Robert Fountain

Led 3-person team responsible for commercial strategy and category management for wine & champagne division for National Account customers. NA Sales Leadership Team member. Brand team advisor for Trade Marketing.
• Helped drive focus-brand annual $ volume and NNS growth of over 30%.
• Introduced new strategic approaches to planning including first-ever Channel Strategy, channel and retailer segmentation and prioritization, and customer business planning.
• Enhanced information and insights resources including initiation of proprietary consumer/shopper occasion research. Voice of division with research/insights team through collaboration on total BevAlc shopper research projects.
• Elevated brand and sales selling stories through training, coaching and consultation. Led team on big-bet meetings with largest customers resulting in over 2,000 new points of distribution.
• Developed new distribution tracking tool using eCRM principles to reduce churn, resulting in focus-brand active distribution growth of 26%.
• Launched new post program evaluation tool to increase ROI on promotion investment.
• Installed new National Account reset meeting planning tool to enhance preparation, visibility, accountability and learning.

Led 3-person team responsible for trade marketing, training and commercial development for U.S. business-to-business division. Developed and launched new B2B trade marketing strategy, updated and upgraded all B2B brand communications including branding, tools and systems.
• Helped drive annual business growth of over 20%.
• Launched new coffee flavors, developed new promotions that drove incremental lift up to 60%.
• Increased targeted lead generation by over 50% through focused and streamlined event strategy and activations, paid search improvements, social media campaigns.
• Developed and launched customized sales training program based on research-based best practices in communication and persuasion, recognized as “best sales training we’ve ever had.”
• Initiated eCRM to increase sell-through and prevent erosion and attrition with installed base.
• Led trade and consumer research projects to define and understand markets, channels, consumer attitudes and usage, shopper occasions, category and brand barriers and drivers.

Freelance marketing consultant and authorized agent for Google Top 3, a unique Google Ad Words program designed to grow traffic and conversion for small to medium sized businesses.

Led 6-person team responsible for organizational channel planning and National Account off- and on-premise customer planning, program development and activation. NA Sales Leadership Team member.
• Collaborated with on- and off-premise National Account customers to develop insight-based strategies and programs to drive category growth through store and shopper experience optimization. Drove sales lifts as high as 61% on periodic basis for program executions and as high as 8% on sustained basis for complete store optimizations.
• Developed enhanced on- and off-premise channel strategies, planning guidelines and commercial imperatives for organization. Led national account planning, program and calendar development. Introduced shopper marketing principles into Diageo key account programming including occasion-based marketing, shopper-based design and in-store communication principles. Voice of shopper and customer to organization.
• Core member of commercial insights team responsible for channel & shopper learning plan, shopper / customer insight development, and shopper journey mapping, including on-premise path-to-purchase and military channel shopper studies.
• Led development and rollout of first ever Diageo Theft Prevention Plan including comprehensive strategy and innovative new tactics.
• Key member of top-to-top National Account customer meetings at London Collaboration Center.
• Recipient of all-company Celebrating You award for securing Virginia State category captaincy.

Led 5-person team responsible for Category Management in National Account, Independent and On-Premise channels. Responsible for identification, acquisition, and maintenance of all Cat Man tools and technology. Key interface with global team for U.S. Ease of Shop Transformational Priority initiative. Functional lead for Multi-Cultural Transformational Priority and Customer Marketing Capabilities.
• Led multi-function, multi-manufacturer team in development of successful new retail strategy for leading National Account, driving double-digit growth for spirits category.
• Pioneered new On-Premise strategy and approach leading to multiple new listings and features with leading on-premise National Accounts.
• Co-developed off-premise “retail optimization” platform used to drive numerous distribution and programming wins.
• Developed and launched all-new Independent Channel Cat Man initiative. Developed shopper psychology based training program and rolled out to field sales, distributors and retailers. Implemented national shelf reset drives.

Founding member of Advantage Retail, an Omnicom Shopper Marketing initiative to marshal the resources and expertise of the corporation’s retail specialists in a unified retail consultancy. Member of senior team responsible for developing business plan, positioning, go-to-market strategy, processes, staffing, revenue model and team roles.
• Senior shopper/retail strategy contact for select key clients including Brown Forman, Hershey’s, Kimberly Clark, Pepsi and PepsiCo Foodservice. Provided custom shopper studies and creative brief strategy and insights.
• In-house expert on shopper marketing, shopper insights, in-store digital media, retail merchandising and communication, retailer and retail industry landscape and trends.
• In-house research lead on landmark retail shoppability study conducted in cooperation with Dr. Ray Burke and the University of Indiana Kelley School of Business
• Guest speaker at 2007 National Retail Federation Retail Advertising Conference and 2007 Chain Store Age SPECS Conference.
• Responsible for identifying and securing research and insights related resources, including syndicated sources, primary research, analytics partners and proprietary primary studies.
• Provided retail consulting and training for internal client service teams.