Jimmy's guide to..... Brand Building

Yes, sorry, I know it’s been a while since my last blog. But work – yes, that pesky thing – got in the way.

But all the while I’ve been beavering away in the exciting world of coffee start-ups, I’ve been thinking about what my next blog subject should be. And it’s this: the role of brand building in SME’s.

Or – as it’s otherwise known – when to ‘go big’ with marketing investment.

For big brands, it’s easy. I remember my Mars days when the annual marketing plan session involved little more than working out where to put your three bursts of 400TVRs a year ( one in Spring, one in Autumn, one after Crufts ) and that was it, job done, down the pub.

For smaller brands, it’s much harder. And tight budgets means it often comes down to a choice – Retailer Marketing, or Above the Line.

So – before we start putting our tentative plan together – let’s look at the merits of both.

First, Retailer Marketing. I’ve worked at both ASDA, and Tesco, and have seen first-hand how their Retailer Marketing programmes work. The first thing to say is – they really do deliver. They work really well in driving short-term sales, mainly because of their proximity to the point of purchase. It’s all very well making a cracking TV ad – but if consumers have forgotten it by the time they get to the fixture, and the only thing they see is a competitor promotion with a nice bit of POS – well, then you’re in trouble.

Most retailers now have a pretty well-thought out selection of Retailer Marketing activities ranging from coupons at till, instore sampling, online, social, point of sale, instore magazines, and even six sheet poster sites outside the store.

The second thing to say about Retailer Marketing is that it’s expensive. Hoo boy. If I told you the true cost of sending a shelf barker out to 400 Tesco stores vs what they charge suppliers it would make your eyes water. Also – take some of those reach/impact figures with a pinch of salt. I was once talking to Sainsburys about booking a page in their instore magazine, when the Account Manager at their media company told me that each copy gets read by ten different people. I mean, really. The only piece of print I’ve ever encountered that got passed around that much was a copy of Penthouse that one of my mates had in the ‘80s. And that’s a different blog subject altogether.

I’m going to say this only once: if you really, truly want to reach a large group of consumers, then you NEED to go above the line. And you probably need a proper, old-school broadcast medium like TV, or Outdoor.

You don’t even need to listen to me on this one. Read Mark Ritson. He consistently extols the virtues of TV over any other medium. And I’m inclined to believe him.

I’m not saying that you can’t build a brand through other means – but it’s really hard. Online can do it – but it’s a massively fragmented medium, and fraudulent clicks is an issue. Social used to be an option – but the likes of Facebook and Instagram got wise to that quickly and started charging to promote posts. Similarly, Influencers used to be happy to talk about the brands they loved for free – but now even a Z-list Love Island castoff charges ￡400 for a badly-posed photo of them holding your product. PR… I love PR, but it can be a bit hit and miss.. Print… great for targeting, but it can be a bit of a slow burn…

Nope, sorry. If you truly want to make impact then I firmly believe that it has to be one of the tried and tested broadcast media routes. And that costs money.

Worse than that, it has to be a consistent investment, rather than a one-off. You can’t just do this once and expect that your brand will be established forever in consumers’ minds as a result. You have to keep hitting it, and hitting it, and hitting it… twice, three times a year if possible, but certainly at least twice.

So – bringing this back to the point of the blog – how do you do this if you’re a small brand? Well, here is my suggestion:

First, get a retail listing. I know that might sound obvious, but we’re talking here about building up to an Above The Line campaign – and there’s no point doing that if consumers can’t find your product on shelf. In fact, you probably need to be in three or four retailers before you can push the ATL button, but let’s start with one.

When you have your product launched, use retailer marketing to drive ROS in that account. Yes, I know it’s overpriced – but if your objective is to drive sales in one account, then account-specific Retailer Marketing is probably the best approach. It also keeps the ROS up, which is vital if you want to avoid being delisted.

Once you’ve made a success of your first retail launch, you can write it up as a case study, and take it to other retailers. In my experience, nothing impresses one of the Grocery Mults than seeing a product fly off the shelves somewhere else – and conversely, nothing scares them more than thinking they are missing out on shoppers that could be lured elsewhere by the promise of new and exciting brands.

Keep up with the Retailer Marketing. No, this is doing nothing ( or very little ) to build your long-term brand equity but it is still driving ROS, which also means cash in the bank.

Next, start saving for that big above the line campaign. This might also mean obtaining investor funding or mugging your CEO as he comes out of the bathroom – but you need to store up some cash. I’d suggest ￡500k for a decent weight London campaign, a million if you want to go national.

But time spent saving, also means time available for planning. Find a good Media Buying/Planning agency ( and here a shout out to AMS, who I’ve been working with recently and are brilliant at this ) and start looking at audience targeting and thinking about potential media routes.

Find a decent creative agency, and start thinking about what your creative message can be. Again, time spent here is well worth it. Think hard about what your target audience need, and how your product gives it to them. Once you have your creative route, I’d definitely advocate testing it with consumers too – it might cost a few grand, but if your message is going to be seen by ( hopefully ) millions of people, you want it to be the best it can be, yes?

Tell all the retailers who have your product or are thinking of listing your product that you’re going to advertise. They don’t need to know the details; they just need to see the scale of your ambition. It also helps keep your product on shelf if they know a big campaign is just around the corner.

You’ll also want another burst of Retailer Marketing to amplify the ATL. Tricky, I know, because you’ll want to keep as much money for the advertising. But again, think about the point I made in my first paragraph. Do you really want to spend money on TV just to lose your consumer to another brand because they spent money on promos/POS and you didn’t?

Make sure you have measurement in place. Don’t just look to your sales numbers as the indicator of whether your campaign has worked – you’re trying to drive long-term brand equity, not short-term cash. Which means things like Awareness and Propensity to Purchase scores. Which probably means a research company. All adds to the cost, but still worth doing.

And that’s it. So, in a nutshell – launch, support with Retailer Marketing to keep ROS up and cash in the bank, then plan your big ATL campaign as best you can. Then, evaluate the campaign, tweak whatever you need to ( maybe the creative isn’t quite right, or one part of the media plan underperformed vs others ) and start saving again for the next burst.

Maybe all the above doesn’t sound very scientific. And to an extent, it isn’t. It’s built mainly on my experience, and seeing what has worked and what hasn’t.

But if you want some science then here’s a lovely chart:

This chart was shown to me by my last boss ( Hi Steve! ) and I think it makes the point far better than I could.

In a nutshell – Retailer Marketing ( here called Sales Activation ) gives short term sales uplifts, but no long term growth. Whereas Brand Building delivers Long-Term sales growth but no ( or at least less ) immediate sales uplift.

So – at the risk of pointing out the bleedin’ obvious – if all you ever do is Retailer Marketing/Sales Activation stuff, you will never grow your brand. And if you go all in with Brand Building straight out of the blocks, you risk an enormous outlay of cash, with no short-term sales growth to help pay for it.

One last word, and that’s on timing. How quickly should you try and get your big campaign ready? Well, let’s say that you’re a new brand or start-up. I’d probably spend the first year getting established in retail and investing in Retailer Marketing to drive ROS and keep that cash flowing in. And I’d be using that time to plan a solid marketing campaign for year 2, with increased marketing investment in the plan for year 3.

You could try and do it sooner than that, of course, but then you’re probably rushing the planning phase which I think is important. And if you wait any longer, then you risk your products getting delisted by retailers before you’ve even had a chance to get off the ground.

All highly subjective of course – and I’d welcome any questions of challenges from people who’ve done it differently..

Enjoy your day.