The basics of brand strategy part II – Design for your prime prospect; sell to the masses

During the last 20+ years of my life I have had the honor working with some of the world’s most talented sales and marketing people on great brands in phenomenal businesses. From my beginnings at Warner-Lambert (later Pfizer) to Procter & Gamble, later to Diageo, then SABMiller (later ABInbev) and now at Tracfone Wireless (the world’s largest Mobile Virtual Network Operator) one thing has always created tension between sales professionals and marketing geeks. The one thing that nags at sales teams and is hard for many executives to wrap their heads around. 

What the heck is a prime prospect and why do marketers obsess over one single type of person when we want to sell to everyone?

This question has followed me through the years as I have shared marketing strategies to sales leaders and other corporate executives. As I have passionately talked about a brand’s prime prospect who he or she is. Their shopping habits, where they live, what they consume, what media they turn to for information and even as far as showing what their daily routines are, there’s almost always someone in the room who looks dazzled and at some point asks “Why are you being so narrow minded on this one person when we need to sell to everyone?”. The question is legit. The answer is very straight forward and a basic brand strategy that has been proven time and time again.

One of the first things brand (or a business) must do is define its Prime Prospect (aka consumer or customer target). This goes beyond demographics which just describe groups of people where they live, with how many people and what their disposable income is. It starts with science; enter the art of segmentation (a topic I may explore on another article in full). The process of segmenting the market place starts with data. Lots of data. Which may start at demographics but must go as deep as to what a specific consumer or customer type is using or doing now with who and during what moments or occasions in their life instead of what you offer. Where they got it, how much they paid for it. Did they consume or use it immediately or take home for later. Did they buy it for themselves or where they just the shopper who bought it for someone else. During more than a year at @SABMiller I had the immense honor of working with the brightest minds segmentation. We did 75k consumer interviews and had reams of data. The wizards I worked with cranked that data and we built a beautiful market segmentation which allowed the business to choose what opportunities to follow, from what consumer need, within which occasions and where able to match brands to these opportunities or build an innovation pipeline that would do the task.  The end result was a three year plan that would deliver $1.5B of incremental revenue for the business. This was only enabled when we defined clear Prime Prospects for each opportunity.

You see the logic here works contrary to what one instinctively thinks. One of the primary jobs of the brand marketer is to inspire teams to work and deliver inspiring creative work that is founded on an insight and pulls at people’s emotions and rational to create a response. In my experience the best way to do this is by narrowing down your target and focusing on one person to design against. Even if consumption of the product you sell happens outside our beyond that person. The other people will also see what you have designed and if they are inspired by it or believe your promise they will also consume or look to find out more about your brand. 

While working at SABMiller (now ABInbev) I ran into this contradictory and fascinating reality with two of the company’s biggest brands. 

The first was in the US. The company had developed one of its flag ship brands Miller Brewing via three endorsed brands; Miller Highlife, Miller Lite and Miller Genuine Draft. Each had its prime prospect against which each endorsed brand would design and create against, although they were consumed by many other consumers in the US.

The most interesting example was Miller Highlife. The brand’s prime prospect was a young urban consumer, 25 years old who valued friendship and authentic creativity. They were single of moderate income that sought full flavored beer and cherished everyday moments that could be celebrated in simple ways. Let’s call him Tom. Tom also valued the quality of American craft. To him things made in the USA could compete or even be better than imported goods. Thus the phrase “The Champagne of Beers”. If one literally takes this reference and considers how many people in the US are like Tom, you wouldn’t be able to build a business case for the brand much less explain its mass consumption in the US market. The reality was that consumption of the brand happened mostly in rural America among white men between the ages of 30-50, with a low to moderate household income. Why? Something they saw and interpreted in the creative output that was inspired by Tom resonated with them. The beer isn’t that bad either.

Another great example is the brand Pony Malta in Colombia. Pony is a non-alcoholic malt based beverage which was at first made to maximize production of breweries. By adding vitamins, vanilla and a bit of carbonated bubbles, the brand was positioned as a nutritional supplement for children. It plays within the huge CSD (carbonated soft drink) category. The brand team focused and designed on two Prime Prospects. The first was Juan, a young 14 year old kid who lived with his parents and younger sister. He is passionate about football (soccer), loves playing video games and is a digital native. The second was Juan’s mom Pati. A 35 year old married stay at home mom, whose sole purpose in life is to take care of her family. She chooses what they eat, drink and even dress in.  She has a profound need to make certain that her choices are the best for her young family. 

The Pony brand team would design the product focused on Juan while making sure that Pati was happy with it because of its nutritional values. The brand’s communication strategy was also dual. Talking first to Juan while informing Pati of all the good stuff that the drink provided. Sales of the brand where at an all-time high when I collaborated with that team, and it became the third biggest brand within the CSD category. Data showed that 70% of all consumption was among 20-40 year old male blue-collar workers. Why? Because if it was good enough for their children and their wives were convinced of the benefits of the product it must provide some type of nutritional energy that these men needed between meals. Knowing this, should the brand team have changed strategy and make blue-collar workers the Prime Prospect? Of course not! Designing for Juan makes the product young and energetic. Convincing Pati of its nutritional values kept the brand within the shoppers’ consideration set which in turn convinced male blue collar works that it would give them the nutritional energy they needed between meals. 

I have a couple of other examples like: Baileys (Irish liquor) designing against a female prime prospect while 50% of its consumption happened among men. Johnnie Walker designing for a young hip urban man while more than 20% of its consumption was among women and more than 40% among older men. And could go on...

I have a mentor and friend who often says “If you’re everything to everyone, you’re nothing to someone.” In other words; Design for your Prime Prospect, activate and sell to the masses.

A note from the author – Please do not take the percentages and numbers literally. They have been modified to protect would could be considered internal corporate information.