Why read this? : Marketing mistakes are inevitable. Even with the best of intentions, sometimes plans don’t work out. The key is to learn from them so you do better next time. We share lessons from 3 case studies where things went wrong, and what we learned from them. Read this for ideas on how to learn from your marketing mistakes.
Watch out for anyone who claims they offer 100% guaranteed marketing success.
There’s no such thing. And it’s a clear sign of someone who values confidence over competence.
Confidence might get things done. But competence gets the right things done, and gets things done right. But even if you’re a competent marketer, sometime things don’t work out the way you want.
Some of those are factors you can influence, but can’t control.
What competitors do. How retail customers work. What goes on in the heads and hearts of consumers.
It’s why you can aim for, but never achieve, 100% mastery of marketing. In the excellent Drive by Dan H Pink, he talks about the concept of mastery with sports stars. People like Tiger Woods and Roger Federer get the joy from the pursuit of mastery, but know perfection isn’t possible.
Marketing’s a lot like that.
But there are ways to get closer to 100%. When you look back at projects that’ve gone wrong, and learn from your marketing mistakes, you get better the next time. Nobody sets out to fail at marketing. But if you see something going wrong as an opportunity to get better next time, that’s a sign of both marketing competence and marketing confidence.
Learn from your marketing mistakes
There’s a lot of trial and error in marketing. If what you try works, great. If it doesn’t, the learning helps you do it better next time.
You learn from your marketing mistakes as much as your marketing successes.
Learning makes you a better marketer. It’s a stronger marketing skill than what all those hustlers, hashtaggers and growth hackers on social media bang on about. You don’t see them sharing their marketing mistakes.
Challenge these start-up gurus and self-proclaimed e-Commerce experts. Ask them to share what they learned from their marketing mistakes. The good ones will laugh, and tell you great stories about when things went wrong. The bad ones will squirm and bluster, and try to waffle their way out of giving you a straight answer.
We’d like to think we’re in the former category as we’re about to share 3 case study examples using marketing mistakes we learned from.
Each example started with the intent to do great marketing. But, along the way, marketing mistakes crept in. None of these projects delivered what they were supposed to. But by learning from those marketing mistakes, we learned how to avoid them on future projects. And by sharing them here, we hope you can too.
We’ve had to hide a few details for confidentiality reasons. To paraphrase one of our favourite shows, at the request of the survivors, the names (and a few other details) have been changed. But we’ll share enough detail to make the learnings from the marketing mistakes clear.
Case Study 1 : Brand L, the failed new alcohol product
Our first example was an alcohol brand.
This brand (let’s call it Brand L) had a strong position in one part of the market.
To look for more growth, it decided to launch a new product targeted at another part of the market to broaden its portfolio.
Imagine a gin brand launching a vodka.
Except this example wasn’t gin. Or vodka.
Brand L – business context
So why did it choose this option for growth? Well, it had some business context reasons which drove that particular marketing decision.
Though available globally, the top 6 markets for Brand L were 90% of its sales. It had dominant market share in its particular category in those countries.
But the company also owned another brand which played in the same category. That brand dominated sales in the rest of the world outside Brand L’s top markets.
Brand L couldn’t expand into other markets, as it would cannibalise sales from its sister brand.
Brand L was growing at a steady 2% per year, driven by its strong position in those 6 markets. It had a loyal base of customers who were mainly 30-45 year old women.
The company’s board thought 2% growth was too low. They challenged the brand team to accelerate the growth rate. They used the Ansoff Matrix to look at their options.
Market penetration was what the brand was already doing to deliver 2% growth.
Market development would mean finding new markets. But as we said, international expansion was out because of the sister brand.
And they’d such a strong association with their existing customers, it was too much of a stretch to go after new segments e.g under 30s or men.
Diversification was seen as too risky as the brand was too strongly associated with its category. There were very few options to diversify.
So they were left with product development.
Brand L’s category was relatively small compared to other alcohol categories. But there was another category with a similar but slightly different product, and a similar target audience and drinking occasion.
The challenge was a competitor brand (lets call it Brand B) dominated that category.
It was well-known, with huge market share and was a big cash cow for its owners.
But needing more growth, Brand L decided to play David to Brand B’s Goliath. It decided to launch a new product to directly compete in Brand B’s category.
But unlike David’s story, it didn’t end well for the little guy. As we’ll see, size was what really mattered here.
Product research
The company did a lot of market research on the taste before launch.
Customers liked the taste of Brand L’s new product.
Sounds good right? But here’s where the first marketing mistake happened.
Because though they liked it, they didn’t like it as much as they liked the taste of Brand B.
In direct taste comparisons between Brand L and Brand B, they repeatedly said they preferred the taste of Brand B because it tasted more indulgent.
How do you deal with that bit of customer feedback? Well, the company’s response was to repeat the test, but this time ask customers to drink 3 or 4 separate measures to simulate a drinking “session”. And this time, customers preferred Brand L because it was seen as lighter and easier to drink.
Problem sorted, right?
