Our ‘elevator speech’ requires unconventional response

At the recent GroceryShop convention “Friends of the Future” networking event we helped produce in Las Vegas, I was asked repeatedly, “what is Emergent?” – The event was an exciting veritable meet-and-greet mosh pit of first-time introductions. At one point a colleague of ours from the Food Marketing Institute turned to me during an overture to a Pepsico executive and said, “Bob, give him the elevator speech about Emergent.”

In these moments when time and everyone’s headspace is at a premium, we tend to default to the simple explanation, frequently bound up in the tactics of what we do. So reflexively I reached for the convenient list of tools in the toolbox: brand strategy and positioning guidance, earned and social media, etc.

I left these conversations thinking, “that really doesn’t convey the essence of our secret sauce.”

A reflection on who we are and why that should matter to you

When we look back over time at the special moments when clients have allowed us to rise to our very best, we find a legacy of bigger ideas and strategic concepts that represent game changes of various kinds in various categories.

Understanding that transformational change is at the core of what we do, this immediately shifts the focus from tactics and tools to strategic platforms that inform the solution. Candidly, communications tactics without a strategic, differentiating concept forming the foundation underneath are just messaging vessels.

So here it is: Emergent is in the CPG brand and food retail transformation business, delivering strategic platforms that can impact the behavior of the organization and its business to bring incremental, sustainable growth. Yes, we can actualize strategic ideas all the way to the ground and execute at the tactical level, but it’s the diagnostic upfront and our ability to not only see the big picture but distill the barriers to added growth that represents our defining moments with clients.

The real secret sauce is Lori Miller, my partner, and me in our strategic diagnostic analysis that helps build a roadmap for change. More often than not, we find organizations mired in the conventions and routines in their category and how they go to market. Thinking differently means looking for the marketing “zig” when everyone else is “zagging.” This is baked into how we tend to see things. Uniqueness and differentiation are never overrated.

Clients desperately want their marketing investments to hit engagement squarely on the head, no pun intended. Engagement these days, however, demands a customer-first approach to literally everything a company does.

Rule number one – we know the consumer is in charge and control of the brand relationship, requiring businesses to be less self-absorbed and more creative and agile in how they look at the opportunity to earn permission for a relationship.

Yes, relationship.

Consumers are on the hunt for deeper meaning in the products that matter to them and want brands they choose to engage with and buy, to be a mirror of their values and passions.

So, as a strategic brand communications platform, the standard, “let’s focus on the product features and benefits” messaging as the marketing chin you lead with is a non-starter. Self-reverential communication is exactly that.

Thus at Emergent, we are indeed Architects of Engagement. We work to ameliorate the tendency to dance the dance of self-serving promotion when the real opportunity starts with enabling, coaching, and guiding your consumers on their journey to greater fulfillment. This is where the messaging focus and relationships move beyond transactional interruptions and pleas. The goal is authentic alignment and conversation with consumers and the opportunity then for legitimate interaction and belief.

A specific point of view that recurs in our work

One of Emergent’s key insights is reflected in our agency’s ‘Validation Marketing’ planning model. We believe that consumers increasingly are challenged to trust the assertions and claims made by brands. In our digital always-on world, we all are confronted daily with a variety of public revelations in the media of misdeeds, scandals, errors of omission, half-truths and hyperbole.

Brand trust has taken a hit, and year on year, we see evidence of declines. Earning trust is fundamental to successful marketing outcomes and so we develop transformational strategic platforms, tools and tactics that help burnish trust, including:

• A first-in-its-industry Transparency Council for a premium pet food brand in a category where consumer demand to know more about what’s in the food and how it’s made is valued and differentiating; and
• Creating the first “True Cheese” trust mark in the cheese industry in a segment marred by product fraud and mislabeling to elevate our client’s brand and integrity above the bad acters.

We strategically deploy social media as a pipeline to social proof in the observations of delighted user stories.

We engage outside experts and credible voices to help validate what a brand states are the essential truths about their product.

