Strangled to death due to lack of marketing support or representative of the fact that General Mills never really figured out what motivates consumers about its products - the waffle business is now roadkill at General Mills. How can a breakfast company not know how to sell breakfast and address consumer's real consumption driver's. It wasn't price. It wasn't taste and it wasn't convenience. The truth is the marketer, its research, brand knowledge and advertising agency never looked beyond what they already knew. To borrow a line from Sci-Fi movie Dune, "You mean many had tried and failed? No. Many had tried and died." Incumbent knowledge sources did not have the answers. So why the allegiance?No one quits when they're making money. Executives jump ship, CEOs jettison brands and switch agencies when the price of success - new learning - gets too high. LAZY. General Mills threw out the baby with the bathwater here. Watch the gears turn now as they divest the rest of the refrigerated/frozen dough business they've yet to figure out. Another solid case of lack of clear leadership by those who injected themselves into the business but did not do any consumer homework. Rather than double consumption and the size of the business they shot from the hip and missed a $1.6 billion target. Remember your job description? Grow the business. Under Mill's tutelage the business went from robust appendage to shriveled member. You couldn't have poured the syrup and missed the plate any better GM. And this was an easy business for novice marketers. Hate to see what they do on intermediate or difficult trails.
Note to management: Speed costs money. Positioning is the highest octane fuel. How fast do you want to go?
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1 comment:
No eggo's! The Horror
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