Awhile back I did a Blog on Progresso Soup vs Campbell's and predicted Campbell's would take
a significant market share hit because Progresso was so much better. It's coming true!
Now you see a lot of sales and other marketing activity with Progresso so not only have they won the taste war, they are raising their visability.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
THE IDEAL HEALTH FOOD!!
A lot of us are continually looking for the ideal health food. Low in sodium, fat, and that magic word, calories.It needs to meet all these criteria and in addition, must diminish our appetite
I like to think I've found the answer. ..and it lies right under our noses.
MATZAH
WHAT!!! Those flat, tasteless pieces of board that were first baked thousands of years ago in
Egypt with just wheat flour and water. That's right, it's the perfect food to meet today's
exacting standards for good health. Thought to be a food mainly used by the Jewish
people, if you read the ingredients and nutrition value on the box, you'll quickly find it
meets all the criteria for an excellent health food.
As far as taste, there are a number of brands, one of which may surprise you. It is tasteful and you can always smear a slight bit of jelly on it. Won' t add very much of the forbidden
ingredients. Not only is it tasty (in my opinion), but imprinted on the boxes are original drawings created by two very talented Israeli artists including The Story of Exodus.
So not only are you maintaining good health, you get to enjoy the drawings as well.
The name of the Matzah is OSEM, ISRAELI matzah. You should be able to find it in most Deli's and Supermarkets.
I get no compensation for this, just the reward that brings good health to you and the pleasure of making this discovery. The marketers get a Marketing Mistake award for not promoting this matzah as a valuable health food
A lot of us are continually looking for the ideal health food. Low in sodium, fat, and that magic word, calories.It needs to meet all these criteria and in addition, must diminish our appetite
I like to think I've found the answer. ..and it lies right under our noses.
MATZAH
WHAT!!! Those flat, tasteless pieces of board that were first baked thousands of years ago in
Egypt with just wheat flour and water. That's right, it's the perfect food to meet today's
exacting standards for good health. Thought to be a food mainly used by the Jewish
people, if you read the ingredients and nutrition value on the box, you'll quickly find it
meets all the criteria for an excellent health food.
As far as taste, there are a number of brands, one of which may surprise you. It is tasteful and you can always smear a slight bit of jelly on it. Won' t add very much of the forbidden
ingredients. Not only is it tasty (in my opinion), but imprinted on the boxes are original drawings created by two very talented Israeli artists including The Story of Exodus.
So not only are you maintaining good health, you get to enjoy the drawings as well.
The name of the Matzah is OSEM, ISRAELI matzah. You should be able to find it in most Deli's and Supermarkets.
I get no compensation for this, just the reward that brings good health to you and the pleasure of making this discovery. The marketers get a Marketing Mistake award for not promoting this matzah as a valuable health food
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Marketing Mistakes & Brilliance
There are highly paid stock analysts who never get it right. and..there are poorly paid stock analysts who guess and hit it correctly once in awhile. I am neither (don't get paid) and I am going to try a different approach.
I am actually going to listen to as many people as possible, and arrive at a a conclusion based on what the street, the average shopper, is saying...and then post the results in this blog...
Who am I? Well I think I have enough experience through my long career in management and marketing to be able to sense things, and to pickup marketing mistakes when I see them.
...and conversely, great marketing moves born of brilliant insight (and sometimes lucky breaks)
How can this blog help you, maybe even financially? First of all it costs you nothing to read it. We will publish the URL address at the end of each blog. Simply type the URL in the address bar and click on the enter key.
No charts, graphs, monthly subscription fee. Just your input when you feel like commenting on the written material. I am listening to the market. Let me share it with you!!
How can this work? Let me give you an actual example that just occurred,
Gillette discontinued their lowest priced razor blade TRAK II. They did it with no warning so that the store personnel as well as the TRAK II faithful customer didn't see it coming and were
forced into a much higher priced blade. In one Walmart, the store personnel weren't even aware that the blades were no longer available.
That was, in my opinion, a MARKETING MISTAKE
Now...Buy some of their stock with the idea that this Marketing Mistake will help cause the stock price to fall. ..and indeed the stock price has shown a bearish trend of late. Look it up
yourself in http://www.bigcharts.com/ Strategy...buy short.
Note!! Gillette was purchased by P&G a while ago and so the downside possibilities mentioned in this BLOG caused by the Trak II mistake will probably be less impacted.
I am not naive enough to think this mistake alone will be the sole cause of their stock price decline but it sure will impact it to some degree.
Disclaimer
We are not responsible for the performance of any stock mentioned in this blog.
I am actually going to listen to as many people as possible, and arrive at a a conclusion based on what the street, the average shopper, is saying...and then post the results in this blog...
Who am I? Well I think I have enough experience through my long career in management and marketing to be able to sense things, and to pickup marketing mistakes when I see them.
...and conversely, great marketing moves born of brilliant insight (and sometimes lucky breaks)
How can this blog help you, maybe even financially? First of all it costs you nothing to read it. We will publish the URL address at the end of each blog. Simply type the URL in the address bar and click on the enter key.
No charts, graphs, monthly subscription fee. Just your input when you feel like commenting on the written material. I am listening to the market. Let me share it with you!!
How can this work? Let me give you an actual example that just occurred,
Gillette discontinued their lowest priced razor blade TRAK II. They did it with no warning so that the store personnel as well as the TRAK II faithful customer didn't see it coming and were
forced into a much higher priced blade. In one Walmart, the store personnel weren't even aware that the blades were no longer available.
