consumer and trade programming.
Encourage seasonal display opportunities that offer retailers an innovative, consumer music themed promotion.

Grocery stores, like consumers' food budgets, are shrinking. This month Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opened four pilot Marketplace stores in Arizona that are half the size of a traditional supermarket.

Supervalu-owned Jewel-Osco is testing its own small-format store in Chicago known as Urban Fresh. Safeway trialed its version in Southern California. And Whole Foods has said it is scaling down the size of its new stores.

Overall, there is a high opportunity cost from delisting items. The estimated percent sales lost due to delisting has historically been greater than the new item dollar share. In highly marketed categories, roughly 30% of category sales are generated from SKU movement. With such a substantial chunk of category sales tied to listing and delisting decisions, the accuracy of assortment management is critical.

Good real estate comes at a price - and the aisles of a retail store are no exception. When a manufacturer launches a new product, there needs to be room on the store shelf for its placement. To make that room, the retail buyer will notoriously ask the manufacturer to delist an item from the portfolio. But which item gets the ax? Is there a compelling story that identifies what item to delist?

The survey, conducted by IDC Global Retail Insights and titled “Being Consumer-Centric: A Retailer and Manufacturer Update”, shows companies are seeing benefits from the concept, but more opportunities are available. Consumer centricity was defined in the survey as any strategy for which an organization uses shopper data to develop insight as a driver for decision-making.

“This survey confirms that retailers and consumer products manufacturers have become more consumer-centric for several years and are serious about committing to this type of initiative,” said Marc Dietz, vice president of marketing at DemandTec. “Given the difference between top-performing retailers and the rest of the pack, it is interesting to see the tremendous opportunity for additional investment and improvement.”

In Trial at Supermarket, Cellphones Will Be the Medium for Discount Offers

Seeking to marry a ubiquitous device with a time-tested marketing technique in a sour economy, Unilever plans to begin a trial run Sunday of a new technology that lets consumers redeem digital coupons by having a supermarket cashier scan their cellphones.

The test, being conducted at a ShopRite store in Hillsborough, N.J., will include discount offers for some of the Anglo-Dutch packaged-goods company's most popular brands, including Breyers ice cream, Dove soap, Hellmann's mayonnaise and Lipton tea. Samplesaint, a Chicago mobile-technology firm, developed the system.

BRADFORD, England -- The global recession is spoiling the summer for a lot of industries, but not the U.K.'s supermarkets. They're loving it. With an estimated five million Britons staying home this summer instead of traveling, the country's leading grocers are slugging it out for shoppers' time and money. They're slashing prices, launching new budget brands and taunting the price claims of rivals in advertising.

Source: PMA