Day 28

Friday February 29, 2008

Today was another terrific day. I talked Wendy into coming down to visit and bringing Logan for Easter weekend. She's a little nervous about flying with him for the first time (and solo to boot) and I can't blame her. I think we're really going to have a great time though and I'm excited for her to meet all of my new friends and for them to meet my family.

We made it through our Nielsen Case Study presentation today. Again, this was a fun experience and took most of us far outside our normal range of activities. My group acted as a sales team for Kraft selling Starbucks coffee to a retailer. We had to use Nielsen scan data and Spectra demographic information to convince the retailer to commit to a holiday promotional end cap and sampling event. I have a much better insight now into what our buying staff does, how they probably evaluate promotional opportunities, and what vendors and distributors go through to prepare for their meetings. My group included John Ignacio (Safeway Store Manager), Tracy Hayes (Albertson's Safety Director), Miguel Gallardo (Costco Assistant Warehouse Manager), Scott Schuette (Basha's Perishable Coordinator), and Michael Meadows (DPI Product Manager). We worked very well together and probably put in over 100 hours total on this project.