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Cadbury Convenience Store
Cadbury, the multinational confectionary company now part of Mondelez International, sought to discover retail innovation opportunities in the convenience store industry, where many Cadbury products are often shopped for.
The project objectives included not just finding ways to sell more Cadbury products, but to offer convenience store retailers innovative ideas for how to improve the overall store experience. Put differently, how can convenience stores create more compelling shopping experiences, distinguish their brands, broaden the purposes for visiting and ultimately increase sales per visit?
This project for Cadbury was based on multiple research avenues, including store visits and in-person interviews with some of Cadbury’s convenience store partners throughout the United States. Shook Kelley studied store behaviors, talked with store employees and interviewed executives and leaders throughout the industry. In the end, Shook Kelley discovered that the convenience store industry has come to be associated with a set of negative retail experience and product category perceptions. Namely, these stores are most closely linked with tobacco, junk food, alcohol and gasoline. But in recent years, the industry has sought ways to broaden its offerings and expand into fresh and healthy food offerings. While a number of exceptional brands exist in the industry—including Wawa, Sheetz, QuikTrip and others—Shook Kelley discovered through our research that the vast majority of convenience store brands constitute an undifferentiated mass of “gas station” retail outlets.
Shook Kelley discovered that the convenience store industry has become weighed down by a set of negative perceptions
Based on this articulation of the industry’s perception problems, our strategy and design team explored a range of different retail innovation directions for convenience store brands to explore. The ultimate purpose of these new directions were to find ways to distinguish different types of convenience store brands and, above all, to provide insights for how convenience stores could improve their retail experiences. With fresh and healthy food offerings as a top-of-mind concern, Shook Kelley provided insights into how to set the scene and create a context for better food product offering. The findings served as a provocation for many brands in the industry to go beyond simply introducing new products or rearranging existing product categories, but to look more critically at their retail environments and how their stores were sending messages to their existing and potential new consumer base.
As a result of sponsoring Shook Kelley’s study, Cadbury garnered an improved reputation in the convenience store industry as a source for innovative ideas focused on their retail partners’ financial interests. Building more sustainable sales relationships around innovation and the retailer’s continued success was a deliberate outcome. Beyond this result for Shook Kelley’s immediate client, the study helped prompt many convenience store operators to reconsider their brands and retail environments, challenging them to explore new ways to go to market with fresh and healthy food products.
As a result of the study, Cadbury garnered a reputation in the convenience store industry as a source for innovative ideas
As a quick, in-and-out experience, can the convenience store convene people? That was one of the challenges Shook Kelley posed in the Cadbury study. And while we found plenty of examples in the industry of convenience store brands that could convene people, the vast majority of stores in the United States are places where people do not want to spend their time, much less brands that they can identify with. The study’s recommendations tried to provide some suggestions for how convenience stores might convene consumers. And since the study came out, Shook Kelley has worked with several brands on these efforts, including a successful project with the Midwest-based brand Thorntons.
In this project, most of the actual convening happened behind the scenes. By helping build a forum and leading an industry conversation around retail and brand innovation—through articles, client-retailer support meetings and conference talks—Shook Kelley convened convenience store leaders around new ideas and new ways of thinking about their business.
The project objectives included not just finding ways to sell more Cadbury products, but to offer convenience store retailers innovative ideas for how to improve the overall store experience. Put differently, how can convenience stores create more compelling shopping experiences, distinguish their brands, broaden the purposes for visiting and ultimately increase sales per visit?
This project for Cadbury was based on multiple research avenues, including store visits and in-person interviews with some of Cadbury’s convenience store partners throughout the United States. Shook Kelley studied store behaviors, talked with store employees and interviewed executives and leaders throughout the industry. In the end, Shook Kelley discovered that the convenience store industry has come to be associated with a set of negative retail experience and product category perceptions. Namely, these stores are most closely linked with tobacco, junk food, alcohol and gasoline. But in recent years, the industry has sought ways to broaden its offerings and expand into fresh and healthy food offerings. While a number of exceptional brands exist in the industry—including Wawa, Sheetz, QuikTrip and others—Shook Kelley discovered through our research that the vast majority of convenience store brands constitute an undifferentiated mass of “gas station” retail outlets.
Shook Kelley discovered that the convenience store industry has become weighed down by a set of negative perceptions
Based on this articulation of the industry’s perception problems, our strategy and design team explored a range of different retail innovation directions for convenience store brands to explore. The ultimate purpose of these new directions were to find ways to distinguish different types of convenience store brands and, above all, to provide insights for how convenience stores could improve their retail experiences. With fresh and healthy food offerings as a top-of-mind concern, Shook Kelley provided insights into how to set the scene and create a context for better food product offering. The findings served as a provocation for many brands in the industry to go beyond simply introducing new products or rearranging existing product categories, but to look more critically at their retail environments and how their stores were sending messages to their existing and potential new consumer base.
As a result of sponsoring Shook Kelley’s study, Cadbury garnered an improved reputation in the convenience store industry as a source for innovative ideas focused on their retail partners’ financial interests. Building more sustainable sales relationships around innovation and the retailer’s continued success was a deliberate outcome. Beyond this result for Shook Kelley’s immediate client, the study helped prompt many convenience store operators to reconsider their brands and retail environments, challenging them to explore new ways to go to market with fresh and healthy food products.
As a result of the study, Cadbury garnered a reputation in the convenience store industry as a source for innovative ideas
As a quick, in-and-out experience, can the convenience store convene people? That was one of the challenges Shook Kelley posed in the Cadbury study. And while we found plenty of examples in the industry of convenience store brands that could convene people, the vast majority of stores in the United States are places where people do not want to spend their time, much less brands that they can identify with. The study’s recommendations tried to provide some suggestions for how convenience stores might convene consumers. And since the study came out, Shook Kelley has worked with several brands on these efforts, including a successful project with the Midwest-based brand Thorntons.
In this project, most of the actual convening happened behind the scenes. By helping build a forum and leading an industry conversation around retail and brand innovation—through articles, client-retailer support meetings and conference talks—Shook Kelley convened convenience store leaders around new ideas and new ways of thinking about their business.