We employ earned media to bring the imprimatur of editorial, reportorial assessments in consumer and trade news channels.

We create videos, that in unscripted moments, capture the essence of consumer experience and ‘see for yourselves’ tours behind the product creation curtain.

In the end, it’s our empathy for consumers as people and insight into their desires and concerns that is embedded in Emergent’s thinking. This is foundational as a primary skill in our client engagements; best seen in our devotion to putting the consumer at the center of planning each and every time. Out of that study comes relevant messaging we can successfully deploy.

Health and wellness – redefined – no longer a tertiary consideration

One visit to our web site and there in headline form is this recurring statement about Healthy Living. For a long time, “healthy” was defined as a food science proposition in varying attempts to create addition (healthier) by subtraction – less calories, fat, sugar or sodium.

Now, health and wellness are fundamental to what consumers want and is redefined as emphasis on high quality, real food experiences – less processed and with a provenance story to tell – that delivers greater transparency to the supply chain and entire product creation process.

• We know how to bring this to life and secure relevance to these principles at a time when consumers absolutely demand it.

We’re on a mission, too

As keepers of this essential truth and the flame of consumer relevance as the non-negotiable precursor to engagement and purchase, we see our mission to bring this understanding to organizations seeking to write a new chapter – whether that’s an emerging brand or an established legacy business.

This is what gets us up in the morning and characterizes our ambitions and goals for what Emergent brings to the marketing challenge for our clients.

Should this strike a chord with you, we should talk.

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The hot ticket networking experience at Groceryshop

In a food industry now preoccupied with algorithms and digital platforms, it’s remarkable when reminded that personal, human connections still inform the beginning of most successful business relationships.

Nowhere was that shown in greater relief than on Monday night at the recent Groceryshop convention. An “A” list of food retail executives gathered at the sold-out Friends of the Future reception to network with key industry players – many of whom are working feverishly to help solve the transformational changes now unfolding in the food and beverage world.

• Groceryshop has firmly established itself as the leading food industry conference centered on the digital race to answer upheaval in how families select and shop for food. No surprise much of the conference agenda in 2019 showcased emerging technologies in e-commerce, food delivery, digital marketing, supply chain management and robotics.

Yet the Friends event served as a potent reminder that business, whether between advisers and suppliers in the food business, or with consumers themselves, is driven by the high-touch resonance of conversations between people.

“Friends is exactly that, an opportunity to truly connect on a personal level and get better acquainted. It’s in the moment when we talk and look each other in the eye that we find common ground, mutual interest, and most of all trust,” said Bill Kies, President of Kies Consulting and executive producer of the Friends of the Future event.

In its second season, Friends of the Future promised an informal atmosphere of exceptional food and beverage as grist to facilitate relationship building between food retail business leaders and decision makers. No other agenda except sharing experiences and ideas.

The event’s top sponsors including Accenture, Nielsen, Inmar and Shipt, helped press the call to action, with 250 executives gathering at The Venetian’s Yardbird restaurant, closed down to accommodate the crowd. Nearly 40 food retail companies were represented, evidence of an industry in transition while facing the rise of e-commerce challenges and new competition from the ascending restaurant food delivery business. Other event sponsors included Planalytics, ShopperKit, Label Insight, FlyBuy and the Food Marketing Institute.

“It was an amazing evening,” Kies reported, “friendships were initiated, and solutions explored among retailers looking to navigate an increasingly complex business environment.” Kies promised a return for Goceryshop in 2020 with an added dimension: the event will expand to include CPG food executives alongside the legacy list of food retail leaders.

For more information contact Bill Kies – [email protected]

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Are you speaking clearly or in Morse Code?

During World War II and prior to the U.S. entering the war, the British government working feverishly to counteract the devastating German Blitzkrieg, authorized the launch of a spy network intended to sabotage the Nazi war infrastructure. It was called the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and began training ordinary people with a passion for country and duty to become spies and saboteurs. Their principle form of communication would be Morse Code. The objective to avoid detection while operating behind enemy lines.

