People to Watch 2015: Mitch Louch, Anheuser-Busch

Mitch Louch is looking to disrupt the field of shopper insights. As shopper insights manager at Anheuser-Busch, he may just be in a position to do so. “I believe the future of the field lies within the data platforms that are allowing us to do so much more, so much faster and – sometimes – more cost effectively than traditional methods,” he says, noting that the company is committed to investing in the data that will provide the insights necessary to drive the category. Louch is intent to squeeze every insight from the data at his disposal. “We don’t just want to continue to be a shopper insights leader in the beer or alcohol category, we want to be a shopper insights leader in CPG.”As part of the shopper insights team within the Center of Excellence group, he and his colleagues support the sales, category management and trade marketing teams with actionable insights related to beer shoppers. Since spring, they’ve been developing a beer shopper segmentation to better understand where the opportunities are in the market. Working with IRI Shopper Sights, InfoScout, Ipsos and others, they are using big data to cluster shoppers based on behaviors and demographics and then identify where those shoppers are at the store level. “This project is going to take trade planning and execution for the beer category to the next level,” he says. “I’m incredibly proud to be a part of the team that’s developing it.”He’s also doing a lot of work on small-format channels, with convenience as a primary focus. The perception around convenience panel data has been that household sample sizes were assumed to be weak, yet Louch says they’ve concluded that smaller household counts in some categories were actually accurate representations of the channel’s shoppers “and their value is realized in a significant over-index of those shoppers’ trips, dollars and/or unit purchases.” He notes that it’s not just true for beer but also for other major convenience categories.While known that the convenience channel has been beer’s largest outlet, “we hadn’t identified that shoppers who buy beer in convenience are at least 2x the annual value of the average beer shopper in all channels,” he says. The insight has Anheuser-Busch re-evaluating the way it approaches the convenience shopper. “We’re still in the early stages of communicating our findings,” Louch says, “but I think it’s the start of something important to the channel.”Providing detailed support to the company’s trade marketing teams is key as each channel has unique trip missions and shopper occasions.When it comes to mobile, Louch notes Anheuser-Busch is beginning to see that pre- and post-engagement programs, using Ibotta, are producing strong results without in-aisle activation. “The new approach,” he says, “has proven to be more effective and provides shopper data that the team can constantly assess and revise execution.”Due to the legal restrictions around beer distribution as well as the fact that the majority of purchase occasions revolve around consumption within three hours of purchase, Louch believes physical stores will continue to be primary destinations for shoppers. But he does recognize the growth of e-commerce to the industry and believes that unlike other categories, beer has only touched the surface of its potential. “We see a lot of disruptive growth potential in major metro markets with grocery delivery services,” he says. “Additionally, apps like Drizly are providing shoppers the beer-shopping experience from the convenience of their own home, and state-to-state ordering is putting local brands in non-local households.”

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