Grocerant Guru Clues from National Restaurant Show 2022

 

The retail foodservice customer is not fickle, they are evolving, dynamic, and moving forward searching for ways to make dinner complexity free according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson.  I hope you are not the Neanderthal brand marketer waiting for yesterday and a return to the way things were back in 2005, 2011, or 2019.  

The consumer is dynamic not static and all food retailers and start-up fresh food retailers must strive to create or maintain consumer relevance while evolving their own brand.  Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson believes that the following ten clues to build contemporized food brand relevance that will edify your brand while building top-line sales, bottom-line profits and year over year customer counts.  Here are his 10 Clues:

1.       Purpose:   Customer relevance with evolving focus.  The most successful brands are inclusive, include values greater than themselves.  That means they focus on a Lifestyle, a philosophy, an emotion, a point in time.  Today that must include a halo of better for you the consumer as better for the consumer is better for the retailer. 

2.       A story: Most major brands have a story. Examples: If you like Wawa you know the family history, If you line McDonald’s you have heard the story or seen the movie If you like Ford vehicles, you might be familiar with the story of Henry Ford or if you love your Nikes, you probably know how the Nike swoosh logo was created. You get the picture.  What’s your story and where is your story being told?

3.       Consumer interaction:  Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® firmly believes that within foodservice retail they brand, products, and footprint must be consumer interactive and participatory. When your business is first starting out, don't fool yourself into believing that your marketing efforts are 'brand building' efforts. They're not because to build a real brand, you have to have an extensive track record with consumers. Consumer will build the brand and the story for with you.

4.       Trust:   Establish operating standards that are measurable for every department within your company and each standard must edify a customer facing tactic, communication, service, or product.  When you've consistently delivered for your customers long enough, you'll gain the type of trust that many brands have.  Would you buy a Edsel today? Maybe so, but you are buying to today as a relic not as a product of today.

5.       Consistency:  Consumers today choose a product or service because of brand association.  The consumer is buying an expectation, a promise. Perhaps it's the expectation that the branded product is of higher quality or that the service will be provided in a more efficient manner. The expectation must be met time after time.

6.       Differentiation: Customer migration from a legacy  to an new brand is often borne of differentiation. Many brands offer products and services that are commodities but they're successful in developing some differentiation in the product or the avenue of distribution for their products and services that consumers are sold on.

7.       Imitators: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and you're probably not a 'brand' until you have competitors trying to copy you. Enough said. (However, we have imitators trying to play catch up and we thank you for edifying our brand and sharing this blog.)

8.       Market leadership: Success does leave clues, collect your clues and own them. Top brands are usually looked at as leaders in the markets they compete in. Own the space, and understand why you do.

9.       Evolve:  The consumer is dynamic not static your brand must be as well.  The best brands are flexible and capable of reshaping and reinventing themselves and their messages over time. Brands are either growing or dying.

10.   A strong marketing presence: The information super highway has evolved into a mobile marketing platform in the palm of your customers hand; your message must follow with the traffic.  Don’t get stuck on the road less traveled.

Success does leave clues feel free to reach out for a private corporate presentation, confidential engagement, educational forum, or keynote. Contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® at: 253-759-7869 Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  Facebook.com/Steven Johnson Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us