Espresso: The BIG Difference Between a Successful Brand Plan and Marketing Plan

0:07And actually you need to start to talk to the Hispanic population in an authentic and engaging and interesting way um which was completely you know which felt like well what just happened in that point but i suppose what i what i got a sort of a real understanding of there was that you know just you you you can't build a marketing plan and i think the same is true in some ways in the uk in the in the us for one consumer group right when you look at a brand and the opportunities that brand has, you need to work out by retailer, by occasion, what is it that the brand is offering and what is it that the brand needs to do.

0:46And the reality is, is that an occasion like walking into a Costco and buying 16 bars of Dove is very different to that mindset of like, I just need to stock up on my favorite soap versus a dollar store where a consumer is going, I'd like a really premium soap and I'm prepared to spend a dollar for it. And I want to, it feels like something special. It's something, it's a big light, you know, these, you know, someone who's on a lower income who's making careful choices about their money versus a high-end Costco consumer who's just stockpiling. Those are two very different shopping occasions. And I think the same is true with food brands, right?

1:24Which is you need to understand the mindset that someone goes shopping in and the occasion you're targeting and how you appeal to that moment. I mean, I'll give you an example of some of the work I'm doing at the moment. So I'm an investor and an advisor to a food brand, dog brand called Denzel's, right? Which is a kind of, I jokingly call them for shorthand, like the innocent of dog treats, right? So lots of personality, big on sustainability, big on flavors. They've got kind of very cutesy kind of logo and design. the occasion that someone walks into a tesco's and buys a thing of dog treats is fundamentally different to the moment where you're in a pub with your dog and they're sitting on the counter is the opportunity to buy some dog treats how you message the brand in those two moments is quite different right one is not about price right right you're in the pub you've just bought yourself a pint at whatever pounds right if you're in london seven if you're outside london maybe less than five right and you've bought that pint and you're with your dog and you're like oh let's get the dog in it like it's a different mindset right you want it to be fun you want to feel like it's a treat for the dog right whereas you're in a supermarket and you're walking down the dog aisle and you're thinking i must get some treats for my dog oh which brands are there what are the pricings what's the offering right completely different messaging and i think you know actually when brands think about from a food perspective human food here you know actually how you communicate in a tesco's versus an independent retailer or versus online.

2:57The stories you tell, the product offering you have, I think is actually quite different. And I think there's an opportunity to optimize it for those occasions. And I think that brands, you know, yes, you need to work out what is the knock-knock one thing you're doing, but there are different moments you're having to deliver the knock-knock. The knock-knock on social media is different to the knock-knock a point of sale. it is different to the knock knock in a consumer event you organize the linking this back to the brand as a human being right is is it's the way i don't know why maybe a crass way of saying this but i think with with that brand sync oh we're not going to change who we are just for the retailer it's not about changing who you are it's how you show up so it's like the way i'll talk tell talk about my ibiza trip for example right to my to my nana who's 85 is very different from the way I'm going to tell it to my mates at the pub.

3:49Still me talking, but it's the way you speak in those, as you say, optimized per retailer. And I think putting it down, it's still showing up as the same brand, but telling the story ever so slightly. I'd love to go into... And I think that analogy is completely correct, right? Which is, it is possible to be authentic to yourself, to be true to your values, to be true to who you are, right? But a kind of core fundamental, like, what are the things you care about what are your red lines in the way that you interact with both strangers and close friends and the value should be the same but you'll behave differently to someone you've met the first time than someone you've known since you were 10 right and actually but they can both be the same person they both have the same authenticity let's talk about marketing i mean there wasn't even expecting us to go down these rabbit holes so this is super enjoyable so let's talk about marketing plans by retailer and i think some of the big lessons you've taken from unilever that are applicable to challenge your brands i granted it is more complicated in the states yeah yeah in the sense but what are some of the lessons say someone's listening to this they've got to go in and do a waitrose marketing plan or a brand plan what do you think are some of the principles of a great marketing plan so i think the first thing to say is that the retailers are different, right?

5:13And while there are certain truisms like basically everyone shops at Tesco's and pretty much everyone shops at the big retailers at some point, the core consumer group that is at different retailers and the core consumer group that that retailer is targeting are different, right? Understanding your retailer, what their mission is, what they're about, and who they're targeting and how you fit into that story, right, is critical. Most buyers, I would say, want more insight into their category. And while lots of retailers have lots of big data on purchase behavior in store or, you know, what's happening at the kind of top level, they might not understand the dynamics of what's actually happening within their category.

6:08So how are people shopping for that category in different retailers? What are the attitudes and the drivers of that category? So you as a brand owner, as a category expert, will probably and should know more about that category, the buyers that are turning up, the dynamics, the future trends, the interesting stuff that's there. Helping the buyers see how they can win in their category is the basis of that conversation. and then coming up with marketing tactics that will help you win with that retailer is critical. The one caveat I would give is, I think one, without being cynical about this, one needs to remember marketing in retailers is a profit center.

6:55Profit center. They make money out of it, right? So in the end, do retailers make money out of milk? Not so much. do they make money when you put an advert in you know when they you know put a whole bunch of shelf barkers up or run advertising on you know their tv network or advertise through their database they they make money out of that right so they they want money from their suppliers to support their categories um so you have to be careful and make sure that what you're what you're picking from the portfolio of offerings that come from the retailer are going to work i'll say um but look for me the big lesson is is that you've got to understand your retailer you've got to then make sure that you're tailoring the mix to the shopper and the relationship that that shopper will have with that category and your brand if you're a highly brand and you're trying to drive you know large pack sizes it's one it's one strategy if you're an emerging brand entering into a sleepy category that people have been shopping on autopilot for for generations you've got a different a different challenge tell me the difference between the brand plan and the marketing plan because i think brands get confused with that and which one comes first do you think well i'll start well i so i think the difficulty on that is different school different Different people will call different, different things.

8:21Right. Yeah. I would start with what is the strategy, right? What are the four or five things you're trying to do? Yeah. To kind of at a business level, what are the marketing objectives that sit underneath those business objectives? Yeah. And how are we going to achieve that? So I always start with the classic question of what are we trying to achieve? Right. And I do think that too often you end up at a channel conversation like, oh, we need to do social media. Why do we need to do social media? We need to do more kind of outdoor. Why do we do more outdoor? I think the question for brands must be, what are the jobs we need to do?

9:00What are the things we're trying to achieve? And then build the plan that achieved those. And one of the things that anyone who's spent time in big corporations knows, the first thing that gets cut in any conversation is the marketing budget, right? Because it's a variable cost, right? You can't cut the factory. You can't cut the people. so actually it's much easier to kind of go well let's just stop that campaign if your campaigns are built on a solid logic of what is the business objective what are the marketing objectives to achieve those business objectives or what are the channels we're going to achieve to achieve to ladder up so to speak then it's easier to get there so i'm always i believe in starting and i do quite a lot of work with the brands i work with on brand planning and on actually kind of building marketing plans, right, that come from clear strategies, is you've got to start with those fundamental business objectives.

9:51One of the objectives is when at Tesco's, okay, right, what's the number? What's the objective? How are we going to measure it from a marketing perspective? And then what are we going to do to make that happen? And I think the whole thing for me about measurement and consumer insight is one of the areas that some challenger brands don't spend enough time thinking about you know i'm a big believer um in in really getting close to your consumer and really understanding them getting really close to your consumer understanding them so i think you know we were talking as we were grabbing a coffee beforehand about the danger of the kind of the london the london-centric food scene right in the end yes it's important to win in london right and what is it you know 12 13 percent of the uk but actually you've actually got to win at a tesco's somewhere between two towns right or on the outskirts of town or waitrose you know in the middle of you know name a county right suffolk right um i think in the end And, you know, when you own a brand or running a brand, what's really, really important is that you understand at a granular level, what do consumers think about your product?

11:10Right. What do they think about your brand? What do they think about your competitive brand? What are their frustrations? And the reality is most brands have social media following. Most brands have databases, but not enough brands are asking questions of those consumers. quick one guys Espressos have got a brand new sponsor Unleashed Unleashed is inventory management software that talks directly to your finance and econ software we use Unleashed daily at Ireland I bloody love it we've got our admin time in half saving approximately 30k a year why use it save money save headaches save stress get granular clarity on your margins know where your stock is don't miss availability look your favourite brands literally use Unleashed as their backbone Candy Kiddens Tiny Rebel Trip always religiously Look there's a link in the show notes Please feel free to book a call with Josh He's a wonderful sales team at Unleashed They're amazing Even nothing comes of it And even better news You'll get your first month free If you reference Hungary Thank you What questions should our listeners be asking To get more insight on their consumer base That could actually map upwards To achieve those objectives Well I think if you start at the objectives and you work down.

