Personal Branding - The Companies Headhunters Blackball

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Why no consumer packaged goods company has been able to market a new product more successful than the least successful new product ever created by product development expert Calle & Company and Martin Calle remains a mystery. Baked Lays Potato Chips, created by Calle & Company for Frito-Lay sold $319 million in it's first ten months. That's roughly double 2008's most successful new product conceived and developed some other way, Gatorade's $159 million G2. Can't compare salty snacks to beverages you say? Only if you want to close your eyes and believe "you" are the "knower of all things." And that's the problem with personal branding. You build alters to yourself.

Not to promote but Calle & Company's product developments have topped the charts at IRI, NPD and ACNielsen now for 57 consecutive years. And why? Because outward-looking forward-thinking executives reach out to them while straight-forward, linear-thinking problem-solvers do not. For example, while Calle & Company was working with highly talented cross functional teams at Frito-Lay to determine what consumers wanted next, others at Frito-Lay were busy pushing "supplier" concepts like Wow! Chips with Procter & Gamble's Olestra championed by Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi. And Wow! Chips with Olestra was barely able to fill the pipeline with $29 million worth of product.

So how do you NOT end up behind the 8 ball while making your company one that headhunters respect? And what's the difference between hitting a home run and striking out? That's a good question. Many acquaintances in the human resources industry tell me they attend conferences where the main topic of conversation is the fact that even though they hire the top talent, top talent fails to deliver growth. Visiting McKinsey & Company's website one also finds in McKinsey's assessment of the consumer packaged goods industry that, "despite solid balance sheets and healthy bottom lines executives still wonder where growth will come from. So apparently, McKinsey's consultants don't have the answers either. On the internet, especially at sites like LinkedIn, one can find a host of professional organizations dealing with marketing, marketing research, innovation, social media, social networking and branding. Yet in the market research groups, especially the "Next Generation Market Research" group one finds post after post and discussion after discussion addressing my grandfather's market research techniques. If this is indeed "The Next Generation" then why are they using my father's and grandfather's marketing research tools? There's nothing "next generation" about it.

So having covered those three aspects, consider the impact of working in these companies on your efforts to personally brand yourself. Afterall, this is, was, has been and will continue to be the era of "brand me."

On September 3, 2009 Business Week published The Companies Headhunters Avoid: Recruiters are in surprising agreement as to which companies they avoid when looking for executive talent. Companies such as The Coca-Cola Company figured prominently in the article and were I The Coca-Cola Company's Senior Vice President of Human Resources Cynthia P. McCaque I'd be concerned. The Coca-Cola Company has not launched a new product that ranked in IRI, NPD or ACNielsen's top ten annual pace setters for at least the last 25 years. The article details the inability of longtime Coca-Cola veterans to manage other companies effectively, including some of The Coca-Cola Company's prior luminaries.

According to the Business Week article, "The conclusion among headhunters is that the very attributes that make Coke a great company—an iconic brand and an unmatched global distribution system—also make it too easy for young managers to rise without having to develop the entrepreneurial skills necessary to compete in other arenas." "Granted, working at Coke can make you comfortable—the stock has yielded a 24.8% total return over the past five years, vs. a 2.4% return for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index—but recruiters say it may not make you management material anywhere else."

But read the entire article at Business Week and remember two things. It's what you learn once you know it all that counts, and, stay humble, there's always someone better right behind you. Reach out!

How not to launch a New Coke

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As CMO presiding over the launch of New Coke, Sergio Zyman rode herd over one of the largest and most important marketing blunders in history - proving that everything my father taught me about how companies and ad agencies typically create new products was absolutely true. He wanted me to believe that all ad men were crooks and con men and that they wanted clients to believe that they were the only people with phone lines to God on Fridays. He also wanted me to believe that when developing new products, most companies, including Coca-Cola did little more than set four men in a room to brainstorm - and when they did, it was usually over a supplier related concept rather than anything original. New Coke was based on a supplier's new sweetener, and it failed. Pepsi's Indra Nooyi took Procter & Gamble's Olestra and launched failed WOW! Chips with Olestra thinking the underwear staining grease would be overlooked by diet conscious consumers. Guess they were wrong. Why were they wrong?

They were wrong because they made these decisions themselves. Time and time again I'd watch inexperienced assistant account executives prepare recipe dissemination ads for Leo Burnett clients and no other input whatsoever. Take it to the account supervisor who takes it to the client and voila, another ad, another account, another sale bites the dust. We see it and forget it. Might as well be making newspaper ads for all the insight that goes into such productions - but hey clients, it's your money not mine.

I always preferred a form of consumer homework I used to employ that proactively stimulated consumer minds with hundreds of phrases covering all known and potentially hidden product dimensions that in some way shape or form might impact consumer perceptions. I put the creative stimulus packets in front of consumers, removing myself from the loop, and let consumers choose the most important directions. Because I didn't have to use my mind as the "Idea Broker" I kept hitting home runs for people like Coke and Pepsi, General Motors and General Mills.,

What's different about today? Executives in companies still don't like to do their homework.

Volkswagen and Volvo Play Musical Execs

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Volkswagen Taps Volvo's Ellis as VP-Marketing

At what point does one stop and realize that these people and the experience they bring are as interchangably commoditized as the brands on which they work? This was a question posed to me by the head of HR at one of the world's premier sports, performance and style companies following his return from a major HR conference on the same topic. Didn't Pepsi just replace Dawn Hudson here too? She's another ad exec slotted for marketing by a manufacturer who wanted to make ads on the cheap who ended up with domestic sales down 7%. Just like ConAgra reairing ancient Wesson and Orville ads to save a production buck. They don't care about their ads. If they did, they'd care about their brands. Instead, they're just pretend branders. Same things gonna happen here for sure.

Pepsi-Cola Chief Dawn Hudson Exits Following Reorg

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Food-and-Beverage Giant Dissatisfied as North America Weakens

And it's about time. Dawn Hudson and Indra Nooyi knew long ago, exactly at the time I created the concept of Baked Lays Potato Chips (sold $310 million in first ten months domestically) that in the US people want a combination of high health and high pleasure in foods, positioning and communications messaging. What's healthier than fried chips? Baked Chips. Which chips are most fun? Lays. So there it is. Baked Lays. I did the same combination creating Healthy Choice in the early eighties for ConAgra when I learned this adroit truth for the first time - supplying the agency creatives with the ammunition they needed to launch a multi-billion dollar brand. But Dawn's major US initiative was "health and wellness" headed up by VP fiend Patty Wolff. So given that they already had the answer, how'd they miss the boat? Blame it on Indra Nooyi. At the time I launched Baked Lays, Indra insisted people just wanted lower calories and less fat. So she launched Wow! Chips with olestra (a P&G supplier idea) that couldn't even fill the pipeline with $29 million worth of product. And in beverages, they just keep slipping below the zero calorie line. Can you have a beverage that provides negative calories? That's part of identifying future consumption drivers in soft drinks.