Working with Chains / Podruzhka

In June 2007, an integrated communications agency BeeTL signed a contract with the Podruzhka retail chain for the exclusive right to place POS marketing materials and book promotional space in Podruzhka stores. Podruzhka thus became the first drogerie store (an inexpensive neighborhood store) to decide to sell its advertising opportunities on a commercial basis through a specialized agency rather than to offer them to suppliers as a bonus for special supply conditions or joint campaigns. BeeTL, for its part, was the first advertising agency to offer the drogerie format a professional approach in its integrated solutions to the advertising needs of suppliers.
Drogerie stores have one particularity that distinguishes them advantageously from large supermarkets: their customers are much more loyal. For instance, at Podruzhka stores more than 50% of shoppers form the chain's loyal audience. This is connected with the fact that, being drogeries, Podruzhka stores are located "close to home" and 90% of the store's visitors live nearby, whereas only 20% of shoppers at supermarkets fall into this category. This profitable trait of the drogerie format gives advertisers a unique opportunity to nurture product loyalty in the customer. Marketing is significantly more profitable for the supplier in drogerie-format stores than it is in supermarkets: The amount of quality contact time needed to raise a sense of loyalty in the customer costs dozens of times less in a drogerie than it would in a supermarket.
BeeTL takes on a whole spectrum of services for advertisers, which include analyzing the effectiveness of planned advertising campaigns; developing models that take into account the advertiser's objectives, goals, and the particularities of Podruzhka stores; producing and assembling advertising materials; and, of course, monitoring the presence of POSM throughout the course of the campaign.

Some brief information about Podruzhka retail stores:

Podruzhka, a chain of stores for women, was founded in 2005. Today it is Moscow's most dynamically developing retail chain in the drogerie format (from the German word for drug store). This format implies an inexpensive and close-to-home store that sells NON-FOOD FMCG. Podruzhka has accumulated the positive experience of European drogeries. One of the company's plans for the immediate future is to overrun the leading store of this format on the Russian market.
Each store carries up to 9,000 SKUs. The main categories of goods are personal care products, cleaning products, cosmetics, perfumes and inexpensive jewelry, accessories, and related goods.
Podruzhka is the first and only player on the drogerie market to position itself as a store "for women only". The brand's target audience is women aged 25-50 who work and do the housekeeping, buy toiletries and cleaning products for the whole family, and cosmetics for themselves.
Customer Advantages: A 5-minute walk to the store and the ability to complete a purchase in 10 minutes, a full assortment of everyday non-food items, and reasonable prices. These advantages have allowed the company to increase turnover with great success: by the end of the year, the chain's total turnover will come to $30 million.
At the present moment (June 2007), there are 42 stores operating successfully in Moscow and the encompassing area, with another six to eight stores opening each month. By the end of the year, the chain will encompass 105 stores. The company's long-term plan is to open around 1,000 stores in Moscow and the regions by 2012.
Website: www.podrygka.ru