12:23Like if you've got clear marketing objectives, right? Sorry, when you say marketing objectives, so sorry for sounding like a Luddite here, but so you're basically saying do the brand plan first. I'm saying do the business strategy first and then ladder that into marketing objectives and then communication objectives and then channel choice. You know, start at the absolute top of, we are trying to grow. Let's say you've got a new innovation. So let's take a brand like Fern and Rosie, another brand I work with. So let's say Fern and Rosie want to launch a new variant of jam, right? Well, let's say Fern and Rosie want to go into a new retailer, right?

12:59What's the financial target, right? We're trying to achieve X hundred thousand, X million. How are we going to achieve that? What are we going to do to make that happen? And then you literally work through the line, which is like, what are the tactics from promotions to unpacks to media, to retailer media, to brand collaborations, to social, to deliver that objectives? Too often, I think brands go, okay, as a brand, what do I need? You know, I need to be big on, you know, Instagram and TikTok, and I need to have a website, I need to grow my database. Like, well, hang on, step back. What are we trying to do, right?

13:29What are our actual business objectives? Therefore, what are our marketing objectives that come from those? And then how are we going to achieve those with what channels? And I think, you know, lots of the big corporations are really good at putting in kind of big, granular processes that take you through that brand planning cycle. and I do think that brands need to really begin their their years we enter into a new year with you know sit down do a swap work out what are your strengths what are your weaknesses what are your opportunities what are your threats where are the kind of opportunities for the brand that we want to win in how are we going to achieve them what are we going to spend to do it and what channels do we need support to make that happen I think that kind of that granular um I mean god it's boring I mean you know the brand planning process that you'd have to go through at Unilever was excruciating it took months right but ultimately it gave you the rigor to make sure your plan stood up and you were doing things for the right reason it's fascinating how there's like when this william kendall was talking about this um brands go through this gestation period where where founders are a bit you know they've most founders are not all i want to make a caveat of this they have this kind of yeah william called it a gestation period in this this almost scatty it's that ready fire rate you're trying to find the product market fit so it could be like you know a lot of the brands i interview or fans i speak to their initial idea isn't the idea that makes them famous so you've got to try to throw this throw a lot of shit at the wall basically the market will give you the feedback and then you you tailor to tailor tailor that works to a point maybe once you get into weight you know that will get you into your planet organic yourself which is your harrods waitress potentially but then you get to another point and i always say it's like a brand like a toddler growing up right you get to a point where you can't be like that you've got to be sit down and have that rigor and it is boring but basic and boring but it does take you to that that next level i think you know to be honest i i've not i'm not great that bit that bit of sitting down to do the actual planning i don't find that interesting um but i think you're so right in in terms of brands doing it in terms of something you aren't you talked earlier about you're sort of asking someone to define creativity creativity for me is about defining a framework and then breaking the rules within that framework and i think that the great i think if you know someone says you know just be creative like so i worked with what if innovation right which is one of the leading innovation consultancies now part of accenture and we used to go into run bland brand processes with people like PepsiCo and Unilever and Procter & Gamble and Biasstorf, all the big corporations, to help their brand people think creatively about a particular challenge.

16:14You would always fail in that process if the task upfront was not defined well enough. If you were not clear about what are we trying to be creative about, what are the parameters around that process, you didn't have a hope in hell, right? And we used to, you know, So they always did a sort of, before any process, right, the first step was pause in lots of the processes. You don't leave a happy lot, what if that? And it's like, just stop. Just stop and think for a second. What are we actually trying to do here? Once you've got that, go nuts, right? But if you're not clear on absolutely what you're trying to create, that sort of that rigor, you can't be creative.

16:59you have to have that constraint to then do that and i'm a real you know it's funny it's not one of the things like you know it's what unilever changed about me you know in when i was two degrees in art history i you know my i was when i arrived at unilever i was one of the creative ones you know it's always on all the brainstorms always doing all the kind of mad creative thinking the breaking the rules you know working building campaigns like getting naomi campbell to wear rubber gloves for washing up liquid campaign you know all sorts of crazy stuff but you know what unilever taught me was if you don't get the rigor right at the front god help you um and i think that is you know the thing that really changed you know me you know as a kind of a human being was understanding that need to kind of button things down before you kind of start getting creative so know the framework framework and then break it yeah i love that that's that's ultimately linking this back to chefs right is like the framework of so tom gave the example of i'm gonna make a pork chop with potatoes that's the framework thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having ya if you want the fun episode it will be in the show notes i think will be in the show notes the full episode thank you so much please leave friends as well it means the world to me.