Strategy

Aspirational, but not too

I once spent several years servicing Iams Dog and Cat Foods, a Proctor & Gamble brand.  P&G is an amazing institution on a number of levels and the team I worked with earned my respect.  However, as with many super-large organizations, sometimes protocol, chain of command, and overwhelming self-preservation get in the way of advancing goals at a more practical pace.  Sometimes, two years would pass between an initial planning meeting (new product introduction, a marketing innovation, reformulation) and the beginning of the production phase for in-store promotional materials.  The agonizing hash, re-hash, consultation with 3-6 other roster agencies, inevitable R&D change, etc. could be grueling on everyone involved.  Then the competition would do something the brand felt it needed to adjust to counter or otherwise respond to, and poof! We’d be back at the drawing board.

I fully support due diligence, research, and careful arrival at conclusion based on available data and instinct.  But at some (reasonable) point, you just gotta launch.  You have to claim the space you’re spying, and just work like Hades to get there.

I digress, but still an important point.  Another P&G-ism is the overstuffing of colloquialisms.  As you might expect, P&G has it’s own culture, it’s own way of thinking, and its own screening processes honed by fierce competition and an unerring eye on market share.  It’s portfolio boasts premium brands in unsexy categories.  And still they direct the selection of photography talent with input like:

“We want someone aspirational, but not too.  She has to be attractive but not threatening to our audience.  She can be less than perfect, but maintain the ideal model qualities.”

Um, what was that?  Are we talking about genetically engineering models here?

The intent was there, I’m sure.  But the attention maybe a little misplaced.  I’ve (thankfully) forgotten much of the P&G-speak I learned (not good for everyday discussions with most people : blank looks), and I’m not suggesting that any of their brands are unremarkable.  But sometimes copious resources, both hard and soft, were placed against a fuzzily defined, moving goal.  Sometimes, the brand’s perception of its image was so scientifically formulated that in squeezing out all of the qualitative data, they left themselves with a stripped down (albeit functioning) shell that lacked warmth and the element of emotional attraction so vital to passionate pet owners.

By all means, consider the formula, the requirements, the data.  Just don’t skip the consumer connection.  Otherwise, you may sell some bags of dog food, but you’ll never give your customers a reason to commit.

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