2018 NRF Student Challenge

Examples - PR and Marketing Marketing is a natural byproduct of most of the STORIES Jet.com wanted to spread the word about their fresh food and produce delivery service STORY created a conversation about Jet.com and the services they offer – for example, they brought in influencers who held conversations about healthy eating/cooking STORY designs strategic press events and invites specific influencers so that the sponsor is talked about in the right way STORY can’t guarantee the exact number of press mentions or impressions, but they do guarantee that they will get people in the room and create an environment for conversations to occur Theme: Fresh Sponsor: Jet.com Objective: Spread the word about fresh food delivery

Examples – R&D Theme: Home for the Holidays Sponsor: Target STORY doesn’t generally provide specific metrics (i.e. 40% of men who tried it ___ ) for research and development, but do offer some metrics: heat mapping in the store & perch interactive Target wanted to challenge themselves with how nimble they could be as a large company – the STORY was put together in 2 months They also wanted to showcase the back stories of the 50+ private label brands they carry and A) see if customers would take interest in those stories and B) see how customers react to the products outside of Target stores Theme: Home for the Holidays Sponsor: Target Objective: A) Identify customers’ interest in back stories of private label home brands & B) identify what products look like outside of Target stores

Examples – Product Development Worked with Nickelodeon's licensing department – one of their challenges (as retail is changing) is that retailers constantly want innovative products – it’s then Nickelodeon's responsibility to create products that will keep retailers engaged, because retailers are a major source of revenue STORY had to create about 120 innovative products across about 50 brands that the company had not previously worked with. STORY then developed custom patterns based on their iconic characters to bring the company’s art to life Nickelodeon then met with retailers in the STORY space to show them how they are working to innovate in the retail space Theme: Remember When Sponsor: Nickelodeon Objective: Create innovative products that will keep retailers engaged with the company & use the space as a meeting place for their retailers

Examples – Content Creation Cigna needed to find new ways to engage with customers – brand name alone is no longer sufficient to survive in the crowded healthcare space Cigna wanted to target younger demographics and show them what they are doing to help them and to provide them with the proper coverage STORY created the ‘feel good’ theme based on 3 propositions that CIGNA brings to the market: mindfulness, prevention, and healthy eating STORY split the store into those 3 sections and held event programming (about 25 panels) around those three areas Cigna then captured audio and video footage of each program and did a virtual tour of the store Cigna took all of the content and used it for their internal marketing and sales teams so that their employees could understand: what kinds of questions are being asked how people are contextualizing healthcare what conversations are being held around healthcare Theme: Feel Good Sponsor: CIGNA Objective: Create a content toolkit for internal marketing/sales teams to use for customer outreach and engagement