Multicultural Retail 360 Summit Expects Record-High Retailer Turnout

SAN DIEGO — With less than nine weeks to go, hotel rooms are filling up quickly for this year’s Multicultural Retail 360 Summit, being held Aug. 24-26 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.

This year’s conference is on pace to attract a record number of retailer attendees from across all channels of retailing. Confirmed attendees include both general-market grocers such as Brookshire Brothers, Food Lion, Food4Less, Fry’s, Grocery Outlet, H-E-B, Jewel/Osco/Albertsons, Kroger, Publix, Ralph’s and Save-A-Lot, as well as multicultural specialists like Northgate Gonzalez Markets, Superior Grocers and Tawa Supermarkets.

Also signed up to attend are drugstore chains like Walgreens; convenience store chains like 7-Eleven, Maverik, Chevron and BP ampm; and even discount store chains like Big Lots.

The special discounted hotel rate of $229 per night at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront expires soon, so prospective attendees are being urged to make their reservations as quickly as possible.

This year’s Multicultural Retail 360 Summit features what is likely the strongest educational agenda in the event’s 12-year history. The theme of the conference is “Optimizing the Omnichannel Experience for Multicultural Consumers.”

Among the general sessions will be:

America @ 250: How Retailers Will Capture the Multicultural Demographic in America Over the Next 10 Years — In the conference’s opening session, speakers from prestigious consulting firm A.T. Kearney present the results of a multi-year study conducted in partnership with The Wall Street Journal to explore the profound changes underway in demographics, consumer values and preferences, technology, policy and politics.

A Taste of Diversity — Ethnic merchandising leaders from Jewel-Osco show the supermarket chain’s renowned experiential activations celebrating the Hispanic, African-American and Kosher communities through the eighth annual Taste of Hispanic Heritage, 16th annual Taste of Black History, and inaugural Taste of Kosher events.

Reaching Consumers Through Dance and Fitness — See and hear how Zumba, the international fitness and dance craze, is helping all types of companies, from retailers to insurance companies, make their advertising more relevant and interesting to multicultural consumers.

How Kellogg Applies a Global, Culturally Relevant Approach to Drive Multicultural Growth — Major food company Kellogg illustrates how it has successfully implemented an agile, culturally relevant approach that leverages both local and global best practices to reach, engage and drive growth with multicultural consumers across product, packaging, retail, mobile and social platforms.

Cultural Authenticity, Employee Training and Social Media Outreach to Multicultural Consumers — A panel of foodservice operators, including representatives from Sodexo, Brinker International and Buffalo Wild Wings, discuss three key facets to meeting the multicultural challenge.

Bicultural Hispanics: Who Are They and Why Should We Be Paying Attention? — Experts from Coca-Cola’s Multicultural Marketing Center of Excellence explore why brands need to understand the nuanced differences between Hispanic consumers; how bicultural Hispanics embrace the best of two worlds; and how best to reach them.

A Fresh Look Into Multicultural Consumers: Disrupting the Mainstream Market — Thought leaders from Nielsen explain how the multicultural consumer impacts the way stores and products are shopped and help identify new growth opportunities for retailers.

The Multicultural Consumer: From Millennials to Boomers — A panel of expert marketers discuss key trends being driven by African-American, Hispanic and Asian households, from aged 50-plus consumers to intergenerational families.

A New Roadmap for Connecting With Hispanic Shoppers in the Breakfast Aisle — Hispanic marketing experts from Post Foods take a fresh look at the Hispanic shopper, based on new acculturation data, and examine new breakfast category attitudes, perceptions and insights to bring culturally authentic trends to the surface.

Multicultural Consumers: The Organically Mobile Shopper — Facebook’s head of multicultural, Christian Martinez, will unveil insights that can help businesses learn more about the connection people have with their favorite brands and products.

Creating and Nurturing a Productive and Diverse Workforce — Today’s demographic landscape demands that businesses create a working environment where every employee has an equal chance to contribute to their greatest potential. Debra Sandler, an African/Caribbean/Latina senior executive, will share her personal and professional views on approaches to creating a truly productive and diverse workforce.

In addition to these general sessions, the 2016 Multicultural Retail 360 Summit features 12 concurrent sessions on specific research-based or niche topics; two open-discussion, intimate working groups; and a pre-conference study tour of San Diego’s top ethnic retailers. And this year’s opening night will feature actor/comedian/author John Leguizamo, who is sure to provide entertaining stories and a moving message about America’s diverse future.

The Multicultural Retail 360 Summit (formerly Hispanic Retail 360 Summit) is produced by Stagnito Business Information + Edgell Communications and its market-leading business intelligence brands Convenience Store News and Progressive Grocer.  

To register, go to www.multiculturalretail360.com/summit.