PMG unleashes a New ‘Force’ in Retail Sales and Marketing Solutions

Provantage Media Group has taken up a strong position in the field sales and marketing arena, thanks to the launch of a new division – Field Force.

The unveiling of Field Force sees PMG expand its existing field sales and marketing offering as its own dedicated division, with the goal to grow this division into one of the leaders in the R12 billion per annum sales and merchandising sector.

Unique

As a media owner, PMG is unique in the field sales and marketing sector and will be leveraging this position, as well as the influence of its existing Out of Home divisions, to further strengthen the Field Force offering.

This will include adopting an agile, customisable, and personalised approach to executing on the sales and marketing needs of customers, which, along with PMG’s understanding of brands and marketing spend, makes for a compelling proposition.

In this way, Field Force is able to provide customers with exclusive solutions and can tailor a solution to a particular client/brand, thereby setting itself apart from its competitors and foregoing the ‘syndicated’ solution approach.

“Whilst current trends show an increase in online shopping, an omni-channel approach is definitely high on any brand’s sales agenda,” says Mzi Deliwe, Deputy CEO of Provantage Media Group. “Consumers will still inevitably spend part of their shopping experiences interacting with people in the physical world. While this personal dimension in engagement remains a core driver for shoppers, the opportunity is heightened for companies to leverage their teams to engage in person in a dynamic and effective manner.”

The Field Force team is able to connect brands with consumers across a wide scope of channels and sectors within the South African and broader African markets, managing all activities that involve face-to-face contact with channel-influencing shoppers, who have become extremely effective in driving sales and leveraging sales opportunities.

Experience

Led by General Manager Carmen Brown – a vastly experienced industry professional with a proven track record – Field Force has a strong leadership and management in place, all equipped with extensive retail experience in driving field sales teams to deliver against its pillars of being “fast, effective and agile”.

This experience complements the services already offered by ProActive, PMG’s brand activation agency, which has built a reputation as South Africa’s market leader in the brand activation space over the course of the past 13 years.

This experience is supported by best-in-class technology and business intelligence, which enables Field Force to maximise the use of information on stock levels, sales, strike rates, and targets, along with providing a visual representation of brand performance at trade level.

Service Offering

The Field Force service offering is ideally positioned to deliver against business objectives In a market exemplified by the outsourcing of field sales and merchandising activities by brand owners. The offering includes full end-to-end field sales services, from sell-in to sell-through, lead generation, direct sales, merchandising, surveys, training and all the other sales and merchandising offerings that a client would expect, but all wrapped up in a custom-designed and client-specific tailored offering.

“The above services complement our strong empowerment credentials, and when leveraged together with our broader business offering as one of South Africa’s leading out of home media specialists and brand activators, offer an unique opportunity to close the gap on the last mile and ensure that your field sales execution is streamlined and effectively leverages off of all of your precious spend,” says Brown.

The cherry on the cake – and yet another feature that sets Field Force apart – is the existing relationship with ProActive, South Africa’s largest brand activation agency, and the resulting benefits and synergies for brands.

ProActive offers creative solutions spanning concept development and strategy, through to execution on a national and continental level. These solutions are infused with a deep understanding of the target audience – their shopping habits, behaviours and path to purchase – and are backed up by real-time digital campaign management and reporting systems, ensuring effective execution, monitoring and feedback.

Ultimately, PMG sees a huge opportunity for Field Force to ‘connect people with people’ and execute on a sales and marketing strategy, which includes delivering results – something PMG has a strong track record in.