Australia needs a food safety scare.

Do you know where your food came from?

Australian consumers need a food safety scare as a wake-up call and to get them asking the right questions about where their food comes from.

That sounds crazy, I know; but I have experimented with this topic in dozens of conversations over the last 12 months.

Let’s put some method behind the madness of that proposition.

Firstly, one of the hardest things you can ever hope to do is change peoples’ attitudes.  As the best marketers will tell you, it’s very, very difficult.  Australia’s agricultural and food producing industry has tried on many occasions to change the attitudes of Australian consumers.  The campaigns have been very aspirational and it hasn’t worked.

Australian consumers say one thing, and do the other – despite what they tell us in numerous surveys.  And it’s not just when it comes to buying their groceries.  For example, Australians also say they would be happy to donate their organs to save someone’s life, but never do.  You see my point.

By now we know enough about Australian consumers to start changing tactic.

This brings me to pressure points.

One of the key ways to change peoples’ attitudes is to find their pressure points.  Where do we find the pressure points for Australian consumers?  Inside their homes - we need to get inside their front doors.

If Australian consumers start getting nervous about what’s going into their kids lunch boxes; what’s going into the fridge; what’s going onto the kitchen table at night – they’ll start to ask questions.  I’ll get to the power of questioning in a moment.

Thirdly, we use the power of shared experience to spread our message.  If something happens to make Australian consumers nervous about where their food comes from, it becomes a shared experience.  Picture this - it would be the number one topic at school drop-off points, in the school canteens, at family functions, at kids sport on Saturday mornings, Facebook, etc etc.

Back to the power of questioning.  If the Australian agricultural and food producing industry wants to make retailers squirm, you set up a situation whereby their consumers start hammering them with questions, questions, questions about what they’re doing and how they do it.  Nothing makes a corporation sweat faster than when they are getting beaten around the head by angry consumers, who are banging their fists on the table and demanding ‘if you don’t answer my questions, I’m shopping somewhere else.’

Consumers just aren't asking the questions we want them to.

How do we make this happen?  Remember the Grim Reaper advertisements on TV. 

Absolutely legendary campaign, watched in peoples’ living rooms around Australia every night in 1987.  My idea is that we do a similar ‘grim reaper’ campaign about imported food, to show consumers what might happen if there is an accident regarding imported food from a country that has poor production safety standards.
 
If you had a grim reaper bowling an imported apple at a bunch of school kids, I think it would get peoples’ attention.  Watch the ad and imagine it talking about imported food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo

So, what I’ve been proposing all along is that we don’t have an actual food safety scare and people actually start getting sick – we create one, by putting the notion in peoples’ heads of what might happen if they don’t change their attitude.  That’s all the Aids campaign did – the people watching it did the rest e.g. remember all the talk about the ad?

How do we know this works?  Well, at the moment there are other countries in the process of restructuring their entire food chain, because there was a food safety scare and consumers have now demanded change.  But for them it was too late.  Think horse meat.  Think baby formula.  Think milk contamination.

Anyway, just a few thoughts to stir the pot, because I don’t think what we’ve been doing is very effective.

What do you think?  Go the Grim Reaper tactic?

 

Risky business is good business.

Risk is not negative.

It simply means we don’t know what the future holds.

Does this mean things will turn out good or bad?  Who knows?

If all risk is negative then the future is bleak.

A business must keep moving forward or it will die.

This requires strategy.

There is no right or wrong strategy.

What there are is a set of compromises for each strategy.

The key to choosing the right strategy is to focus on the compromises.

The right strategy has the compromises that a business is prepared to accept and is ready to deal with as they arise, in order to keep moving forward.

If a business does not allow compromise to get in the way, how can the strategy go wrong?

This is what many businesses confuse with risk.

They move forward with a strategy unaware, unaccepting or unprepared for the compromises that came with it.

But it’s getting harder.

The world is changing rapidly and business has no borders.

External forces beyond our control are changing the game for many businesses.

If the game changes, so do the compromises.

Many businesses aren’t aware the compromises for continuing to do the same thing have changed and this is what’s causing them problems.

Avoiding this situation requires innovation.

If we are aware of the compromises for doing certain things, then we are aware of when they change.  However, if we now have less control over choosing a new course of action that will change the set of compromises, then we must innovate to start a new game.

So a simple recipe for success might look something like this:

• Embrace the future.
• Keep innovating.

What's your recipe for success?

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Packaging with appeal is more than just good looks.

Who knows why I looked at the bottom of the box.  But I did.

Gotcha!!

I was sitting in my car and just burst out laughing.

Click to enlarge.

Hats-off to Sarah Leo at www.openbookhowden.com.au for creating this little gem.

I’m so used to receiving my business cards in a boring white box.  I was hooked.

I wanted to know what else there was, quickly tearing-off the shrink-wrap.  By now I wasn’t interested in my new business cards at all and tipped them all over the seat, to see if there was another message under them.

When was the last time you got more fun out of the packaging than the product?  It’s rare.

Product packaging is (arguably) the most important touch-point between a company and its consumers.  Not often is it used to develop brand recognition and relationship.

When was the last time you saw some packaging that you knew had been designed with you in mind?  It’s rare.

In terms of branding, marketing, selling and communicating, this small example totally nails it.

 

As the consumer did I feel elevated by this?  Absolutely.  Am I now a fan?  Absolutely.  How does a company grow and expand profitably?  By creating more fans.