The cinematic stories of heroism and sacrifice are legion as SOE undertook its desperate calling to disrupt – by blowing up trains and power stations, often while hiding in plain sight. These days some brand communication starts to feel a bit like spy-savvy Morse Code. Businesses can find it hard to step away from internally-focused, self-reverential monologues and ‘us-speak’ to, instead, talk plainly and directly with people about what THEY care about. Conversation not code.

It was strong beliefs and shared values that underscored the passions and bravery of SOE operatives that drove their communication. Those same characteristics, passion of shared interests, values and connection, now mark the attitudinal changes governing how people interact with brands and make purchase decisions.

Consumer behavior research over the last five years has monitored the change to what we call ‘symbolic purchase’. As beliefs and values increasingly shape popular culture and thinking, we observe that people use their purchases to flag to others who they are and what they care about. Purchases have become posters of personal expression and are largely emblematic demonstrations people believe will telegraph to everyone what they think is important. Not in Morse Code but in real, observable terms.

What Are Your Values and Are They Aligned with your desired consumers?

You may have detected the increased importance of shared values in how consumers decide what brands and businesses matter enough to them to be granted a small portion of brain time, consideration and wallet. For many years, marketers were preoccupied with efforts to convey their, hopefully, superior product features and benefits in the firm belief that logic and rational arguments would hold sway. After all, it’s 25 percent faster than the other leading brand, right?

People have evolved, and our insight optics have improved. We know that humans are driven by heart-over-head – and that all purchases are influenced through emotional connectivity. Indeed, it is the absence of genuine connection that sits at the foundation of why some brands struggle to truly engage their customers.

This isn’t, by the way, a discussion of new media channels or digital platforms, mostly social, as a means to secure the engagement sweet spot. Failure to nail relevance can be traced back to overlooking a prerequisite to correctly mine the consumers’ continual search for deeper meaning.

What your brand says, does, how it behaves and the many signals it broadcasts (some intentional and some simply reflected by actions – which always speak louder than words) either reveals shared values or it doesn’t. And as such, it will resonate and motivate people to want to interact with and purchase your brand or it won’t. This is in some ways a character issue more so than about deploying clever words and phrases.

Here’s the LitmusTest:

What do your best customers care about? And that question is not a request for evaluation of your features and benefits!

• How do they live?
• What do they struggle with?
• What are their aspirations and dreams?
• What are their concerns, wants and wishes?
• How is your brand and business an enabler and partner in making their lives better and answering their desire for deeper meaning?

In our increasingly cynical society people have become less trusting and more skeptical. The Internet amplifies this by illuminating every misstep, mistake, scandal and recall to a replay-able loop-tape of evidence that businesses tend to look after their own self-interest. In response to this, consumers yearn to connect with brands that are built around a higher purpose, a shared value system and, frankly, a “soul” that transcends commerce.

Mining the Treasure Trove of Engagement

What an amazing opportunity for the more enlightened brand-minders who can blaze a trail to long-term connection with their users. How can we create marketing that people actually want and seek out rather than work to avoid? Having the courage to disconnect the hard-sell and instead, start talking with consumers about their interests and needs is the starting line for deeper connection.

• For example: When the pet food company recognizes it’s not in the kibble business but in the pet care relationship and guidance business, you begin to see how the brand voice should evolve and how a bond can be nurtured. How exciting to be forging connections and conversations around the lifestyle people seek out with their four-legged family members. The specific quality of nutrition and ingredients doesn’t become unimportant. Rather, it’s what chin do you lead with – protein percentages or health and wellbeing? It’s the latter.

The great news here is the treasure trove of content engagement opportunities that can be created with an audience on the hunt for a steady diet of this material.

What is the Main Goal of Marketing?

If you simmer everything down to its core essence, the mission of marketing is trust creation. We have ample evidence that trust is an elusive commodity. It’s hard to secure it and even harder to keep it.

