Saturday Morning Meeting Retools Format For Launch of New Season
by September 1, 2014 12:00 am 108 views
Viewers of the locally produced television program “Saturday Morning Meeting” will soon notice content changes and new segments.
“For the past few months we’ve had a loose editorial calendar and we’re trying to clean that up,” associate producer Samantha White said.
White works for Bentonville-based supplier development firm 8th & Walton, which introduced SMM in June 2013 as a webcast for viewers in the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. community and its large vendor ecosystem.
The weekly show initially aired only on the video-sharing website YouTube, but the scope broadened significantly in January when local NBC affiliate KNWA-TV began broadcasting the program each Saturday evening at 6:30. Episodes are also available on WalmartNewsNow.com, and as podcasts on iTunes.
“Through all avenues, we’re estimating we have about 20,000 [viewers per episode],” White said.
8th & Walton CEO Jeff Clapper said a main difference in the show will be taking a “case-study approach” in highlighting CPG news.
“Before we were just highlighting what a supplier was doing,” he said. “We want to tell that story and get the supplier to talk about that experience from a perspective their peers will learn from.”
New segments are also being planned to highlight women in retail and up-and-comers in the supplier community.
SMM, now hosted by Andy Schuch, will also begin airing focus-specific specials once a month, focusing on Walmart initiatives or topics of importance to suppliers. The first special on Sept. 27 will focus on on-shelf availability, or OSA.
Guests scheduled include Mike Graen, vice president of collaboration at Crossmark Inc., Bill Akins, senior vice president of business innovation at Rockfish Interactive, Matt Waller, supply chain management department chair at the University of Arkansas, and Michael Clark, director of retail strategy and execution at Kellogg Co.
Future topics for the once-a-month SMM specials include omni-channel marketing (Oct. 25) and Black Friday shopping (Nov. 29 or Dec. 6).