you lose customer trust”
“They need to remove nothing and add
nothing. It is good just the way it is ...”
“I agree Arimis is great I’ve used it. Great
for the ass too my kids use it too. The
brand should stay as it is”
From the comments you can tell that the
female consumers are very engaged with
the brand as almost all the comments
came from them not even a single dairy
farmer commented. Men are curious
about the brand they even want to know
of “alternative” uses.
You can tell that the brand is selling on
efficacy not aesthetics making the pack
beautiful would reduce the perceived
efficacy. Someone mentioned about dirty
nyama choma joints which send the
message that they have no frills just good
meat at an affordable price. They say that
when you admit a negative the consumers
will give you the positive, the pack was
termed as ugly but all the other comments
were positive.
Milking Salve Is now a Reco-
gnized Category in the Retail
Shelves
One of the best measure of success is
imitation and you can see the brand has
attracted me toos and counterfeits. There
is now a whole category of milking salves
at the supermarkets acknowledging the
emerging importance of the brand in
personal and baby care. The product is
totally consumer driven, I doubt the
manufacturer of the brand had such big
dreams at inception.
The cool hunters found the brand and
they told other consumers about it and
how wonderful it is. That is real consumer
franchise when the product sells itself
almost making the bored Marketers job
irrelevant. The importance of the cow as
stated by the consumers reminds us of the
saying, don’t mess with mother Coke. That
was the saying by Coca-Cola executives
in relation to not messing with the classic
Coke. The cows teats are so delicate no
wonder the consumers are fighting hard
to maintain the cow image on the pack.
Hope is not a Strategy but
Faith is
One of the things we were taught at
the business school is that hope is not a
strategy. Let’s now explore the concept
of faith as a strategy, you lead a good life
avoid all sins you can be sure that at the
gates of heaven St Peter will be waiting to
welcome you.
From a marketing perspective here is
someone who went to Riverwood got a
basic design of a label with an average
image of a cow put the best milking
concoction that women fell over their
heels to buy? There is the difference
between hope and faith, hope is tomorrow
faith is now.
My New Year challenge to you is, take
a leap of faith and create a new brand
however basic! You will thank me later.
Boniface Ngahu is a seasoned marketing
research expert and runs the Talking
Point column in Marketing Africa
magazine. He is the Marketing Director
of SBO Research. You can commune with
him on this or related matters via email at:
[email protected], or follow
him on Twitter @bngahu