Wednesday 13 February 2013

Opportunities for all brands in a horse-meat crisis?

Anyone who believes that the current crisis is about meat-ingredients needs to re-examine the small print.... What we are witnessing is a fundamental challenge to the meaning of branding, that assumed guarantee that a branded product contains what it says on the tin, no less and occasionally a little more, in a world where every little helps...

One of the first past the post, the Savvy Consumer, lost faith in intermediaries a few years ago. She learned never to outsource her purchasing decision-making to marketers or shopkeepers, ever again.., instead demanding demonstrable value-for-money before handing over a penny... Her lack of trust and purchasing insight has now extended all the way back up the supply chain, and discovered horses in a field...

Can we blame her for never trusting any of us again...?

The meat crisis has converted us all into savvy consumers, and therein lies the opportunity...

Essentially, those brands that are prepared to deliver what it says on the tin, plus a little more, in quantities and of a quality that meets or even exceeds consumer expectations, now have a clear run...

That old-fashioned combination of Product, Price, Presentation and Place, packaged harmoniously to meet created expectation are all that is required to be better than many alternatives, in these unprecedented times..

When ingredient-cost increases can no longer be absorbed, and retailers refuse to budge, the answer is to eliminate attributes now superfluous to consumer need, rather than substituting inferior quality in attempts to short-change a savvy consumer by cheating on brand delivery.  In other words, if the product does not need a handle, its removal will not be missed, and the cost goes down...

Reverting to meeting a combination of the consumer's functional and emotional needs, better than the other guy, then becomes a basis for NAMs to build a similar 4P proposition for the retailer.

Rocket-science it ain't...

No comments: