Company Blog

In Defense Of Outsourcing

by Adam Zack — October 11, 2017

Did they communicate my brand?

Ok, this week’s topic is going to read like I am so biased, and of course I am, but I have not always been on this side of the issue. What I am talking about is whether you should outsource your advertising and marketing projects or do them in-house. Duh, of course I am going to say, “outsource.” DW would cast a horrible karmic curse on me if I advised our retail partners to take their marketing efforts in-house. But’s there’s much more to it than just taking the biased side in support of my employer.

You may remember from our introduction that I was on the operations side of retail for over 25 years, and still am on a consulting type basis. I know how it seemed like every warm body with a marketing degree seemingly knew what was best for my business and through their incredible savvy could transform my ad and brand into an award winning, life changing, profit generating, cost saving program! I must be the fool to ignore their expertise! And there were a lot of these people. A LOT. So being the prideful know-it-all that I was, I resisted. I politely declined meetings. If they were persistent, I politely took meetings and then politely told them “No, I’ve got it covered.” If they impolitely persisted, I impolitely told them no. I had a girl who could do my ads and marketing. The local paper and my wholesaler would lay out my ads for free. FREE!!!. My in-house person was pretty good and so nice. The ads the newspaper and wholesaler did weren’t so bad, were they? And it saved me money as opposed to outsourcing my marketing, right?

Well realization started to dawn when I added up the cost of a full time marketing person, benefits and related costs and compared them to some of the proposals I received. I wasn’t actually saving what I thought. Then, I really looked at the materials I was producing and compared them to some of the grocers I knew and respected the most. Did they communicate my brand? Not really. Was my message cohesive, coordinated and consistent? Not exactly. Was I proud of them? Not so much. So I decided I maybe needed someone with expertise in retail GROCERY marketing. My question to the potential suitors that still constantly approached me to do my ads was now “What GROCERS have you worked with and what were the results?” Very few had an acceptable answer.

And that is the story of how I came to know and work with DW Green. It was nearly 12 years ago, and it’s a true story. Unbiased and true.