RaceSco MBAlog

The title of this post sounds sort of like "Girls Gone Wild." But for marketers. And not nearly as interesting. Okay, bad metaphor.

Anyway.

I love cookies. And I just bought a package of my favorite packaged cookies, Chips Deluxe. I tore into 'em and took a bite... and they're different. Something changed. I looked on the package and it says, "Now More Chocolate!" Except now they suck.

I loved Chips Deluxe because they were more crumbly than the other cookies out there. Now they taste just like Chips Ahoy.

What I don't understand is why Keebler thinks their core buyers care about "more chocolate." Chips Ahoy owns the "most chocolate chips" title, and that's why people buy Chips Ahoy. People don't buy Chips Deluxe because they hope it will taste like Chips Ahoy!

I've been reading a bunch of books and articles from the famous marketers, Jack Trout & Al Ries. They encourage marketers to latch onto what their brands are known for -- not what market research says are important attribute. You need to ask, "what am I known for?" and not "what are people saying they want?"

People might be saying that "more chips" is important, but they're not saying that they buy (or would buy) Chips Deluxe for that reason. They are buying a deluxe cookie, not a chocolate chip-packed cookie.

Same thing happened with New Coke -- Coke discovered that people preferred the taste of a sweeter cola in their market research, but they didn't test why people bought... Coke. They bought Coke because it represents everything American to them, not because of the taste of the brown, sugar water!

In particular, Jack Trout's Big Brands, Big Trouble has some great examples of this sort of marketing nonsense.