Advantage Solutions Inc. 10-K

Item 1. Business Our Company We are a leading provider of outsourced solutions to consumer goods companies and retailers. We have a strong platform of competitively advantaged sales and marketing services built over multiple decades – essential, business critical services like headquarter sales, retail merchandising, in-store sampling, digital commerce and shopper marketing. For brands and retailers of all sizes, we help get the right products on the shelf (whether physical or digital) and into the hands of consumers (however they shop). We use a scaled platform to innovate as a trusted partner with our clients, solving problems to increase their efficiency and effectiveness. At the most fundamental level: • We sit at the nexus of consumer goods companies and retailers and serve as a trusted partner to both. • We help our clients sell more while spending less. We make them more effective and more efficient. • We win by providing best-in-class service every day and innovating on a nimble operating platform. • We drive productivity to provide fuel for reinvestment and growth. • Simply put, we are built to do it better, cheaper and faster. We offer headquarter sales representation services to consumer goods manufacturers, for whom we prepare and present to retailers a business case to increase distribution of manufacturers’ products and optimize how they are displayed, priced and promoted. We also make in-store merchandising visits for both manufacturer and retailer clients to ensure the products we represent are adequately stocked and properly displayed. Within our marketing services, our largest service offering is retail experiential, also known as in-store sampling or demonstrations, through which we create and manage highly customized large-scale sampling programs (both in-store and on-line) for leading retailers. We also have a collection of specialized agency businesses, where we provide private label services to retailers and develop granular marketing programs for brands and retailers through our shopper, consumer and digital marketing agencies. Our expertise and scale have compounded over decades, built on differentiated business systems, talent, relationships, and technology. We listen, learn and invest in capabilities that allow us to meet the evolving needs of brands and retailers – solving existing problems better and new problems quickly, to navigate change in an increasingly omni-channel world. This, in turn, helps us compound our relationships with clients. These relationships are enhanced by a suite of technology offerings which leverage data and analytics solutions to support our associates in creating, executing and measuring insight-based plans to grow our clients’ businesses. 2 Our Solutions Our services are provided across two segments — sales and marketing. Sales Segment Through our sales segment, we provide our clients with a full suite of outsourced solutions to enhance sales in the traditional retail, foodservice and e-commerce channels. Within our sales segment, we typically generate revenues on a commission, fee-for-service or cost-plus basis. Our primary sales services include: Brand-Centric Services Our service offerings have been predominately centered around providing solutions to branded consumer goods manufacturers ( i.e ., non-private label manufacturers). These brand-centric services include: Headquarter Relationship Management We act as a representative of our consumer goods manufacturer clients and facilitate relationships with retailers across a range of matters, including business development and sales planning efforts. We prepare customized, data-driven business plans on behalf of our manufacturer clients and present a business case to increase distribution of their products, and optimize the shelf placement, pricing and promotion of their products, to our extensive network of industry contacts spanning retailer buying organizations and senior executive ranks. Our services are enhanced by our in-depth understanding of both the manufacturers’ and retailers’ strategic priorities, which is supported by our close physical proximity to our clients’ offices, as well as our proactive approach in identifying business-building opportunities. Our scale allows us to offer these services on a local, regional or national level, as well as for a client’s designated product, brand or entire portfolio. Analytics, Insights and Intelligence To support our sales efforts, we field a team of analytics professionals who provide category and space management services. These professionals analyze consumer purchase and retailer data to identify opportunities to increase the sales of our clients’ products and categories. We perform these analyses using our proprietary business intelligence technology platform, which aggregates data to guide sales strategies to expand product distribution and optimize other factors such as assortment, planograms, pricing and trade promotions. We also use post-promotion analytical tools to evaluate promotion effectiveness and work with clients and retailers to make the adjustments necessary to meet sales and profit objectives at the product and category level. Our teams of category managers are available in every market, including some who sit onsite with retailers and assist in developing analysis to support recommendations. We also conduct advanced analytical services for clients such as retailer point-of-sale and shopper card analytics and primary market and shopper research. Administration Our associates utilize innovative technology and know-how to efficiently manage key back-office functions for clients such as receiving and processing purchase orders. Our team also manages trade promotion programs executed between manufacturers and retailers. Through our expanded “Order to Cash” service, we strive to deliver additional savings for clients by managing extra steps in the order process, including revenue reconciliation, cash application and collection management. Finally, we leverage this infrastructure to offer additional services that include call center support and vendor-managed inventory ( i.e ., building orders to ensure appropriate in-stock levels). Brand-Centric Merchandising We deploy teams in retail locations to support manufacturers’ in-store sales strategies. Our associates conduct both cyclical and ad hoc store visits to manage product availability and positioning, implement promotions, install point-of-purchase displays and perform other value-added merchandising services. Tablet technology and proprietary software are used extensively in the workflow. For example, routing software helps guide our associates from location to location in the most efficient and effective way based on factors such as store volume, sales velocity, store location and in-store conditions. In store, our associates use our merchandising application and scanners to efficiently and effectively execute a range of activities such as distribution tasks, validating promotional compliance or answering survey questions. Our software leverages daily point-of-sale store data, supply chain data and advanced algorithms to target and correct potential store-level merchandising issues in real time, such as stock keeping units that are void, out of stock or past expiration. We are able to 3 leverage this intelligence to route our retail teams to stores where issues exist, or may soon exist, as well as prioritize our associates’ work to address the highest-value opportunities while conducting a store visit. Another application provides our associates with professional digital presentation materials enabling them to make quick and impactful recommendations to store managers for assortment changes, promotional events and display programs. We are also able to integrate point-of-sale data into these presentations to help store managers understand the potential store-level sales impact from such recommendations. We offer our clients a full spectrum of flexible service models for our retail services coverage. In our dedicated coverage model, our associates perform services exclusively for a particular client and have intimate knowledge of its categories and products. Our syndicated coverage model utilizes shared teams in particular channels to perform services for multiple clients while in a store. Finally, we offer hybrid coverage models whereby clients can choose to have dedicated teams covering designated channels or retailers and syndicated coverage for other channels. Our retail services teams focus either on manufacturers or particular retail channels, such as grocery, drug, mass, convenience, club and natural/specialty, which allows them to develop expertise in either manufacturer products or a particular class of trade. Retailer-Centric Services Over the past decade we have leveraged our strategic position with retailers to develop solutions that address their needs. Our retailer- centric services include: Retailer-Centric Merchandising We serve select retailers as their exclusive provider, and other retailers as an authorized provider, of in-store merchandising or reset services. For some of our retailer clients, we perform other in-store services, such as compliance audits, data collection and in-store product assembly, and certain advisory services, such as analytics and planogram services intended to increase sales and optimize inventory and space management, so that the retailer’s personnel can focus on interacting with and servicing its shoppers. In-Store Media We manage a wide variety of media, merchandising and display platforms for retailers, including: multi- manufacturer circular programs; an in-store display platform for perishable brands with cooler units in high- traffic locations; and a network of advertisements on pedestals at the entrances and exits of major retailers. In addition to our brand-centric and retailer-centric sales services, we have a portfolio of other broadly applicable offerings that are designed to grow sales and reduce costs for clients. These services include: Digital Commerce We offer technology and e-commerce solutions to both manufacturers and retailers. Our business intelligence solutions drive efficiencies for consumer goods manufacturers in two ways: first, certain of our technology solutions automate critical reporting processes and provide insights that allow manufacturers to make revenue-optimizing decisions ( e.g ., software applications that synthesize large amounts of commercial data into intuitive reports that allow managers to make more informed decisions with respect to sales and inventory levels); and second, when combined with our merchandising services delivered through our retail services teams, our digital and technology solutions optimize in-store operations and workflows. Our e-commerce capabilities cover a comprehensive suite of services, including representation of consumer goods manufacturers to online retailers, trade marketing management, brand reputation management and content creation, management and syndication services. Our e-commerce services include facilitating the purchase of products directly by online retail partners, as well as, in some cases, purchasing and reselling clients’ products directly to the consumer, which affords us comprehensive coverage of manufacturers’ product portfolios. Our trade marketing management services also support effective merchandising of our clients’ products in the online channel through optimizing pricing, promotion and placement of those products. In addition, through our brand reputation management services we help manage brands’ online reputation to increase community engagement and conversations that promote purchasing decisions. Our content services help manufacturers and retailers create and syndicate product content that is designed to educate shoppers and increase online sales. These services include professional content production capabilities for product imaging and specifications and one of the world’s largest retailer content syndication networks. Our network allows us to distribute rich product content to over thousands e-commerce sites. These assets, leveraged from our own production work or retailers’ and manufacturers’ brand development efforts ( e.g ., consumer-facing websites), help manufacturers and online retailers sell more by providing comprehensive and compelling product information for a more engaging shopper experience. 