DW's Blog

To Theme or Not To Theme, That is The Question

by DW Green — May 6, 2010

I have always been a proponent of using themes for the cover page of weekly ads. In my view, the purpose of the weekly ad is to attract new ad readers and new customers to the store. The purpose of attracting new customers is an important distinction, since most consumers who read weekly ads; tend to read only those of their primary food store. Theme cover pages lend themselves to strong, compelling headlines and storytelling, two important factors for attracting new ad readers and new customers. Additionally, theme ads differentiate retailers print advertising from competitors, create complementary product sales and provide in-store merchandising opportunities. Conventional wisdom suggest otherwise. Many national and regional retailers take the “laundry list” approach to cover page ads. This modus operandi involves featuring a dozen or so items, normally one item from each store department, presented in a value hierarchy from the top to the bottom of the page. This strategy may help with a value perception but it rarely helps differentiate the store or attract a new reader or new shopper unless the price of the feature item is considerably less than the competition. In Phoenix, where I live, the local supermarket ads all look the same. The items and the prices are nearly identical, only the company logo is different. Rarely do I see a food store ad that grabs my attention or provides me with a good reason to shop somewhere else. ...

by DW Green — April 29, 2010

“To thine own self be true” writes William Shakespeare in Hamlet. “Let your conscience be your guide” the Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio and then asks Jiminy Cricket to serve as Pinocchio’s conscience.Integrity is an important and powerful quality. To be referred to as a person of integrity is the ultimate compliment. I have come to realize that my life experience is about the journey toward wholeness, and to seek wholeness, is to live from a place of integrity. To me, conscience is the psychic energy of awareness. Conscience is the alarm that goes off when integrity is at risk, when wholeness is splintered.“The meeting of our inner and outer lives is called integrity, and the health of our integrity often determines our inner strength and resilience in meeting the outer world. This is the purpose of integrity, to balance the outer forces of existence with the inner forces of spirit,” Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk. One of the most useful definitions of integrity comes from Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man: Integrity is the ability to listen to a place inside oneself that doesn’t change, even though the life that carries it may change.So living from integrity is when our actions, our outer life are in sync with our inner life; our heart, our soul, the essence of our being. Businesses too must live from integrity. When the actions of a business are incongruent with their beliefs and values and essence, crises will inevitably arise. The conscious of a company is the collec...

by DW Green — April 5, 2010

The supermarket industry’s marketing and advertising activities deal almost exclusively with what works today and almost never with what’s going to work tomorrow.Too few companies run research to determine what their entire market place will be like in three years? In five years? And very few are committed to a vision that basically says, “We truly believe we know where this industry is going. We know what the leader will look like, sound like, think like, and be like in five years, and we know something else. We’re going to be that leader!Precious few can say, “That’s us. That’s our store.” And to those precious few, chances are they will, in fact, be that leader. Because they’re the only ones who know where they’re going…as for the rest of us… as Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”If you look at today’s strengths and are satisfied with building on those strengths because they suffice today, chances are you’ll not be competitive in a few years because your competition is going to be very, very different in those few years. In other words, those aspects of your operation which you identify with strengths today, in a different competitive market my not be viewed as strengths at all. And the one certainty we all face, once again, is that it’s going to be a different competitive market in the very near futu...

by DW Green — March 23, 2010

High market share and high profit share result from high activity share.High activity is a sequence of related smaller activities aimed at positioning your store as the best in the areas you select. Strategic Positioning means performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities in different ways. Differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the basic units of competitive advantage. Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all of a company’s activities, not only a few.

Activities Have Cumulative Value

Activities don’t have an ending date. They continue even though your store(s) may overlap them with other activities. The more you are able to do—and the more effectively you do it—the better they work.Small day-to-day achievements grow into momentum. Once established, momentum is easier to sustain than it is to start again once it is lost. The key is to keep developing and executing activities that are consistent with the long-term mission and objectives of your company.Once momentum is established, work becomes fun, which makes both customers and employees more excited about your store(s). Once the momentum builds, employees gain confidence and develop new ideas to widen the gap between the performance of you and your competitors. Customers tell other people about your store, and the momentum feeds on itself.

Developing a Highly Active Store...
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The Only Constant In Life Is Change

by DW Green — March 16, 2010

Everything, everywhere is in a constant flux of change. I like this quote from Bruce Barton, author, advertising executive and politician, “When you are through changing, you are through.”Way back in 1970, I read Future Shock, a great book by Alvin Toffler. Future Shock was about change, and the affect that the accelerated rate of technological and social change had on society. From an historic perspective the speed of change from the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18^th century to the “super-industrial society” of the 1970’s was mind-boggling and it has only intensified thousands-fold since then.The supermarket business too has gone through radical changes and its rapid transformation continues. Remember only you can control your reaction to changes in your business. Everyone filters information through his or her personal background, wants, needs, fears, hopes, prejudices and beliefs. The result is often the development of urban “myths” about change. Let’s explore some of those myths—and the reality of business.Myth: This will go away.
Reality: Change is here to stay.Myth: It will help if I get upset with this.
...

