Re: General Discussions
Reply #1227 –
Rather harsh, Wingman MAV.
Having worked in this business, and with some of the best ad agencies in the caper I do have some knowledge in this area. Market research is only one factor, then there's interpretation of the data, then there's implementation of a strategic marketing and PR plan to reach and motivate the perceived market - that means media usage, creative and image consultants, not to mention industrial psychology input.
Many a well market-researched product has flopped... P76, but that was awhile ago. More recently you can bet that the LNP did their market research before launching their (lame) ad campaign. Perhaps their market research was good, but the interpretation and implementation was woeful. I could site many examples (evidence?) of brands/products that underwent exhaustive market research, yet still failed. Re-branding successfully involves much more than blind adherence to market research. It aint linear.
If market research was the 'be all and end all' as you seem to believe, then every product re-branded using market research would be an instant success. It aint. There's a fair bit of creative, intuitive, experienced interpretation and art involved.
The thing is Shane, Coon/Cheers cheese is a minuscule component of a very large range of products manufactured, imported and sold by the various arms of Calendar Cheese/Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Company/Saputo. I listed some of their brand names in a previous post and they cover everything from caviar to chocolate. As I said before, it is ludicrous to suggest that rebranding one of their products caused such a drop off in sales across the board that they had to close plants in Victoria.
Saputo closed their cheese slice factory in Cobram earlier this year. Coon/Cheers is one of several cheese slice brands produced by Saputo. In September, CEO Lino Saputo explained;
“Two platforms that have most upside for us are the US and the second one is Australia.
Australia is very different to the US — it’s not a commodity issue, it’s more a lack of milk production issue in the country.
Milk production has been declining by maybe four or five per cent per year which means less milk for us to process, which means we need less plant in our system to be able to run our plant more effectively, more efficiently.
By the end of our strategic plan (final year 2025,) we will have fewer plants in the US network and fewer plants in the Australian network."
The only "evidence" that the change from Coon to Cheers had an impact on Saputo's profitability are some throw away references to the name change in the Murdoch media's reporting of the closure of Saputo's Maffra plant.