Official Call for Speakers

The Path to Purchase Institute is seeking dynamic industry speakers for its 2012 Shopper Marketing Expo. The Expo hosts an extensive range of educational seminars that are designed to equip brand marketers, retailers, agency professionals and solution providers with up-to-date insights, information and best practices along the path to purchase. These seminars are organized into several tracks that are defined by strategic areas in the practice of shopper marketing.

The Expo program offers valuable education, inspiration and connections to attendees and provides speakers with a unique opportunity to share their insights, contribute to the industry's repository of knowledge, and assume a thought-leadership role among their peers.

If you are interested in speaking, please return your seminar proposal via e-mail to Ronit Lawlor at rlawlor@p2pi.org by February 17, 2012. Key information needed for proposal submission is listed below.

Here is a sample list of Expo topics that appeal to our audience:

  • Understanding/Developing the Path to Purchase
  • Advanced Shopper Marketing for the Experienced Marketer
  • Aligning Your Digital and Shopper Marketing Strategies
  • The Future of Mobile Shopper Marketing
  • Building a Shopper-Centric Company (Best Practices in Corporate Organizations)
  • Incorporating Shopper Marketing into Your Channel-Specific Strategies
  • Developing Campaigns that Improve Shoppability and Simplify Activation
  • Creative Strategies: Balancing Visual Appeal with Shopper Needs and Retail Realities
  • Building Brands at Retail: Lessons and Opportunities
  • Effective Brand/Retailer Collaboration
  • Best Practices in Developing Actionable Shopper Insights
  • Budgeting for Shopper Marketing Initiatives
  • Research on Buying Habits, Shopper Behavior and In-Store Trends
  • Packaging and P-O-P Innovation
  • Channel-Specific Retail Trends

Here are a few key points to consider when planning your proposal:

  1. Sessions are one hour in length, including a question-and-answer period.
  2. Commercialism and self-promotion are not allowed. If this occurs in your presentation, you will not be invited to speak at future Institute events.
  3. The seminar audience consists primarily of brand marketers, retailers, agency representatives and solution providers who are looking to acquire game-changing insights and information that will help them form deeper connections with prospective shoppers, so plan your proposal to speak to this audience.
  4. Travel and expenses are the responsibility of the speaker.


Key Information

For proper consideration, please include ALL of the following information with your proposal in a Word Document (no PPTs or PDFs, please):

  • Proposed speaker name, job title, and company name
  • Short biography of speaker (50-75 words)
  • JPEG or TIF photo at 5x7, minimum 300 DPI
  • Contact information, including address, telephone, fax and e-mail
  • Title of presentation (one line)
  • Short summary of content to be delivered (no more than 75 words), followed by three bullet points of what audience members can expect to "take away" from the presentation

For New Speakers: Summary of previous conference speaking opportunities and two speaker references including name, company, phone and e-mail

Please note: Due to the volume of responses we receive, not every submission is selected.

We rely heavily on two components:

  1. Content that matches the interests of our audience as identified through surveys and session evaluations.
  2. In order to ensure the quality of our program, new speakers must provide references.

** We will notify you no later than April 27 if your submission is selected. **

Again, speaker proposals are due February 17 for consideration for the 2012 Shopper Marketing Expo. If you have any questions, or would like to discuss a potential topic with me, please feel free to e-mail or call Ronit Lawlor at (201) 297-1570. Thank you for your interest and support of the Path to Purchase Institute's programming efforts.