POHMER ON…
Making Dreams a Reality
Ideas are swirling around the industry to collaborate on a
nationwide grassroots marketing campaign — instead of
competing against one another for business.
reams that have conviction and pas- consumers through your front door. But what are
D
sion behind them have a chance to we doing as an industry to help build consump-
become reality, if enough people tion and expand the marketplace for all of us?
share the vision. Is there a way for us to start acting like an
Over the years, there’s been lots industry and harness our collective voice to pro-
of discussion on the need for our industry — or mote the benefi ts our products offer to the con-
even individual product categories or retail chan- sumer in a cost-effective manner that can tran-
nels — to have a national marketing and adver- scend organizational politics and jealousies?
tising presence, much like the dairy industry’s I think there could be, and the time is ripe for it!
“Got Milk?” campaign or the pork industry’s “The At the Seeley Conference, an industry think-
Other White Meat” campaign. And even when we tank held in June at Cornell University, there was
By Stan Pohmer
had the start of one, the Promofl or cut fl ower a lot of discussion on how we can better commu-
initiative that was launched in the late 1990s, nicate with our consumers, our core boomers as
industry politics and channel jealousy stopped well as our future consumers, generations X and
it dead in its tracks, canceling its funding after Y. I think consensus was reached that it would be
a short run, despite the fact that it was showing far easier and more effective if, as an industry
positive results on consumer purchasing. rather than as individual companies, we worked
And there are other reasons why a national pro- together to build consumption and promote
motion order would have a problem succeeding the real benefi ts of our products and industry.
in our industry. Among them: the extremely high And even before this conference, two industry
investment; the fact that the funding would have veterans, Laurie Scullin and Frank Zaunscherb,
to come solely from producers/fi rst handlers and were sketching out some ideas on how to cost
legislatively wouldn’t have to be shared by the effectively promote industry messaging.
rest of the demand chain; the fact that many of The concept that’s being discussed goes by a few
our categories are seasonal, and the consumer different names, namely guerilla and grassroots
would have to be re-educated on our message marketing. The premise behind this idea is using
each year. And most importantly, our industry nontraditional marketing concepts and activities
“
doesn’t behave like an industry, a critical factor implemented as close as possible to the consumer
that prevents us from harnessing our collective to better position our products/industry to infl u-
power to create mutual benefi t and positioning ence their perception and build incremental
ourselves to the consumer as an industry. Rather, demand. It uses social media
we operate as competitors, whether by category (Facebook and Twitter,
(annuals versus cut fl owers) or by retail channel among others), and other
We’re swapping business
(IGCs versus mass marketers, or retail fl orists low-intensity but high-
versus supermarkets). We expend more resources frequency methods of
between ourselves and not
and effort on positioning our selfi sh interests communication that,
building real consumption of
internally and to the consumer than we do on when fully implemented
promoting our industry and product benefi ts to by enough growers and
our products.
the consumer, where we can build consumption. retailers, generates pow-
As an industry, we spend millions of dollars erful word-of-mouth pro-
each year advertising to the consumer. But most motion. It has a viral effect, where each person
of these dollars are spent telling the consumer who learns and experiences something positive
to buy my stuff rather than the other guys’, and tells their friends, who then do the same.
the primary reason for buying at my place rather
than yours is based on price. There’s very little One Possible Scenario
consumer communication on selling the merits The industry identifi es a messaging phrase
and benefi ts because of the intrinsic benefi t of that encompasses all product categories and
our industry’s product versus all of the other retail venues — something neutral yet powerful
product options the consumer has. The net result: — that we can all get behind. There are traits and
We’re swapping business between ourselves and product benefi ts that all retailers can support:
not building real consumption of our products. the emotional, psychological and physiological
Please don’t take my comments wrong; because power of our products already identifi ed through
of the competitive nature of the marketplace, you independent university research, the positive
need to be promoting and advertising to drive effect our products have on the quality of life.
www.lgrmag.com November 2009 Lawn & Garden Retailer 35
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