Trust development cannot just be a “strategy” in the marketing plan. It is an outcome of the very belief system and values we’ve been talking about here. There’s no ‘fake it till you make it’ in the trust curation department.

• The heroic performances of SOE recruits was delivered through an out-sized commitment to their mission and higher purpose. Their calling serves as a stunning example of what’s possible when more is going on than just seeking transactions.

The irony here, is the less selfish aspects of caring about the health and wellbeing of customers and contributing to achieving their life goals, in fact, feeds the relationship that leads to transactions. Fearlessly leaning into the understanding that shared values precedes the creation of any type of affinity or loyalty.  The honest development of a real bond and relationship is where all of this begins.

One of the most exciting aspects of our work at Emergent is when a client looks for guidance in this very arena and we have the extraordinary privilege of helping define what that higher purpose looks like and how it can become an anchor for business and marketing strategy.

What’s the definition of a really big idea? It’s an idea that you can immediately, obviously see how it will impact the behavior of the organization from top to bottom. The beauty of landing on this understanding is the refreshing clarity it delivers to every decision around product, innovation, organization, people and very importantly, marketing that works.

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Perhaps the most important convention in the food industry

From September 15 to 18 the food industry convenes in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel for the second edition of GroceryShop, Anil Aggarwal’s novel answer to a lingering gap in the meetings realm for food business and related technology companies.

Unlike most industry meetings focused on presenting a vast ocean of booths where company sales and marketing staff feature their latest products and services, GroceryShop is more focused on the sea changes, business model disruption and consumer shifts impacting one of the nation’s most important and robust industries.

E-commerce and digitization of the food business has buffeted the value propositions of traditional supermarkets, supported the emergence of new, higher quality food brands with mission-oriented story to tell, and witnessed the rapid rise of e-commerce channel shopping as consumers increasingly acquire food from the comfort of their dining room table.

Packaged food marketers and retailers alike have sought to better understand how to manage the transformational changes occurring around them. Mr. Aggarwal stepped in with a conference concept long on content and insight presentations more so than a straight buyer-meets-seller proposition.

GrocceryShop’s rapid rise can be attributed to creatively answering the thirst for guidance and direction in a rapidly changing business environment. Unlike the food business conventions of yesteryear where global food corporations such as Nestle and Mondelez held court with retail buyers, GroceryShop connects the likes of Google and Facebook to the conversation on how consumers will operate in a digitally-enabled world and what trends in fresh and prepared food will get traction at retail outlets.

GroceryShop presentations examine new technologies in supply chain management, while brand marketing discussions look towards the shift from traditional ad media and promotions to engagement based on relevance to healthy living and lifestyle aspirations, fed by digital forms of outreach and social media.

 The Future of the Food Business

The content forward approach Mr. Aggarwal has landed on serves as inspiration and best practice showcase to retail and CPG executives alike on how to remain relevant and inject deeper meaning into their brand and banner propositions.

The food business is in a state of rapid transition as consumers increasingly shop for menus rather than stock ups and the rise of super-convenient restaurant delivery makes out-sourcing dinner a viable last-minute option on a busy weeknight. Food has never been more competitive as quality choices are within arms-length from virtually anywhere.

• According to Accenture, the 80 million or so Millennials, now in their prime spending years, wield roughly $600 billion in annual spending power. For the grocery industry that ladders up to about $2,300 per year on average spending at food retail. According to a recent national survey by Sweet Earth Foods, this cohort will try at least 46 new foods each year, helping drive the emergence of new food and beverage brands now gaining additional in-store real estate at supermarkets.

Meantime the grocery industry is reacting to the significant moves by Amazon into their territory through Whole Foods and its own Prime delivery, by bolting on outside e-commerce ordering and delivery solutions from Shipt and Instacart.

