120: Laws that drive foodservice marketing success everyday

You ever see a car commercial and get all giddy over some new Italian import (or SUV, hybrid, convertible, flying car... whatever your obsession)? 

Then, imagine going to the local car lot and finding:

• Your dream vehicle isn't even stocked by the dealer.
• Even if it was available, you're told it "costs too much" to allow you to zip around the block for a test drive.
• The brochure you're handed is in Italian... well, you think it's Italian since it doesn't make much sense to you.
• And the sales rep you meet only knows about 4x4 trucks... nobody has told him much about the Italian beauty that you're seeking.

The television commercial worked its magic... it got you interested enough to take action.  But now the commercial's value has vanished... all because the supporting roles of availability and communications at the street level didn't exist.

This scenario parallels what happens every day in foodservice: 

• Availability (the car on the lot): Ads, direct mail and food shows trumpet products old and new. But your product isn't stocked in the local warehouse (or at a re-distributor like Dot foods), so it's impossible to sell.
• Samples (test drive): Demand is created, but samples are as scarce as friends of Mel Gibson. Any hopes of getting the product stocked will disappear fast. First line descriptions (brochure in Italian): Maybe you're lucky and the warehouse does have the product... but the descriptions that reps use to search for products resemble mysterious Mayan codes that only space aliens can decipher. DSRs never find it because they didn't know "butterscotch" was abbreviated "btrstch" in your description.
• DSR awareness (4x4 expert): DSRs recommend products everyday with excellent success... if they know about the products! Believe it or not, DSRs are human... well, we might want to run a DNA check on a few of them [Bill's comment]. In other words, they sell what they know! So, you might want to be sure they know your product among the other 10,000 in the warehouse. 

This is all to suggest that marketing might want to get heavily involved in these four factors.  Otherwise, a sizable chunk of your marketing dollars are probably going to waste much like the car commercial scenario.  Your flawless campaign execution won't matter much when analyzing the end results (assuming growing the business is your primary measure!). 

DSR Live! co-hosts DSR Dave Miesse and Bill Hornung yak more about these Four Laws of Foodservice Marketing in this DSR Insights episode...