4 Marketing Segment We believe that our marketing segment is differentiated from our competition by our people, retail connectivity, entrepreneurial marketing mindset and scale. We launched our marketing business in 2000 in response to our observation of the challenges that our clients were experiencing by working with traditional marketing agencies that were not effectively connecting brand marketing strategies, sales planning efforts and retailer strategies to offer cohesive brand marketing. Our position as an intermediary in the market gives us deep insight and understanding into manufacturers’ needs from a sales perspective, their marketing and promotion strategies, as well as retailer strategies. We believe this position enables us to create more effective, shopper- focused marketing promotions by connecting client sales and marketing strategies with those of retailers. We believe that our marketing business is differentiated from traditional marketing agencies in that it is built upon our insights and understanding of manufacturer and retailer strategies, leverages our ability to design and execute coordinated, large-scale marketing platforms in retail and combines capabilities from across the various disciplines in our portfolio to influence consumers at critical points along the purchase journey through execution platforms that reach audiences in-store and out of store to deliver superior client results. Since founding our marketing business, we have grown to become a national agency collective and are the agency of record for many of the most recognized brands across the retail, packaged goods, technology, apparel, automotive, travel, entertainment, education and healthcare industries. We were ranked by Ad Age as the largest U.S. promotions agency and the largest U.S. experiential and event marketing agency from 2014 to 2021 based on prior year revenues. Furthermore, in 2021 we ranked 11th on Ad Age’s list of the largest U.S. marketing agencies from all disciplines and 18th on its list of the world’s largest agency companies based on prior year revenues. Within our marketing segment, we typically generate revenues on a fee-for-service, cost-plus, retainer or commission basis. Brand-Centric Services Shopper and Consumer Marketing For manufacturer clients, we analyze shopper behavior and apply our deep retailer knowledge and expertise to offer planning, execution and measurement of insight-based, retailer-specific promotions that target a retailer’s specific shopper base to drive product sales. We combine an understanding of how a brand’s consumers behave as shoppers in different channels, formats and retailers (mined from data resources) with an understanding of retailer objectives, strategies and preferred programming tactics (informed by our connectivity and resources in the field) to develop programs that successfully promote the sales of clients’ products at retail. Manufacturers also hire us for national consumer promotions, which are designed to stimulate demand for, and awareness of, their products more broadly. Brand Experiential We design and execute brand experiences in retail and non-retail settings in order to help brands engage, educate, acquire and retain consumers and impact purchase behavior. Our brand experiential solutions include large-scale festivals, lifestyle venues, pop-up-shops, mobile tours, as well as assisted sales programs whereby our associates act as extensions of client sales teams, educating consumers as well as store employees. Retailer-Centric Services Retail Experiential We design and execute one-to-one engagement strategies in order to drive product trial and sales and help retailers differentiate their in-store experience and generate more loyalty from shoppers. This includes in-store sampling and demo programs with fully-scaled operations including staffing, training, field management, assembly, fulfillment, technology and reporting. We deploy teams at each retailer that develop event concepts in conjunction with marketing, merchandising and store operations and then secure supplier support and funding for the programs. Our other retail experiential solutions include premium advisors who provide assistance in complex categories (such as beauty and adult beverages), virtual advisors who provide assistance via text messaging or web and curated sampling boxes for online grocery pick-up and delivery orders. Retail experiential constitutes the largest service in the marketing segment, representing more than half of our retailer-centric and marketing revenues. Private Label We help maximize the market potential of private label portfolios by providing comprehensive private label strategy, development and management services to retailers and private label manufacturers. By leveraging our analytical capabilities and 5 expertise, we develop strategies and provide insights that help retailers establish and grow productive and profitable private label programs across new and existing product categories. This process often begins with a thorough analysis of the marketplace to develop a private label portfolio strategy that aligns with a client’s priorities. We help identify the most compelling product categories to target and specific products to develop. We also provide packaging and design services to bring our clients’ brands to life through strong brand identities. Our retailer clients are supported by analytical teams and associates who execute strategies through assortment planning, product sourcing and marketing and ongoing program management. In addition to our brand-centric and retailer-centric marketing services, we have a portfolio of other broadly applicable offerings that are designed to engage consumers and enhance marketing efforts for clients. These services include: Digital Marketing Using advanced analytics, our digital marketing teams provide a wide range of services to clients, including: interactive design and development across mobile, tablet and desktop