Thank you for Subscribing to Retail Business Review Weekly Brief
Andrew Criezis, NielsenIQ SMB Leader “We’re leveling the playing field in CPG retail by bringing technology and analytical capabilities to companies of all sizes”
The business world is presently neck-deep in data. However, without gleaning actionable insights from the data, enterprises are as good as lost in their quest to win market share. This is particularly true in the cut-throat retail space, where access to high-end retail data and store-level or shopper-level insights makes consumer packaged goods (CPG) businesses sprint ahead of the competition. Incidentally, the jostle for more space and visibility on the shelves of retail stores has historically favored large brands courtesy of their access to expensive and sophisticated retail data and insights, which small and medium-sized CPG businesses have always struggled to acquire. This uneven playing field becomes the ultimate barrier for many smaller CPG businesses struggling to make their mark in the highly-competitive retail arena.
Paving the path for the market entry for small businesses and eventually boosting their market share in the CPG space is Byzzer, powered by NielsenIQ. “We’re leveling the playing field in CPG retail by bringing technology and analytical capabilities to companies of all sizes,” says Troy Treangen, Head of Global Platforms of NielsenIQ. Byzzer has the ability to access clean retail data and draw in-depth insights through advanced analytics to devise better pricing, promotional, and product placement and expansion strategies. The company places sophisticated retail data and in-depth analytics— previously available only to large CPG players—well within reach of smaller CPG brands.
We have incredible regression modeling that brings in direct insights on the optimal threshold companies should price their products
High-End Retail Analytics and Insights at Your Fingertips
Byzzer’s easy-to-use platform acts as a pocket-sized data scientist for SMBs and startups in the CPG space. It incorporates the NielsenIQ retail analytics model to offer in-depth insights into pricing and promotional strategy from higher-level retail categories to stock keeping unit (SKU) level and core services like base retail measurement. “We have incredible regression modeling that brings in direct insights on the optimal threshold companies should price their products,” says Andrew Criezis, NielsenIQ’s SVP & General Manager US. Access to refined NielsenIQ data eliminates the persistent biases in data collection methods skewed toward certain demographics, locations, or hotspots that prevent businesses from gaining a holistic picture of brands and their items’ market performance.
Leveraging NielsenIQ data, the Byzzer platform generates easily comprehensible brand performance reports by analyzing charts, graphs, and sound bites—delivered to businesses via weekly email alerts. The platform also provides recommendations on improving pricing, promotional, and product assortment parameters. Through the platform’s My Alerts section, businesses can receive customized dynamic alerts on their as well as their competitors’ performance on the basis of brands, categories, and timeframes.
The platform also quantifies the ROI on the SMBs’ retail items in stores and assesses the impact of the implemented price and product placement recommendations. Further, detailed reports can be generated in the platform’s My Reports section—consisting of more than 35 customizable report templates—with only six clicks, as opposed to the usual 30-40 clicks required for standard report generation. The downloadable reports enable smaller CPG brands to stay ahead of the curve with weekly insights and trends, which is in strong contrast to the historical normal for smaller brands that could only access monthly or quarterly insights.
Byzzer also serves the retail analytics needs of emerging health, lifestyle, and wellness brands, which have gained momentum in light of COVID-19, with some of the richest NielsenIQ data. For the consumable products of small brands and startups operating in the lifestyle and wellness realm, the company’s platform delivers relevant data, insights, reports, and characteristics on the ingredients, dietary factors, packaging materials, and the corresponding consumer demand. This helps them locate retailers that are the best fit for wellness and lifestyle brands, determine the ideal placement of their products for improving brand visibility with respect to present competitors, be alert to upcoming competitors, and generate innovative ideas to improve their products.
Bolstering Brand Visibility Powered by Big Data
With powerful data analytics capabilities, Byzzer’s NielsenIQ Brand Score product enables SMBs to access intuitive insights to enhance their brand success on store shelves. The patent-pending product pulls a staggering 500+ billion data points per week and analyzes, compares, and ranks similar brands within a specific category in the market. The Brand Score consists of a 600-point scale and an A through F grade to help businesses understand their overall performance as a brand within a retail category. This provides a standard performance measurement for the industry and increased transparency. The product also provides brands with targeted SKU and item level recommendations in a simple, highly visual, yet actionable manner.
Byzzer also provides SMBs the ability to generate custom reports with its Data on Demand feature that allows them to view specific categories, characteristics, and parameters related to an open selection of facts and markets and export them to Excel or in any other format. Lastly, with the My Stories feature, Byzzer enables CPG businesses to build a customized brand story with insights gleaned from retail data to pitch their products better to retailers. To enhance engagement with retailers, Byzzer has developed this feature with an intelligent algorithm that queries data for brands and their items on store shelves. In a few clicks, the algorithm automatically generates easy-to-understand PowerPoint presentations backed by solid retail data demonstrating the brand’s rankings and performance against competitors.
“We are surrounded by data, but starved for insights.” —Jay Baer, author and marketing expert
The best part—Byzzer provides these never-before-seen data and insights as part of its base package at affordable rates, reducing the barrier to entry for SMBs by a huge margin. Moreover, the company’s subscription model for running reports allows clients to choose packages of different bundles of reports as per their budgets, further easing access to high-end retail data for SMBs. With these offerings, Byzzer has practically eradicated all obstacles for smaller CPG brands to not just compete but also thrive in the retail scene on par with CPG business behemoths.
On the Road to Revolutionizing Retail
To demonstrate Byzzer’s platform in action, Serenity Kids, an emerging baby food products seller, successfully booked a larger shelf space with retail giant Whole Foods. Based on the NielsenIQ data provided by Byzzer, the baby food seller discovered high levels of brand loyalty in the baby foods segment within Whole Foods and was able to back it up with actual data. This not only convinced Whole Foods to increase Serenity Kids’ national distribution but also helped the latter improve their investor story. Byzzer also enabled the baby food seller to build category views to determine their products’ dollar sales per distribution. The findings helped them gain actionable insights on their sales performance and add six more items to their assortment within Whole Foods. For yet another small CPG company, Byzzer’s NielsenIQ retail data, business insights, and category view capabilities enabled them to gain shelf space and distribution with retail giant CVS.
Byzzer’s brilliant technology and product teams propel the company to make a ground-breaking impact in the CPG retail analytics space. With a goal to further support the retail ecosystem, Byzzer intends to empower the partners, consultants, financial firms, and everyone associated with SMBs with its platform and end-to-end business model. The company also plans to enhance its analytics and leverage its Brand Score product to help retailers gauge the brand performance of products on their shelves. In a unique move, the product will also allow CPG businesses to use their brand score as a type of currency in the marketplace to gain more brand exposure.
Presently concentrating on the U.S. markets, Byzzer is also eyeing global expansion, having generated a buzz in Canada and Europe with its direct access to the NielsenIQ database. With a firm focus on leveling the playing field for smaller CPG brands, Byzzer is well set on the road to revolutionizing retail.