by DW Green — March 11, 2010

Establishing a positive-price perception is critical in today’s economy. Duh! But the key is perception. You should only sacrifice gross dollars when the price point can significantly impact perception.You don’t have to have the lowest prices on everything. You don’t have to be priced the same as your competitors. You must have your customers leave your store feeling like they received a value for their total shopping experience. This goes beyond shelf prices and integrates operations and retail execution.When consumers do not perceive any differentiating attributes of a product or service, price becomes a factor. This becomes very evident when various competitors carry identical products. This is why you must find ways to differentiate your store(s) in other ways.How do you identify your most price-sensitive items? Which items are most sensitive to your customers? Using some type of movement data is sometimes a good way to measure the sensitivity of an item or category. It is generally believed that the fastest selling items are usually the most price sensitive.However, item velocity can be influenced or even manipulated by lower price points as a result of using promotional dollars from the manufacturer. Price sensitivity can also be a seasonal consideration. Some items, at peak times of year, can be very sensitive to the consumer. Items unique to the holidays or influenced by changing seasons take on different levels of significance for consumers. It’s important to...

by DW Green — March 1, 2010

Offering exceptional customer service is indeed a powerful way to differentiate your store in the marketplace. How do you distinguish yourself as a leader in service excellence?Most retail businesses in America believe they offer good customer service, but in reality the opposite is probably more accurate. Why? With the daily demands of performing repetitive tasks in a highly productive environment, employees are often oblivious to customers and their needs. Customer service is typically given lip service by managers, who view training and developing employees to provide an exceptional customer experience as a low priority in a cost-controlling, low-margin industry. Ironically, it is just such an investment in employee training and development that can increase sales exponentially. While operational efficiencies are essential to superior corporate performance, they should not hinder the company’s ability to gain a customer service advantage.For a retailer to gain a customer service advantage over its competitors, a serious investment of resources to train employees is critical. It is also imperative to have in place vehicles that foster communication between the customer and store, including regular interaction between top management and customers. Why is this important? Because customer service is one thing, but exceptional customer service is another thing entirely. It’s not enough that every customer is acknowledged by every employee they meet on every shopping visit t...

by DW Green — February 24, 2010

In the early years of my business we held very few meetings. With a small staff we were able to communicate easily and informally. But as the staff grew in size, so did the quantity of meetings, eventually leading to a meeting albatross. We found ourselves spending almost as much time in meetings than in producing our work. Something had to be done, so, well, we called a meeting! A meeting on meetings! It turned out to be a very productive meeting.To help us get our arms around the too many meeting syndrome, Ryan Joy, V.P. of Creative Services, was charged with researching the nature of meetings. His findings were enlightening to a meeting weary organization. As a result of his research we decided to define the types of meetings we held and develop meeting criteria for those assigned to lead meetings. Understanding the unique nature of meetings with their differing goals and objectives has helped us improve the quality, the efficiency, and even the quantity of meetings we schedule. Still much work needs to be done to refine and improve our meeting process but we’re living in a much better place.Here is a portion of Ryan’s findings; Three Kinds of Meetings by Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Keep in mind these are general classifications and vary by author. We selected the Mr. Godin’s model and customized the meeting type...

by DW Green — February 16, 2010

Wikipedia defines positioning in this way: “…Positioning is something (perception) that happens in the minds of the target market. It is the aggregate perception the market has of a particular company, product or service in relation to their perceptions of the competitors in the same category. It will happen whether or not a company’s management is proactive, reactive or passive about the on-going process of evolving a position. But a company can positively influence the perceptions through enlightened strategic actions.”

Overview

Right about now, you may be thinking, “Our stores are strategically positioned; what can this guy tell us that we don’t already know?” But it’s all in how you define strategic positioning.Strategic positioning means different things to different people. We define strategic positioning as the creation of a unique and valuable position, supported by a system of activities distinct from those of your competitors. The key words here are “unique,” “activities,” and “distinct.”Anyone can claim they’ve positioned their store. But is it really a unique position, or just a knock-off of your competitor’s? What is your unique position? Your competitor’s? And is your strategic position supported by every activity the supermarket carries out, from pricing to signage, produc...

by DW Green — February 6, 2010

The primary goal of effective advertising is to attract an audience and motivate them to action. The goal is to drive customer traffic. The goal is to differentiate your store and your ad from your competitors and to always support your stores strategic position. Effective ads do all of these things. The result is advertising that not only achieves the short-term goals of increased sales and customer count, but advertising that becomes the building blocks of tomorrow’s success and prosperity as well. Advertising store attributes often pays off in profitability even when it doesn’t immediately increase sales. It reinforces a stores differential status from competitors and reinforces many past and present experiences with satisfied customers. Indeed, image is often the only basis of comparison between similar but different alternatives.

Create Ads that people will read and respond to

The reality is most folks don’t read supermarket ads — maybe two out of 10. And of the folks who do read ads, they normally read the ads of the store where they regularly shop. So why do most supermarkets insist on putting their name and logo on the top of their ads? If the reader does not like the store, they will not read the ad, regardless of the benefit the ad is offering. The supermarket industry routinely violates this basic principle of effective advertising. Look through an issue of USA Today or The Wall Street Journal and c...

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