Insights Blog

Be sure to take a look at our complimentary video and audio webinar featuring Jacqueline Woods, Chief Segmentation Leader for GE. It includes a presentation from GE as well as a Q&A session on segmentation.

Quick paced changes in media consumption, marketing technology and trends make it very tempting to scrap historical marketing models. However, you may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater when you abandon the rigor of proven marketing practices for the use of new tools.

I was struck by a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that discussed price setting in the consumer packaged goods industry. The article highlighted the professed confidence that P&G, Clorox, Nestle and others have about their higher prices sticking with consumers. It talked about the downward pricing pressure in everyday-use categories such as laundry detergents and toilet paper. This got me thinking about the extent to which pricing is perceived to influence a brand’s fortunes in today’s market.

The real issue is not price, but value. Or, to be more specific, perceived value. Consumers will generally down-trade only if they do not perceive the incremental value in premium brands. This raises significant questions for a number of premium and luxury brands. Are mere “feel-good” emotional benefits going to be adequate in selling a me-too product at a substantial premium? Marketers could perhaps get away with that in a booming economy when consumers, pockets lined with cash and hearts bursting with optimism, were buying into the hopes and aspirations of a better life and badge brands. In today’s world however, consumers are far more skeptical and discerning about the value they are receiving.

Businesses that have mastered the critical processes of organic growth can increase their revenues, and take share from competition, even in an economic downturn when their customers are cutting back expenditures.

Profit growth of 42% in the US construction industry in the year 2008.

I visited Frost & Sullivan’s 10th Annual Sales and Marketing conference in Los Angeles earlier this week. At one of the events, a roundtable on bridging the sales and marketing divide, a fairly senior member of the audience expressed his frustration at hearing the same discussion for the past several decades. He complained that the same arguments were being made, the same imperatives were emphasized, but the silos are still standing tall. In fact, one of the questions raised by the panel moderator was whether the only way to bridge the divide is to make a drastic change like hiring a new CEO. What I found intriguing about the panel and audience discussion was the notion that sales and marketing are two separate functions that have to be somehow bridged. I believe that this is the wrong construct. As long as we refuse to think about them as one process of demand generation, we will continue to re-visit the same challenges.

Is your organization hungry for organic growth?

A common problem in organic growth is a focus on short term results. Often, insufficient time, people and money resources are allocated to longer term developments. A proven way to address this shortfall is with a simple tool called Brand Vision and a planning tool called LEAP (Long Term Equity Action Plan).

We live in turbulent times. The report this morning in the Wall Street Journal talked of the 6th CEO of a publicly held company getting fired within the past eight days since the start of the year. While many industries are in distress, the one that caught my attention over the past couple of weeks is the retail industry. As consumer demand wanes, many retailers are falling by the wayside. So what is common amongst retailers that are likely to survive and even emerge stronger at the end of this downturn? While being financially well-run is a given, the defining characteristic of strong retailers today is a well-defined and commonly understood focus.

First let’s ask a simpler question...Who ‘owns’ organic growth in your company today? If you took a water cooler survey, chances are most people would say ‘the CEO’. Okay, but the CEO ‘owns’ everything. So let’s confront the basic question...which function should own organic growth?