So much change and so quickly for a retail business that for many years was fueled by selling boxes, cans and bags off shelves at high velocity and razor-thin margins. Now the perimeter fresh departments hold the magic and in-store groceraunts are popping up to satisfy the inevitable last-minute rush to answer the pounding question, what’s for dinner?

All of this helps explain why GrcoeryShop has traveled so far so fast as business model disruption impacts Big Food and small grocery chains alike. If you haven’t thought about where you need to be this September, might be good to check it out: http://www.groceryshop.com

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Profile of refined strategy for brick and mortar

In today’s consumer-driven marketplace, staying ahead of food and lifestyle cultural swings, shopping behaviors and the significant sea changes they create, are the most important considerations to marketing strategy effectiveness. Failure to recognize and address these ongoing shifts can negatively impact brand relevance with core consumers.

Case in point:  increased traction of e-commerce occurring in most product categories consumers’ value is causing a domino effect that will drive the future of successful retail strategy. Consumers are pushing harder on their preference for retail uniqueness, differentiation and memorable experiences. In the first of our two-part series we will look at implications of digital commerce to retail, and in part 2 we’ll peel the onion on what’s coming for CPG brands.

Home is where the heart, wallet and shopping reside

As consumer friction declines in e-commerce purchases and fulfillment, the inevitable move to online-ordering convenience will continue to grab share momentum. This trend is starting to amass a variety of ancillary impacts, such as consumer preference for the exceptional retail experience over the mundane. When the very definition of convenience to satiate needs transfersfromregional zones toarmchairs and screens in the family room, retail businesses are now being challenged  to adjust their optics and embrace new cultural (read consumer) priorities sooner rather than later.

• This is an inevitable transition. In a recent report from Federal Express, the granddaddy of quick delivery is projecting e-commerce growth will double the number of packages shipped to 100 million per dayby 2026.

The point-and-click ease of fulfilling product ‘wants’ creates a companion outcome: less and less venturing out from the four walls of the residence. More in-home purchase and consumption of everything. More online comparison shopping. More emphasis on consulting consumer reviews. Along with this at-home shopping revolution is a declining tolerance for the routine hassles of destination shopping and the time requirements to drive, park and walk. How far will people be willing to go for a shopping experience that has nothing special to offer — what’s really going to pull them from that point-and-click simplicity?

Experience with the endless shelf of digital commerce will adjust expectations of ‘want it now’ and cause people to be less forgiving of retail out-of-stocks and more limited assortments. With it, the added value premium on exceptional in-store experiences goes up as anything that feels commodity-like will yield to the ease of electronic ordering.

Trends ahead and the emergence of micro-trading areas –

Consider the long-term impacts of the decline in car ownership (once a defining metaphor for personal financial success and independence), alongside the emergence of driverless delivery vehicles and drones. Distance-confining legs, scooters and bikes are increasingly common modes of urban transportation. Witness the explosion of online restaurant and ghost- kitchen prepared food delivery that jumps squarely on the never-have-to-leave-home bandwagon.

As retail shopping becomes increasingly commoditized, there is a growing consumer thirst for scarce and transcendent experiences, more personalization and meaningful relationships with retail banners that matter. This may play against the vanilla, conventional character of some chain store concepts that can feel derivative, common and maybe even a bit boring.

By definition, the chain model depends on consistency and mechanization to achieve operating efficiencies and the ability to replicate at scale. Is it possible to rethink the business paradigm to allow for different designs, footprints and merchandise collections more attuned to the community they serve?

As convenience gets a makeover, with it comes a premium on re-casting what a trading area looks like to smaller circles of proximity. Alongside this condition we observe the continued idealization of the “small town” as a colloquial, romantic reference point for aspirational lifestyles. In urban areas this puts an increasing premium on reflecting neighborhood character and shopping within walking distance.

In Chicago, a fair example of this is Andersonville, a northside city neighborhood known for its Clark Street shopping district packed with unique collectible stores, fashion boutiques, local restaurants – all walk-able within a three-block core. Stands to reason this ‘go smaller’ development favors shopping experiences that mirror the lifestyle characteristics and populace of the neighborhood.

