Brand Coaching And Bernardo Trujillo

It has been a while I posted an article about brand coaching and also how Bernardo Trujillo, one of the top expert of retailing in the 60s used to leverage it. Bernardo gave to most of retail's trailblazers the essence, and the concept of modern concept of commerce. It did that while trying to convince retailers to buy its cash registeries. Another example I need to discuss is Michelin with his famous restaurant guide.

But here is a quote found on Yves Soulabail's blog. Yves is to me the best source of information about Bernardo Trujillo, and own an extensive data base of documents about him.

I am not a store director, and I don't advise you to do this or that. Neither I judge the morality of how retail is developping right now. I am just showing you what is going on in the world. Make any conclusion you want. My only interest is you to be as successful as possible, and that you buy me as much cash registeries as possible to my business.

Trujillo: The Master Of Brand Coaching

Do you know about Bernardo Trujillo? Probably not. Nevertheless, I consider him as probably one of the most important person in the history of economy and business who ever lived.

Bernardo Trujillo was a sales representative of the NCR, a company manufacturing some cash registers back in the 50s. At this time cash registers was a highly technological gear. It was brand new and no one was actually using it.

The company and Trujillo then needed to educate its potential customers, retailers of all kind, to adopt this new tool. And from this simple idea, Bernardo Trujillo developped the whole theory of mass consumption and modern retailing.

It went beyond explaining what kind of costs and time it could save, he thought through the discount business which could emerge thanks to its invention and thanks to the new environment coming up.

He created some seminars which he was giving to explain how to develop a very lucrative business. And all of his teaching has been the based of the retails we know nowadays. Here are some of his most famous quotes:

• No parking = No business. He was then understanding and explaining that the boom of car ownership will ultimately lead to high revenues if stores would have big enough parkings to welcome customers.




• Pile products up and sell down: This is a way to explain how important the theatralisation is important in a store.




• Billboards are the best sellers: you pay them once, and they don't go on vacations: He understood the importance of mass communication and the rising advertizing market ath this time.

And it worked! Most of the founders of retailers like Gérard Mulliez of Auchan, or Halley from Promodes, from all over the world went to these seminars and got the bases of their soon to become successful businesses.

I could talk to you for hours about how genious he was. Unfortunately, not a lot of documentation exists about his work.

But I wanted to talk to you about Trujillo to show you how to aboard the launch of a highly innovative product: you must educate your customers.

There are a lot of products which experienced tremendous success even though customers did not understand them at first:

• Renault Espace, a large familly van in France, was shown to customer and all the metrics showed it would be a disaster. Nevertheless Renault launched it and it became one of their most profitable product.




• The Ipad: A lot of people were wondering what was so new and great about it. No other competitors would have invested a dime in such an handheld. But after having seen the demonstrations, then people loved it.

It is very interesting to go beyond what customers first reaction may be. It is important to have a vision on what customers could do about it, and to show him how to use it. But also, it is very important to look at the bigger picture. This is exactly what Bernardo Trujillo did.

When I talk about brand coaching, most of the time, the brand develops some marketing materials which will help the customer to use more effectively its products. But I believe in this specific case, it goes beyond: The brand added value is given out of its core circle of expertise, which is the cash register usage, Bernardo Trujillo was a product by himself.

Kraft Iphone App Case Study

I have checked the Kraft Iphone app for quite a while. I believe it is very nicely done. I have found this interview of Ed Kaczmarek, Director of Inovation and Consumer Experiences at Kraft Foods. He gives us some insight about the application.

Kraft Foods launched the iFood Assistant in late November 2008 and released the upgraded iFood Assistant 2.0 a year later. The $0.99 app offers access to more than 7,000 recipes, cooking tips, a shopping list builder and how-to videos commingled with ads for Kraft brands. Ed Kaczmarek, director of innovation, consumer experience, discusses the branding goals of the iFood Assistant and insights into consumers’ app usage.

eMarketer: What is the goal of the app?

Ed Kaczmarek: Ultimately, our goal is to engage the consumer in a meaningful and relevant way. We want to make their life easier and to get closer to them during the point of purchase.

eMarketer: How does the app work?

Mr. Kaczmarek: The iFood Assistant provides a Recipe of the Day idea for seven days, as well as Dinner Tonight suggestions. It allows users to search our database of over 7,000 tested recipes, all with photos. We have a What’s on Hand search where they can type in up to three items they have and the app will offer recipe suggestions for those three items.
There’s a full-functioning shopping list that’s been refined a bit so that users can now check off items as they shop.

eMarketer: How do you promote the app to consumers?

Mr. Kaczmarek: We promote it across all of our Kraft channels, so it’s promoted on KraftFoods.com, KraftCanada.com. We have a recipe by e-mail that goes out on a weekly basis so we have periodic promotion there.
“We’ve concentrated on the mobile ad network and it’s very beneficial.”
We’ve concentrated on the mobile ad network and it’s very beneficial because we’re able to track actual conversion. We’ve added code into the app for the different ad networks. These have been efficient media buys that have driven a good amount of downloads for us.

eMarketer: How does the app interact with the online channel?

Mr. Kaczmarek: Users can sign in to iFood Assistant and their recipe box and shopping list will also be saved online. So if they’re at the computer, they can go to KraftFoods.com and access that recipe or shopping list. At any point, they can e-mail a recipe or shopping list to themselves or a friend.

eMarketer: What are the social hooks that are built into the iFood Assistant? For example, can users upload their own recipes?

Mr. Kaczmarek: We have that capability on the Website, but we have not yet activated it on the iFood platform. The social media hook right now is being able to send the different items to themselves or someone else. They can e-mail any recipe or their entire shopping list. We activated push notification where they can choose any day of the week and a time to be reminded of the Recipe of the Day or Dinner Tonight, even if the app is off. We also added a promotions and announcements section where we can notify users if something special is happening.

eMarketer: Since the iFood Assistant’s launch, how many downloads have you had?
“Six months after people download the app, we are experiencing over 60% of continued user engagement, which we feel is phenomenal.”

Mr. Kaczmarek: We do not share our download information, but what we’ve noticed is that six months after people download the app, we are experiencing over 60% of continued user engagement, which we feel is phenomenal. If you look at any of the stats out there, it’s more like 5% continued engagement two months after download.

eMarketer: Can you share any insights about consumer interactions with the app that were surprising or unusual?

Mr. Kaczmarek: We have 25% men using the platform, which was surprising to us. Also, over 90% of the people signing in to the iFood Assistant are new to the Kraft Foods environment so it has really been a great acquisition vehicle for us. Another observation is that when people share recipes, they definitely e-mail them more than they send them via text message.

eMarketer: How does the app promote the Kraft brand overall?
“The most important thing is we’re providing utility above branding.”

Mr. Kaczmarek:It’s a halo of innovation and helps position Kraft as contemporary. It really has connected us to the consumer closer to the point of purchase in a relevant way. The most important thing is we’re providing utility above branding. It enables all of our brands to connect with consumers because they are being included as a recipe ingredient. We also have advertising within different places in the app.

Here are some remarkable points of this interview, which you should think about while creating an Iphone App:

• Iphone apps are meant to improve customer experience. As we have seen with Kraft: 60% of people who downloaded the application was still using it afterward.
• The mobile advertising network could give you a real boost to promote the application. Indeed, the easiest way to download and use the application is by using a mobile webpage to download and set the application right away.
• Iphone applications are a tool for coach branding. Coach branding is an important element because it sets the brand as an expert of its product, and allows the brand to enter the every day life of customers. This is the main reason why I believe the Iphone application is the best customer relationship management tool so far.
  
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