Feb 5, 2014 | Branding, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy
SPC factory circa 1925
If ever you needed convincing that investing for the long haul in a brand was worth the time, energy, risk, and money, there is evidence aplenty in the remnants of the Australian food industry.
It has been reported that the Peters Ice Cream brand is on the market, again, and being scrutinised by the losers in the WCB takeover by Canadian Saputo, Bega Cheese and Murray Goulbourn.
This makes absolute sense as ice cream is a great product in which to store the value of that highly perishable raw material, Milk, almost irrespective of its consumer profit margins. Way, way better than cheese and milk powder, those other value stores currently favoured by Bega and MG
Peters was clearly going to be for sale at some point, having been bought and sold many times over the last 25 years. It is currently owned by a Private equity group, who bought it from Nestle, who bought it from National Foods, (themselves later flogged off to Japanese brewer Kirin) who bought it from Pacific Dunlop, who bought it from Adsteam, and so on. A venerable Australian company started in 1907 by Fred Peters, but passed around like a like a turd in a game of corporate pass-the-parcel.
Through all that ownership turmoil, restructures, factory rationalisation, re-engineering, asset stripping, and a whole bunch of other cliches, the brand still holds a very significant place in the billion dollar Australian ice cream/ice confection market.
Similarly, while SPC the company goes to the undertaker, SPC the brand now owned by Coke in Europe has a significant place in European food markets based on the heritage of canned fruit from the Shepparton region. From almost the formation of the company in 1917 to 1973 when Britains entry into the EU locked out agricultural imports, SPC built a brand that 35 years later is still worth a marketer the calibre of Coke resurrecting. Now of course, SPC branded product in Europe is grown and packed in Spain and North Africa.
If Australia is to be a serious player in the provision of sustainable long term food supplies for ourselves and export, we desperately need to recognise the role of branded value adding. We need the vision and commitment, emotional, technical, managerial and financial to stop just flogging the tradeable commodity, as we will never be the least cost producer, the only ones who survive in a commodity race to the bottom of the price scale.
Feb 3, 2014 | Branding, Communication, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
One of the questions I am most often asked is “how do we make this go viral”. To my mind it is also one of the silliest.
The objective of “social” weather it be media, or a drink in the pub, is engagement with others. The objective of viral is, well… not sure, apart from entertaining shocking, scamming ,infecting and occasionally informing people we do not know, will probably never meet, and who will have no impact on our lives.
However, the manner of the diffusion of content on the net logically has an impact on the level of engagement an individual will have with any piece of shared content.
Something that is “e-broadcast” to everyone on a list by an unknown person or institution to the individual receivers, is unlikely to have high open and resend rates, so will not go far. By contrast, something sent selectively to individuals with whom there is already a connection of some sort will have a higher open and resend rate.
It is these open and resend metrics that count, in effect an endorsement from a sender you know that it is worth your time to open the link.
The return on effort is definitely with social, not viral.
Jan 21, 2014 | Branding, Change, Governance, Management, Strategy
It has been pretty certain that control of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter (WCB) would change since the opening bid by Bega Cheese in September last year. It rapidly became an auction as rival bidders emerged, and WCB shareholders struck the short term jackpot.
The only real question left was whether control remained in Australia, or it went overseas. Seems that question is now answered, as Canadian Saputo becomes the beneficiary of Bega’s 18.8% holding lifting their stake to nearly 50%, with a rush of acceptances expected in the last few days of the offer period.
Progressively, the Australian dairy industry in particular, and Australian food manufacturing in general has been sold off, slice by slice, overseas to the point where there is not much left. Now that the $A has retreated,so that on paper it looks like local suppliers should be more competitive with the global supply chains of the major retailers, there is buggar all locally owned manufacturing left.
It may be seen by some to be a bit jingoistic to want to have control over the supply chain that feeds us, but I see it as common sense. Australia is an efficient, technically advanced supplier of commodities, from grains to meat, wool, and minerals, but the further processing and value adding is very limited.
