What does marketing to Supermarkets and Pharmaceutical research have in common?

What does marketing to Supermarkets and Pharmaceutical research have in common?

Mar 13, 2019 | Branding, Governance, Marketing, retail

Quantifying the ROI of marketing investments remains the single most challenging task of marketers. While marketing costs  remain being seen as a variable expense, stuck in the monthly P&L , it will remain hostage to the whims of expediency, corporate politics, and short term thinking. The real KPI of marketing investment should be the sustainable margin delivered over a considerable time, as you would with an investment in machinery.

The obvious problem is that you can measure the output and productivity improvements associated with a piece of machinery, the numbers become available with use, although, they are all in the past. Marketing investment is all about influencing the future, and measurement, even with the benefit of hindsight is very hard, and useful only as a learning tool.

Is there something we marketers can learn from elsewhere?

The  Kaplan Meier curve is a basic concept used all the time by medical and pharmaceutical researchers. For example, if they are testing a new drug for say, patients with diagnosed terminal prostate cancer, you plot on a daily curve the lifespan of those on the test drug, and those on the placebo.

Assuming there are 100 patients in the trial, at day 1, all 100 are alive, then  you plot the numbers who remain alive daily with, and without the drug. If the plot line of those with the drug goes above the line of those without, you can imply the outcome of longer life, and you have some numbers to support the conclusion. If the line of those on the drug dips below the placebo line, you are killing patients. Lines that stay together indicate the drug has no impact.

Simple idea, widely used in medical research.

For years I have watched suppliers to supermarkets being screwed by those supermarkets, and increasingly allocating advertising funds aimed at brand building , which delivers margins over time to the brand owners, and indirectly despite the protestations to the contrary, to the retailers. This reallocation of advertising to working capital and margin via in store promotional activities, and supermarket profitability, at the expense of advertising, has been a huge mistake.

It has seen the demise of some great brands. To be fair however, consumers have benefitted by cheaper prices, at the expense of choice.

A few weeks ago,  the recently merged businesses of Kraft and Heinz, announced a disastrous profit result. This came about as progressively brand advertising that gave consumers confidence in the  brands has been redirected to price promotion that is the primary competitive tool of supermarkets. Meanwhile, those  same retailers have introduced house brands that look very similar, and that trade off the value proposition developed by Heinz and Kraft over many years.

The same thing has happened in Australia, perhaps more so given the concentration of supermarket retailing.

I was around as a junior product manager in the early  days of Meadow Lea brand building, at what was then Vegetable Oils Pty Ltd, a long gone business, swallowed up by corporate stupidity.

 ‘You ought to be congratulated’ is one of the great propositions of Australian brand building. In a hugely crowded margarine market, Meadow Lea held at its height, a 23% percent market share at premium prices, four times that of its closest rival. This was a direct outcome of a good product, great advertising, and a brand that delivered.

I had a look in a supermarket yesterday, and had trouble finding anything labelled Meadow Lea.

What happened?

Retailer power happened, combined with the lack of  understanding of the power of great brand building consumer propositions by retailers. Meadow Lea was squeezed by retailers for more and more promotional dollars that ended up  being funded by reductions in the brand advertising and building activity, with the end result that the brand in effect no longer exists.

It has become nothing more than a label!

I wonder where the  next market building initiative will come from?

Certainly not from the manufacturers, as they know that immediately they create a market the retailers will undermine it with cheap versions, so there is no value in the risks involved in the innovation necessary, and no reward.

Back to where I started, and I do not have the data for this, but I bet that applying a Kaplan Meier analysis to  the delivered margin from Meadow Lea over time, both to the now owners of the brand, and the retailers, would show that the allocation of brand activity to the low prices demanded by retailers had hurt everybody concerned, including consumers.

Image credit: Wikipedia

 

 

Where is the gap to be filled in retail?

Where is the gap to be filled in retail?

Mar 8, 2019 | Customers, Marketing, retail

The range of retail format options is huge and multifaceted.

At one end of the continuum you have pure on-line retailers,  to full service bricks and mortar retail at the other, and everything in between.

It is the ‘everything in between’ where the development is happening, and the opportunity lies.

Apple ‘Zigged’ when everyone else was ‘Zagging’ and spent a decade and billions of dollars opening retail stores. While they are now the most successful retailer in the world on a turnover/square foot basis, the reason was more about brand building over the long term than just retail revenue. Brilliant.

