Anne Stephenson Email & Phone Number

Mississauga, On, Ca

Mississauga, Ontario, Ca

As part of the Savanta acquisition of Explorer Research I am responsible for the Marketing and New Business Development at Explorer.

Mississauga, Ontario, Ca

Explorer was started over 20 years ago by a team of ex-CPG marketers. Explorer has now grown into a leader in the shopper insight field and we advise the world's leading brands. In my current role at Explorer Research I am focused on business development and marketing. I am a frequent speaker at industry events and have authored many thought leadership articles about shopper insights, path to purchase, e-commerce and packaging . I am always available to talk anything shopper. I have spoken at many events about Shopper Insights including IIEX, The Quirks Event, Shopper Insights & Retail Activation and Path to Purchase conferences. I am still actively involved with a range of clients in numerous industries including retailers, packaged goods and technology. I have lead teams to execute both quantitative and qualitative studies as well as using different neuro and biometric approaches including eye tracking, facial coding, GSR and EEG.

After leaving the corporate world I ventured out on my own. These were also the years I started having kids. Being able to have a flexible work schedule with young kids was convenient during this time. I also did some really cool work focusing on strategic services including research and innovation planning. I was able to transition into the research field and provided research services including focus group moderating, concept development and research reviews. I also created a cross functional research plan for a research department resulting in increased organizational alignment to this departments activities. During my consulting gig time I was able to do insights work and really solidify that I loved insights and research and that's where my next move would be.

Chicago, Us

I might be dating myself but in this role I worked with a team to launch the Kraft website along with other service offerings. Can you believe we had to fight for approval on that one! The main purpose of this role was to create a stronger Kraft brand with services and to leverage the power of the Kraft Kitchens. This was the companies first foray into relationship marketing and the team I managed evolved a bunch of capabilities; Direct Mail, Web and What's Cooking magazine. We also did a ton of advertising behind a branded cooking offering from Kraft Kitchens. This was a really interesting role as the company was moving away from a siloed brand approach and into more of a corporate marketing approach. I learned so much in this role especially about master branding and corporate marketing, something I have been able to help different clients with.

Chicago, Us

In this role, I managed a 10 person team of marketers and had a cross functional team including finance, operations and sales/category management. This was a great experience to learn how to manage a team focused against many different consumer target markets. In the cereal business we had to wear multiple hats since the brands in the portfolio spanned alot of different consumer segments whether it was marketing to kids, health or indulgence type products. The portfolio consisted of 18 brands with extensive advertising and consumer spending. In this role I learned general management responsibilities as I was responsible for the P&L and involved in all facets of the business including trade spending, capital, North American operations strategy and product development.This was a challenging role because there was unprecedented competitive pricing in the market at this time which needed to be constantly monitored but we were still able to set the portfolio up for long-term success by creating a Mega brand strategy and a strong innovation pipeline.

Chicago, Us

My time working on Nabob was one of my career highlights. Away from home coffee was taking off, Starbucks was expanding and Nabob was a premium retail brand. So we knew we needed to break the rules for a traditional retail brand. We launched the brand into Foodservice, vending and built Nabob cafes ( the first retail brand to do this ). This involved negotiating with Sears to build out fully branded Nabob cafe locations in their stores this was done at no cost to Kraft. Because of this experience it felt like a natural transition into being an entrepreneur when I took the leap. We developed great advertising also for the brand during this time including an on location shoot in Indonesia for the launch of our Sumatran variety. The business posted record profitability and sales.

Chicago, Us

In this role I managed all of the advertising and sponsorship budget for all Kraft Brands and worked with 3 different agencies. At this time, Kraft was creating an umbrella brand strategy to build the Kraft brand. I also led media planning for all of the Kraft brands. This was a great experience to work in a role that spanned across all divisions of the company and to work collaboratively with many different teams and agencies.

Chicago, Us

I loved working on this brand and I think my passion helped deliver amazing business results for this brand. We had 3 years of 15% growth which for a mature packaged goods brand was a great accomplishment. Alot of this was driven by great advertising, I launched the "Heaven" campaign which became the first global advertising campaign for Kraft Foods. The amazing thing was initially this campaign met with alot of resistance so I learned how to use facts and research to support a business decision. A proud moment indeed for me when this campaign got adopted globally. As part of the Philadelphia franchise we also had a line of cream cheese dips. We placed refrigerated coolers in the chip aisle and volume increased 20%. One of my first experiences with shopper marketing and the power of adjacencies.Because of the impact that the advertising had on this brand, I got moved into my next role where I was managing all of the Kraft brand advertising.

Chicago, Us

This was a short stint on the Cheez Whiz business, the main focus while I was on this brand was defending against a new category competitor which consisted of tactical consumer and trade programs.

Chicago, Us

This brand was a very trade spending focused assignment and we implemented a different trade strategy that focused on more preemptive spending to drive volume versus competitive matching which was the previous trade strategy.

Worked in the Canadian division of Pet Inc (Primo Foods) on the Old El Paso brand. This was a great place to start my career because Mexican Food was growing and I launched six new products as well as recommended account specific marketing and promotions which drove significant brand increases +20%. I guess it was my first foray into shopper marketing! I learned so much about innovation in this role which I was able to take into other marketing and research positions going forward. Working on this brand also instilled a life-long love of Mexican Food!

I am so glad I took this opportunity after finishing University to go travel around Europe. I visited 10 countries and packed in a lifetime of travel. I met people that I am still in touch with today and I still vividly remember the countries I visited. I had experiences like chipping off a piece of the Berlin wall and seeing countries like Prague in a state of transition. I remember before making this choice to travel, I was told that it was a time in life where you have a block of time and that opportunity was difficult as you get entrenched in career and life. So glad I did this.

Bachelor Of Commerce, Marketing

Education record