Weigh In: 9 ways retailers can get the most out of Newtopia Now

Newtopia Now was created specifically to enhance product discovery, foster meaningful connections and strengthen relationships. When designing the debut event, New Hope Network incorporated input from both buyers and brands to ensure that this next-gen trade show best serves their needs. As a result, it features a small, intimate environment and a totally reimagined show floor. This will offer retailers the opportunity to discover many new, early-stage brands exhibiting at a New Hope show for the first time, as well as to take partnerships with establish brands to the next level.

“We developed a unique neighborhood format, which organizes exhibitors around four big themes impacting the CPG industry,” says Jessica Rubino, vice president of content at New Hope Network. “Each neighborhood—Thrive, Represent, Regenerate and Glow—features booth spaces but also content, experiences and activations rooted in these topics.”

With an exciting new landscape to navigate, how can retailers optimize their Newtopia Now experience? Here, three people who’ve helped develop the show share their best advice.  

Event organizer

Jessica Rubino, vice president of content at New Hope Network

Shop the Market. To complement the neighborhood concept, we’ve created the Market, a unique environment set off from the show floor. It’s organized by product categories—just like a real market—and features one flagship SKU from each exhibitor. Browse, scan a product’s QR code and get more information about the item and brand via our Beacon Discovery platform. Buyers can see where that company is exhibiting and what activations and sponsorship they’re participating in. This gives buyers the best of both worlds: an interesting, thought-provoking way to navigate companies with the neighborhood format, and a straightforward, intuitive way of finding brands through the Market.

Related:A retailer's guide to Natural Products Expo West 2017

Explore retailer-specific content. Our Retail Insights Workshops are geared specifically toward retail needs. For example, one session covers fresh, exciting ways to merchandise new-to-the-store innovations. Another explores how to bring in more multicultural products, why that matters and how to serve diverse consumer needs. There’s also a cool workshop in Glow about how to approach clean beauty. We know attendees must decide how to spend their time, so we’ve made this content super relevant, practical, compelling and inspiring for retailers.

Make conscious connections. Matchmaking will be a key pillar of the event, and we hope all buyers take advantage of Conscious Connections to connect with the right brands at the show. When buyers register for the event, they answer questions that identify the types of products and services they’re looking for, while exhibiting brands’ data are uploaded to Beacon Discovery. Then our AI matchmaking tool takes all of the data we’ve collected on both sides and makes smart connections, which you can see on the event app once it goes live. From there, you can start to schedule meetings to ensure focused, intentional conversations. 

Event ambassador

Steven Hoffman, founder and president of Compass Natural, a public relations and marketing firm serving natural products companies

Embrace the ‘small school’ perks. Natural Products Expo West is busy and crowded, but you definitely want to go because it’s the place to be. Smaller, more intimate Newtopia Now presents a logical bookend to Expo West. It’s a great opportunity for buyers to get better connected with brands, both by meeting new brands and furthering relationships with existing brand partners. Think of these two events like college: A state university with 30,000 students provides a great, unique experience—that’s like Expo West. But there are also benefits to a smaller-campus experience: You run into key contacts more frequently and have higher-quality interactions—that’s Newtopia Now.

Forage by mission and values. Our industry has always had a strong mission-based component, supporting entrepreneurship, diversity, health, environmental causes, social responsibility and more. With the show floor divided into neighborhoods, brands can present in the environment that best showcases their mission, while buyers, who come to find the most innovative mission-based CPG, can perhaps better organize their foraging and curating. Newtopia Now’s emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion with the Represent neighborhood is especially important. Now diverse-owned brands won’t get lost in a sea of exhibitors, and buyers can get a better feel for the communities they represent. 

Learn from fellow retailers. Buyerside Chats, happening right in the neighborhoods, will explore how brands can build successful long-term partnerships with retail buyers. But these sessions aren’t just important for brands to attend—retailers can get immense value from them too. As retailers, it’s essential to learn from one another, and if you’re not paying attention to what your peers and competitors are doing, you’re at a disadvantage. You want to stay abreast of what’s trending, what’s driving other retailers’ buying decisions and how these factors apply to your operation.

Retailer

Jason Bidart, vice president of merchandising, food at Thrive Market

Formulate a plan in advance. As with any show, buyers should review the content published online ahead of time, including maps and event schedules, to formulate their agendas. This means building time into your schedule to attend workshops and buyer panels, but also taking a deep dive into your categories to determine what you’re looking for. By reviewing customer or member feedback and revisiting your store values, you’ll be able to identify gaps within categories and make a plan to try to fill them. For instance, you might be doing great with fair-trade chocolate, but how about regenerative chocolate? The neighborhood concept should make it easier for category buyers to focus on specific goals.

Learn tactics to support sustainability. I’m definitely attending Cultivating Change: Retail Practices for Supporting Sustainable Brands and Agriculture in the Regenerate neighborhood on Monday, August 26, and I encourage other retailers to join me. This session will feature great speakers from some great organizations that champion one of Thrive Market’s core values: building a more sustainable food and supply system. I’m hoping this session can break down any walls or hurdles that retailers may face when marketing brands that are doing amazing work to push standards and do right by people and planet.

Get hands-on at the Spur. All of the offsite events on the Newtopia Now agenda look amazing, but I’m most excited to participate in Sustainable Futures: Community Engagement at CSU Spur on Sunday, August 25. I’m a geek when it comes to learning what others are doing to further the progress on sustainability, whether it’s a university or an individual brand, so I’m eager to see CSU Spur’s recent work. We’ll go through their labs and test kitchen and learn about their research, so it’ll be a very hands-on experience.

Newtopia Now, New Hope Network's new trade show, is set for Aug. 25-28 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. For more information and to register, visit the Newtopia Now website.