Branding Technology Products

Since the Inquirer is not publishing a column this Friday, here's a redux of a recent column on Branding Tech products. Have a safe and holy Easter break!

Q:  We're not a marketer of consumer products like laundry soap or  shampoo.  We're a dealership chain of technology products like laptops and mobile phones (iincluding their servicing.)  So we're marketing brands like Acer and HP for laptops, and Nokia and Samsung for mobile phones.  In a supermarket, consumers shop and choose between, for example, a Surf or an Ariel for a detergent, and a Sunsilk or a Palmolive for a shampoo.  These are brands of different multinational companies like Unilever, P&G and Colgate-Palmolive.

In our case we sell the company brand such as Acer, HP, Nokia, and Samsung.  Acer has different laptops but we sell them as Acer not as Acer 5620.  In the same way, we sell Nokia as Nokia and not as N-70, which is one of its variants.  Our newly hired marketing director who came from Nestle recommended that we should brand the different variants of Acer and HP laptops as well as the different Nokia and Samsung mobile phone products.  Everyone in the office rejected the idea saying that ours are technology products and they're all selling well as an Acer, an HP, a Nokia and a Samsung.  The guy countered and said: "Can you imagine how much more they will sell if they are branded?"

Is this true?  Aside from claiming increased sales and assuming that our principals will allow us, is there some other more convincing reason why we should brand a technology product?  What does your branding experience say about these questions?

   
A:   LET'S START WITH A FEW NECESSARY CLARIFICATIONS.  "Surf," "Ariel," "Sunsilk" and "Palmolive" are product brands.  On the other hand, "Acer," "HP," "Nokia," "Samsung," "Unilever," "P&G," and "Colgate-Palmolive" are corporate brands.  

In the branding circle, the likes of Unilever, P&G and Colgate-Palmolive are known to practice what David Aaker in his 2004 book on Brand Portfolio Strategy, called the "house of brands" strategy to brand architecturing.  Each of these FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies has several product brands under a given product category.  For example, Unilever has several shampoo brands like Sunsilk and Clear.  Most often, consumers are more familiar with the product brand like Sunsilk than with the corporate brand that owns the product brand as in the case of Unilever, owner of Sunsilk.

In the case of Acer, HP, Nokia and Samsung, the brand portfolio strategy adopted is known as the "branded house" approach.  Here, the driver brand is not the product brand but the corporate brand as in the case of most technology products and companies.



Two exceptions
However, according to Professor Mohanbir Sawhney of Kellogg School's Center for Research in Technology and Innovation at Northwestern University, you should note at least two exceptions.  The first is where the technology company created brands that were very product-specific.  Such a case actually forced the company in question to adopt less descriptive brand names and to resort to acronyms.  Well-known examples include BARCO from the original Belgian American Radio Co., 3M in place of Minnesota Machinery Manufacturing, and IBM instead of International Business Machines.  These companies have experienced speedy evolution as well as frequent transformations of their original product category into new and radically different categories.

Just look at the history of IBM and its product's evolution and transformations.  In 2004, business newspapers reported that IBM has started promoting its brand in the emerging market for the software of business processes on demand even when this was still in its infancy.  This was just the latest in the relatively quick succession of product generations that IBM had experience through the last 3-4 decades.  IBM survived and maintained its leadership from one adoption cycle to the next by showing its resiliency and readiness to quickly adopt.

Short-lived
Because technology products move speedily through the adoption life cycle, branding favored the corporate brand more than the product brand whose product category is relatively short-lived.  This is in sharp contrast to, say, Colgate that for decades has been in the toothpaste category.  It's rare to see a technology brand that is closely associated with specific a product category.  The association is with the company and therefore the corporate brand.  

Meaningless brand names
The second exception to consider is the set of technology companies who intentionally adopt meaningless brand names.  These companies have 2 reasons for doing this.  The first is the more compelling.  These companies know that their business and original product will quickly evolve into better next-generations and/or morph into a different or even entirely different business and product.  So why allow the product to drive branding?

The second reason is related to the first.  Adopting a meaningless brand name is easier to get target customers, over time, to learn the meaning that the company wants it to have.  That's a matter of repeated exposure.  Learning a changed or a new meaning because of the migration into a new category is also a matter of repeated exposure.  Which corporate brands belong to this practice?   Corporate brands like Xerox, Kodak, Cisco, Adobe, eBay are cases in point.    

The foregoing should give you the basis and sources for answering and guiding your newly hired marketing director from Nestle.  He's probably misguided in believing in the universality of what he learned about branding at Nestle.

uncomplicated marketing - lessons from simple entrepreneurs

Reality check.


That's what the Jr MarketingRx-er had when he sat as a judge in yesterday's Entrepreneur magazine's Top10 finalists screening. Most of the entrepreneurs we interviewed and peppered with questions didn't really have a clear, verbalized grasp of what their marketing strategies were but one of the finalists best described it for the group. 


"My best marketing is being the most reliable and consistent supplier of quality ________ (you can fill in the blanks here with whatever your product or service is) to my customers."


This is from a serial entrepreneur (defined as someone who can't stop putting up new businesses when he/she sees a natural opportunity) based in Davao who multitasks. He doesn't have a marketing team. But he oversees about five businesses. Two of these businesses does more than P150M in revenue per year. Of course, this entrepreneur is not in consumer marketing but his straightforward, simple business to business marketing philosophy was a wake up call for me. Basically, this entrepreneur from Mindanao gave me a refresher:

Focus on the two foundational "Ps" in marketing--Product (focus on quality and delivering what was specified, in the quantity that was specified) and Place (making sure that the customer gets the product where and when he wants it) and your customers will be the one who will chase you. (His clients are multinationals like Dole and Del Monte.) The entrepreneur explained again that this was the best form of marketing for him. Simple and uncomplicated.


Another Entrep10 finalist, a restaurant owner in Quezon City, does about P160M a year for his two restaurants. Recently, he was approached to expand through franchising. When asked about his marketing strategy, he mentioned something about having flyers, ex-deals with tv stations to plug and promote his restaurants, a loyalty discount card and someone on his staff who put up a Facebook Fan Page which has "something like 300 or 3,000" fans. "Sorry, I'm not sure. I'm not a computer person.." His unverbalized marketing strategy, revealed as we probed with more questions, was his focusing on the personal touch--being there at the restaurants for the past 19 years making sure that food quality doesn't slip or suffer (that's the base "P" again - Product); and greeting and talking to his customers directly making sure that they have a good dining experience. He gets feedback directly this way and makes changes swiftly. When asked about his pricing strategy, he said "my marketing pricing strategy is that I have not increased prices for the past so many years. This makes my customers happy and keeps them coming back."


Simple and uncomplicated.


Another Entrepreneur10 finalist that we interviewed flew in from General Santos. Here was a veteran entrepreneur being nominated for his new microfinance venture. Again, he had a simple answer to explain their success in microfinance. "We go from Barangay to Barangay talking to people and offering financing to those who can't get financing from banks or who have been (victimized) by 5/6 (loan sharks.) When they come to the office to transact, we give them coffee. That's enough. No one else does that," says the GenSan entrepreneur with a twinkle in his eye. He focused on a product/service that people needed to a people (market segment that was underserved or unserved) and treated them like real people (give them hot coffee and a chair to sit in. Hey, that would be nice. A bank that served coffee to its customers while they waited for their transactions. Hmmm). 


Real simple. 


In the 40 years that this former bank employee and GenSan entrepreneur has done business he has focused on the basics and the simple to execute. He has grown his group of businesses (Microfinance, Rural Banks, Shipping, Fishing, Farming) into one of the most successful but most low key and humble multi-billion business empires in Mindanao. "Manny Pacquiao used to work for me. He was a laborer. Nagbubuhat ng isda.(He was carrying fish). Later when he became a boxer, we formed a trust group that would help him and teach him how to manage his wealth. But sadly, he has surrounded himself with gamblers..." But that's another story.


Sometimes it's nice to hear these stories from entrepreneurs and "marketers" who are out in the field doing the actual work and not sitting in a made-in-China particle board office desk pecking, surfing and "laboring" away on a laptop. We columnists and professors like to harp on the complicated and newest marketing strategies when the simple and uncomplicated will do. 
    