Unfortunately, not. Because here’s the thing. The “need” customers had for this type of product was all about indulgence, and not sessionability. 1 or 2 drinks was enough to meet this indulgence need. So Brand B was always going to seem more relevant because it met the customer need better.
Mistake 1 - Put product benefits ahead of needs
It’s a big challenge with marketing innovation, to find new, distinctive features and benefits which haven’t already been done (and owned) by competitors.
You want to stand out.
But just because something makes you stand out, doesn’t mean customers will care.
As per our first blog article, everything starts with the customer. Benefits need to be relevant to customer needs. Just because you can add a benefit, doesn’t mean customers will value it.
Indulgence was the relevant need here. How sessional it was didn’t really matter.
Not getting the customer need right isn’t a great way to start. But things started to go even more wrong as the brand worked through more of the 4Ps of the marketing mix and made even more marketing mistakes.
Mistake 2 - Assume customers know what your product is
As we said, Brand L was known for what it already did. The new product used some brand assets (like the logo and typography, for example) to connect it to the parent brand. But it also radically changed others (the colour palette, for example) to help it stand out more.
But what it didn’t do was use the brand assets to make clear what the new product was. Customers didn’t realise the new product was a competitor to Brand B, and that mistake came across most clearly in the packaging development.
Brand L created a highly distinctive bottle using this new colour palette, but made the bottle opaque. The label didn’t clearly show what the product inside looked like. Unless customers had seen the advertising (more of which in a second), they didn’t know what the product was.
And if customers don’t know what a product is, why would they buy it?.
So, the key lesson was to make sure customers know what they’re getting with any new product. Make it clear on the packaging. If you can make the product visible inside the packaging, even better.
(Check out our packaging for e-Commerce article for examples of products where the packaging shows what’s inside the box).
Mistake 3 - Don't show the product in your advertising
Similarly, the launch advertising campaign didn’t clarify what the product was. In its first TV commercial, you only saw the product on screen for around 3 seconds out of the 30 seconds airtime. 90% of the advert didn’t feature the product.
Unless you saw those 3 seconds, you wouldn’t know what the product was.
The advert helped establish the brand identity, but didn’t tell customers about the product. They didn’t get it, so they didn’t buy it.
Mistake 4 - Underestimate the competitor
Brand L launched at a similar regular price to Brand B. They assumed Brand B would keep the same pricing strategy.
It also prioritised getting listed in premium city-based bars. These types of bars often set trends which other more mainstream bars then follow.
They assumed sales in these bars would drive popularity, and create demand in the off-trade (supermarkets and off-licence / bottle shops).
These assumptions seemed OK for the first 6 months.
But then things started to go wrong. And here’s where the next of our marketing mistakes comes in.
Brand B reacted to this competitive threat. They reacted in a much stronger way than Brand L had assumed.
First, they went much harder on price discounting. Brand L had to match these price cuts to get and maintain listings. This dug into the profit levels it’d assumed in the business case.
Brand B’s sales team also went on the attack with on and off-trade retailers. On-trade teams would target bars which listed Brand L. They’d offer a direct free replacement bottle of Brand B (the market leader, remember) to take Brand L off the shelf. If you’re not on the shelf, you can’t sell. Sales of Brand L started to struggle badly.
Despite a few re-boots and re-positionings, Brand L continued to struggle. Brand B kept up its aggressive tactics, until eventually Brand L decided enough was enough. It slowly withdrew from the category and went back to focusing on its original product, and getting 2% annual growth again.
Case Study 2 : Brand D, the children's food service
This brand (let’s call it Brand D) was also globally known. It competed in the children’s food category.
Its core product was designed to meet the nutritional needs of young children.
The target audience was mums buying the product to help their children grow up healthily.
Going back to the Ansoff Matrix, brand D focussed on market penetration in a direct market share fight with competitors.
Like most products for children, marketing was heavily regulated. Price discounts were limited, and advertising health claims closely monitored.
The company saw the increasing popularity of subscription models in other categories (For example meal services like Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon, beauty services like BellaBox and GoodnessMe and the comic book box from Zavvi). Brand D believed offering a service to mums would give them more marketing flexibility, and a closer connection to customers.
The brand put together a cross-functional e-Commerce team including brand marketing, regulatory, digital, customer service, finance and supply chain to explore the opportunity. They hired a market research company to research mums, and help create prototypes to test with them.
The plan was to test 3 elements of a subscription model plan :-
- A monthly subscription box with relevant products and goodies.
- Access to a certified personal health coach (employed by the brand) to answer health questions.
- Online tools and services.
Mistake 5 - Don’t align teams to a common goal
The originator of the project believed there was a commercial opportunity in subscriptions. A new way to better meet the needs of mums.
However, the people on the team had very different opinions on how the project could do this. The goal wasn’t clear.
The marketing, finance and supply chain team saw the biggest opportunity in the box. Mums paying for this product would generate more sales. That’s what they wanted to prioritise.
However, the customer service team (who provided the coaching service) saw the opportunity as the payment for the coaching services.
They also saw it as a way to build stronger connections with customers and raise their own profile in the business. So, they pushed hard for coaching to be the priority.