Amazon has been the catalyst to the on-line gold-rush, but you have to ask yourself are they are retailer, or a data business first? They started as a retailer, simply using a different channel, but to enhance their position they have evolved into a data company that uses on line channels to sell and deliver product.  With Amazon Go, they have combined bricks and mortar retail with their data capabilities, which can only become more important as they evolve their purchase of Whole Foods.

Meanwhile, B&M retail is either hunkering down, cutting costs, and generally moaning about how on-line sales are cutting their margins, or investing in their businesses, some by increasing service levels, others by setting about ‘digitising’ to compete.

Any way you look at it, the gap is in the middle.

That gap will be rapidly filled by deploying digital tools already available, or in development, based it seems on two rapidly converging technologies:

  • Facial recognition, powered by our on line profiles and pattern recognition software, and
  • Location definition powered by our devices and GPS.

Amazon Go is able to recognise and record stock movements from the shelf to your shopping basket, and back, as it happens, and debit your card with the purchase. It is a small step to use facial recognition as you approach a store, or product category while inside the store, and match that with your previous purchase patterns to make exclusive, and immediate offers to you tailored to your history.   You do not need to be Amazon go to deploy the second part of that scenario, you just need the facial recognition and location data connected to your purchase history, and perhaps purchase intent identified by browsing history.

This combination of location, facial recognition, purchase history and browsing patterns will be the game changer in the current gap.

The question to be answered is how we as members of the public and consumers feel about this complete exposure of what has been to date private. On the one hand we seem to want the convenience and immediacy it can deliver, but on the other, remain very wary of offering up our privacy to the unknown forces that can tap the data in ways never expected or sanctioned.

However, I suspect the horse has bolted, and the gap will rapidly  be filled!

Photo credit: Kristian Dye via Flikr

What is the difference between an Elevator Pitch and a Value Proposition, and when to use them?

What is the difference between an Elevator Pitch and a Value Proposition, and when to use them?

Mar 4, 2019 | Communication, Management

Good question, but the challenge seems to be overwhelming for some of those who most need to be clear on the differences, and when and how to use them.

I spent most of Thursday and Friday last week at the ‘Emergence‘ conference in Sydney, an event designed to boost the start-up scene in Sydney by bringing together investors, start-ups and industry experts. A similar event was held in Brisbane on Monday and Tuesday.

A terrific couple of days, with one significant blemish.

Most of the founders who had the opportunity to present to an audience of several hundred investors, and service providers of many types, blew it! Completely blew it.

Has nobody told these talented engineers and designers that you only get one chance to make a first impression?

The elevator pitch.

This is a very simple, compelling to your ideal customer, one sentence distillation of why  they should buy from you, or more often, just keep talking to you. It is not easy to craft, largely because in one sentence, you have to leave out a lot. Every stakeholder should be able to recite this in their sleep, and should do so at every opportunity when meeting people.  The purpose is to pique interest, and to extract the follow up questions, that can be answered by the delivery of the value proposition, which may lead to a further and deeper conversation.

I did not hear one compelling elevator pitch in the two days. Not one!

Use the elevator pitch when you have 30 seconds, any extra time you may be given is just a huge bonus not to be wasted.

The Value Proposition.

Your Value proposition is a more detailed articulation of why someone would engage in business with you. Still concise, focused, but designed to get to the core of who the product is designed to help,  how that will happen, and what results can be expected. You know the delivery has been successful when there are follow up questions that enable you to go into a bit more detail about the problem you are solving, and the beneficial outcomes of use.

Again, last week, there was an almost complete absence of a Value Proposition. In its place, we were given lists of names of notable people who were involved, how many degrees they had, what the technology entailed,  and some detailed project plans and milestones. In most cases, little that would encourage further engagement, although for a few, there was considerable value hidden amongst the verbiage, poor delivery, and technical jargon.

Use it when you have 15 minutes, along with a pitch deck that leaves the listener with no option but to be engaged. The best outcome to be achieved from such a line-up of consecutive pitches is that the audience remembers nothing but yours, and the individuals feel compelled to follow up!

If I was the organiser, it would be mandatory for those pitching to spend a bit of time with someone who could help them assemble their deck, and then get their message across. Either that, or hide the ego, and get someone with presentation expertise to do the preparation and delivery.

For all of that, the exercise was a great success, and warrants support from those with an interest in nurturing a successful start-up ecosystem, and that should be everybody.

Time can only be productive, or wasted. Which will it be?

Time can only be productive, or wasted. Which will it be?