WE welcome your comments and questions. Send them to us at MarketingRx@pldtDSL.net or DrNedmarketingrx@gmail.com. Happy birthday to my Swato, Margot Roberto.God bless!

Major, Major Market trends in Publishing

 
Major, major market trends in book publishing




By Dr Ned Roberto & Ardy Roberto
 
 
The past two weeks have been an immersion in the publishing world. First, the Jr MRxer was in Singapore to attend MarketSquare Asia 2010, an exhibit and conference for Christian Publishers. Second, was the last week's Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) at the mamoth SMX MOA convention center in Manila Bay where we received a Gintong Aklat Finalist award and did two days of book signings. So this week, we let go of the usual format of this column to answer a question that has been on every marketing professional and executive in the publishing industry: what are the major market and consumer trends in publishing? In particular, we focus on trends in the book publishing. 


Aside from the MBIF exposure and observations last week, the trends we cite below are from the MarketSquare presentation of Jim and Ellen Elwell, senior executives of Tyndale International, one of the largest Christian book publishers in the world. The Elwell's presented 9 trends in publishing, 3 or 4 of which I will share with you. 


Market Trend #1: "Books are not dead."
The good news for publishers is that books are not dead. Based on the waves and waves of books that were displayed and being sold at the MIBF, consumers are still buying books. National Book Store, the Philippines largest retailer of books, is opening 10 new bookstores this year on top of the 120 stores that it already has. The sales of the JrMRxer's publisher, OMFLiterature, for the past 3 years has been increasing; they've also expanded into retail opening 10 specialty book stores in the same period.

What was different this year at the MIBF was the presence of at least two booths featuring digital books. For the first time, homegrown VIBAL Publishers, led by it's tireless 85 year old President and Founder, Esther Vibal (who is a finalist for this year's Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award), had a booth that was almost solely dedicated to display its foray into e-books. Vibal proudly shared with me that they now have 200 book titles digitized and available on Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad among other digital readers.
The Elwell's report confidently declared: "Books are not dead...they're just shifting in how they are published and where they can be purchased."  The bad news is that, except for a few publishers like Vibal and Diwa, Filipino publishers seem to be anxious or unsure on their strategies to take advantage of this digital shift. 
The book is not dead, it's just taking a new form.
That leads us to the next trend...


Market Trend #2: "eBooks will eventually outsell printed books"
Book marketers are waking up to this eventuality. At last year's MIBF, a Publishers' Representative who sells books and journals to the school library market commented that scholarly journals are all but published digitally and sold online. The Elwell's shared a July 26, 2010 Publishers Weekly report that with the Kindle reader now priced at below $200, "sales (of ebooks) have tripled....and Kindle eBooks now outsell hardcover editions on Amazon.com" They also estimated that within the next 12 months, eBooks will also outsell softcover books! (Remember Richard Gordon's presidential campaign promise to have each Filipino student have a Kindle reader instead of lugging a ton of books in their backpacks? That alone should have been worth 10 million votes. Oh well...) 
A client gifting the SrMRxer with an iPad recently signaled for us the beginning of a new digital era. People reading some kind of book or magazine on a Kindle, iPad, or mobile phone in planes, classrooms, and cafes are becoming a common sight. When Apple launched the iPad this May, they sold more than 3 million units in just 80 days. Businessweek says that iPad sales are estimated to reach 5.5M units in 2010 and will double to 13 million in 2011. 
While sales of iPad-like readers are going to increase exponentially (China's manufacturers already have their own version of the iPad ready for sale) publishers who digitize and market their books online now have a global opportunity to supply readers with a library of ebooks. Reflect on this for a moment, the Elwell's report that 56% of China's 420 million netizens (internet users) are looking for books online. 
To illustrate the boom, the Elwell's shared that Tyndale's sales of eBooks on Amazon rose from US$20,000 to US$1M in just 24 months.(Half of which were sold in the past 4 months.)
Wait, we are not yet finished. We haven't even counted the Mobile/Smartphones that are and will be used for reading books. Yes, books on your mobile. People already have bibles uploaded in their mobile phones. In Japan, 400,000 "copies" of cellphone novels were sold in 2007. In the Philippines, the JrMRxer is helping GoNegosyo launch GO NEGOSYO SMS (Success Motivation Serye) where the public can receive daily "sachet" installations of Go Negosyo's self-help and inspirational stories of entrepreneurs for P2.50 a day (via Globe and Smart; text GONEGO to 2910). The launch of GO NEGOSYO SMS  will be held during the Go Negosyo Youth Summit at the World Trade Center this September 27th.
The implication to publishers, according to the Elwell's is "E-publish or perish!"