platforms; application development; content management solutions; paid media, including search engine marketing, and programmatic and direct media; and social media development and management. Digital Media and Advertising We offer targeted media and advertising solutions powered by our proprietary data that deliver to curated, custom audiences from first and third-party data sources. Our cross-screen advertising capabilities enable advertisers to target and engage with custom audience segments across devices via rich media, display, email and value exchange ads. Government Regulation In connection with the services we provide, we must comply with various laws and regulations from federal, state, local and foreign regulatory agencies. We believe that we are in material compliance with regulatory requirements applicable to our business. These regulatory requirements include, without limitation: • federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations involving minimum wage, health care, overtime, sick leave, lunch and rest breaks and other similar wage, benefits and hour requirements and other similar laws; • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act and regulations of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the equivalent state agencies and other similar laws; • food safety matters ( e.g. , federal, state and local certification and training and inspection and enforcement of standards for our associates, facilities, equipment and the products we promote), alcohol beverage marketing regulations, food and permitting matters ( e.g. , licensing under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act and regulations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture), custom and import matters with respect to products imported to and exported across international borders; • the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the UK Bribery Act and other similar anti-bribery and antikickback laws and regulations that generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business; and • federal, state and foreign anticorruption, data protection, privacy, consumer protection, content regulation and other laws and regulations, including without limitation, GDPR and the CCPA. Human Capital Management Our associates represent the most important assets to our business. As of December 31, 2021, we employed approximately 70,000 associates. Approximately 20,000 of these associates are full-time and approximately 50,000 are part-time. Approximately 58,000 of these associates are in the United States. As of December 31, 2021, none of our associates in the United States were represented by a trade union. We experience meaningful turnover among our entry level associates each year, and the turnover is most significant among our part-time associates. Our recruiting and retention practices are important to meeting the needs and expectations of our clients and customers. 6 We experience less turnover among our mid-level and senior associates, and we believe our performance- based culture differentiates us from our competitors and other similar employers. Our culture is built on accountability for results. We set clear objectives with our associates, analyze performance and reward and recognize associates who outperform. We strive to encourage our associates to be proactive, creative and entrepreneurial in providing solutions for our clients and customers. We believe our encouragement has contributed to the service innovation that has fueled our growth, and that our commitment to results and continuous improvement has produced long-term relationships with our clients and customers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our front-line associates have performed incredible work for our clients, customers and communities. The health and welfare of our associates continues to be our primary concern, and we have implemented a number of programs to assist our associates, including providing personal protective equipment, establishing an associate-relief fund and providing additional sick pay. Notwithstanding the dedication of our associates, a number of our services were adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, we also had to implement layoffs, furloughs and pay reductions for associates that were in, or support, these services in 2020. Intellectual Property We own or have the rights to use certain trade names and trademarks that are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or other foreign trademark registration offices or exist under common law in the United States and other jurisdictions. Trade names that are important in identifying and distinguishing our business include, but are not limited to, Advantage Solutions, Advantage Sales, Daymon, SAS, Club Demonstration Services, Advantage Marketing Partners and Waypoint. Our rights to some of these trade names and trademarks may be limited to select markets. We also own domain names, including advantagesolutions.net. We rely on trade secrets, including unpatented know-how, and proprietary systems and information, to maintain and develop our technology-enabled services. We try to protect trade secrets and know-how by taking reasonable steps to keep them confidential, including entering into nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements with our employees, contractors and associates that contain confidentiality obligations and entering into invention assignment commitments that obligate employees, contractors and associates to assign to us any inventions developed in the course of their work for us. Available Information We maintain a link to investor relations information on our website, www.advantagesolutions.ne t , where we make available, free of charge, our Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filings, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. All SEC filings are also available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov . our website and the information contained on or connected to our website are not incorporated by reference herein, and our web address is included as an inactive textual reference only.