Good Marketing, Bad Distribution
The other day we were shopping at one of the big stores, and I went on to pick up a bottle of skimmed milk; I was just checking the expiry date and other stuff when I found a little something I'm not used to finding on Tunisian products.
There was this little message informing customers that the same company also sold 0% Fat Yogurt with different flavors.
This isn't a form of marketing you usually find on Tunisian products, even though I find it one of the most targeted, unobtrusive and interesting forms of advertising and marketing around because you're talking directly to a customer who is surely interested in the other product you're selling and who has already given his confidence to your company by choosing one of your products over the competition.
This is all great, it actually put a smile on my face seeing that Tunisians were getting smarter about marketing and advertising their products, and I went to check out the advertised product.
This is where they messed up whatever effort they made and advantage they got through their targeted marketing; the product was nowhere to be found, neither in that store not any other I've been to ever since.
So even though these guys have a great way to market their product to the right people in the right market segment, they fail to distribute their product well and lose everything they worked for, maybe even generating customers that are frustrated because of a product they haven't even tried yet. That would mean that their good marketing push is actually generating the opposite effect to what anyone would wish for.
All this to say that one missing link in the chain is enough to spoil everything for the customer and the company, especially when that link is distribution.
So please, don't market a product that doesn't exist or is never available. It works against you and annoys the customers.
Muhammad Ali Sells Marketing Rights Rules For Revolutionaries (Guy Kawasaki) Good Laugh Bye & Good Luck Zizou How To Be Good (Nick Hornby)http://richardmadeley.blogspot.com/2007/10/tunisian-weekend.html
UNBELIEVABLE!!!
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2007
The Tunisian Weekend
You have to forgive me if I’m looking a little ragged around the edges this morning. We’re just back from a whistle stop holiday in Tunisia. And can I just say what a wonderful nation it is. Such colour, such weather, and a nation full of wonderful customs, cuisine, and culture. The only thing that let it down was those damn Tunisians and their inability to understand English. They want to speak nothing but French or Arabic, which you might think suits a man who works on Channel 4. But it doesn’t. There wasn’t a single shop selling subtitles. Judy suggested that we buy one of those remote controls to change audio track but we were sorely let down by the absence of a Dixons on the Tunisian high street. There wasn’t even a Boots.
After struggling to get to our hotel, we decided to do things the old fashioned way, by paying a local to translate everything for us. Only not being used to having a translator, I soon got into some difficulty because I didn’t know who was speaking or what was being translated. Our translator would start chatting to us and I’d think he’s talking to me when, in fact, he was merely translating something somebody else had said to him. I didn’t know who to look at, whose hand to shake, or, at one point, which end of the donkey to give the carrot. I soon realised that the problem lay in our translator looking too much like the locals and I solved this problem by putting a paper bag on his head. We spent the whole weekend in Tunisia being trailed around by a man wearing a brown paper bag, translating everything we heard.
In the end it was a good bit of business. We managed to do our piece for the Holiday Programme before we jetted home again late last night, and landed in Heathrow around midnight. To say things have been a bit hectic is an understatement. The last thing we needed was more trouble.
This morning we were back to our usual routine with a shopping trip to the supermarket. We were walking around our local Tesco, when Judy suddenly nudged me.
‘Richard,’ she said. ‘Did you notice something odd?’
‘Odd? What kind of odd?’ I asked, dumping a leg of lamb into the trolley.
‘Back at the cheese counter,’ she said. ‘When you were buying your weekly Edam. Everything you said sounded a bit foreign.’
‘Foreign?’
‘Well, a bit Arabic but mixed with a little French.’
As soon as she’d said it, I knew she was right. But I was also busy slapping my head, realising my oversight.
‘We forget to pay him off!’ I cried, dragging the figure in the paper bag from the shadows of the cracker section. ‘It was my fault. I was so used to having him with us, I must have paid for his seat on the plane back.’
‘I did wonder why British Airways sounded more like Air France,’ said Judy. ‘But what do we do now?’
‘We might take the bag off his head to begin with,’ I suggested.
Judy whistled and raised her eyes to the security cameras. ‘Immigration,’ she sang in warning.
She was right. You have no idea who is watching the feed from these supermarket cameras. The last thing the Richard&Judy show needs is a reputation for hiring illegal immigrant labour. In the end, we bundled him into the Range Rover and headed straight for Heathrow where we left him by the terminal building, with enough money to buy himself a ticket home. I think he was happy with the arrangement but, with the paper bag still on his head, I really couldn’t tell. But that’s another problem with Tunisians. They are people who very rarely show their emotions. And you can consider that your Richard Madeley Certified Fact of the Day.
POSTED BY RICHARD MADELEY AT 12:21 PM
LABELS: BOOTS, CHANNEL 4, ENGISH, PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION, RICHARD AND JUDY, RICHARD MADELEY, SUBTITLES, TESCO, TUNISIA
3 COMMENTS:
Mopsa said...
Dick - you are on the edge of being edgy. Keep it up!
OCTOBER 22, 2007 4:37 PM
elberry said...
That was just what i'd been longing for, thank you.
Goddamn Tunisians.
OCTOBER 22, 2007 7:19 PM
Tunisian Warlord said...
How dare this man badmouth and be haughty unto the Tunisian rabble? This Richard Madeley is a whore and babbler it is clear. Forsooth Iblis is in his belly and he has the cloven feet.
I demand apology and execution. Scimitar the Madeley man and wife.
OCTOBER 24, 2007 9:48 PM
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I'm embarrass to be British, stupid comment, this guy is always making a fool of himself on British TV, and now he has to go to Tunisia and make an even bigger foul of himself. I can only apologies for any offence.