We'll visit 2 or 3 more market trends in publishing (touching on trends in product and promotions) in our next column!
         
WE welcome your comments and questions. Send them to us at MarketingRx@pldtDSL.net or DrNedmarketingrx@gmail.com. God bless!

Help! We've Been Missing Our Targets

We'll be referring to this in our column this Friday, so we're reposting this in our blog. Hope this helps you Strat Planners!

MarketingRx for December 4-09

“Help!We've been missing our targets...”

By Dr Ned Roberto & Ardy Roberto

Q:  This year it looks like we’ll again be below the market performance we set at our corporate strategy plan that we crafted before the start of this year.  This below-the-target record was true of last year and the year before. 

We do our annual corporate strategy planning September of each year.  We devote 3 full days for this planning at an out-of-town hotel.  We start by having outside speakers to tell us what to expect about the coming year’s PEST (political, economic, social and technological) environment.  This is followed by a SWOT analysis and a review of the company’s past two year’s sales and profit performances.  From this analysis and review, we derive the direction to take for the coming year and the strategies to bring us to the chosen direction.

But we’ve been missing our targets for the past 6 years.  Someone told us that he heard you once in a conference say that when something like what we’re experiencing happens, it’s likely that the strategy planning process is flawed or wrong.  Can you tell us what’s wrong with what we’re doing?

A:  That's a difficult question to answer. So, we WILL ANSWER BASED SOLELY on your brief and general description of your corporate strategy planning process.  We can be more specific if you were also specific about what happened between the time you strategized in September of the previous year and the end or toward the end of the current year.

Benchmarking with Jack

In the particular context of your question, we’d like to answer by benchmarking against a known and acknowledged classic in corporate strategy planning.  This is Jack Welch’s system at General Electric (GE).  Awarded by Fortune Magazine as the “Manager of the Century,” Welch’s strategy planning for GE has the enviable record of never having missed its target market share, sales and profit numbers.  The elements of Welch strategy planning evolved over his 20-year tenure at GE.  They are found in his two books, Straight from the Gut (2001) and Winning (2005), and in the two books about his leadership at GE, namely, Jack Welch and the GE Way by Robert Slater (1998), and Jacked Up: the Inside Story of How Jack Welch Talked GE into Becoming the World’s Greatest Company by Bill Lane (2007). 

In its final form, here’s the way Jack Welch has developed his GE corporate strategy planning system.  Incidentally, Welch conducts and facilitates the sessions himself.   There are four sets of planning sessions in the entire system and each has its own specific focus. 

Every Six months

The system’s first part is an every Spring and Fall strategy planning for the intermediate term.  The purpose here is to take a serious look at each of GE’s strategic business units (SBUs) along a 3-year time horizon.  Why every six months?  That’s a Jack Welch signature thinking.  The visibility of the longer-term gets less and less unpredictable as the short-term unfolds.

Annual stratplan:how to beat...

The second part is the annual strategy planning.  That happens every January and takes place in a Florida resort, the Boca Raton Hotel & Club.  The planning sessions here are devoted to sharing of “best practices” and to setting each SBU’s coming year’s business priorities.  Each strategic plan ends with a budget.  Welch’s sets two rules for what he regards as a “good focused budget.”  The budget must focused on answering these two questions: (1) “How can you beat last year’s performance?” or how can you successfully compete against yourself?  (2) “What is your competition doing, and how can you beat them?”       

"Implement like hell"

The third and fourth parts are related to each other because they fall under what Welch regards as the more consequential component of strategy planning.  This is “execution” or strategy implementation on which Welch’s attitude says: “Strategy is actually very straightforward.  You pick a general direction and implement like hell…  (So) when it comes to strategy, if you want to win, then ponder less and do more. ”   

There are two critical components in strategy implementation: (1) people planning and management, and (2) operations planning and management. 

