Sunflower Group Validates Execution, Compliance and More with Zapiddy App

The Sunflower Group launched Zapiddy, an app that provides marketplace intelligence, just over a year ago. Seeing what was happening on a mass scale at store level used to be time consuming and cost prohibitive for retailers and manufacturers, but Zapiddy collects immediate, local, retail observations at a cost-effective rate, company officials say. The app is designed for multiple tasks including store-level view of events, displays, signage, plan-o-grams and pricing. The visual results provide insights into store execution and compliance. The app utilizes its active user base, “Zappers,” to answer basic questions relative to what is going on at store level. It provides rapid, visual reporting on in-store activity without consuming or deploying your own employees or resources, officials add. Zappers are local, and readily available to work on the extremely short-term and project basis. Recently, hundreds of Zappers each were able to make $7.00 in less than 15 minutes by auditing in store sampling events at Target stores. Carol Maggio, director of strategy for Pivot Point Marketing says, "Pictures speak louder than any words on paper. In launching a new product for Chicken of the Sea, we agreed to using Zapiddy on a Thursday night for demos that were happening that Friday through Sunday. By Monday morning we had a report of 20 completed audits, representing 20% of our in-store demo activity. Zapiddy proved our theory. We knew in-store demos were going to drive incremental volume. Zapiddy provided the evidence needed to support additional product at each store.” Maggio adds, "Every demo program we are doing this year will have a Zapiddy audit affiliated with it. The real-time feedback is tremendous!" Ronan Gillespie, commercial director-global for Kerrygold Irish Cream Liqueur says, “In 2014 we launched in a new category, alcoholic beverages. We wanted to verify what we planned for happening in store was actually happening in store. Given that we are headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Zapiddy provided eyes at store level from over 4,000 miles away. With just one or two pictures from Zappers, we were able to see shelf position, proximity to the category leader, number of facings, retail pricing and secondary displays in each store. Aside from measuring in-store execution, we also measured our in-store sampling to determine if POS was properly displayed and if product was served chilled. Sunflower and Zapiddy delivered both the in-store sampling and real-time reporting in a cost effective manner.” Jim Wells, senior vice president of sales for The Sunflower Group says, “The concept of Zapiddy is actually pretty simple, it provides-immediate visibility and marketplace intelligence at store level through local users and smart phones. It is a low-cost solution that brings visualization to what is happening, allowing marketers to optimize execution and results.”