For retail we see five implications for planning strategy:

1. Increased pressure on the viability of destination shopping centers, as convenience is recast within shorter distances from home.
2. The rise of smaller footprint store designs that align with neighborhood shopping areas.
3. Emergence of retail concepts based on lifestyle experience more so than the traditional array of shelves and merchandise. Instead the attractions are ideas, emotion and guidance rather than pushing merch off fixtures (a twist on omni-channel commerce strategies).
4. Recognition that the future is with those who work to build bonds and relationships beyond just stocking inventory at a price.

• Expect to see a host of novel ideas develop in service of more relevant lifestyle associations such as on-line dating brand Bumble and their wine bar café concept and Taco Bell’s new hotel.

5. The bifurcation of omni-channel strategies to embrace exceptional experience that reside inside the retail store front while volume objectives are delivered online. How will this symbiotic hand-off work between high touch retail and digital convenience? Only the seamless survive.

Speaking of smaller footprint concepts, if people are increasingly food shopping for meals and menus more so than stock-ups, does it make sense to force them to search for 7 to 12 items in an 80,000 square foot maze? Can food shopping be made more fun and less of a navigational chore by specializing in what’s for dinner?

ALDI, a darling of grocery hard discount, recently announced an expanded test of their new “Local” store concept in the United Kingdom. The 6,000 square foot stores operate with 300 fewer SKUs than the normal ALDI. Proof that hard discount does not mean absence of insight, relevance and creativity.

Larger trend: ‘Extremeification’ of retail in America

Robinhood, the investment platform for non-one-percenters, recently reported examples of the growing bookends of success between the higher and lower ends of the retail spectrum — while the middle falls away. Restoration Hardware (RH) continues its relentless march towards further upscaling its retail roots. After recently posting a 7% gain in sales, RH stock shot up 25% on the related news of its new chic catalog concepts RH Beach House and RH Ski House. As well LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) and Dollar General are celebrating record highs at the same time in their share prices.

Yoga pant purveyor Lululemon reports Spring quarter revenue of $782 million vs. its period forecast of $755 million, despite increased competition in its category. Last quarter profits hit a record $97 million. Hard discount and heavenly experience collectively show how disparate propositions that lean in heavily on their mission and ethos are advancing.

You have to stand for something — and go all in (go low or go high). In fact that’s really the message here. The future of retail belongs to the innovators who go deep on uniqueness and memorable experiences — which by definition requires focusing the concept and target audience appeal to a specific need and cohort. All things to all people is often a recipe for ambivalence.

Find your core, narrow your appeal, optimize your mission and go for it.

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Building an emerging brand when you don’t know what you don’t know

If ever there were a time when new emerging food and beverage ideas have a chance at stardom, the golden age has arrived. Investment capital is flocking to the culturally relevant and unique, while new food ideas and innovations are popping up right and left. While the barriers to entry are lower than ever, the stakes and requirements for sound strategy are accelerating rapidly as more emerging brands compete for share of limited consumer attention and stomach. This, by the way, was the genesis idea underneath creating Emergent, the Healthy Living Agency.

Into the abyss entrepreneurs jump, entering the fray seeking to answer what looks to be a nearly insatiable appetite for new, higher quality, healthier and novel food and drink experiences. At the front door all appears promising in a world yearning for new and better.

Meatless meat, lab grown proteins, dairy milk without the cow, probiotic and prebiotic, keto kits, ancient grain snacks, pea protein-infused everything – and now in the developing pipeline – food-as-medicine. Whew. Yet many of these aspiring enterprises will encounter critical interruptions along the path; challenges to scaling the business that will relegate some to permanent small ball status and others to the heap of failed concepts.

Marketing plays a significant and important role in mitigating the challenges that exist in moving from very early adopters to scale-able mainstream audiences and wider distribution channels. More often than not, however, we encounter the misappropriation of marketing as essentially a social buzz-making proposition. Rather, it should be a disciplined strategic asset built on a foundation of sound consumer insight.

