No "Gimme's"! Aggressively protect how consumers experience your Brand.
Mike Mershimer
Retail Brand Health Protection. Driving high profit and franchise owner wealth via sales reporting integrity and brand compliance.
As most Ice Cream retailers will attest, product produced for store dipping cabinets come in three gallon tubs as displayed in the image above. This makes it difficult for the consumer, looking into the dipping cabinet to determine if the store is selling the brands premium high quality product or a lower quality brand of ice cream. They trust the brand, or they do not.
As you can imagine, some franchisees or licensees of major brands will look to cut corners and costs. One way we discovered, is by purchasing $9 a tub ice cream, and putting in the dipping cabinet, replacing the brands required premium ice cream that could be $25 a tub or more. As my franchising mentor told me repeatedly, "We can never tolerate a franchisee misleading the consumer into thinking they are buying our premium product, and sell them something less. Ever!" So, our answer was to wrap our logo around the tubs so the consumer would recognize our premium ice cream. I thought "problem solved! Next? ".
Months later during a market tour, I noticed a clothes iron in a few stores, and asked a part time employee if they were ironing their uniforms in the back room. When she stopped laughing, she explained that this franchisee instructed them to use the iron to go around the outside of the lower quality ice cream tubs she purchased to loosen the product from the walls of the tub. That way it was easier to slide the product out and into the recently emptied and cleaned premium company branded tubs! Problem obviously NOT solved!
We were able to quickly investigate, document, audit, and quantify how much Chocolate and vanilla ice cream were being purchased outside the system, costing this franchisee her three store network. Again. No Gimme's. Relentless enforcement of brand standards is the only thing that builds consumer trust in a brand.
Key Tip: When people entrusted with your ice cream brand buy outside the system, they typically purchase chocolate and vanilla (primary beverage flavors). Keep an eye out for drops in ordering of your key items from approved sources.
Increasing company profits through a program of effective inventory shrinkage control
4 年Great article/story Mike. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” and unfortunately, less than honest people will always look for ways to circumvent systems and controls. The Brand must be protected at all costs, and a good consistent audit program is an integral part of that process.