I want cereal, not a relationship

I love my mom. Understand that I am not a mama's boy, but I love that she still has things to teach me, whether she knows it or not. A little while back, I helped her solve a technical challenge on her new pc, which resulted in my somehow being designated as her personal help desk. I certainly didn't mind, but there are many people far more able to help her than I could. It feels great to give back though, so I was glad to help as I was able.


As she continued to get more accustomed to both the functionality of the pc, she began venturing out to explore the information and resources that were available on the web. One day after one of our "help desk" discussions (yes, the quotes are a necessity here!), she changed topics to talk about cereal. She had just discovered a national brand of natural cereal and granola (name withheld!) at the grocery store, liked it and was interested in what else they had to offer.


I too had just become familiar with this brand and enjoyed it myself. As it happened, I had recently googled it and found what was a pretty informative and engaging website. It included product info, nutrition info and other helpful stuff, including newsletters you could subscribe to. Pleased with my own new discovery, I shared the info with Mom. While she appreciated all of it, she had this to say to me: "I want cereal, not a relationship."


Isn't it just like a mom to make things so clear? Now, good-for-you cereal would seem to score rather high on the consumer involvement scale, so if there's any product category that should be ripe for engaging the consumer, this should be toward the top. There are certainly other product categories that are far lower-involvement, and where you would expect no more than simple commodity or transactional relationships. I'm thinking duct tape, wood chips, toothpicks, those kinds of household items.


In our effort as marketers to engage consumers and create relationships, we have to keep perspective and not take it personally that not everyone wants to be our friend, our +1 or our Tweeps. Some consumers just want the cereal. Let's just get it to them.

Guitar music is on the way out

Talk about making the wrong call! The complete quote is, "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." Sound familiar? It was stated by Decca Records' Dick Rowe, in rejecting The Beatles in 1962.

TRENDS are easier to spot in the rear-view than when they are an acorn on the ground in front of you. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools that can help us read the signs and tell a fad from a real-live trend. What's the difference? I don't care just how the dictionary defines them, but I would say that a fad is a temporary or fleeting behavior change, while a trend is a long-term or permanent change.

Not that fads are bad - people have made a lot of money on fads. However, trends have a more substantial commercial opportunity for a number of players, not just (for example) the inventor of the Pet Rock or the slap bracelet. Most of business strategy has developed around spotting and exploiting trends to differentiate one from one's competitors and create a distinctive competitive advantage.

So, how do we spot ideas, determine whether they're fads or if they could become trends, and determine how best to jump on them? In my experience, there's no better starting point than consumer data and insights. What are consumers doing, buying, saying? Just as importantly, what is not working for consumers, and why?

Next, what else is going on in the consumer's world? If you're in portable consumer electronics, for example, don't just look at activity in that space; you might also look at also at purses & backpacks (where would your item fit?), color palettes (what's hot), what people are buying in to-go snacks and beverages. You have to find a proxy, or something similar that you can model and evaluate your concept on.

Most importantly, at the end of the day there's no replacement for intuition. Going with your gut. There's a lot to be said for testing and forecasting, but my sense is that Steve Jobs didn't test things to death by tweaking this and that, and re-checking with consumer panels to make sure something was gonna fly. If your first instinct is that an idea or concept isn't gonna work, you're likely best off letting it go and moving on. If something you see really lights you up, however, it may be worth spending some more time on. There are no guarantees, but your internal compass is better than a crystal ball.

By the way, Dick Rowe may have missed out on signing The Fab Four, but he did sign the Rolling Stones a short time later. Seems he changed his take on guitar music, and it wasn't too late.

B2B, B2C, B2B2C...

I've just transitioned from a position that was my first-ever purely B2B (business-to-business) marketing role--food ingredients for manufacturers of consumer foods and beverages.


B2C (business-to-consumer) defines the typical retail arrangement, whether it is a branded manufacturer selling their own goods or services (think Gap, United Airlines, Starbucks) or a retail outlet selling third-party goods and services (think Target, 7-Eleven, Barnes & Noble). Some are hybrids, particularly in the grocery/home space with the growth of store brands in the US, although we're still behind Canada, the UK and Europe in terms of share of shelf.


Most of my experience is in what I refer to as B2B2C. That is, marketing through a retail business channel to the consumer. I've been fortunate to have worked with a number of different industries and channels throughout my career: travel agencies, bike and ski shops, grocery, drug store, mass merchandisers, warehouse clubs, convenience stores, dollar/extreme value stores among others.


Just as each consumer has her/his own needs, budgets and values, each channel has plays a certain role in terms of value proposition to its target consumer, the typical operating margin and the way it presents its merchandise or services. Grocery stores carry a mix of products, and the merchandising typically reflects some continuum of choices, for example from healthy to indulgent, light to dark or fine to coarse, and frequently uses manufacturer-paid and installed displays to promote their branded products or make it easier for you to find them and put them in your cart. Margins are typically quite small (less than 5%).


Remember when Target and Best Buy became Apple retailers? It surprised lots of people that Apple would loosen the reins on its brand, but the real motivation for Apple was to expand distribution--they certainly make a better margin in their own stores, where they don't need to share any of the retail markup with a channel partner and don't discount, lest they upset any of the retailers they have authorized to sell to consumers on their behalf. But the fact is, Target has more stores in more places than Apple ever will.


The lesson for marketers is that channel management is critical. Brands need to balance their desire for that reaching more consumers with reaching the right consumer. We communicate a different message to the channel than we do to the consumer, even about the same product, because they each have different needs and motivations. Who is your target consumer--do you know how to reach them, or do you need a B2B2C strategy with a channel partner who already has a relationship with them?