That was, in my opinion, a MARKETING MISTAKE
Now...Buy some of their stock with the idea that this Marketing Mistake will help cause the stock price to fall. ..and indeed the stock price has shown a bearish trend of late. Look it up
yourself in http://www.bigcharts.com/ Strategy...buy short.
Note!! Gillette was purchased by P&G a while ago and so the downside possibilities mentioned in this BLOG caused by the Trak II mistake will probably be less impacted.
I am not naive enough to think this mistake alone will be the sole cause of their stock price decline but it sure will impact it to some degree.
Disclaimer
We are not responsible for the performance of any stock mentioned in this blog.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
MARKETING MISTAKES
SOUP WARS
I think most seniors like soup. Especially really good soup with flavorful ingredients, no skimping on the vegetables or chicken. Years ago it was a simple choice, Progresso was so far superior to any other brand that it was no contest. Reminded us of the soup our mothers used to make.(Most mothers anyway)
But there was a problem. It was so much more expensive than competitive brands, that most of us couldn't afford it. ..and they didn't issue many coupons or put it on sale very often either.So not too many people found out about this little "secret".... Campbell continued to dominate the market.
So as a marketing executive with Progresso what would you do?
But there was a problem. It was so much more expensive than competitive brands, that most of us couldn't afford it. ..and they didn't issue many coupons or put it on sale very often either.So not too many people found out about this little "secret".... Campbell continued to dominate the market.
So as a marketing executive with Progresso what would you do?
Promote aggressively to capture market share and get people to try your soup, knowing that your brand had the others beat by a mile as far as taste. Lock those customers in before your competitor woke up.
No...that would have been too easy and too sensible & would probably have resulted in lower prices today and certainly a better soup for the money...ie. a better value. So they let Campbell off the hook...and what does the marketplace look like today?
Both companies have been purchased by corporate giants.What do you think that means for pricing?...which is bound to hurt consumers and who will that affect directly?...those that can't afford it, on a limited income, like Seniors.
Campbell Soup finally woke up and discovered their pocket had been picked!! They evidently lost a large percentage of market share vs where they were. (although I am not in possession of any numbers, I'm guessing by their actions lately in the marketplace.) Look at the media and tell me if you don't see their logo much more frequently. It's called "protection of market share" or frantic reaction to a truth...Progresso is a much better soup in many yardsticks of measurement. ... and Campbell knows it. The MSG scare put out by Campbell is a bunch of crap designed to scare away Progresso customers.
MSG is basically salt (called sodium on cans)
Progresso light chicken noodle 18.5 oz. has 70 calories and 680mg of sodium
Campbell's Light Harvest..18.6oz,,has 50 calories and 480mg sodium
Believe me, not enough diference to really matter.
They have been advertising much more heavily..in places they never bothered to cover before...like Blogs.
Google the name Progresso, go to their corporate site, print out some coupons ... and try their soup, You'll like it. They have been running four cans for $5.00 sales lately so they are rapidly becoming no longer The High Priced Brand.
Campbell MADE A MARKETING MISTAKE..THEY SHOULD HAVE LOCKED UP THE MARKETPLACE WHEN THEY WERE RIDING HIGH. was it ARROGANCE???
LATEST NEWS...(Jan. 20, 2009...) estimate (or educated guess) in a previous post from Seniiorblog, was that Campbell had suffered a significant loss of market share in the Soup marketplace.
There has been some heavy advertising lately indicating they have come out with a new line of soups called V8. They took their proven franchise brand and are attempting to transfer it to another product.
Why is that good for seniors? By injecting a health plus benefit in using V8 (identified with good health), they are providing more good health positive products under the Campbell overall banner. Maybe even the salt content will shrink in the future. So I applaud their efforts to fight back in the soup wars against Progresso.
maxwell
Disclaimer
SENIORBLOG nor any of it's associates DERIVE ANY BENEFIT FROM THIS BLOG...(I just like their soup.)
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Another marketing mistake.....A sweet story....(for their competitors...)
In south Florida about 10 years ago there were no sugar free cookies available in the supermarkets. Publix, who had a lock on the market, had their own bakeries...but didn't make them Why? I don't know.
The need was certainly there. Perhaps they were unprofitable.
They could have grabbed a strangle hold on this market niche. But did not act. Soon a small company, Murrays by name, saw the unfilled need and came in to the marketplace. Sugar free cookies, and they were darn good too! A fair size, fair price and they fought for shelf space.
They were on their way to locking in the market niche when something happened. The same thing that happened to many small companies that showed early success...They did exactly the wrong thing. They saw themselves losing some market share so instead of lowering prices to increase sales and protect hard earned market share, they raised prices and shrunk product size.So many companies make that mistake.
Their cookies still tasted ok but 2 bites and they were gone!! And they hit the customerprice resistance line. very simple marketing rule...you can only raise prices so far and then you start to lose customers.
so what happened next? You guessed it...Another company from Canada,
Voortman by name, came out with a delicious sugar-free cookie, a large one at a reasonable price and as of this post, are proceeding to put Murray's out of the market. Publix who could probably compete, has not made the attempt and they are out of the race for now.
Why do we hear this story time after time??
I'm sure you have heard by now that the newspaper business is slowly disappearing. (We predicted this months ago because, we thought, they were concentrating on bad news in bad times.Turns out to be more complicated than that. And what is thePalm Beach Post response to shrinking readership? They dramatically raised prices. from 50cents to 80 cents in one fell swoop.An increase of close to 40% Did they really think raising prices by such an exorbitant amount would increase their readership?? If nothing else the've certainly priced yourselves out of the Senior market.
Bye-Bye Palm Beach Post. Go back to school after your paper folds and learn marketing one.
maxwell
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