In the last issue, overall Food Marketing strategy was covered. This planning process helps you answer the following questions:
- Who you are?
- What you do?
- How you are different?
- Why you are better or what problems you solve for the customer?
Once you get the answers to these questions, you can begin the process of developing your Brand Strategy. Your customer should always be at the center of your Brand Strategy. A great example of this is the two strategies that each party used in the Presidential election. Both candidates used polling to adjust their messages. And each candidate used past experiences to highlight their success as well as position the other candidate in a negative light. There is a great lesson to be learned here as more voters used the fourth question “What problems do you solve for me?” as their deciding factor in who to vote for at the top of the ticket.
Whether you are an on premise or off premise retailer, it’s important to understand your customer. My guess is that many of the people that are reading this think they have a pretty good idea of who their customer is. However, from experience, I know that these same people are often surprised once the go through the brand planning process and see other groups that may be more important than they thought.
There is a very structured process that we go through when we do Brand planning. The first step in the process is called segmentation. This involves putting people into groups based on demographics or descriptors (age, race, income, education etc), geographics (where they live, where they work, where they shop), psychographics (attitudes, interests, lifestyles) behaviors (heavy, medium, light users of the product.) or benefits sought (quality, freshness, convenience, value, health/wellness etc.)
We use the following questions to get at the center of the issue:
- Who is your customer? (Male/female, old/young, ethnic/white, blue collar/white collar)
- What do they buy/consume? (Craft brew, seasonal, established brands, can/bottle/tap)
- When do they buy/consume? (Morning/night, weekday/weekend, special events, seasonal)
- Where do they buy/consumer? (On premise, off premise, at home, at an event)
- Why do the buy? (Perceived health, taste, thirst, try something new, share with friends, take to a party)
- How do they buy/consume? (can, glass, bottle, mug, alone, with friends, at a bar, at a party, on the beach, at a game)
Once you segment the market, you need to identify who is your “Target Market”. Who is the primary group of people that you are going to market to? This will help you with your Marketing communications.
Finally, you need to position your brand in the minds of your customers. An easy way to understand this is to fill in the blank for your brand.
“To the [target customer], [My Brand] is the [frame of reference] that is the [point of difference].”
“To the person cleaning up the spill, Bounty is the paper towel that is most absorbent.”
This turned into “Bounty is the quicker, picker, upper”
A great example of this is the current advertising for Modelo Oro. They are going after Men and Hispanics who are dissatisfied with mainstream Light Beer in the U.S., and who make up a large portion of the U.S. Light Beer market. It is a premium priced product relative to the domestic light beers. The tagline is “It’s the Gold Standard of Light Beers”.
I would write a positioning statement like:
“To the person looking to for a smooth elevated taste, Modelo Oro is the lite beer that delivers”.
We always segment the market first, identify a primary and secondary target market, and then write a positioning statement for each target.
In the next issue, we will dive deeper into building your Brand strategy.
Whether you are on premise or off premise, you need to make sure that you understand YOUR consumers and build your products, merchandising, and marketing programs around them. It will positively impact your bottom line.
And remember, Marketing is a race with no finish line!
George Latella is a Professor of Food Marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Food Marketing which is one of the largest majors at Saint Joseph’s University recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. George is also a partner in Beacon Marketing group which provides Marketing planning, research, and e-commerce/direct marketing communications for food and beverage companies. George can be reached at glatella@sju.edu or 610-304-1034.