Feb 27, 2019 | Customers, Marketing, Operations

Time is our only truly non renewable asset, and it is absolutely finite. Therefore it makes sense to use it as wisely as possible.

In a management context, in measuring a process, time has two dimensions.

  • Clock time. Start to finish, how long does a task take to go from one end of the process to another.
  • Event time. How long does it take to go through the activities necessary to complete the process.

It might take a bank 3 days to process your loan application, clock time, but the event time may only be the few minutes it takes to check your credit history, current income and automatically calculate your ability to repay the loan. Event time.

In most cases, customers are only aware of the clock time, and when it extends beyond what they think is reasonable, they become cranky with you.

The difference between the two is the opportunity for improvement, and to ensure customers only get cranky with your competitors.

 

‘Brand Conversations’ are usually just a marketers wet dream.

‘Brand Conversations’ are usually just a marketers wet dream.

Feb 20, 2019 | Branding, Customers, Marketing

 

Brand loyalty and frequency of purchase,  are not the same thing, although we seem to act most often as if they were.

Sometimes we marketers believe our own bullshit, not recognising we are usually delusional, or at least subject to a severe case of confirmation bias.

When was the last time you actually came across a customer who was so loyal, they wanted to ‘have a conversation’ with your brand?

Perhaps they were just shopping around and wanted a ‘conversation’?

Never, right?

Yet the term is used often as we indulge ourselves in developing marketing collateral.

Frequency of purchase, read loyalty, can be the result of many things, awareness, market share, delivering better distribution, price, shelf position in a supermarket, big advertising budgets, and so on.

Only when you significantly increase the price, and some customers stick like glue, or  go from retailer A to retailer B for the single reason of being able to buy your product, do you have real loyalty. Even then, it is likely that rare, wonderful customer could not be bothered having a conversation with your brand, at the risk of the men in white coats carrying them off.

Even the exceptional brands, Apple is one, IBM used to be another, a deli in Flemington, Sydney, is another, known to a relative few who simply would  not go anywhere else, do not have conversations. 

Nobody in their right mind tries to have conversations with these brands.

They do have conversations with employees of the companies that own them, as they seek information, pricing, availability of spares, after sales service, and all the rest of the things we need, but nobody has a conversation with the brand.

Except in the mind of marketing dreamers.

They have conversations with people, your employees, their friends, and friends of their friends, people they meet in supermarkets and service facilities, the list goes on.

The real key is to ensure that when your brand is spoken about, in whatever context, people are telling others of the value delivered, the problems solved, and that it ‘delivers’.

Forget the frills, jargon, and self delusion, it is a tough world out there, and your product needs to perform as promised, then people will talk about you.

Header cartoon credit: Tom Gauld New Scientist.

Finding victory over the deceptive demons of the marketing mind

Finding victory over the deceptive demons of the marketing mind

Feb 13, 2019 | Communication, Customers

 

Years ago I heard the great social researcher and author Hugh McKay describe every persons view of the world as the sight they see from behind the bars of their own experience, background, training and ideas.

The more developed are all these barriers, the more and thicker the bars between you and the outside world.

For marketers setting out to engage those who are most unlikely to be like them, this creates a dilemma.

How do you remove the bars, and see the world as your prospective customer would?

The demons in your mind will try and convince you that the world is as you see it, and at the very least, they will allow only a modest number of modifications without a significant level of discomfort to you.

Human beings connect easily to those who are most like  them. This is a unifying factor of evolutionary biology. It ensures that as we evolved, the small communities in which we evolved could be secure, or at least as secure as possible from the beasties lurking in the undergrowth.

While we may understand at a logical level the nature of those we are setting out to influence, at a primal level, we struggle to align our thoughts and words to theirs, we remain wedded to our own instinctive patterns and prejudices.

We all value truth, love, and life, but the means of expressing those values will be different. In understanding and relating to the differences, despite our own deeply held views, lies the marketing gold of true empathy. It all comes down to the language you use. Not just the verbal one, which is  the default, but the whole range of non-verbal channels, which according to many studies contributes more than 50% to the interpretation the receiver makes of the message.

Trying to sell renewable energy technology to someone who believes fossil fuel is the only answer to the consistent delivery of baseload power is challenging, as is trying to convince a conservative Christian that same sex marriage is OK.  

Overpowering that lurking demon that demands you see the world of your customer in a particular way is fundamental to being successful.

 

Photo credit: Sculptures lurking the shadows collection