Thank you for that great introduction by Richard Wise, yes the introductory speaker from Tuesday. That’s what you get when you put a quarter horse on the stage to introduce another quarter horse derby winner. Elegant start.

80% of his time is dedicated to pricing strategy and all of his time is about the numbers.

From that line you might be thinking out loud “wow, I missed a snore fest.” But, you certainly did not. The audience was engaged and all thanks to an engaging speaker who didn’t show too many numbers for a “numbers guy.”

Here are some of the things he covered which I’ll take away from this conference.

>> Do you celebrate your dog’s birthday? If you do, you are the audience for dog treats. This was the one question Kraft could ask in order to determine if you fit the profile. Simplified.

>> New normal is rated as “bad” for many and the positives don’t make up for it. This is based on statistics, but confirmed by the people around us impacted by this continued recession.

>> The Misery Index: understand this and you get a perspective on your customer base. Misery Index for August of 2011 was the highest its been in 12 years.

>> State of of the country 69% satisfied in 2000 vs 11% today. State of the economy 71% in 2000 versus 7% today. Whoa! That’s a measurement of MISERY.

>> Consumer journey: resilience, re-evaluating, resourcefulness, responsibility, ownership, control [changing priorities], cheap chic [smart shopping is "cool].

>> Online coupons are fun to a degree of 200% increasing from 2009. Make us feel smarter, more in control and having social currency [bragging rights for being frugal].

>> Our new audiences: More ethnic, more downscale, more mature parents, more divergence between upscale and the rest of us.

>> Future growth is more elusive. Consumer will continue to re-evaluate expenditures, consumers will challenge us to “step up our game.”

Thank you Robert, great insights and while we did see the numbers, it was what we heard that kept us listening.