Marketing Focus: Who’s the expert in your business?

Friday 24 August 2018

Marketing expert Chris Journeaux discusses the current issues facing the industry in Connect magazine each month. This time, he's reminding businesses of one crucial element when it comes to product development: the customer.

"They say that if you do a job long enough, you become the expert.

"I would argue, though that there is someone else who knows more. Let me explain why...

"One of the first people I met when I went to work for Jersey Dairy was someone I will call Sarah. Since starting my working life, I have worked with and for some impressive individuals, along with some incompetent idiots as well of course. Sarah was clearly one of the former. She met me at the Production Hall door and took me on a guided tour of the Five Oaks facility. As Head of Quality you would expect her to know pretty much everything there was to know about the dairy production, and Sarah did not disappoint.

"What blew me away, though, was how she thought product development as we walked. At times she spoke as though she was new to the facility, seeing its flaws and potential from fresh perspectives. In fact, nothing disappointed about her when it came to quality and product development, a skill that was repeatedly remarked upon by representatives from Tesco and M&S.

"Despite this knowledge, blended with an unyielding passion for her work, Sarah lacked something that would suggest she was not the expert. At least not the expert able to make that crucial decision to change business strategy. That accolade sat with someone else: the customer.

Pictured: Chris Journaux' time at Jersey Dairy reminded him that the customer should be at the core of product development.

"The more I teach marketing professionals on the CIM courses, the more I note that the customer and client can get missed out. We all believe in what we do and immerse ourselves in the process of developing ideas and products to increase revenue, market share and brand profile. At some point, though, so often we lose sight of our customer and rely on our knowledge. This is fatal.

"In my third year at Jersey Dairy, I managed to secure a meeting with the ice cream developer for a high-end supermarket. This was our ultimate goal, to get into a room with a potential customer that could send our ice cream into every one of their UK and Ireland stores. Months of research and store visits throughout Britain had got us here. We had assessed their current range and through a long process of gap analysis identified the weakness we could resolve for them.

"Usually a supermarket meeting would be with a category buyer relying on our Export Manager and I to sell the Jersey story. This supermarket took a different approach. I was politely side-lined at the first meeting, and Sarah was grilled professionally about the ice cream she had developed. They were demonstrably impressed. Not yet by the product, but clearly by Sarah.

"On returning home we pondered their comments and discussed tweaks and changes; how could we offer something unique. I would argue that the secret to success was that we took the product to our user group of consumers. I take nothing away from the peerless work of Sarah, but when we finally returned to the supermarket with the polished product it was, in my view, the feedback from our customers that shaped the final version. And it worked. The developer was impressed, and we were sent away to start work on the packaging options.

"I think I remember finally being included in the conversation, a sure sign we were on our way. Our ice cream which, for a number of reasons, never saw the commercial light of day, made the point that while the expertise of the producer has a huge role to play, focus should always be firmly on customer wants, desires and needs. 

"In a world of fast-moving fads and regulation change is coming. Maybe it’s here. That means surviving is all about anticipation; not anticipation of what your business can do next but rather, of what your customer will want next.

"Marketing Week published a short piece that made this very point. Soft drinks face a dilemma: sugar is now officially evil, it seems, in the view of governments. That means three options: stay the same and deny the trend away from sugar; or opt for artificial, perhaps the so-called ‘natural’ alternatives to sugar which come with a host of scary health baggage - much of which seems unfounded, but which circulates the internet like a gathering vulture. Alternatively, go for option three: innovate. Really innovate. The article talks about Pepsi setting up an innovation hub in Europe. What struck me most was the description of the business’s lead on this, CEO Indra Nooyi, “…responsible for nurturing new ideas and incubating what works.”

"To achieve this, and despite the gathered genius of those in the business, our customer is king. After all, they will be doing the buying."

Read the article in Connect Magazine here.