Management retreat

For Welch, planning for people management is a twice a year “retreat.”  The retreat’s focus is on how to continue empowering his executives in each of GE’s SBUs.  The planning sessions therefore reviews and insights into the changing managerial and staff needs for each SBU.  The review and insighting are directed at enabling each SBU in attaining their market performance targets.  It is here that Welch applies his famous 20-70-10 formula for managing people.  He generously rewards and further sharpens via tailored fit training, his top 20% executives and their staff, and fires the 10% bottom performers and laggards.  What about the middle 70%?  Here’s Welch’s policy and counsel to his SBU heads: “Spend half of your time evaluating and coaching the middle 70% -- those who are neither disrupting nor shining.”

During the sessions in this people planning, Welch relies heavily on his HRD (Human Resource Department).  When asked by Fortune magazine in an interview who is a good HR head, Welch quipped: “The best HR type?  A pastor and a parent in the same package.” 

Finally, the planning for operations is a 2-day every quarter event.  The focus here is on the initiatives and activities closely related to the agenda set during the annual strategy plan.  Welch also takes the two days as the occasion where he can identify the company’s future leaders as gleaned from their responses during the sessions to the challenges of change and issues. 

Prescriptions

So there’s your model for transforming your own strategy planning into a more doable and attainment empowered planning system.  The prescriptions for the needed transformation are:

1^st.  Separate the planning sessions for the 3-year and the annual, and for the people and the operations necessary for effectively implementing the annual strategy.  Don’t compress all four into one planning schedule.     

2^nd.  Schedule the occurrence and frequency of each of these 4 components of the

              entire strategy planning over different times of the year.

3^rd.  Give a specific focus for each planning of the 4 components but relate each

focus to the attainment of the direction and priorities of the annual strategy plan.

Keep your questions coming.  Send them to us at drnedmarketingrx@gmail.com or  MarketingRx@pldtDSL.net. God bless!

Entrepreneur's Gut Feel Predictions for 2010

MarketingRx for Jan 1-010 and Jan 8, 2010

The entrepreneur's gut feel for 2010 (part 1)

or 7 gut feel predictions for 2010

Happy New Year! For this week's column, the junior MRxer looked into his magic entrepreneur's gut to give you seven market predictions for 2010. Here we go:

# 1. In 2010 money will continue to flow in from OFWs all over the world. The World Bank got it wrong, says, economist Bernardo Villegas. The self-proclaimed prophet of bloom, in the midst of all the gloom prophets, has already been proven right. OFW money is not tightening. There's even an increase in remittances. Why? Pinoy OFWs have not been among those axed for employment by companies in the worldwide tightening of belts. Villegas has funny anecdotal evidence as well, which he shares when he makes the rounds of the speaking circuit. “Filipinos take a bath every day—sometimes even twice a day.” Was one reason he cited. The hotel and restaurant industry likes the fact that Pinoys smell good. The workers of nationalities that smell like a deodorant-free underarm at the end of a long hot day? Bye bye! Nothing personal, okay?

Because of this, expect the current growth in retail to be sustained. And we're not talking about single digit growth baby, we're looking at double digit growth! There's a reason why the Sys and Ayalas also have double digit grins this year—and that's definitely one of them (albeit a SM Mall going under water during Ondoy for the Sys and a sensational daytime armed robbery in upscale Greenbelt 5 for the Ayalas.)

So what to do with the continued flow of money from our Expat Pinoys? Don't hold back on promoting your real estate projects (especially those that are above sea level). Go get your lion's share of the 13^th and 14^th month bonuses that were released and remitted. Offer trade-ins for water damaged properties? Hmm. Whatever, the offer is, go and get business.

#2. Pinoy consumers become even more "savings savvy". Despite the continued spending splurge mentioned above, Pinoys will save more. Well, never mind the “kaputting” of Rural Banks owned by the Legacy group that went under at the start of 2009. Banks are reporting that Filipinos are saving more money with double digit growth in the savings deposits. That's a good sign since Pinoys are one of the worst savers in Asia. We are not a nation of conscientious savers. One of the blessings, I guess of the global economic crisis, is that it has taught us to be savvier with our money. Government has done it's small part by doubling the amount that your deposits are insured to P500,000, thereby instilling more than a sliver of confidence in consumers. Still, banks offer investment vehicles that offer rates that are just a little over the inflation rate. With author/speakers like Topaks Colayco (Pera Mo, Paluaguin Mo and One Wealthy Nation founder), Chinkee Tan (For Richer or For Poorer and 'Till Debt Do Us Part), Bo Sanchez (8 Ways to be Truly Rich) and Larry Gamboa (Think Rich Pinoy!) educating more and more consumers on how to invest and be smart with their money—there is opportunity in this area for marketers of legitimate investment vehicles.

"Your money is best invested in a business" is the sentiment of many. Marketers of affordable franchises, especially food cart franchises will boom. So take advantage of the Entrepreneurship fever. On the other hand,  Mutual fund offerings will be in again. Companies like Citisec online will benefit. Insurance companies offering investment products other than the usual insurance-alone options will see a boom in 2010. Gold will continue to increase in value and be a safe haven for investors (as compared to the dollar and even the Euro), so companies that will offer investment vehicles based on Gold or gold itself, instead of the usual cash currencies, will literally be Geese that will be laying golden eggs.

#3. Feel Good Luxury Products will continue to do good this 2010. The middle class whose cars and houses were flooded and water damaged during Ondoy and Pepeng, will turn to products that will make them feel good. They will want to treat themselves to something they think “they deserve” because of all that they have been through. It was marketing author and guru, Josiah Go who first mentioned this in his fearless post-Ondoy marketing predictions that he published in his Facebook account (and which my father and I later re-published in our MarketingRx column last October). It is worth echoing here.

Think Royce luxury chocolates from Japan. Have you tasted their Dark Chocolate coated Macadamias? Probably not, because they were still out of stock, the last time I checked. But they do have enough “I-deserve-this” chocolates stocked in their small stores in Rockwell and Greenbelt 5 to serve those who want to feel not just good, but much better after the turmoil of 2009 (from both man made and natural made disasters). Concerts and the movie industry will make a comeback (actually the growth of the movie industry in the US is eye-popping, thanks a lot to movies like Avatar. Consumers in the US are treating themselves to more movies as an escape from the reality of unemployment scares and subprime mortgage realities knocking on their doors.) Here in the Philippines, the movie industry has been so sickly for so long, it is definitely poised for a stunning turn around. Who knows? Wapakman might have been the answer if Dionisia Pacquiao were in it!

Don't forget to register to vote before the new deadline runs out again! We're out of space but not out of well wishes for all of our readers.Have a blessed new year! Send us your comments or questions to marketingrx@pldtdsl.net or drnedmarketingrx@gmail.com

+++++

 MarketingRx for Jan 8, 2010

The entrepreneur's gut feel for 2010 (conclusion)

Happy New Year! Last week the junior MRxer looked into his magic gut to give you the first 3 of  seven market predictions for 2010.

Here are the remaining 4; here we go:

                

#4.  Let's go tripping! Biyahe na Pinoy! Tourism and travel executives will be smiling. With the so called “democratization” of travel a result of the price wars still going on in the airline industry (thank you Cebu Pacific for starting this!), domestic tourism will continue to also grow by double digits in 2010. Spurred by travel blogs (think of Anton Diaz's Our Awesome Planet blog) and online search for the best deals, Pinoy consumers will be plunking down paychecks into good travel deals. Expect excuses like “time to visit the long lost relatives in Cagayan de Oro, so might as well do some white water rafting” to crop up this year. Literally cool places will be favorite destinations of families again. Baguio will make a comeback (thank you Ad Congress for propping them up with your donation) and Tagaytay's roads will be merrily clogged again this Holy Week. Subic will benefit from the spanking, stateside-like highway also. The addition of the Philippines in NatGeo's List of Must Visit Places in 2010 will add up well for the travel industry. But here's hoping that places like Camsur and Bohol don't go the way of overcrowded-overdeveloped Boracay.

Pinoys will be happy travelling campers this season and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to take advantage of this.

               

#5. Consumers as Healthy, Wholesome and Wise. Week-end markets like the Saturday Salcedo Market and the Sunday Legaspi Markets in Makati have been attracting the growing middle class. Films like Food, Inc are wising up consumers to choose what they put into their and their families mouths wisely. Worldwide, Walmart is now marking and labelling which products are organic – and thereby labelling the rest that are not as “inorganic” or less healthy. And we are not just talking about vegetables and fruits. Include meats in that list. What Walmart does, the rest of the retailing world usually follows. So expect a surge in “organic” consciousness. So while it is early, go and make the effort to grow organic and offer meats and food that has not been produced in “farm factories”. Be the first to offer beef and chicken labeled as “Hormone and antibiotic free”. (Just last week, a bill was filed to require even Dog Food marketers to list the ingredients of their products.) Expect new market entrant, Human Nature, which brands itself as "100 percent organic, 100 percent Philippine-grown and 100 percent chemical-free personal care products" to have explosive growth with its decision to go through the direct sales channel (and donate part of the proceeds to its advocacy, Gawad Kalinga. Human Nature is founded by Anna Meloto-Wilk and Camille Meloto, the daughters of GK Founder, Tony Meloto.) We received their products as Christmas gifts from our staff and their affordable and SLS-Free shampoos and lotions could give Body Shop a run for their money.

Seize this segment of the market and be first in it. Please. I will be your first customer and most viral of advocates.

. 

#6. Consumers will shop beyond the traditional. This means that “non traditional” distribution and sales channels will continue to grow thanks to more Filipinos trusting in the channels itself. Think of the internet and the thousands of Mom and Pop Multiply-type makeshift e-commerce sites. Think of the fastfood chains set up for internet ordering. Think of the movie ticket and concert ticket reservations online (more than half of Charice Pempengco's launch concert at the MOA recently was sold via Friendster). Ayala Mall's Sureseats online reservation system allowed this writer to buy tickets online 6 weeks before the Pacquiao-Cotto fight.) Christmas pasalubong shoppers will look online for special deals. Now that the online population of the Philippines has doubled (from 10% to more than 20%), you can't ignore this anymore. 

Finally, you can't count out the Direct Selling channel. Look at this non-traditional channel to sustain growth beyond Christmas. Just think of FernC, the vitamin C supplement that is now a billion peso brand thanks to its direct selling approach. This is something that it's older competitors have failed to do via the traditional Mercury Drug approach. At an international publishing conference in Kenya, I met the marketing director of a Brazilian publishing firm that has sold hundreds of thousands of books, including trendy pink leather bibles for girls, through direct selling giant, Avon.  The market in the Philippines is ripe for that kind of traditional products through non-traditional selling channels.

#7. Manny Pacquiao will knock out Floyd Mayweather (in court or in the ring). IF the biggest fight in boxing history pushes through this year, Filipino consumers (around the world) will be in a carry over fiesta mode from Pacquiao's victory.  Never mind that his Wapakman is a flop or that he won't be able to spend his way into winning a seat in congress in May. (Win or lose Manny should bring home a good chunk of the US$25M that he is reportedly guaranteed for the fight.)Think of this win over Mayweather as the equivalent of giving San Mig Coffee to a hyperactive 2 year old boy. That's what the Pacman's win (and his election spending spree) will do for the national economy and psyche. 

Manny's winning always gives us a break from bad news and bad numbers. Remember the 4 back to back typhoons that devastated the Philippines in 2009? Thanks to the Pacman's victory last 14^th of November,  the country all but forgotten those numbers—albeit even for a day or two. The victory has given us the permission to smile wide, open the wallet somewhat wider and spend to celebrate. And that always bodes well for the food and entertainment industry.

With election money expected to pour in the coming months leading to May, we hope that our inflation rate stays at the lowest is has ever been in more than 20 plus years. And if we elect a president that is smarter than Pumba and as brave and non-corruptible like Simba, then next Christmas Holiday season in 2010, we can all continue to say, as the Kenyans say in Swahili, “Hakuna Matata!” (No worries!). 

Have a blessed new year! Send us your comments or questions to marketingrx@pldtdsl.net or drnedmarketingrx@gmail.com