And then there was the digital team. They saw the online tools and services as the biggest opportunity. They also saw the project as an opportunity to raise their profile, so they pushed online as the priority.
What was missing in all these conflicting business goals though was a real unifying customer goal. It never became clear what the customer benefit was from a subscription model.
The coaching offer was the closest to what customers wanted. But it didn’t offer a clear competitive advantage over what mums could already get from their healthcare professionals.
The conflicting goals and lack of a clear customer goal made the project hard work. When customers saw the concepts, they liked the idea of them in principle. But they felt the idea was muddy. They weren’t clear what the benefit was supposed to be.
Mistake 6 - Start with the solution, not the problem
The subscription model was a solution to a problem which hadn’t been defined.
That’s back-to-front marketing. How it’s supposed to work is you find the customer problem first. Then, you come up with the solution. We should have looked for the problem better like :-
- Were customers looking for the convenience of a monthly box delivered to their doorstep?
- Did they need a more personal service than they currently got from healthcare professionals?
- Or did they want better online tools and services than what was already out there?
Had we answered these questions first, before deciding the answer was a subscription model, the goal would have been much clearer.
As it happened, this project made it quite far down the innovation funnel.
But ultimately, the lack of customer enthusiasm from the research killed it. The business case didn’t add up, and the project was shelved.
Mums liked the idea of a subscription product and service. But the benefit just wasn’t clear enough.
Case Study 3 : Brand E, the snack that over-promised
Our final brand (we’ll call it Brand E) was a snacks brand. It was market leader in its part of the market. But at a total snacks category level, it was fighting against several other strong competitors.
Like our first Brand L example, it decided to go for growth by launching into an adjacent category. But unlike Brand L, they expected a strong competitor reaction. They were prepared to meet this with heavy investment in advertising, and a commitment to price discounting to get the product on shelf in the grocery category.
They moved marketing budgets from other parts of the portfolio to fund the launch.
Mistake 7 - Shout when it's not worth shouting about
One of the marketing mistakes they made though was not giving enough attention to the quality of the new product.
The company outsourced manufacturing to someone else as their existing factory couldn’t make this new product. They relied on that manufacturer for sourcing ingredients, manufacturing and quality.
While this producer did meet the minimum quality standards, they weren’t any better than what was already on the market.
Instead, Brand E focussed purely on new flavours.
However, new flavours only had a short-term impact on customers. Customers liked the novelty of new flavours, but soon went back to their regular favourites.
Once the initial excitement of the new flavours wore off, it was soon clear there wasn’t a long-term competitive strategy to support the product after the launch.
So, despite the heavy investment in launch advertising, the product didn’t have a clear competitive advantage with customers. Once the novelty wore off, customers didn’t see a long-term need for it.
This led to a lack of loyal customers. No loyalty meant sales fell.
Mistake 8 - Too many cooks spoil the marketing broth
This project was high profile in the business. Everybody wanted to be involved. But when there’s too many people involved, the quality of the marketing decision-making goes down, rather than up.
We’ve covered in other articles how culture and teams shape the success of brands and businesses. (Check out our articles on how to be a more creative company and the 5Ws of idea generation, for example).
With too many people involved, roles and responsibilities become unclear. Everybody wants to help, but ideas conflict with each other. You end up with compromises and committee-based decisions.
This happened with Brand’s E new product. Everything slowed down, and decisions were painful. The marketing became risk averse. The new product played by the category “rules”.
It was safe, rather than disruptive.
But safe didn’t drive sales with customers. After a good first 6 months while the novelty lasted, Brand E had to rely more and more on price discounting to keep the product on shelf.
Advertising money got pulled to fund this. When not on price promotion, sales were poor.
And eventually, the product was de-listed.
It wasn’t a lack of effort or good intent which killed this product. There were just too many compromises and slow decision-making. Those drove this set of marketing mistakes.
Conclusion - Learn from your marketing mistakes
To badly paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, if you can live with marketing success meaning you often need to fail first, then you’ll be a marketer master, my friend.
There’s no way to completely eliminate marketing mistakes. It’s just not possible.
Instead, consider them a necessary step on the path towards being a better marketer.
If something goes wrong, learn from it. Do it better the next time.
Like a Tiger Woods shanked drive, or a Roger Federer missed lob, making mistakes helps you learn. It’s how you reach mastery. You learn from past marketing mistakes to improve your future marketing chances.
As all 3 projects were on new products, we recommend you check out our marketing innovation guide for more on that topic. And of course, drop us a line if you need help learning from your own marketing mistakes.
Photo credits
Learn from failure : Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Small fragile delivery box in hand : Photo by jesse ramirez on Unsplash
Drink pouring in bar : Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash
Superman hero figure : Photo by Esteban Lopez on Unsplash
Two women clinking glasses together : Photo by Zan on Unsplash
Flowers : Photo by Photo by Rupert Britton on Unsplash
Angry face : Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash
Dog ears : Photo by kyle smith on Unsplash
Shout : Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash
Girl reading magazine : Photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash
