Tailford Mitchell Blog

February brought some good news for brand name food manufacturers. According to the article Branded Foods Tick Up from last Friday’s Wall Street Journal, branded-food unit sales increased 2.4% in February. This is a nice swing from the 0.2% decline in January. This isn’t necessarily bad for private label brands either, as mentioned in an excerpt from the article:

For grocers, giving back market share to pricier branded items is not a bad thing. Over the past year, supermarkets lowered private-label prices to widen price gaps with branded goods. Grocers sought to gain leverage when negotiating prices with big-name suppliers. Now, retailers are slowing those aggressive price cuts, according to a Morgan Stanley price survey.

Will the trend continue? Driven by increased promotional activity and narrowed price gaps, can brand name foods take back some of the market share lost amidst a volatile economy?

Here’s an experience of mine that in it’s totality speaks to the new era of business and marketing.

1. So I log into Facebook at work.  Yeah, its a problem i’m working on, but look what happens…

2. My news feed tells me my friend “Sarah S. has become a fan of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams.”  Oh!  I like I cream!

3. I click on the link.  It takes me to their Facebook page.  Oooh, I like their logo, it looks contemporary.  I like new things.  I think the word “splendid” was a good choice, its original, it resonates, it means something.  

4. I read their mission:  “Surprise and delight our customers and be engaged in our community.”  Better and slightly less presumptuous than the ” we make the world’s best ice cream.”  Their overview says “We make modern American ice creams, sorbets and yogurts.  We use local ingredients and responsibly grown exotics.”

5. I see they’re out of Ohio, says they’re a small company.  Holy cow they have 9,100 fans on Facebook!  For a small company that’s more than Breyers and Blue Bunny combined.

6. Their page is loaded with content from their fans, and they always respond to them.

What are the chances I would have ever heard of this company if not for Facebook?  I bet they don’t spend much on advertising.  If I walked into a grocery store and found Jeni’s, how much more likely am I to try them instead of my usual brand now that I’ve interacted with them?  How much did all this cost them?  

I’d like to be a customer of theirs.  Because they get it.  Because my friend recommends them.  I’ll bet their ice cream is great too, not that it has to be all that much better, I just like the way they do things.  Effective marketing is marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing.

Let’s say you’re inviting people over for dinner, you’re making Chicken Mole.

Your guests are mingling in the kitchen, watching you bring their meal to life from scratch.  You’re the type that when you entertain, you pull out all the stops.  As you pull out each ingredient, you want the packaging to make your guests feel special, that they can anticipate a great meal because you’ve carefully chosen each component.  You want it to say something special about you.  

This is a great question to ask yourself if you market a CPG, especially if it doesn’t possess the fame of a Coke or Lay’s.  How would you feel pulling your package out of the pantry or a shopping bag?  Step one is leaving an impression, most packaging is unremarkable, unimpressionable.  It should make people feel indulgent, even if its a value brand, no one has to know.  It should make them feel smart, as if they’re onto something others are not.  It should exude or reflect who your customers want to be when they use your product – sophisticated, logical, whimsical, daring, bold…

Brands using the same old approach to packaging will struggle to create this connection.  Most packaging today is literal and status quo,”another brand of X, only with X% less sodium.”  They’ll wind up in a cycle of winning and losing customers shopping for discounts.  It’s time to shift thinking away from what the brand thinks a package should look like to what the package can say about the customers who buy it.  If you’ve ever bought an Apple product, you’ll know what i’m talking about.

Here’s a project we worked on that works.

Interesting article from Ad Age on the recent changes in consumer trust levels that shows the continuing ineffectiveness of media.  Too bad they didn’t measure the trust level of packaging!

Pride, that’s what I felt as I entered a Moscone Center abuzz with activity and optimism.  For all the talk of the economy’s handcuffing of the food industry, gloom and doom were not exhibiting at this year’s Fancy Food Show.  It felt great to be a part of and witness two full floors of exhibitors, crowded aisles, and a rejuvinated attitude amongst people who make things happen in the food biz.  And some people are really making it happen, a few that stood out to me are noted below. Read the rest of this entry »

An almost obituary like article from the Wall Street Journal shows how regional candy brands are disappearing.  This is the same fate of brands in many grocery categories as they are squeezed off the shelf by growing national and private label brands.  Many of these regional brands are family owned and they have given up the fight as they ride the cash cow down to the sad end.  A hopeful sign is in the beer category where many small independent brands are making life miserable for the larger national brands.  They do this with youthful enthusiasm, a willingness to take risks and a sincere belief that they just simply make a better product.

New bottle from Coca-Cola is more sustainable.  This will put more pressure on other brands to make a serious investment in sustainability as consumers start to demand it.

From this morning’s WSJ, Coke Bottle is Part Plant

It’s no secret that we’re clawing our way out of a brutal recession. But what does it mean for your business? How are your customers impacted and more importantly, how are they responding? The media is saturated with tales of hardship. It’s easy for us to become desensitized to the details of our current financial woes.

We’re all people. We all still eat. Those fortunate enough to be among the employed still commute to work. We take care of our children’s needs, clothing them, feeding them, and tending to their health. To say that spending has declined across the board and write it off as a loss is one of the biggest mistakes many customer-facing organizations are making right now. Read the rest of this entry »

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE

ADVERTISING/MARKETING INTERNSHIP
We are a package design & building materials marketing agency and we are looking for an intern with an “I-want-to-conquer-the-world, but I-don’t-mind-doing-grunt-work-too” kinda attitude!

You’ll be sitting in brainstorming sessions, making copies, running to the grocery store to pick up the newest packages, researching growing industries, writing white papers, playing with poodles, learning from the Voice of Vyto (our creative mastermind), and flying 50,000 feet above the world with Exclamation Mark Mitchell (our CEO) as he problem-solves everything.

A few other things you’ll want to know or check out -

• This is an unpaid opportunity.

• To get more details on our companies and culture, visit tailfordmitchell.com and interruptmarketing.com, or find us on Flickr or YouTube – we are everywhere.

• We can work with school schedules, but ideally we’d love to have you here from 9 – 5 every day!

• Having a car is required.

• You’ve only got until Friday, Jan. 22nd to apply  – please call Alex Rumman at 419.508.0515 if you’re interested.

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE

You’ve only got until this Friday, Jan. 22nd, to apply to work in our fun-loving, fast paced package design and building materials ad agency as a project management coordinator. We’re looking for an intern with an “I-want-to-conquer-the-world, but I-don’t-mind-doing-grunt-work-too” kinda attitude!

You’ll be running to print shops to pick up our newest, latest, greatest materials, entering in data, helping with process pushing, learning about the newest ad industry administrative tools, filing, and more.

A few other things you’ll want to know or check out -
• This is an unpaid opportunity.

• To get more details on our companies and culture, visit tailfordmitchell.com and interruptmarketing.com, or find us on Flickr or YouTube – we are everywhere.

• We can work with school schedules, but ideally we’d love to have you here from 9 – 5 every day!

• Having a car is required.

• Please call Alex Rumman at 419.508.0515 if you’re interested.