What a fun experience it is to be engaged by a company in the most unlikely place.

These photos demonstrate some simple yet effective ways a company can communicate with its consumers using packaging.

Picking on the wine industry.  No pun intended.  Part 1.

Isn’t the Festive Season a fantastic opportunity to be extravagant and indulgent?!  Yes, it’s the perfect excuse to spend extra money on eating out, trying different gourmet products, loading up on fresh seafood, having the strangest imported beer at the party and so on.

We’re all on the hunt for something a bit special, a bit different.

It’s the time of year we try to be classier in our taste of food and beverage.  If you are a marketer in either of these industries then the Festive Season is your Holy Grail.  New eating and drinking experiences that are shared during this time of year have a much higher strike rate of developing loyal consumers.  Marketers know the importance of shared experience.

Except for the wine industry; that oddly continues to treat this time of year like any other.  For some reason the marketing of wine during the Festive Season remains completely disengaged with the average consumer, out for a spend-up and a new drinking experience. 

 

If you are wondering what happened to all your local wine sales in 2012 then please let me explain.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.   

The fact your wine made it out the bottle-o and onto the Christmas dinner table is pure chance; a game of numbers at a busy time of year.  That’s not marketing and branding; that’s forcing the hand of distribution – a costly exercise that evaporates margins.

Similarly, the fact that I stumbled across something that tasted OK is pure chance.  I guess it’s a bit of a win when that happens, but my experience is still somewhat dampened and I move on, quickly forgetting the name of the wine.

Why does the wine industry continue to communicate with me as if I have my own winery or multiple degrees in wine making and geology?  How in blazes am I supposed to understand what this means:

• Dateline-traversing persistence
• Old furniture, wax and engine oil meets raisins
• More understated effortlessness
• Coiled-up restraint, tremendous persistence
• Mouth-embracing onslaught
• A pucker of chalky phenolics
• Hauntingly ethereal
• Profound exoticism

OK.  I’m being a smart-arse and have picked out some of the wackiest descriptions I’ve seen – but this is what we are given to read on a wine label.  Seriously, who writes this stuff?  To whom is this marketing content targeted?  Not me.  Enough of the jargon, please!

But why not target me?  A consumer like me should be low-hanging fruit for the wine industry.  Absolutely.  Me and hundreds-of-thousands of other middle-class consumers in Australia.

The way the wine industry communicates its products makes me feel left out of the ‘in’ group, inexperienced, intimidated, and unknowledgeable.  The way wine is marketed in Australia seems very introverted.

It feels like everyone in the industry is talking amongst themselves and the consumer is forced to sit on the sidelines like a naughty boy for not understanding and appreciating all that goes into a bottle of wine.

Why make it so hard for yourselves and me.  I want to get to know you, but I won’t go near a product that makes me feel that insecure.  If my choice of wine is a flop at the party, well…………..I simply can’t take that risk.  I won’t.

If your product is technically superior that’s fantastic.  But don’t tell me that.  Increase the likelihood that I’ll experience that.  Here’s a hint.  99% of the time I have the chance to enjoy a wine instead of a beer or cider; I’m running on pure emotion.

Don't try and sell me on what makes us different.  Tell me how we are similar.

What I saw during the festive season was everyone going for the safety option.  No new experiences. 

 

The same old labels won again.

How did you choose your wine this Festive Season?


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Free internet for city, while bush network slowly dies.

As a strong advocate for rural and regional business, I was frustrated to learn that Adelaide city will be getting free internet “aimed at driving business and enticing visitors to the city.”

AdelaideNow – 27 November 2012 (link)

Meanwhile, in the regions we are left with a clapped-out (congested) network that has no more capacity and routinely kicks data (business) customers off the network, to keep priority for voice traffic (mobile phones).*

Ever tried to use the internet in a regional area once the kids get home from school?  Impossible – until the next morning.  Why are wi fi and mobile broadband products continuing to be marketed and sold when the network has no more capacity for them?*

So where is the e-strategy aimed at driving business and enticing tourists to our regions? 

New businesses will not come if technology infrastructure is out-dated or not available.  Tourists will not come if they cannot ‘plug in’ to the rest of the world while they are here.

Mr Weatherill states that his new e-strategy for the city is about “driving opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs” and “providing new ways of communicating with consumers”.  If ever there was a business community that needed the help and could take advantage (productively) of new technology to achieve this, its regional business.

Why talk about “Adelaide’s brand going global” through the use of new technology?  Take the rest of the state with you.

Business SA chief executive Mr McBride said that the new initiative would “help local business gain a competitive advantage”.  What about speaking out for the needs of your regional members?  Actually, I didn’t renew my membership this year for that very reason.  Yes Mr McBride, it has become “increasingly important for business to develop an online presence” – the bush needs that outcome more than ever.

So anyway, as some of you would be aware, 12 months ago I wrote a letter to Mr Weatherill positively responding to his pledge that he would “reconnect with the regions”.  In a recent blog below, 12 months on, I questioned whether or not anything had improved for the regions in this time?!

City-centric direction, strategy and attitude continue to divide the haves and have-nots in South Australia.  It beggars belief that with such a small population, we still do not take advantage of the opportunity to build the state as a tight-knit community, working together so that no one gets left behind.

*Source: www.telstra.com/crowdsupport/business