Building your brand and delivering incremental sales are two of your jobs in the food industry. As I like to say, “Success in this industry is not just about making great products to sell; it is about selling the great products you make”. The work from the Oreo team at Mondelez is a great example of focus on brand building and sales.
Recently they launched a limited time pop up shop at Union Station in Toronto. As you can see from the photos in the attached news stories the line-ups were crazy. Now if I am honest I am not sure I would line up to get a free limited time Oreo and perhaps a bag of the cookies. Pop up shops are not new but they are proving to be effective to change the landscape and perhaps allow you to play by slightly different rules.
Check out the details here in the publicity they got from the media.
For the Oreo brand group this pop up shop was an opportunity to get direct feedback from consumers, understand what they might be looking for and probably sell enough goods to pay for the whole exercise. In one article it states consumers were even looking for Oreo swag that could probably be very profitable for Mondelez and something their conventional food retailers would not be interested in selling. Imagine making a profit off people who are wearing your logo and promoting your brand.
We also found Oreos at our local Costco, right up at the front. Our eldest daughter was excited to find a box of Oreos and wanted to convince us the value was definitely there to add them to our cart. The Costco offering is good in that it is very clear there are 4 family size bags included. I am not sure we needed 4 bags of Oreos but they did end up in our cart.
Impulse purchases in the food industry can be great for your business. We did not have Oreos on our list at Costco and I am sure commuters in Toronto were not expecting to stand in line for Oreo cookies at Union Station. It is great to get creative and take advantage of consumer’s willingness to spend money when they see it as novel or delivering value.
Consider all of the options available to you to create brand awareness and deliver sales. Brand awareness without sales is not nearly as valuable to me. It is tougher to coordinate or deliver the sales but it is so much more valuable plus you can cover expenses and make a profit. Ask your customers about pop up shops. They are looking for events and interesting activities to bring some excitement to shopping. If your customer is not interested find your own location where there is traffic. Union Station might be a bit expensive for most but there are lots of locations where you can drive brand awareness and keep all of the profits. Yes it is work but so is making all of those great products and the work only pays off when people pick up your products and put them in their shopping cart.
Learnsphere is putting on three upcoming Co-Packing Training & Networking events in March. It was great to help develop the concept and some of the content
Register now to participate in free workshops, networking and one-on-one meeting
- Charlottetown, PEI. Delta Hotels by Marriott - March 4th, 2020
- St.John's, NL. Ramada by Wyndham - March 24th, 2020
- Truro, NS. Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton - March 26th, 2020
Workshops:
- Keys to Successfully Hiring & Partnering with a Co–Packer
This workshop will feature an interactive discussion and exploration of the co–packer journey - from how to identify candidates that best match your objectives through to the key elements of a successful negotiation.
- Become a Co-Packer & Private Label Manufacturer
Learn about the risks and rewards of private label and contract manufacturing and apply a tool to assess your firm's capability to meet the expectations of potential co-packing customers.
After a morning of training, the workshop participants will be brought together for a networking lunch, panel of co-packing success stories, and short presentations by support organizations. Selected co-packers and support organizations will be available for one-on-one meetings, based on availability, that afternoon.
On top of the learning, tools, networking and connections, each attendee will have access to up to 4 hours of one-on-one consulting hours in follow-up! Don’t miss out on this event. If you think you’ll need a co-packer in the future, or have an opportunity to grow your business by manufacturing for another company at your facility, this is an event not to be missed.
Perennia is hosting a session on sustainable packaging that might interest you:
"Beyond the 3R’s – finding a path to sustainable packaging" with Dr. Loong-Tak Lim from the University of Guelph and Nina Goodrich from the Sustainable Packaging Coalition on Thursday, March 12 at 7:45 AM (breakfast/in-person session or webinar option)
For more information or to register:
If you have any questions please give me a call at (902) 489-2900 or send me an email at peter@skufood.com.