Spark's New Brand Partner Program Set to Play Leading Role in North American Airport Retail Sales Revival

March 23, 2021

Spark Group of Companies introduced a new multi-faceted sales and promotions solution for airport retail, the Brand Partner Program. It has been designed to substantially support global brands and travel retailers to achieve the best possible sales outcomes as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recruited and employed by SPARK, Brand Partners are trained and supported to provide airport shoppers with a highly-engaging, personalized and more sophisticated airport retail experience. The program has been devised to enhance the role of the traditional airport retail sales assistant or brand ambassador to that of a dedicated airport store brand manager.

Complete with real-time sales reporting via a designed-for-purpose app, the one-year extendable program aims to transform the effectiveness and ROI of the shopfloor sales function.

SPARK is a strong advocate for sales optimization and has delivered successful sales and HR programs for brands and retailers including Estée Lauder, Godiva, Dufry, Coty, L’Oréal, Andrew Peller, Sisley, AmorePacific, Hermès and Bulgari among many others.

Brand Partner Program cohorts at key airports are scheduled to commence later this year, in line with North American air travel recovery.

The program – which is aimed at all major categories in airport retail – is front-loaded with bespoke SPARK sales training, with modules designed to complement the established product training programs of brand and airport retailer clients.

There are many issues currently facing those brands and retailers in the face of COVID-19, and the Brand Partner Program has been designed to tackle them head-on, according to SPARK Group of Companies President, Heidi Van Roon.

For brands, she says, these issues include reduced shopfloor accessibility and travel budgets, obsolete activation models and ROI uncertainty. For retailers, she says the program tackles the challenges of reduced labor budgets, high turnover costs of brand ambassador programs, and the need to adapt activations to what is safe and impactful in the post-COVID era.

The HR priorities for Brand Partners are at the center of the thinking for this revolutionary new approach to airport retail sales. In addition to sales training and brand immersion, they receive dedicated 12-month contracts from SPARK with competitive wages. There are long-term job prospects that are extendable either with SPARK, the brand or the retailer upon successful completion of the program.

Van Roon said: “Collaboration is right at the heart of what we are trying to achieve. The success of the program is dependent on a team of 5-10 Brand Partners per airport location and full retailer support. We have used our experience of delivering some of the most profitable brand ambassador programs and brand activations seen in Americas travel retail in pre-COVID years to create this new, all-encompassing airport retail sales employment service.”

She concluded: “What we are delivering with the Brand Partner Program is benefits to the retailer, benefits to the brand, and benefits to the employee. In other words, a win-win-win situation. We urge brands and retailers to provide input and to work with us and lead the airport retail sales model forward into a bright future.”