What’s lacking in the emerging brand zeitgeist is this: experienced marketing brains and early strategic, hands-on guidance – thus why Emergent is a partner in the Food Marketing Institute emerging brands “Mentor” program. There, we counsel that marketing is not just sending out a press release, filing content routinely in social channels or retaining an influencer with a foodie follower base. It is a strategic proposition that optimizes the entire go-to-market plan for growth, effectiveness, measurable outcomes and fewer mistakes.

The eight deadly sins of marketing myopia

Here in random order are eight mistakes that can impede growth and hold the emerging brand proposition back from a leading role in the evolving food and beverage industry:

1. A form of business grade narcissism – business in love with itself to the exclusion of what’s relevant to the consumer’s passions and interests.
2. Absence, then, of a continuous devotion to seeking consumer insight and putting the customer at the very center of business planning. One thing to say and another to do.
3. An undernourished mission and higher purpose that should become the driver for everything the brand stands for and its ability to acquire deeper meaning and connection with consumers.
4. Improper positioning most frequently manifested as no real discernable positioning. This should be created through careful exploration of how best to push uniqueness and differentiation.
5. Scattered and less relevant messaging that is the outcome of not addressing the first four sins correctly, and the vanity of assuming consumers will resonate simply because it’s there (if you build it, they will come).
6. And messaging’s twin sister, an absence of sound strategy in trade and consumer facing communication that mirrors their lifestyle aspirations and wants. This directly impacts any opportunity for engagement.
7. A real show-stopper: a clunky packaging presentation that dilutes impact in any crowded retail setting at a time when consumers long to know more and care about the product creation backstory.
8. Finally, failing to fully optimize the brand’s opportunity story in the context of real-world competitive advantage and own-able equity with existing and potential investors. Experienced brand and business storytellers know how to skillfully navigate this arena.

There’s simply no margin for error

No one gets a hall pass from doing the strategic heavy-lifting to refine the brand, its meaning, how it’s presented and what is conveyed. Experienced hands are needed for this work. It can be tempting for founders to think they know marketing even when their background, training and experience does not hail from this discipline.

After all, founders understand the product from the ground up, right? Yes – but, experienced marketing players grasp the consumer, the retail environment, and know the tools to refine how the entire concept is served up, and how best to make every communications dollar work like 10.

• Emergent’s Brand Sustainability Analysis, for example, constitutes the kind of foundational work that creates a strategic anchor for a new brand to maximize its higher purpose, differentiate the concept and imbue the story with greater consumer relevance and deeper meaning.

Yet in many cases, none of this is done as new brands hire a designer for package graphics – call it “marketing” and then call it a day. Evidence of the oh-so-powerful axiom: you don’t know what you don’t know. Some of the more fully funded emerging businesses have witnessed faster acceleration because they understood the long-term importance of engaging the right marketing minds at the start.

For others it seems less of a priority because, again, owners believe they can do it themselves. The honest answer here is no. In varying degrees of involvement from guide to outsourced execution, it is wiser and better to get the marketing experience in the door early for the very reason – you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

The strength created today will, pay dividends for years to come and when you start out on the right foot good things tend to follow. Success is in the eyes of the beholder certainly. That said home runs will always be more satisfying than base hits.

Luck by the way has nothing to do with it. This is hard work that requires enough time in the saddle for those at the marketing helm who can quickly recognize, develop and separate the big ideas from anything less than that.

• Owners create extraordinary products with a story to tell.
• Investors invest capital to fuel the effort.
• Marketers should shape the brand and go-to-market plan, and tell the story.

A word to founders: it’s hard to let go and it is also tempting to assume you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Engaging experienced, professional marketing talent is not a nice to have, it is essential to the future of the business because you won’t achieve jet engine results if you fuel the brand with regular, unleaded expertise.

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