Marketing
What I had never expected, I regularly had to remind Marketing & Sales oriented persons, whether my boss or my subordinate, of the value of their own (purchased) market research. A beautiful case in point was when both my Managing Director, with a true M&S heart, and I, as M&S Director, were newly transferred to one of our company’s main markets.
Just before our arrival the packaging of our number one product had been revamped and we were all convinced this change would substantially increase our market share; long story short, there were only advantages to both us, as manufacturer, and to the client:
- While keeping the same content, the gross weight of a single unit was halved
- An opener was no longer needed, you simply flipped off the lid
- Thus, no more risk of cutting oneself while handling the product
- It also meant the packaging was now re-sealable, keeping the product fresh longer
- And, to our delight, also the overall cost price had more than halved
So, no matter how you cut it, it was smiles all around, or was it? Sales were terribly disappointing and when I arrived it had become common knowledge that distribution was faltering; it was my task to rectify this. Since we were both fresh arrivals, we could attack this task without any reservations.
I did the rounds with my sales representatives who informed me that they questioned the ‘common knowledge’; in their opinion the market was pretty much blanketed, but the product would not sell. My visits could not but confirm this, every shop I visited carried our product but, it has to be said, mostly on a disastrous spot. The shopkeepers assured me, it used to have the best position in the shop, it simply wouldn’t sell. A number of them agreed to move the article back to a prime position for a week, but visiting them a few days later and finding our product in this prime position, still none were sold.
In the mean time I went through the independent market research (this product was vital for the entire industry so all main players subscribed) and found exactly what my reps had told me:
- There was no branded product with a higher distribution percentage, over 90%, with the next highest product scoring 70%
- The research mentioned how we used to have prime position but were now tucked away in corners
Clearly: distribution wasn’t the issue. Unfortunately Headquarters as well as common sense dictated that distribution was the problem, the surveys were simply faulty, as was my own observation. We never tackled the real problem: the customer didn’t believe the new packaging would keep the product fresh in the desert heat.
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