p176-177 - Adam Bass.qxp_NEW LSB 2008 GRID 14/09/2018 16:38 Page 177
THE BASS LINE
• Get consumer insight right
Inset: Nestlé understood its consumer behavior in order to market the KitKat brand.
Imagine arranging a ski-trip for ten friends. It’s virtually unimaginable that everyone will sign up. And yet we FMCG folk can easily imagine that thousands of strangers will pick up our product from the supermarket aisles, take it home, consume it and then buy it again as a newly loyal customer. P&G launched Febreze as a that the new product will definitely scientifically innovative odour need. Think of the number of ways neutraliser in the 1990’s Nestlé has advertised KitKat. It has spending significant sums on positioned it as a break, but it always marketing but, unexpectedly, shows the consumer snapping the sales were terrible. The product two bars apart. In the days when they was scientifically revolutionary were foil wrapped, that moment when but the consumers they were the foil was split was a key part of the targeting – smokers, dog consumption. So many products just owners, cat owners – were don’t launch properly because noseblind. It was market everyone is hoping the consumer will somehow just research that discovered the Above: Fabric conditioner magically ‘get it’ and don’t really study the usage of critical after-cleaning behaviour brands needed to understand that it was the the product category. A black hat thinker has to be that laid the foundations for fragrance from the newly opened washing machine employed to ask the question, ‘what if the consumer success: homeowners liked to that drove repeat sales. doesn’t get it?’ add a ‘spritz’ of smell as ‘confirmation of clean’. This insight turned around • Develop AB Testing the brand and it became a ‘fragrance-enhanced’ If you look at the Fortune 500 from 1955 and odour neutraliser. compare it to 2016, only 12% of companies are still in Market researchers will trumpet this case study business. Will today’s titans still be standing in 2068? as an advertisement for their services, Faced with these statistics, the temptation but one wonders how much market would be to avoid taking any risks Inset: Those launching new research would have anticipated FMCG products ought to adopt but, for most businesses, risk is their only a ‘black hat’ appraisal first. this problem before it happened? Below: How a consumer way to grow. Would anyone at P&G have behaves with a product Online marketeers eliminate risk by can help shape a marketing listened if their Head of Failure campaign. conducting AB testing – launching insisted that the odour multiple versions of the same website neutralising product needed to test consumer reaction and then fully to have odour added to it? launching the one that gathers the best response. This idea should be employed in FMCG marketing of • Embrace the Black Hat retail products with a Head of Philosopher Edward de Bono talks Failure tasked with evaluating about the idea of thinking hats. He which idea is the worst. suggests a Blue hat be adopted for talking about process, a Green hat Conclusion for creative focus, a Yellow hat for optimism, a Red hat for emotional It is time for business to embrace response and, critically, a Black hat the possibility – in fact the that examines the potential probability – of failure, and to look negatives and downsides. at the best way to avoid it or deal As part of their work, Heads of Failure need to go with it when it happens. We don’t hear about into the field with the product and sit and watch projects killed at birth, but we should salute the consumers use it. These significant moments should brave people who make bold decisions not to do become the centrepiece for the marketing campaign stupid things. LICENSING SOURCE BOOK EUROPE 2018
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