Realistically, there is little the Government can do beyond developing robust industry policy, then applying that policy with apolitical consistency, something neither side of politics seems able to do. Policy consistency seems to be trumped by short term political expediency every time, and in the long term, we are all the poorer for it.
It is up to Australian management to see the opportunities and invest for the long term, and they have largely failed to measure up. In addition, it seems persuading the suppliers of capital that returns sometimes take longer than the next quarterly period to emerge is a large barrier. The pool of genuine risk and venture capital in this country is very shallow indeed.
Jan 15, 2014 | Branding, Communication, Customers, Marketing
Low interest and confronting categories present problems for marketers.
It is relatively easy to generate interest in a new beer, a car, fashion item, but what about insurance, toilet cleaner, and petrol?
Typically we frame communications in the context of a problem to be solved, a tried and true method, but it means always coming at the product from a negative perspective, “you have a problem, here is the solution”. The marketing focus is on the happy smiling person who has solved their cleaning problem, the financially saved flood survivor, and the cleaner injectors in your car from “Factor X” in their petrol. The approach works well, but it often seems that the ad we end up with is a compromise, the best of a modest lot.
The marketing challenge is that the fake happy consumer depicted in the advertising always comes at the product from the point of view of the problem, and whilst it is nice to solve the problem, the context is still one of a problem, and the smile is still fake.
The better way is to concentrate on the person, rather than the problem, make the owner of the problem feel better, even happy. Change the context from the problem to the person who owns the problem, and be human in the way the problem is discussed. This great post by Barry Feldman, one of the great contemporary copywriters, demonstrates how with a collection of poop campaigns, a confronting topic we all face. Make sure you watch the video.
It takes some magic to make a boring or confronting product sufficiently fun, engaging, informative and interesting to enable a piece of communication to work, but it can be done with imagination and some marketing courage. The age of social media offers a new array of tools, but there is no substitute for being brave, and stepping beyond the boundaries of the norm.
Jan 14, 2014 | Branding, Marketing, Sales
Perhaps following on from the success of McDonalds “Angus” strategy, Domino’s has launched a “Wagyu Pizza” for our indulgence.
I like a pizza as much as the next bloke, but it is not one of the major food groups, just an occasional easy cholesterol hit. Being asked to pay 3 times the going rate is asking a bit, even if a bit of a Wagyu does inhabit the topping somewhere, and the packaging is a bit fancy.
Wagyu is a term used to describe a small number of Japanese cattle breeds that deliver a high level of fat marbling, creating a soft, juicy and flavoursome steak. In addition there is the banding mystique that comes from the stories of individual animals being looked after like kings, massaged, fed specific diets including beer, and generally leading an exercise free and indulged life, until the chop.
In Australia, Wagyu cattle are usually grass fed and just finished on grain, but are increasingly just grass fed, keeping costs down, but compromising the marbling, and I presume the tenderness and flavour.
But the “Wagyu” brand remains strong, and combined with the scarcity, attracts a premium in fine dining locations.
However, I wonder what a pizza does to the Wagyu brand story? Not much I suspect.
Is anyone getting a Royalty? Is this the beginning of the end for exclusive Wagyu?
Dec 25, 2013 | Branding, Marketing, Personal Rant
It is Christmas day, my adult children are off doing stuff, my wife is working for the man, so I am left with my thoughts, the prospect of a late, and very big lunch, accompanied by perhaps a few too many sherbets, and this blog.
It seems to me that the basic purpose of Christmas is to provide an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of family and the relationships that exist in our lives. However, we have been hi-jacked by commerce, self interest and marketing at its most venal.
Christmas has become a commercial day, even my Jewish friends get caught up in the frenzy, and I am almost ashamed to admit, I have no Muslim friends with whom I have felt sufficiently comfortable to have a philosophical discussion about Christmas, and the personification, indeed branding of it as” Santa Day”.
So, hug your kids, embrace your friends, smile, and remember that it is us that has allowed Santa to become a brand, so it can also be us that steps above the commerce and get back to the real meaning.
Merry Christmas, and thanks for engaging with my variable musings throughout the 5 years of this blog, I hope to have scratched your brain from time to time.
