The Hale Group white paper, Foodservice 2020, highlights the importance of customer knowledge and information sharing…
How will the Foodservice Industry progress from the current mature state? The Hale Group’s white paper, entitled Foodservice 2020: Global, Consolidated and Structured, argues that customer knowlege and information sharing will be among the keys to future success.
Foodservice Rewards sponsors are among the best equipped to understand who their end-user customers are today and going forward.
Share of voice, point of view and community influence will be more important than brand ownership predicts Ad Age…
“Share of voice, point of view and community influence will be more important than brand ownership — and marketers will need to get over it if they want to stay relevant in 2012″ according to these 11 predictions in Ad Age.
Luckily, we’re well on our way with Foodservice Rewards’ operator community:
Forward-thinking sponsors have already embedded themselves as subject matter experts in areas ranging from food safety to menu creation.
Take advantage of the opportunity to influence the community by contacting your Coalition Manager.
Our friends at DSR Live have coined a super term for the underserved and ignored street market: SOB’s…
Beautifully written by DSR Live Co-Hosts Dave Miesse and Bill Hornung in their newsletter:
Has anybody noticed that the foodservice market is sucking wind?
“No” is the answer you’ll get from the innovative distributors out there. In fact, their business has been growing pretty much on target. Their secret can be found in the 42% of the independent operator market largely ignored by most brands.
First, here is what most brands tell us that they are focusing on:
Chains which provide lots of volume and little margin. Large Local Operators. Two thumbs up for whoever coined the LLO term… nearly every brand spits out this segment as a “core strategy.” Which leads us to wonder if it’s everybody’s strategy, how is it unique and differentiated (ah, but that’s another topic for later)?
Everything else which means let’s advertise, promote and pray that some of the other operators hear about us. Oh, and do it with fewer brokers! Brokers and corporate sales reps are fighting tooth-and-nail for chain and LLO business (in between pleading with distributor buyers to take on the latest product). Meanwhile, the unwashed masses of other operators plod along without fanfare.
Let’s call this the SOB market… Smaller Operators Begging (for attention). Hey, we can come up with nifty terms, too! These operators generally offer high-margin, high-loyalty opportunities…
Distributors focus on private label to increase according to this Technomic report…
According to Technomic’s Distributor Intelligence Service, July 2009, distributors view their house brands as increasingly more important for future success and many are investing in more sophisticated brand building efforts.
The good news for manufacturers is that 72% of those surveyed indicated that “manufacturer specification” is the biggest obstacle to selling private label – here’s an excellent example of how Kraft uses targeted direct mail to drive those customer requests and unit-level compliance.
2010 outlook…Foodservice stability and increased use of incentives by operators
Foodservice Equipment & Supply’s 2010 Forecast Study showed that 91% of operators expect sales to remain stable or increase next year. This same study showed that operators altered their purchasing behavior to include greater use of incentives like Foodservice Rewards. Good News for all!
Your customers will probably expect you to act a certain way today. The same old greetings, the same service, the same old promises, etc. Maybe today you should surprise them…
Tyler Aasness sent me this message today:
Your customers will probably expect you to act a certain way today. The same old greetings, the same service, the same old promises, etc. Maybe today you should surprise them. Answer the phone differently. Offer them something extra. Show them another side of you. Let yourself get carried away and swept up.
The inspiration offered by the article is fantastic. If you have a minute, check it out and read the rest of the post (its short).
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But the simple solution to improving customer loyalty in a down market is to offer price deals. But that’s a bad loyalty strategy According to the authors of…
Price-driven loyalty is always the lowest form of loyalty. It means that we aren’t offering differentiated value to our customers, explains this fabulous article from the authors of the forthcoming book, Why Loyalty Matters. It reminds us that “But the simple solution to improving customer loyalty in a down market is to offer price deals. But that’s a bad loyalty strategy.” Read more…
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. consumers agree private label brands are good alternatives to name brands, according to Nielsen…
What’s true at retail is coming to foodservice:
Nearly Three-Quarters of U.S. Consumers Agree Private Label Brands Are Good Alternatives to Name Brands, According to Nielsen. One-Third of Consumers Willing to Pay More for Private Label Brands.
Once considered a lower-price, lower-quality substitute for name brands, private label products, or store brands, are viewed positively by the majority of U.S. consumers, according to a new survey by Nielsen. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of consumers believe store brands are good alternatives to name brands and 62 percent of consumers report they consider store brands to be as good as name brands, up three points since 2005. Private label products account for more than $81 billion in the U.S, up 10.2 percent over the past year.
Nielsen’s survey indicates that an improved sense of quality is likely a driving factor for consumers’ positive attitude toward private label products. Sixty-three percent of consumers believe that the private label brand quality is as good as name brands and one-third (33 percent) of consumers tell Nielsen they consider some store brands are higher quality than name brands.
“While private label products continue to follow the success of consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers’ name brand introductions, more CPG retailers are making private label a priority with messages on quality as strong as messages on value,” said Todd Hale, senior vice president, Consumer & Shopper Insights, The Nielsen Company.
A similar story broke this week in the Wall Street Journal. Failing to tackle this trend head-on is like vaccuming the bedroom while the house is on fire.
Foodservice operator discussion strings give marketers real clues on how to position their products in tough economic times…
John Neuapuer contributes these insights from a “state of the economy” discussion string at our partner Foodservice.com to help marketers position their products to address operator concerns in tough economic times.
Operators are nervous and many are considering cutting their prices to keep customers coming back. This is a fabulous idea if operators want to get into a new line of business. The recommendations made in the discussion include:
Bottom line – customers will pay for high quality, tasty food; cheap, crappy food attracts cheap, crappy customers ; cheap, crappy food leads to cheap, crappy tips and chases away good servers leading the restaurant to hire cheap, crappy servers.
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