Christmas 2021

In the middle of August 2020, we were tasked with building a team of 60 Seasonal Activators, 5 Regional Field Managers and leading the operation to deliver the Christmas confectionery agenda for Nestlé.

With the team live in store from October to Christmas Eve, we had 6 weeks to prepare.  Our priority was to make sure the structure was optimized to deliver maximum efficiencies over the 12 weeks leading up to Christmas. This started with recruiting a strong team as well as designing and building a launch conference that would enable the team to hit the ground running on day 1.

Over the course of the season, we dealt with numerous challenges as we were facing into Christmas trade during the Covid-19 pandemic and there was no certainty on how footfall would be in those busy last 3 months.  As with any fixed term contract team we experienced some churn, however this year there was a lot more uncertainty and people were trying to secure permanent roles. A good recruitment plan at the being set us up in advance for this problem as we had recruited a back-up for most territories.  We also had the additional logistical complexity with the team working up to Christmas Eve and collecting vans and equipment between Christmas and New Year.

Despite these challenges the team performed extremely well delivering 267,925 displays which was 12% over target.  On top of this we increased ROI by 25% and delivered on the other important objective of helping Nestlé achieve a clean exit of all Christmas products.

From a Nestlé point of view, we helped them achieve growth ahead of the industry average, maintained Quality Street status as the No.1 brand amongst other successful results.  They were extremely delighted with the performance of the team sending regular communications to celebrate success.