You will plan quality acquisition for Genovia, a fictional market. You build your solution directly on the consumer journey: for each stage you set the job to be done, the channels, and the AI tools and programs that support it. First solo in your role, then as a team.
A mid-size, heavily regulated market: about 9M people, roughly 2.1M legal-age nicotine users. IQOS launched six years ago and leads the smoke-free category, but growth has been flat for two years. Combustible cigarettes still dominate, and a rival heated-tobacco brand, RIVA, is climbing in the big cities.
The point of sale today: nobody knows which 1,500 of the 12,000 IR outlets matter most; the field force covers about 3,000 of them on routes drawn three years ago; one in five consumers sent to a POS finds the starter SKUs out of stock; and no lead has ever been captured at Indirect Retail.
Portfolio: P1 (IQOS ILUMA) is the core, consumables nationwide through IR. P4 (VEEV) launched last year, still small. P5 is not present.
You are Genovia's leadership team: Commercial, Consumer Experience and Digital, planning separately but judged together. Last year Genovia generated a record number of leads and almost none converted: leads went cold, trials reached the wrong people, every channel ran its own plan with its own KPI. Lead volume is NOT the goal. A quality lead is the right consumer, reached with a consistent message, recognised across channels, and closed at the right physical touchpoint.
| The scorecard | Today | 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Quality awareness among LANU | 28% | 55% |
| Engaged leads (progress, not raw count) | 22% | 50% |
| Lead-to-trial conversion | 9% | 25% |
| Closed at experiential touchpoints | 35% | 70% |
Scored on the bets and programs that fit the challenge: direct AI bets score most, indirect ones help, and reaching beyond your own function adds more.
Prototype v5 · the build is a consumer-journey board: in each stage you add solution cards with the job to be done, the channels, and the tools and programs that support it (typeahead search). Scoring is a working proposal to validate with Normala and the SMEs: direct AI bets for the challenge score most (20), indirect bets less (10), the right programs count, AI scores above non-AI, and reaching beyond your own function plus spanning categories adds bonuses. Banned tools (the hard-line traps) cost points; not picking something is never penalised. The enablers and readiness step comes next. Genovia and all figures are invented.
The device travels more freely than consumables. OOH is banned for consumables and restricted for the device. No paid digital or social prospecting to non-users, any category. Owned, age-gated content, .com and SEO are allowed; eCRM to opted-in adults is open; Guided Trial at licensed touchpoints and age-verified events are allowed. E-commerce serves only registered, age-verified users.
Journey: Off journey → Learn (Discover, Consider, Evaluate, Find) → Try → Buy → Live (Use, Convert, Bond & Advocate). Most LANU are not on the journey at all. Two breaks: many sit in Learn but almost nobody reaches a Guided Trial (it collapses between Find and Try), and there is no re-engage loop, so drop-offs and lapsed users are never won back.
Audience: Tobacco Progressives (need credible risk-reduction proof), Experience Explorers (most reachable, want to try, RIVA is courting them), Rooted LAS (largest, price- and habit-bound, trust only what they touch). Any play that picks the right consumer should say which of the three.
Programs running: Lead Generation, Get Started, Guided Trial (BR + activations), Registration (BR + .com), Conversion (emails), IQOS Club, Trade-In. Available to activate: Lead Management, Referral, Auto Delivery, Sentiment Management, Circular, Churn Management. Lending is banned. Several AI bets assume a program running underneath, so check the chain.
Genovia is on both global platforms (DCX and REEV) and almost nothing AI is switched on. A couple of moves are ready today, most need one or two data or process moves first, a few are long builds.
DCX (B2C): CIAM, CRM, CDP, iqos.com, clienteling and PIM are live, but Next Best Action was never activated and there is no AI segmentation, so campaigns can send but nothing decides who gets what, when.
REEV (B2B): retailer portal, B2B care, visit execution (manual routes) and eOrdering are live, but there is no AI layer (no route planning, REEV Planning, e-Order Suggestion, Computer Vision or DTA video) and PICOS is on paper.
Data & consent: about 60% of purchase signals never reach the CDP (IR is anonymous); about 50k registered LAU, prospect database about 15k. Consent is captured at BR and .com, nothing at IR. AIRD is not yet run and it gates every consumer AI bet (naming an owner is a move your plan can make). CSC interactions are not analysed. The content fix is scoped at about four weeks. Age estimation: legal and privacy clearance is already granted for Genovia, deployment was just never scheduled.